Digger for farmer

Ford4life

Kevhog1988 wrote: »

Yeah that's a knuckle boom

Is that the type of boom she had on her I meant

Kevhog1988

Ford4life wrote: »

Iodine1 wrote: »

Half thinking about digging out a tank and still havent heard back from the digger man, theres drainage to be done in some fields, drains to be cleaned out every year, bits and pieces of rocks id like to take out and bury
I'd have probably anywhere from 100-300 hundred hours of work with it anyway if not more

Your a busy man aswell as doing the leaving.

Ford4life

ballinadog wrote: »

Re the expensive parts, we just found that anything with them tended to be a main dealer issue, an we are on Galway Mayo border so it was along way to McHales in Birdhill Tipp. Having said that we’d three of them, a mini digger and two rubber ducks (9tn and 11tn) and all three worked without much bother. Volvos are similar, anything goes wrong it tends to be off to Pat O Donnells, an they seem to give a bit more bother than the Komatsu’s. They have to “regenerate” every now and again and if ya put it off too many times it’s POD again. That’s the beauty of the Hitachis, over here in the West ya have McSharry in Roscommon, Gaynor in Frenchpark, MG in Swinford all as dealers and the likes of Eamon Longs in Galway all with parts readily available

Re the Kobelcos, I don’t know why, but we’d two identical 135’s, same years and everything, but the Green Kobelco would lose and find the New Holland for power and agileness. We reconditioned the NH’s hydraulic pump too but to no avail. Just felt dead

Dont think I have ever heard someone describe a 9 ton as a minidigger
Emissions regulations are after ruining a lot of machines
Plenty of breakers around the place for hitachi, easy to get parts
Reliability is the main priority something you can sit into turn the key and work away
Was there some sort of limiter to the flow maybe?

Ford4life

Kevhog1988 wrote: »

Ford4life wrote: »

Your a busy man aswell as doing the leaving.

Predicted grades lad Dunno will I bother with any exams tbh

Ford4life

mythos110 wrote: »

We bought a 1993 JCB JS130 around 2001 for about £12k at the time. All electrics etc had stopped on it bar the lights. She dig fierce work around the farm from digging out tanks, clearing land and the sites for myself and my brothers houses. Defo paid for itself about 10 times over. About 4 years ago it was getting very shook and in danger of going up in flames so moved it on and got about 5k for it for export and replaced it with a 2002 JS130. Its a treat to have fuel and temp gauges etc working and to have a quick hitch. We wouldn't be without a machine on the farm now. While its not used every day, it can save some hardship when you need it. Recently picked up pallet forks and a man basket which makes trimming trees, accessing gutters etc a hell of a lot safer.
I do all my own mechanic work but even so, be prepared for the odd big repair bill. Recently the 2002 machine lost throttle. I managed to diagnose the throttle angle sensor which was something around €300 to replace. A final drive failure could north of €2,500 for a reconditioned second hand unit - which I had to replace on the old machine.
Like any machine, regular servicing and kind operators will make a machine go a hell of a long way.

Cheap and cheerful can work out very well or it can go horribly, checking through them thoroughly would avoid any big bills down the line
Nice to have gauges working for sure, father calls them a "luxury"
Very few machines would put up with the abuse theyd get from some operators Like you said regular oil checks, greasing etc goes a long way for any machine
Youd find a lot of jobs a digger would be useful for that you wouldnt think youd use them for at all

Green farmer

What even one you get, keep an eye on the oil seals on the tracks. Had the oil leak out before and the final drive chewed itself to bits. After that it was a 2-3k repair bill and that was only on a 3tonne machine.

Stihl waters

Green farmer wrote: »

What even one you get, keep an eye on the oil seals on the tracks. Had the oil leak out before and the final drive chewed itself to bits. After that it was a 2-3k repair bill and that was only on a 3tonne machine.

Is it not just a case of removing the final drive motor and replacing, seems like an easy enough job, or are the parts seriously expensive

Green farmer

Stihl waters wrote: »

Is it not just a case of removing the final drive motor and replacing, seems like an easy enough job, or are the parts seriously expensive

Like anything, if your very mechanically minded then you could try and repair it yourself. I only know we didnt have those skills, so had to pay a mechanic. We priced how much it was to get it reconditioned versus cost of a new unit. In the end we choose a new part as didnt want to repair it again a second time, if it failed down the road. The repair cogs etc weren't cheap either

Ford4life

Green farmer wrote: »

What even one you get, keep an eye on the oil seals on the tracks. Had the oil leak out before and the final drive chewed itself to bits. After that it was a 2-3k repair bill and that was only on a 3tonne machine.

That's certainly something you wouldn't think of to check when checking the engine oil and hydraulic
Is there a stud in them to check the oil level? Never took any notice of them before

Green farmer

Ford4life wrote: »

That's certainly something you wouldn't think of to check when checking the engine oil and hydraulic
Is there a stud in them to check the oil level? Never took any notice of them before

It's about 10 years back and we no longer have the machine, so I cannt remember fully. But afaik two things can happen, one is if the seal goes, the oil leaks out or water can get in driving through wet pubbles and damages it . Other thing that can happen is bits break off from wear and tear and damages the rest of it. When you open it up all the bits run out in a soupy mixture. So, afterwards we always looked before getting in, as dont want to damage something further, by not spotting anything that leaked. Sometimes replacing a cheap seal can avoid a bigger job.

lakill Farm

Green farmer wrote: »

What even one you get, keep an eye on the oil seals on the tracks. Had the oil leak out before and the final drive chewed itself to bits. After that it was a 2-3k repair bill and that was only on a 3tonne machine.

snap, 1800e plus vat for a final drive on a 2.7t Kubota .

lab man

Ford4life wrote: »

Kevhog1988 wrote: »

Predicted grades lad Dunno will I bother with any exams tbh

Your some fool then if you dont study and try your best in your leaving this is coming from a guy that's 48 left school at 15 no group cert no intercert and no leaving try getting a job without one you'll be told fair quick about it

Green farmer

Always found a 12 tonne machine was a lovely machine for doing all the big jobs major jobs around a farm. Whereas a 3 tonne is lovely for the smaller jobs like cleaning out sheds. Can get into places the bigger one cannt. Had a ex120 years ago and she would turn a farm inside out. However can remember throwing a drum of oil into it and the needle would barely move. In comparison to that, throw a drum of diesal into a 3 tonne and she'd keep going all day.

Albert Johnson

Green farmer wrote: »

Always found a 12 tonne machine was a lovely machine for doing all the big jobs major jobs around a farm. Whereas a 3 tonne is lovely for the smaller jobs like cleaning out sheds. Can get into places the bigger one cannt. Had a ex120 years ago and she would turn a farm inside out. However can remember throwing a drum of oil into it and the needle would barely move. In comparison to that, throw a drum of diesal into a 3 tonne and she'd keep going all day.

The auld fella used tell me about being in the pub one night when discussion turned to winning the lotto. One man suggested that he'd use his winnings to buy 100 rushy acres and a digger. His plan was to spend his time tipping about draining the ground and making a farm of it.

Another local character who was well versed in bad land and hardship happened to be listening to the first man outlining his grand plans. He informed the would be lottery winner that if he ever realised his dream that he'd sell him 80 acres of scrub and that for a small commission he'd source another 20 acres and a digger before retiring to some sunny beach like any normal person.

148multi

Green farmer wrote: »

Like anything, if your very mechanically minded then you could try and repair it yourself. I only know we didnt have those skills, so had to pay a mechanic. We priced how much it was to get it reconditioned versus cost of a new unit. In the end we choose a new part as didnt want to repair it again a second time, if it failed down the road. The repair cogs etc weren't cheap either

The final drive oil level is the most important thing to check and the least often checked.
Some drives are easy enough to fix, others like a hy- dash drive are more complex.
On a 12 ton the back to back seals are 120-150,
With 50% of the drives good would cost about 1000-1500 for parts. The likes of high tensil or barbed wire caught in the tracks will make easy work of your seals, the gear bearings are light so if oil leaks they can breakup easily then chew the gears up and crack the planetary carriers €€€€€€

Ford4life

Green farmer wrote: »

It's about 10 years back and we no longer have the machine, so I cannt remember fully. But afaik two things can happen, one is if the seal goes, the oil leaks out or water can get in driving through wet pubbles and damages it . Other thing that can happen is bits break off from wear and tear and damages the rest of it. When you open it up all the bits run out in a soupy mixture. So, afterwards we always looked before getting in, as dont want to damage something further, by not spotting anything that leaked. Sometimes replacing a cheap seal can avoid a bigger job.

Isn't it mad that one seal worth a couple euro can save thousands, not much can be done about usual wear and tear except keep an eye on it

Ford4life

Green farmer wrote: »

Always found a 12 tonne machine was a lovely machine for doing all the big jobs major jobs around a farm. Whereas a 3 tonne is lovely for the smaller jobs like cleaning out sheds. Can get into places the bigger one cannt. Had a ex120 years ago and she would turn a farm inside out. However can remember throwing a drum of oil into it and the needle would barely move. In comparison to that, throw a drum of diesal into a 3 tonne and she'd keep going all day.

6 ton and below would run on the fumes of diesel, 12 tons wouldnt be long burning a tank of diesel but you do have a lot more power. Fella i work for is thinking of selling his digger its a hitachi EX30, asking 10000 for it which isnt too bad I dont think. I have heard the engines in these arent brilliant though what do ye reckon

TooOldBoots

Ford4life wrote: »

6 ton and below would run on the fumes of diesel, 12 tons wouldnt be long burning a tank of diesel but you do have a lot more power. Fella i work for is thinking of selling his digger its a hitachi EX30, asking 10000 for it which isnt too bad I dont think. I have heard the engines in these arent brilliant though what do ye reckon

Have to disagree, a 6 ton under pressure will guzzle twice as much diesel. So as long as you are only doing a bit of hen pecking the 6 ton is a grand machine, but as soon as you need to do the heavy work it's lost