I bent the bucket curl cylinder rods – Help

I looked at that some Bob, and it looks to me as though it should be no change.  The OEM setup has the cylinder operating basically parallel to the loader arms, though at the very end of the dump stroke they actually cause the rods to flex when the hit the arms.  Going to the shorter cylinders would actually eliminate the end-of-stroke flexing, I think, as the closer attachment point would allow the rods to just clear the arm ends at full extension.  Even if not, I could raise the attachment point a half inch ad achieve the clearance that way.

My objective on the new mounts would be to avoid the flexing in the old arrangement and also to use the cylinder stop to limit the bucket travel on extension.  The OEM setup, using shortened rods (well, actually extended cylinders and a short rod) looks to have been done that way to put the attachment point at the “bend” in the arms and use the gusset plate as the attachment point.  The OEM cylinders actually have a couple inches more travel than needed, so they try to force the bucket on full extension, flexing the rods over the end of the arms.   By making a new attachment plate part way down the arms I could set it so that the curl cylinders were at full extension when the bucket was at full dump, thus using the cylinder stops to prevent the rods from flexing over the end of the arms.  I think.

If I use attachment plates that are sufficiently wide, I don't see any issues of excessively concentrating forces in the middle of the loader arms.  The geometry of the bucket curl shouldn't be changed and it should function as before, minus the tendency to flex the rods at full extension.  Again, I think.  I'm not an engineer, obviously, just a poor broke-down old blacksmith with a thin wallet.

Email coming your way, Tommy, thanks!

Rich

Moot point, David.  Tommy has gotten me fixed up and I'll be replacing them with new OEM cylinders. The other issue is that there are no hydraulic shops in the Virgin Islands and it isn't cost effective to ship the damaged cylinders out to have them re-manufactured.

I'll be doing a bunch of mod work to the loader bucket mounts and cylinder mounts to correct a geometry issue that causes the cylinder rods to flex over the loader arms at full uncurl.

That's a two-part question.  First answer is, no.  Second answer is, Hell no!  If I diversify any more I'll have to clone myself – again.