I'm wanting to get a trailer heavy enough to pull a Backhoe. Right now I
need to use if for moving my household items, forklift, and machinery. I
have an old 1/2 ton truck, 4WD, manual transmission, thought it might be
enough to get me moved, I'm only moving 4 to 5 miles away. In the future I
plan to sell my truck and get a 3/4 ton or 1 ton, whatever it takes to be
able to pull a backhoe. The longest pull of the backhoe will probably be to
get it home from wherever I buy it. The other use of the truck/trailer
would be to go to sales and load machinery, drive the forklift on the
trailer and head home. Plus I thought I might be able to get some odd jobs
moving machinery for others.
Anyway, how much does something like a Case 580 weight?
Would I need a gooseneck trailer or ?
What size of truck would be the smallest recommended for pulling the trailer
& backhoe around locally (
Hi, Roger.
Folks around here generally just drive their backhoe from job to job if
they dont need a dump truck for the task at hand, else they trailer it
behind their dump truck on a 2 axle trailer.
For a five mile move, why not just use your pickup truck and move the little
stuff???
Maybe rent a trailer or u-haul van for the bigger stuff........
Why worry about possibly moving a backhoe when you dont even own one yet ???
Hell, have the previous owner arrange delivery, or arrange it yourself as a
one-shot deal--
And I would suggest you dont try and contract out backhoe work till you have
learned all the ropes, and have servicable and reliable equipment to
accompish said work with--to do otherwise is just asking for troubles.
Anyone severed a fiber-optic cable recently ???
A quick search for "Case 580" shows it to weigh in the neighborhood of 16,000
lbs.
In my experience, my last truck, a 1/2 ton Chevy with 350, was not too
comfortable pulling a Bobcat (4800lbs) on my 16' dual axle trailer. The
trailer complained a bit too. This is one of the cheaper trailers, fine for a
load of trash, lumber, even a small Kubota tractor or smaller car.
That backhoe would be far too much for a 1/2 ton truck. I currently have an
F-250 and would only consider pulling something that heavy with a gooseneck
trailer. A bumper pull trailer would place too much on the back wheels of the
truck. If you pulled the hoe around much, I'd suggest a dually. And yes, you
definitely want the 7 pin trailer connection, because that means the trailer
will have brakes and you'll need them for a backhoe.
Gary Brady
Austin, TX
If you live where you can't get away with just driving the backhoe around,
road-licensed or not, maybe the backhoe isn't such a great idea. Around
here the only folks that trailer them do it behind 5 yard or larger dump
trucks, really too expensive to own, license and insure if not a full-time
business. Rest of my "friends in low places" just drive them licensed or
not. Ideally you can arrange transport from the buyer and not deal with a
trailer after that.
I upgraded from a 1/2 ton to 3/4 to increase trailering capacity and pretty
much regret it, in hindsight there's nothing the 1/2 couldn't have done and
the 3/4 (ext-cab 4x4) is too expensive to casually drive. 3/4 ton was
required to rent the trailer I needed but I could have bought a fine trailer
and weight-distributing hitch for the 1/2 ton and come out ahead.
Bob
If you don't know how much truck you need to do the job, don't try it.
A case 580 is a real piece of machinery, and you have no use for the truck
capable of towing it.
You're talking a medium duty truck at best, this ain't pickup-truck class.
My paperwork shows an average Case 580 to be around 13,500 pounds. Add to
that for extend-a-hoe and 4-in1 buckets.
Inexperienced people with backhoes have made life terrible for those that do
it for a living and have insurance. You don't even want to have that on
someone elses property without proper insurance and god forbid you try to dig
anywhere without proper notifications and insurance.
Now for trailering duty a light duty truck and that includes 1 ton trucks
just aren't up to the task of moving around heavy equiptment. People use them
and they usually pull fairly well but stopping power is next to nothing.
Backhoe and trailer will weight around 20,000-22,000 pounds and you want to
pull that with a 7000 pound truck, not a good idea. Electric brakes are not
fool proof and the towing vehicle must be able to stop the trailer and load.
I own a 2554 International (Navistar) truck DTA466 diesel, allison automatic,
air brakes, and a 10' dump bed. This truck has a GVW of 35,500lbs and the
truck itself weights around 15,500 lbs empty(thats after I took off 2500lbs of
plow and spreader equiptment). I routinely pull my 12 ton tag trailer with a
17,500+ lbs John Deere 450C track loader on it. Total weight of trailer and
equiptment comes up to right at 24,000lbs. This trailer has 4 axles under it,
they are short axles with two side by side and front to back, pretty much like
a low-boy is set up. All axles have brakes on them. This is about the minimum
trailer I could use to pull this setup. I used to have a 1965 IH 1600 gas
engine manual shift and it was all it wanted to do to pull the track loader.
Otherwise it had the beefiness to handle the weight of the trailer.
As far as on the side work. I don't know where you are located but here in
illinois there is so little work for the regulars they are doing smaller jobs
for what people were getting the "after dark" operators to do them for. We
have had several industries close down and it would seem every other tom dick
and harry went out and bought a backhoe, bobcat, or small dump truck with their
severance pay. They run over each other trying to do a job for free. I don't
think I will ever own a skid-steer, they are just not enough of a piece of
equiptment to justify the cost of a good-not wore out one. They are ok in tight
places, but then again I can turn circles in just about the same size as some
of the larger skid-steers. They don't do well loading heavy rock or dirt into a
high sided truck, ask anyone who has turned one over. With my track loader I
could dig under, lift a full bucket AND a skid-steer and dump them into your
truck all in one breath. It also does well in lifting heavy metal working
equiptment too.
good luck
tim
"Whatever it takes to pull a full sized backhoe" is something like a 6
yard dumptruck, and a 3 axle eager beaver 25 foot trailer.
To get the backhoe to you when you buy it, spend ~$60/hr on a machinery
mover (like the local tractor dealer) and get it done right. Work on
your own stuff for a while before you think too hard about contracting
out to others, in which case you'll need the dumptruck, and you'll need
to be doing that full-time to make any of it pay. You may find that you
want newer equipment, as well, since what you can put up with in your
own projects may not be the same as what you can put up with (for
downtime, repairs, etc) when working for others.
It's a whole different ballgame. Personally, I found after doing it for
myself for a while that I'd just as soon not do for others. And not
taking it off my own land keeps it cheaper, too, at least where I am.
While I don't own a backhoe, I have experience moving heavy equipment
around. I frame houses for a living and nearly every Tom, Dick and Harry
with a hammer around these parts owns a rough terrain forklift also. I
own a 20,000# Lull. That seems to be about the average weight for these
machines no matter the brand.
Typically if the next jobsite is within a reasonable distance (5 miles
or less) most folks just drive them from job to job. Most of the new
construction job sites are one the fringes of the city, so with a little
planning I can usually avoid difficult traffic. 20,000# forklifts aren't
the most streetable machines (especially the old ones) so if the move
looks more difficult than a short hop I gladly pay a local wrecker to
move the machine. Several area wrecker services will gladly roll a semi
with ramped drop deck and haul the machine to its next destination for
around $150 a trip.
Don't even think about moving that much weight with a 1/2 ton pickup.
Hell, you'd be better off moving the pickup with the backhoe!
Good Luck,
Dick
>Anyway, how much does something like a Case 580 weight?
>Would I need a gooseneck trailer or ?
>What size of truck would be the smallest recommended for pulling the trailer
>& backhoe around locally (
case 580D = 8 tons
if you are only going 5 miles you are better off driving it there
if you want to haul you will need better than 3/4 ton with a gooseneck
trailer
call any lowboy transport truckers or machinery movers for pricing
You have had some real good answers.
In our work they dig up a lot of pipelines so we can weld on them and like
everyone said, they just drive unless it's a real long way.
Having owned a 1 ton diesel Dodge that was used to tow a small backhoe I can
say that the process, IMO, wears out every component on the poor truck even
with good maintenance.
I've also been behind a 1 ton pulling a hoe when the trailer took control
and turned over, dumping a pretty nice tractor out on the street and ruining
a good pickup. This was on a city street at around 40 mph.
I've also seen a couple of undersized trailers that had been used to haul
backhoes. Over rough roads they broke in the frame, almost in half.
Even the smallest old International dump trucks with a 5 speed/2 speed rear
end and a little gas engine make a suitable, if slow, tow vehicle.
JTMcC.
I was thinking about getting a ~15,000lb trailer to be able to haul my
forklift (~9,000lbs) and up to it's rated load (6,000lbs). I wanted this to
be able to go to sales and buy bargain equipment (fixer uppers, etc.).
Since I'm finding out that this is so close to the weight of a Backhoe, and
I'm beginning to see a possible backhoe in my near future, I might be better
off getting a 20,000lb trailer and a truck suitable to pull it.
From the responses, I gather that a 1 ton truck is on the lite side for
pulling a backhoe. What about something like an F600 or F800 truck or dump
truck? There are quite a few dump trucks in the paper but I didn't think
they would be good for towing with a gooseneck trailer. I saw one Backhoe
trailer advertised with a pintle hitch, is that what you would use with a
dump truck?
I guess I'm probably better off getting a lighter trailer for my 1/2 ton
pickup for now. I can use it for the move minus the heaviest equipment. I
can hire out to have a backhoe delivered to me, since it will be quite a
while before I want to move it off my land.
There is a building on the property consisting of poles and a steel roof,
one side is all open, it would work for a temporary equipment shelter.
If you don't need the dump box, you should be able to sell it and the
hydraulics rather quickly and then make it a nice big flatbed. Just
remember that now you are going to cross the magical 26,000 pound
threshold, you will need to convert to a CDL. If you haved a farm and
run the rig under farm rules, you had better not get caught doing work
with it that is not tied directly to your farm as the fines can and
will be most steep....
We're planning on converting an older Volvo or Freightliner into a
motorhome/ trailer toter for my big gooseneck. The only thing the
license people cautioned me about the change is to make sure that I'm
not cross using the truck from personal use into commercial use as you
can rack up massive fines in a single stop that way.
Craig C.
snipped-for-privacy@ev1.net
You can get one of the smaller 2-axle 'city tractors' (Class 5?)
like Coke and 7-Up use for their local delivery routes. New or used.
Yes, that's a better plan - you NEVER want to get into a "tail
wagging the dog" situation, always have a tow vehicle heavy enough
(and with sufficient brakes) for the load intended. Disregard the
manufacturers' load and towing limits at your own peril.
The first time it really gets away from you it'll put you and your
load all over the road, and usually into the ditch.
If you get a 1-ton duallie you could do it in two trips, or have the
equipment trailer loaded by the sellers (or rented) forklift.
-->--
These are very common among the Snow Bird set to pull large 5th wheel
travel trailers as well.
Gunner
"To be civilized is to restrain the ability to commit mayhem.
To be incapable of committing mayhem is not the mark of the civilized,
merely the domesticated." - Trefor Thomas
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