J. I. Case Company

Dean O Baum

Gary L Cochran

James E Dawson

A quick coupler assembly for attaching a material handling bucket or the like to the free ends of lift arms extending from a loader. The quick coupler assembly includes an elongated cross member having hitch brackets on its opposite ends. Each hitch bracket includes an end which is received against the underside of an upper attachment member on the rear wall of the bucket near the top edge thereof. The opposite end of the hitch bracket is configured for engagement against a lower inclined ramp extending along the bottom rear edge of the bucket. The coupler assembly further includes an over-center locking mechanism consisting of a pivotal handle and link connected to a shaft with a wedge on the lower end of the shaft. The shaft and wedge are slidably movable in response to over-center movement of the handle and link such that the wedge moves downwardly and passes through openings in a lower hitch bracket attachment member and the lower inclined bucket ramp for locking the quick coupler assembly to the bucket. After the operator has located the bucket in a hanging position on the quick coupler assembly, the assembly is rotated rearwardly such that an end of the handle is pushed against a stop member. As a result, the handle and link are pushed over center thereby forcing the wedge downwardly through the openings in the attaching members between the hitch bracket and bucket for securely attaching the bucket to the coupler assembly.

Quick coupler assembly

A bucket leveling mechanism that automatically operates a tilt cylinder for pivoting the bucket so that the attitude of the bucket remains substantially constant as the bucket lift arms are raised. Two push-pull cable assemblies are provided; one cable assembly senses the rotation of the bucket and the other cable assembly senses the pivotal movement of the lift arms. The cable assembly for the bucket is attached between the bucket and a wedge shaped block that operates a spool control valve for the bucket tilt cylinder. The lift arm cable assembly is attached to a lift arm at one end and includes an opposite roller end that engages one side of the wedge shaped block, with the block being sandwiched between the control valve spool and roller end of the lift arm cable assembly. The wedge shaped block includes a cam surface that is movable between the control valve spool and roller end of the lift arm cable assembly in proportion to the relative movement of the bucket and lift arms. When the lift arms are raised to a predetermined height where the bucket would normally roll back past a level position, the roller end of the lift arm cable assembly acts upon the wedge shaped block to push the cam surface against the control valve spool to thereby automatically actuate the bucket tilt cylinder for rotating the bucket toward a level position. The wedge shaped block also provides a positive stop that prevents the operator from manually overriding the level position of the bucket when the lift arms are fully raised.

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Burlington, IA, United States of America

Dean O Baum