In this how-to article, we are going to learn how you can install the BK45 Material bucket (Hydro Dump). This necessitates that you first take the dozer blade off, and the image below shows how you can do that by using a wrench to remove the bolt anchoring the blade in place.
(Note: The information is provided by a Struck customer. Please follow all official Struck manuals when installing your equipment.)
Once both bolts are out, lift the dozer blade as shown in the image below and place it away from the work zone.
Next, lift the HE47 Hitch Adaptor plate and place it on the front hitch of your dozer as shown below.
While supporting the adaptor plate with one hand, take a bolt and slide it through one of the holes so that the adaptor plate can be securely held in place on the front hitch as shown below.
Thereafter, shift your attention to the other side of the adaptor plate and insert the second bolt as you did in the previous step. The image below shows the bolt being placed through the relevant hole.
Now use your wrench to tighten the nuts on the bolts that you have just positioned in the two previous steps. This image below shows one of the bolts being tightened. This task is a lot easier when you use the wrench on the lower side of the bolt. Remember to tighten the bolts on the left and right hand side of the adaptor plate.
Next, carry the loader plate and line its holes up with the two bolt holes on the adaptor plate as indicated in the image below.
Thereafter, take a bolt from the labelled plastic bag and insert it in one of the holes on the hitch extender plate as shown below.
Then turn to the other side of the hitch extender and also insert a bolt as indicated in the following image.
Once the bolts are nicely lined up in the extender, place nuts on their lower ends and use a wrench to tighten those nuts as shown below.
After tightening the bolts on either side, your hitch extender mechanism should look like what is depicted in the image below.
Now drag or carry the material bucket (it is quite heavy!) to the hitch extender and position it in such a way that the bolt holes on its sides line up with the bolt holes on the hitch extender as shown below.
Now get the plastic bag labelled BK45 kit and pour its contents in the loader bucket for easy access as shown below.
Now take one of those short bolts and place a washer inside it as indicated below.
Take two rubber spacers/bushings and also insert them onto the bolt. Insert that bolt having the spacers and washer in the furthest bolt hole on the material bucket as demonstrated in the image below.
Now take a washer and a nut and slide these onto the inner end of the bolt that you have just placed in the hole. Note that the washer should go first and the nut will be outermost as shown in this image.
Repeat this process on the opposite side of the bucket and this time, start with the inner bolt hole as displayed in the image below. Now take your wrench and tighten the bolts starting with the first one that you placed on the loader bucket mechanism. Do the same for the bolt on the other side. The bushings or spacers help to prevent direct contact between the nut and the metallic bucket wall. This image below shows the nut on the second side being tightened.
With the bucket firmly in place, take the hydraulic cylinder and hoses in the box in which your supplies came. Place these items inside the material bucket as shown below.
Now our attention shifts to installing the hydraulics for the bucket. This process begins by installing the hydraulic cylinder and securing it in place with a long bolt as depicted in this image below.
Then turn to the hoses and if you aren’t sure where which end goes where, just pick at random and when it doesn’t work as expected, you will just come and switch them over. The following image shows how you can get the hoses in place.
Gently tighten the nuts on the hoses as shown in this image.
As you may notice in the image below, the hydraulic lines to which you are going to connect the hoses on the cylinder have red plastic plugs covering their ends as shown here.
Get hold of one of those lines and pull out that plug as demonstrated in the following image.
Then insert the end of one of the hoses from the cylinder into the end of the hydraulic line as shown below.
Do the same for the other hydraulic line and hose so that both connection points look like this.
It is now time to start up the tractor and see if the hydraulics is working fine in lifting the material bucket. As the picture above shows, the hoses were installed the other way round since the bucket is tilting downwards instead of up.
In that case, all that is needed is to switch over the ends of the hydraulic hoses so that the controls can move the bucket as required. This image shows the hoses being changed.
Note that hydraulic fluid will be spilling from the hoses you undo, so have a towel close by to clean up the mess. Now tighten the hoses in their new positions as shown below.
After using your hands to fasten the bolts, use a spanner to tighten the nuts a little more as indicated below.
With that task completed, take one piece of spiral wrap from the box of the installation supplies and position it in the middle of one of the hydraulic hoses as demonstrated below.
Starting from the middle makes the task of wrapping the hose a whole lot easier, and you should have something like this after wrapping both hoses.
With that completed, get several zip ties from the box in which your supplies came and tie the two hydraulic lines at about the half-way mark where they meet as shown in this image below.
You can use up to four zip ties so that the hoses are kept together, especially on the side nearest the hitch extender. This picture below shows what you can aim for.
Using a zip tie cutter, cut off the dangling ends of the zip ties so that you are left with a neat setup like what you see in the image below.
With the zip tie ends cut off, your bucket is installed and the machine is ready to get to work! If you need more detail on how to perform this install, or if you want to see how you can change the hydraulic lines on the controls so that they are in the order you prefer, check out the full installation video below!
