TLB Bucket pins - harden?

I bought a 12" bucket at auction for my Ford 755 TLB ($100). Decent deal (got a quote for a new one at $600), but needed to modify the mounting ears to fit my TLB (no idea what it was made to fit originally). Also, needed to make a couple of new pins to adapt it to my Dipstick and Bucket cylinder attachment. No big deal, just found some scrap round stock at work (1.5" & 1.75" dia), cut to length and drilled holes for Linch pins. Question is: Should I bother to harden the pins (at least where they contact the bushings)? No idea on what the pin material is. I don't make my living with the TLB and the 12" bucket would only see duty for trenching, which would be a few days work per year.

JML, I did the same thing for my 12" bucket and never had any problem with the pins not being hardened,It'd be cheaper to just replace the pins if they did ware......Jim in N M

Given that pins are easier to replace than bushings, I would not, especially for use this light.

I've had a chunk of hot-roll (would have used cold-rolled if I could have gotten it easily) in my backhoe pivot for 5 years or so now. It works, it's easy to replace. One day I'll finally cobble or score a portable line bore and really fix the bushings it goes through.

I did go with the factory-style (well, it's what the factory used on the hoe I have) circlip retention system, crudely approximated by using a cutoff wheel in a dremel to grind the slot by hand, and using two hardware-store circlips on each side as opposed to a thicker circlip like the originals.

If the main bucket pins are drilled for grease fittings (and perhaps even if they are not) I would do that.

I think you will be fine, you could find out what MFR's typically use on those, you would think that the pins would be less hardened than the bushing, for the reasons mentioned below.

We have a small tractor with a loader at the horse farm, it gets a ton of use, I saw that one of the grease fittings was out on the loader pins, the lower one that sees more range of movement and hired help not greasing as they should, neither the pin or the bushing shows any real wear, it's polished a bit, and I used to do all the maintenance on this tractor, so my preference for grease intervals is probably what carried it, as it does take a good while to dry out an assembly like that, I was amazed at what I saw, expecting it to be worse upon disassembly.


One thing that will help is to keep those pins greased, periodically disassemble and see what is going on, check for grit in there, good idea to keep the bucket pins out of deep muck like pond or ditch work where wet silt may get in, or carried in by water. I think abrasives like that would be the worst case scenario, if you are just doing misc. dirt work, keep em greased, you won't see all that much wear even if it's mild steel.

Thanks for the replies, guys. Good point about a "softer" pin than the bushings. And it means less work to finish the job.


Billy & Lawrence(backward),
Funny you should mention "grease fittings". When I bought the TLB 5 years ago, I tried to grease the fittings. I could only get grease into a couple (out of dozens) and gave up. Now that I took apart the bucket linkage, I know why I could never grease it. Some of the pins do have zerks on the end with circlip retainers and cross holes in the pins to get the grease to the bushings. They were plugged solid and required some effort to clean them. This has motivated me to take all the pins out (might take a full year at the rate I work. LOL) and clean the grease paths.

Since I opted for Linch pins instead of circlips on the 12" bucket pins, a zerk in the end of the pin wouldn't work as the cross hole for the linch pin would be the path of least resistance for the grease. I figure since they'll be easy to pull, I'll just grease them by hand when I use the 12" bucket.

Actually, I also expected to see a worse condition on the pins I pulled than I found since I know I haven't greased them in 5 years and Lord knows when the last time this 30 year old machine actually had grease on the moving parts. A little time on a fixed wired brush and they don't look too bad.

Yep, that is common, a hand pump grease gun can produce quite a few PSI's and if it won't go in, you have to take things apart, most times that will work. Old grease and whatever else in there seems to make a pretty good dam in those passages, same thing happens when they are in service a long time and not greased.

Might be better to grease em by hand, knowing the pin is clean and uniformly coated, better than not if you can't machine the pin and install a fitting that will work right. Depending on how long you'll be running it at a time, should work fine, I'd do it based on the way you have it set up, just one pin, will also allow you to see whats going on in there, grit or not etc.

You really have to watch if you use linch pins or any other type of quick pin. They can get hooked on stuff or have dirt fall on them, and they're gone. I tried them on my bucket but went back to using cotter pins. Dave

you can get a hammer activated zerk cleaner that works great...i got mine from harbor freight years ago...pretty sure all the major tool co's have em too.

(quoted from post at 11:22:03 03/09/10) you can get a hammer activated zerk cleaner that works great...i got mine from harbor freight years ago...pretty sure all the major tool co's have em too.

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I've got one of those and tried it on some of the fittings, but after seeing the plugged grease passages upon disassembly, there was no way a little bit of hammering would push years of gunk through those passages.

135fan,
I'm using the linch pins where the round ring folds over the end of the 1.75" dia pin. It leaves nothing to hook on. Most of the original pins used circlips and I won't be replacing those.

5 years and never been greased?? OUCH!

Those pins and bushings are wearing even when you're just driving around on your property not to mention the greased joint keeps water, dust and dirt out. Please buy yourself a $4 grease needle for your grease gun and inject some grease into every joint on that machine until you can take the time to get all of the zerks working. Those machines should get grease every 10 hours of continuous use. Occasional use would mean more often on the clock. My .02.

(quoted from post at 08:28:01 03/23/10) 5 years and never been greased?? OUCH!

Those pins and bushings are wearing even when you're just driving around on your property not to mention the greased joint keeps water, dust and dirt out. Please buy yourself a $4 grease needle for your grease gun and inject some grease into every joint on that machine until you can take the time to get all of the zerks working. Those machines should get grease every 10 hours of continuous use. Occasional use would mean more often on the clock. My .02.

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Don't disagree. 5 yrs is just the period that I"VE owned it. Who knows how long it went "dry" before that? I tried to grease it right after I got it and pretty much gave up, although I periodically DID try the more accessible points now and then.

I'm making a spreadsheet of all the grease points and my aim is to get it done this summer. Considering the aggravation it would be to try and externally grease them, I figure I could have the pin removed and cleaned up right in the amount of time I'd fiddle around trying to get grease into a joint.

Last year, it saw little use, maybe 8-10 hours the whole year. Probably won't see much use this year, but next year I'll be using it a lot to put in more gravel driveway.

Anyway, thanks for the .02