It's fully supported both on the boom and the bucket itself. I appreciate your concern and I'm all ears for anything else I should know.Again, it's hard to tell, but is that bucket resting on anything like a brace? If the bucket is unsupported at rest, it'll shake the crap out of your bucket and stress a lot of thingys as you're going down the road.
I'm gonna take a closer look at this later on today, I think we estimated that we got about 8-9mpg bringing it home so it may have ballast on it somewhere.The more I look at this unit, the more it seems identical to the one we had in the late 80s. Even down to the molded step on the outside of the bucket.
Can't remember too much about it except ours came with ballast for stabilization -- two big chunks of concrete straddling the frame just ahead of the rear wheels and up to the cab. There were clad in steel and made to look like tool boxes.
We ran it that way for a couple years, then had them removed and had outrigger (manual ones) installed. The truck's performance changed dramatically after that. The ride went to crap, but the handling improved substantially and the mileage shot up to about 12 mpg from about 4 mpg. Oh, yeah... and the braking performance went from "say a little prayer" to impressive.
Yes, there was the added hassle of setting the outriggers, but it just felt better up there.
...but I don't want to sound like I'm dissing it. Either configuration worked a treat. We just found we were doing more long-distance installs and maintenance and it made sense to remove the ballast and install outriggers. I definitely preferred the outriggers when I was up there, though.
Is the control system on the bucket a single twist/squeeze/lever handle? I really liked that.
I used to take great delight in lifting the bucket off its cradle, then, with my masterful control of the hydraulics, take the bucket in a straight line to its working position with the boom opening/lifting/rotating simultaneously in varying degrees.
Well, maybe I was only impressing myself...
I do the same. Masters touch.
Klem what is the side reach extrension for that boom?
My understanding is OSHA requires all Boom/Bucket Trucks that can extend 27' or greater from boom mounting needs outriggers!