Backhoes and bucket loaders

Eric,

I don't know what vintage hoe you have, but it should have an automatic return to dig switch or at least an alignment gauge, usually on the right hand side lift arm. The other feature that you need to research is the float position on the front bucket. Float will allow you to put the bucket on the ground with no downward pressure, when the dig angle is right you can drive across the front yard picking up dirt and rocks and leaving the sod clean and green.

To get control of the back bucket, set up in a comfortable spot. Raise the idle slightly. Do not even try to dig a hole. Reach up and out full length, set the teeth on the ground, bring the bucket to you without digging, keeping the teeth touching the ground. Raise, swing, empty, return. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Don't be in any hurry to dig. See if you can push the bucket away from you the same as you bring it to you. The direction that an operator has little to no control over is side swing. Do not allow anyone to ever stand on the side of ditch or excavation to watch, no matter how long you have operated. There is sure plenty more to learn, but at least these 2 will get you off to a decent start.

After you have played for a while and can at least push the right stick at the right time and have some problems, pay your excavator friend to come watch you for an hour or so to show you what you are doing wrong. Maybe a good cold refreshment would be payment enough.

(top posted for your convenience) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Keep the whole world singing . . . . DanG (remove the sevens) snipped-for-privacy@7cox.net

Eric R Snow wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

It's a practiced art :) I used to run one for a living. The other poster is spot on about practicing by running the teeth along the ground. Try to maintain the same depth of the teeth the entire travel path. It takes both hands on the levers, and you must have dexterity of the fingers to operate two levers at the same time (sometimes in opposite directions). One thing you SHOULD NOT DO until you are quite practiced, is attempt to move the tractor with the hoe. You can easily turn the thing over if you do not know what you are doing. However, once that is eventually learned, you will rarely move it via the steering wheel while actually digging anything. The hoe can put the tractor in precisely the right spot more easily. More advice. Turn the front bucket down and sink it in the ground enough to take the weight off of the front wheels while digging. This adds considerably to the stability of the tractor while digging.

NEVER, EVER, EVER, EVER dig or even move the boom around a whole lot without the anchors in the ground. That is a lot of mass swinging there. On hilly ground..a backhoe is dangerous, period. They are top heavy, and ass heavy. Back up a hill (Straight up) do not drive forwards. If you are more than just a few degrees sideways tilted, swing the boom (while stopped) to the uphill side of the tractor to offset the center of gravity. Extend the boom low to the ground to help if needed. Remember that the boom can move the tractor, so if the hill is too steep for the tires to bite backwards, you can always pull yourself up, provided the soil lets you get a bite with the hoe.

As for the front bucket, without indictors, you can watch the lower, backside edge of the bucket. The gap between the bottom of the bucket and the ground when you first lower it is the angle indicator. Float helps for leveling things.

Sometimes, you just stop things and go look, especially when you are starting out, but later on, too. A miscalculation can make a mess of things, especially a miscalculation regarding clearance to a building...

You can watch the space between the back of the front bucket and the ground if the ground is somewhat level, but it often is not. There's also a bucket angle guage which would be somewhat easy to build (I don't have one; I saw one once I tracked down manuals for my machine, but I have not bothered to build one yet). For the most part, the bucket is not great at digging, and is primarily useful for moving loose dirt - the hoe digs much more efficiently.

Unfortunately, the answer to that question is "it depends". Since weighty parts of the machine can be repositioned a great deal, you can sit stable at a particular angle, then move something and roll over from the same angle. Two classic examples are raising the bucket, especially if it has a load on, or swinging the hoe. Don't operate the hoe without the outriggers down. If the track (wheel width) on your machine is adjustable, adjust it to the widest setting, unless you must squeeze in somewhere narrow.

For learning, it can help to cheat and label each lever, and what it does in each direction. Working with myself, and without benefit of "proper terminology" when starting out, I labeled the "wrist, elebow, and shoulder" motions of the various levers (Dipperstick, crowd, and lift, if I've correctly picked up what "real" operators call them). Color coding the cylinders & levers is another trick when you don't recall instantly which lever does what.

You can practice controlled operation in the air, as well as the "along the ground" technique that has been suggested. There's often little motion of the controls between slow controlled motion and slamming along as fast as the thing will go, so you need to develop feel, by practicing. Then dig and backfill a practice hole a few times - leveling backfill is a good practice execise for hoe control, requiring two controls working together.

I've played with that very model (Case Construction King) before. In addition to the important things the other guys said, the backhoe connects to the ass end by a couple of hooks and big threaded anchors to hold it on. After using for some time those hooks and anchors wear and develop play. If you notice the rear end of the tractor wiggling around and rattling check those and tighten. If they get too loose they can let the hoe shift enough to scare the bejeesus out of you and perhaps worse. If you're worried it might get stolen, paint it pink.

Easy way there - tip it down until the back of the bucket lifts off the ground; that tells you you just went past flat.

Keep the center of gravity as low as you can. Avoid driving around with the loader up, especially if it's full. Put the outriggers down close to the ground if you're in a tippy situation. And if it doesn't have a ROPS (rollover protection system), get one or you will die when it rolls.

After a while, you get so you just think about how you want the backhoe to move and your hands run the levers for you. Takes a while, and every spring it takes a while again. I finally sold mine after about 7 years; I'm going to miss the machine but wasn't using it enough to justify keeping it.

About levers - just for the record, on a Ford 4600 backhoe, the lever to empty the bucket is right next to the lever to lower the arm. If you're filling a wheelbarrow, this difference is critical.

On a side note, a wheelbarrow cannot hold up the digging end of a backhoe.

What, because you don't beleive in trimming un-needed content you mean?

The direction that an operator has little to no control over is side swing. Do not allow anyone to ever stand on the side of ditch or excavation to watch, no matter how long you have operated

This is an understatement. While not a pro, I have run my fair share of "heavy" equipment. I was digging a trench to run phone, water, etc to my new shop. I had a nice level trench going and was at the shop end cleaning out the end of the trench. Swinging back to take a few more scoops. Smack! Right into the side of my new steel. Blast. At least at was primarily a relatively easy to replace edging piece, but it still ticked me off at the time. I was being very conscientous to not "overswing", but the momentum of the arm took it that one time and slapped it right into the shed.

Side swing is usually very "quick" and unthrottled. The other controls have much slower flows are very controllable. Side swing is usually a faster move with little real control.

JW

Yep. Just takes practice. The top lip on my front bucket is parallel to the bottom (and is even marked that way) to help get things lined up. Don't have a tilt meter on mine but when I start to get far enough over to get worried I just swing the backhoe bucket out to the uphill side.

Steve.

Dave Hinz wrote in news:35kkq8F4lufb6U15 @individual.net:

Yes they are....tis what I ran... Those are fast backhoes. I won a bet on that once for my boss. He and another guy who owned a company were arguing about which was better, his Case, or my bosses Fords. They marked off 100' and had us line up and race....I beat his slow-assed Case by better than 30'. That old Ford may not have had the grunt-down pulling power of the Case, but it was way faster. There were extremely few situations where that bit of extra power would have made a difference.

Hehe...

Nice machine. Was a bit wobbly in the bushings, but had more than enough power for what I was using it for. Wish I still had it, but I wasn't using it enough to justify keeping it.

Once you have enough power to lift a rock that's heavier than the balance of the tractor can handle, you have enough power. Any more is wasted. One boulder that I moved just, well, to prove that I could, measures 11 feet in circumferance, one of those dense black glacial deposit type boulders (no clue what it is, a schist maybe?). Front came off the ground, of course. Filled the front bucket, picked it again, and the front was on the ground but steering didn't work. I used the wheel brakes, and eventually just put the backhoe bucket on the ground and steered by using that like a rudder, as you would steer a boat.

Funny thing was, just seconds after I did that, my neighbor came around the back of my house, looked at the situation, and let me know that he has a wheelbarrow just like mine, for the same reason (different backhoe though, his is a Deere).

Dave Hinz

Dave Hinz wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@individual.net:

Ya, I rescued our 175C International High-Lift with this one once. Another (not so bright) operator was clearing a creek bottom/marsh with it, and sunk it level with the floorboard. How, I have no idea, and neither did anyone else. (It does have a bucket..you *can* get yourself unstuck before you sink the thing to the hood, if you try.) When we got to it, it was STUCK, badly. Literally, you could walk straight from the ground to the floorboard, level. Couldn't even see the tracks. But, I anchored up on some firm ground not far away, hooked a big-assed chain to it, and with the help of another operator on the high- lift using the bucket, we pulled it out. Wasn't easy..and it grunted terribly, but it did it. When I worked there, we had the 175C, 3-125E's (International, all with 4 in 1 buckets - HANDY). and 4 Ford Backhoes, a number of trucks, blasting equipment, etc. Fella sold the business the year I left, new guy ran it into the ground in less than 2 years and it folded. The old fella I worked for was killed in a traffic accident a couple of years ago, along with his wife. Funny kinda guy. Mid-60's, could get on your ass with the best, but he was honest, and I respected him. If he told you something, you could bank on it. He had 2 cups of coffee first thing of a morning, then switched to Papst Blue Ribbon, kept under a sweater in his truck seat. He drank it luke-warm. Parked his truck about 15' from the office, with a dumpster between his truck and the office door. He would go out to the truck, get a beer, start walking back to the office, down it in two swallows, and toss the can in the dumpster before he got to the office door.