Oops! twisted 4in1 bucket on Case backhoe

I was cleaning up with my old Case 580B backhoe after a recent flood here. I decided I needed to remove what was left of an old walnut tree that lost most of its height in a wind storm years ago. What was left was about 8' tall, 12" diameter, and pretty much hollow with tiny suckers growing out of it.

So, without too much effort, I pushed it over. My machine has a 4in1 bucket on the front, so I picked up the whole thing (remember, it is about 8' long, about 12" diameter, and largely hollow from rot).

The tractor didn't seem to have any trouble with it, except that I apparently didn't center it well enough in the bucket, and as the bucket came up, I heard a groan and noticed the left side of the bucket was a bit lower than the other. Crap!

I left go of the load and inspected the damage. When the bucket is down and you stand in front and look at the bucket, it is noticeably lower on the right side. From memory I'm guessing about 3-4" drop over the entire width of the bucket.

I carefully inspected the arms and saw no evidence of cracks or any other damage. It appears that the whole thing just twisted slightly.

I wonder if it would make sense to try to straighten the thing out by picking up another heavy lopsided load (the same tree!) with the heavy part on the other side? Or would that just compound the problem?

Smack! (thats the sound of me giving myself a good dope slap!)

Lynn Kasdorf

Sounds like it had a problem before you started....really no way something that small shoulda did that much damage.

Whatever you do....DON'T TRY TO BEND THE OTHER SIDE TO MATCH IT !!!!! You'll just compound the problem !

At the base, the tree was larger that 12"- it was about 12-14" for the bulk of the length, but of course flared out at the base to much wider. Walnut is pretty dense stuff.

I could tell that it was a pretty big load, but it didn't seem like more than the tractor could handle.

I've been moving full bucket loads of gravel for the last few weeks with this machine, and this tree weighed considerably more than that, I'd say.

I cannot perceive any particular piece being bent out of shape, so cutting out the old metal and replacing it is not such a simple idea. It seems to have generally twisted both arms.