I bought a beat up loader on eBay that I rebuilt and modified to fit my METI (the METI is based on the GE tractors). I don’t think photos will post to the ET site but hopefully you will see them. I had to straighten the arms and reworked/bushed all the pivot points. This loader must have had a million hours on it as the bucket’s wear bar was replaced at least once. Even the pins in the hydraulic levers were worn out!
It is nice as it lifts quite high and the bucket is self leveling like the ET loader was. I’m not sure how you plan on using your loader but keep in mind that ETs have an incredible amount of push force (especially with lug tires) and can bend small loader arms. I added a bar from the cylinder mount towards the bucket to beef mine up from the get-go. I built the mounting brackets and mounted the uprights inside the brackets to clear the foot rests. The mounts are ultra heavy duty as I did not want any issues down the road.
The lift cylinders are 2” in dia. and have 2’ of stroke. The pump that came with it has a pressure relief set to about 600 PSI which provides about 1800 pounds of force to each of the lift cylinders and it lifts to full height in about 7 seconds. I’m guessing it lifts over 600 pounds as I could easily lift the rear of my E16 off the ground. I searched the internet and lots of homemade loaders stick out front WAY too far. Way to much load on the front wheels and axles unless you are just moving leaves! Plus it can make the tractor dangerously light at the rear.
I would like to go with electric actuators as well but everything I’ve seen are very very slow and ones that may do the trick are over $1000 apiece. I recently added a pressure gauge to my hydraulic system so I think I can do some calculating to know how much force electric actuators would need provide to lift let's say 500 pounds. I’ll keep you posted on that.
Please send some photos of what you are working with.
Good luck with your project!
Regards,
Dean Stuckmann
5432 County Road U
Newton, WI 53063-9624
920-901-2288