Posted by David Sherman on Monday, April 26, 2004 at 9:39PM :
In Reply to: o/t backhoe quest. posted by jim in n.y. on Monday, April 26, 2004 at 8:25PM :
Stay away from a John Deere 2010 diesel! That's my backhoe and I'll admit that it was a bit tired when I got it, but the compression was so bad that it barely made it over the hill to my place (2 miles of 14% grade) under its own power, with much stalling, refilling of the radiator, and use of ether. It finally spun a rod bearing just as it got to my place. The big problem is it has an odd-ball JD engine, which knowledgeable people have told me was known to be a dog. Nothing else will drop in and the only overhaul parts available are from JD. I paid almost $2000 for liner kit ($600), pistons, rings, and rod & main bearings. I must have called a dozen good old farm equipment yards looking for a used engine and nobody had one. I still haven't fired it up, but I sure hope it runs good and long at this point. Part of the trouble is it's a 2010 farm tractor, minus the PTO gears, and with a backhoe loader frame built around it. That means that pulling the engine requires removing the loader bucket along with separating the front and rear of the tractor. Because that was so hard to do, I rebuilt it in-frame using a portable crankshaft grinder to clean up the rod bearings. Of course that meant that I couldn't replace the front and rear seals, the clutch, or the upper half of the rear main (thrust) bearing, all of which could stand to be done.
As far as prices go, unless you're exceptionally lucky, I don't think you'll get a machine that's ready to go to work for less than 10 grand. Case 580s are everywhere, but anything for less than $15K has problems. I can't say just what I paid for mine, because I got a 7U D4 cat, a 65 D200, a 52 M37, a heavy equipment trailer, a travel trailer, an old Corinth circle sawmill, and a nice edger as part of the deal. I still haven't figured out if it was a good deal or not. The cat's the only thing I've really used, but I've used it a lot. I'm sure that if the backhoe works, I'll never know how I lived without it either.
The only way I think you can get a backhoe for $7K is if you find a broke-down one, and you know exactly what's wrong with it and what it will take to fix it before you buy it. Of course, I'm assuming you want a full-size machine. Whatever you get, please learn from my hard lesson and get something with a common engine.
There's a forum at ytmag.com where you could probably get a lot better advice.
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