Bought a piece of land. About ten acres. It's heavily wooded and I need to start clearing it. I'm looking at getting an implement to help the process as I'll largely be working alone. I'm looking at either a track excavator or a 4wD backhoe. I've run through the gamut of operation tutorials and put about 40 hours in on a mini-track excavator to learn the basics of operation. Outside of fuel and oil, what are common maintenance routines, things to look out for on owning/operating heavy equipment? How often to grease the joints, any obscure operation technique to be more efficient, any specific tools to perform maintenance, things like that. I'm a welder by trade, I have a welding rig on my truck, and I have a full suite of mechanics tools.
>It's heavily wooded and I need to start clearing it
why
I plan on building a "barndominum" up so I need to thin out/clear half an acre to start. It's fairly deep in the rhubarb, I need to clear for access for trucks, make a driveway, then I need to dig in footers for a slab to put a steel building on. There's a lot of oak and chestnut on the property, a thin stand of white pine. Before I go and drop 30-50k on something, I figured I would get some advice from anons who aren't YouTube shills.
Save the wood and build your shit with it. Wood is rarer that diamonds in the known universe.
Seriously, even if you just burn it, don't be wasteful anon, we use everything we can in the country.
I'm going to try and keep as much old growth as I can. Anything large that I fall will end up getting turned into timbers/quarter sawn. I'm not wasting any of that old growth wood. I have my uncle's old woodmizer mill.
I recommend that you have the initial clearing done by some local folks. I have run a bunch of older equipment and in your situation I recommend not starting out dropping lots of cash on the heavy equipment. Heavy equipment breakdowns are a major bummer and can totally botch a schedule.
After the initial barndominium phase, a modest front end loader or backhoe seems sensible.
I wouldn't clear all if it If you anon, keep 80% and just carve out what you need. You'll thank me later.
Now back to the question:
You need to keep these machines well greased and painted. The paint is something that is often over looked, and if you look at any rental place, you'll see the paint nearly completely neglected. The paint is the barrier between your machine and the elements. Snow, water, and soon: rust.
I bring a small brush with me and quart of enamel, and do touch ups on my macihines every monday and friday, and in the summer only on wednesdays.
Do not paint the tracks, or the rollers, but you should paint the cab, and the arm. Yellow is used to keep the machines visible, but I like orange. Here's a recent full body overhall on my old 46'
don't half ass the painting. I use the extra paint as fuel when the winter ends
>Old tractors.
So keep up on the paint. Most stuff I'm looking at is that cat yellow. I have basic working knowledge of hydraulics, but I'm nervous working on it, heard to many horror stories of guys getting fingers lopped off tinkering with the wrong thing.
>I'm nervous working on it, heard to many horror stories of guys getting fingers lopped off tinkering with the wrong thing.
Shake hands with danger!
Most equipment of mine I will change the engine oil every 200 hours and grease everything around 50 hours and more often on the stuff that moves/spins a ton. Hydraulic filters every 500-1000 hours or so. Coolant filters at the same time if it has them. Clean and check the air filter at engine oil change intervals.
With 10 acres you shouldn't need anything too major, but some kind of small excavator (not too small!) backhoe, skidsteer, or tractor with a loader will definitely help make the jobs easier and more fun. For your application it sounds like a backhoe would suit you well. Not the best at anything but an overall swiss army knife of usefulness for just about any task.
Thanks for the tips. Backhoe is what I'm leaning towards. Looking at a Case that's got 3000 hours on it. Used obviously. Would it be a good idea to flush all the systems on it after purchase. I'll plan on putting in new filters per your recommendations.
If the hydraulic and transmission (some things they are the same reservoir and some things have separate reservoirs for each) oil looks clean and not milky i would just change the filter, top it off and run it. More than likely it will have some leaks and need topped off weekly or so, so in reality the oil in it will not be that old. Check the coolant with some test strips. If it looks good and clean and has good test numbers i would just change the coolant filter (if it has one) top it off, and run it. Change the engine oil right away after warming it up unless seller has documentation or hours writtnen on filter indicate it was recently changed. Grease everything immediately upon arrival and fix any zerks that aren't taking grease. A milwaukee m18 grease gun and lock n lube grease coupler are worth their weight in gold.
I plan on going to take a look at a couple tomorrow. One has a gripper/brush claw and the pointy rock teeth on the front bucket. The other one doesn't, but has the clamshell/pushblade style front bucket, quick attach, and forklift tines. Both of them look like they have standard rock bucket on the back. Would they still be worth considering if the pivot points on the buckets had a bit of slop/egged out? I don't have line boring rig (yet) but replacing the pivot eyes is something I have done before. Are there any red flags to look for outside of water in the oil/oil in the coolant?
Not worth getting heavy equipment for that little bit of land. Just buy a Stihl and a stump grinder and go apeshit
I've got two Husqvarna power heads. One with a 24" bar the other with a 32" bar. Stihls are pretty good from what I've heard. When I was younger I used to go logging Red oak in central Wisconsin with my uncle. We used Percherons and Shire horses to get the logs out and then ran them on a woodmizer.