Bobcat Tilt Tach

[Burnout]

Hey guys I am new here but not new to the industry. I work for Sureway Construction in Edmonton and run a Cat 973 Track Loader. She's a little bigger than a skid steer but I ran a Cat 257B MTL for awhile and it has some things I like. I am on the backfill crew and I'm constantly grading with this massive beast. I graded a few parking lots with our old 257 and the one thing I never wished I had more was than 0-15 degrees of angle on my loader. I have been modifying equipment for a couple years now and I was thinkin about a tilt tach for my loader. I was thinking about scaling up the tilt tach to fit my 35 ton track loader. I was wondering if somene could find me some pictures of the internals of the unit so I could start constructing a design. I worked on ours a few times but the exact layout inside has escaped me. Any help would be appreciated. Alex

 

[lgammon]

can't help with the specs but i can tell you, that people don't get a long service life out ot the tilt tachs they tend to break and wear our fast i think with a 973 it would be incredably hard to make one that would last

 

[Tazza]

can't help with the specs but i can tell you, that people don't get a long service life out ot the tilt tachs they tend to break and wear our fast i think with a 973 it would be incredably hard to make one that would last

They do wear fast.
The basic idead of the tilt tach that i have seen has a centre pin and bearing setup be it a ball race or bushing. This is rotated side to side by a hydraulic ram. The attach plate holds the force applied to it by an L looking section that is rolled or cut in an arc that allows the 2 mating surfaces to hold together throughout the full arc of the tilt. Its hard to explain but once you see it you will go, of course so simple.
Another way of thinking about it is an arc on both sides with a lip to hold the load preventing it from being pulled forward. There is a matching lip on the plate that as allowed to rotate. The main problem i see is grease. You grease it up then you get dirt in the grease that will work like sandpaper on the surfaces.
I hope that is of some help.

 

[Burnout]

They do wear fast.
The basic idead of the tilt tach that i have seen has a centre pin and bearing setup be it a ball race or bushing. This is rotated side to side by a hydraulic ram. The attach plate holds the force applied to it by an L looking section that is rolled or cut in an arc that allows the 2 mating surfaces to hold together throughout the full arc of the tilt. Its hard to explain but once you see it you will go, of course so simple.
Another way of thinking about it is an arc on both sides with a lip to hold the load preventing it from being pulled forward. There is a matching lip on the plate that as allowed to rotate. The main problem i see is grease. You grease it up then you get dirt in the grease that will work like sandpaper on the surfaces.
I hope that is of some help.

Yeah I remember about the low life expectancy of the tilt tach unit. But we put on over 2500hrs on our 257 and it held up without a lot of trouble. Most of the problems were blown hoses from guys holding the buttons for the aux hydraulics, and a bent cylinder because gravel got inside and jammed up the cylinder. We ended up taking some 1/4" rubber and flapped it over the back of the unit to keep dirt from coming over the back side of the bucket and down into the attachment. Our 973's see very little aggregate use mainly wet dirt, clay, and some sand. I had 2 ideas in mind to make it, 1 would be a cylinder to just swing the unit as the bobcat syle does, another was to make an enclosed gearbox with a slow speed hydraulic motor inside turning a chain to swing the bucket. The nice part about the track loader is weight isnt really an issue since I already have a 6cu yd bucket on the beast instead of the standard 4.5 so if its too heavy we could go back to the stock bucket.

 

[Tazza]

Yeah I remember about the low life expectancy of the tilt tach unit. But we put on over 2500hrs on our 257 and it held up without a lot of trouble. Most of the problems were blown hoses from guys holding the buttons for the aux hydraulics, and a bent cylinder because gravel got inside and jammed up the cylinder. We ended up taking some 1/4" rubber and flapped it over the back of the unit to keep dirt from coming over the back side of the bucket and down into the attachment. Our 973's see very little aggregate use mainly wet dirt, clay, and some sand. I had 2 ideas in mind to make it, 1 would be a cylinder to just swing the unit as the bobcat syle does, another was to make an enclosed gearbox with a slow speed hydraulic motor inside turning a chain to swing the bucket. The nice part about the track loader is weight isnt really an issue since I already have a 6cu yd bucket on the beast instead of the standard 4.5 so if its too heavy we could go back to the stock bucket.

A gearbox setup would work but would be more work than is really needed, you still need to support the weight. You need it to prevent it flexing at the pivot point so you need some sort of lip to hold the weight back. That will be the hardest bit, working that out as it will take the full force of the bucket plus load. You don't need much of an angle either, thats why a gearbox is such a waste.

 

[skidsteer.ca]

Yeah I remember about the low life expectancy of the tilt tach unit. But we put on over 2500hrs on our 257 and it held up without a lot of trouble. Most of the problems were blown hoses from guys holding the buttons for the aux hydraulics, and a bent cylinder because gravel got inside and jammed up the cylinder. We ended up taking some 1/4" rubber and flapped it over the back of the unit to keep dirt from coming over the back side of the bucket and down into the attachment. Our 973's see very little aggregate use mainly wet dirt, clay, and some sand. I had 2 ideas in mind to make it, 1 would be a cylinder to just swing the unit as the bobcat syle does, another was to make an enclosed gearbox with a slow speed hydraulic motor inside turning a chain to swing the bucket. The nice part about the track loader is weight isnt really an issue since I already have a 6cu yd bucket on the beast instead of the standard 4.5 so if its too heavy we could go back to the stock bucket.

This is the best design I have seen.
http://oxattachments.com/tiltbuck.htm
Ken

 

[TriHonu]

This is the best design I have seen.
http://oxattachments.com/tiltbuck.htm
Ken

I like that OX put the wear plates out in open and the plates appear to be rectangular stock. This would make it much easier to make your own.
The Bobcat wear plates are semi-circular and tapered which makes them a dealer part for most people.
I looked for a used Tilt-Tatch for a couple years. Came across 3 and all were badly worn. I bought a new one a couple years ago just after they upgraded them so you could run them on the larger loaders. Have not put a lot of hours on it yet. They are really handy for some jobs and will allow you easily grade in narrow areas. I leave mine attached to my LP bucket.
As a side note, I tried to connect my Bobcat U-Digger bucket and Virnig Forks to my Tilt-Tatch and they would not connect. The strap on the top of the attachment mount was too wide and was hitting on the Tilt-Tatch. It kept it from fully seating in the attachment mount. I called Bobcat to let them know about the problem. I thought the new design had a design flaw. The engineers called me back and told me the Tilt-Tach is not designed to be pulled. Bobcat Attachments that create significant load when you pull them have a wider top strap on the attachment mount. This is to prevent them from being used on the Tilt-Tatch. I ended up triming the top strap on my forks.
BRADCO also makes a Tilt-Tach and they offer a solenoid valve option you you can continue to run some hydraulic attachments in front of it.
One big issue is how do you make it strong enough to handle the wear and stresses and not make it so heavy that you can hardly load anything in the bucket because you are already at max lift capacity?

 

[TriHonu]

I like that OX put the wear plates out in open and the plates appear to be rectangular stock. This would make it much easier to make your own.
The Bobcat wear plates are semi-circular and tapered which makes them a dealer part for most people.
I looked for a used Tilt-Tatch for a couple years. Came across 3 and all were badly worn. I bought a new one a couple years ago just after they upgraded them so you could run them on the larger loaders. Have not put a lot of hours on it yet. They are really handy for some jobs and will allow you easily grade in narrow areas. I leave mine attached to my LP bucket.
As a side note, I tried to connect my Bobcat U-Digger bucket and Virnig Forks to my Tilt-Tatch and they would not connect. The strap on the top of the attachment mount was too wide and was hitting on the Tilt-Tatch. It kept it from fully seating in the attachment mount. I called Bobcat to let them know about the problem. I thought the new design had a design flaw. The engineers called me back and told me the Tilt-Tach is not designed to be pulled. Bobcat Attachments that create significant load when you pull them have a wider top strap on the attachment mount. This is to prevent them from being used on the Tilt-Tatch. I ended up triming the top strap on my forks.
BRADCO also makes a Tilt-Tach and they offer a solenoid valve option you you can continue to run some hydraulic attachments in front of it.
One big issue is how do you make it strong enough to handle the wear and stresses and not make it so heavy that you can hardly load anything in the bucket because you are already at max lift capacity?

I pulled my files and created a pdf file with a couple of images. (TiltTatch File).
Hope this helps.