Home-Built Grapple Fits Payloader Bucket

Home-Built Grapple Fits Payloader Bucket TRACTORS Loaders 23-3-18 A pair of South Dakota farmers came up with their own inexpensive, heavy duty grapple fork that mounts on the bucket of their Michigan payloader. Steve Peters and his brother Joe, who farm near Clark, bolted the grapple fork to the 8-ft. wide bucket on their Michigan 125A payloader. They used 3-in. sq., 1/4-in. thick steel tubing to make a rectangular frame that supports four forks made from 4-in. wide, 3/4-in. thick flat iron. The frame swivels up and down on a 4-in. dia. pipe that rides on top of four "stands" that bolt to the top of the bucket. The stands are made from 4-in. sq., 1/4-in. thick steel tubing and have 6-in. wide loops on top of them made from 4 1/2-in. dia., 1/2-in. thick wall pipe. A 4-in. dia., 30-in. stroke hydraulic cylinder is used to swivel the forks up or down. The forks bolt onto a steel bracket that's welded to the frame. If the load ever gets too heavy the bolts will shear off without bending the frame. "We spent only about $250 to build it," says Steve. "We use the loader for digging and loading big rocks in fields, loading manure into spreaders, loading round bales onto semi trucks, etc. It'll easily handle two round bales at a time which really speeds up the job of unloading a semi load of bales." Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Steve Peters, Rt. 2, Box 88, Clark, S. Dak. 57225 (ph 605 886-7442 or 605 882-5284, ext. 211).

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