The Dig-it Excavator Hydraulic thumb kit is a heavy duty grab option which is welded onto the inside of your digger dipper stick. A Excavator thumb is used to grab objects between it and the machines bucket.
A hydraulic Mini Excavator thumb is very convenient due to being packed up on the dipper stick during digging, but can be extended at any time to pick an object up.
A hydraulic thumb is however not a suitable replacement for a hydraulic grab, it does not allow bucket rotation as you are using the bucket to grab against. it also has a smaller range of rotation and cannot be positioned as well to suit a wide range of grabbing when compared to a hydraulic grab.
The Dig-it design features a long thumb length, allowing it to be used on larger attachments or with some tilt hitches. This can be easily cut shorter to suit your attachments.
During installation, you will need to simply curl your bucket all the way in and place the hydraulic thumb kit on your dipper to test fit location. then cycle the bucket cylinder fully to ensure enough clearance.
You should test fit all attachments to ensure there is enough clearance. Once you have decided the height you need to weld the thumb on, you need to ensure its welded on straight to the dipper stick.
Once this is tack welded, Cycle the dipper stick all the way in and ensure there is clearance between the thumb and your boom. The Hydraulic thumb length is very long to suit a lot of applications. You may need to cut the length of the thumb back depending on your machine.
Once everything is finalized and double checked to be straight, you need to remove the thumb and cylinder to fully weld the top bracket and bottom bracket to the boom. The thin bar between each bracket can now be removed.
Under this has cooled and you have repainted your dipper stick, reinstall your thumb double check full motion has no problems. Now you can hose the machine to suit.