Recomendations for used equipment

[Anonymous Poster]

I am a small homebuilder who is frustrated with my excavator. He's great for the big stuff but on the small stuff he leaves me hanging. I want to purchase a used TLB 4 WD, and a small dozer for site work. I need to know what machines to look at and which ones to avoid. Also some tips on buying used. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Jag]

tileman, go with a Kobuta B20/21 or on up to larger L35 and L48. On the dozer do you mean a mini-dozer or a JD or Case sized 450. If you go to a 450 size you will need a larger truck and trailer to handle these than a typical TLB.

 

[cowboydoc]

What kind of site work are you planning on doing? Are you just going to be doing the touch up after the house is built or are you going to be actually preparing the site to be built on? Big difference in the equipment you would need.

 

[Anonymous Poster]

The 450 is the size I'm looking at. There are some used Komatsu's that also fit the bill. I have the truck to pull full sized equipment.

 

[Anonymous Poster]

We will be doing some site excavation. The size I'm looking at is bigger than the Kubota L48. JD 310 or Case 5 series

 

[cowboydoc]

Yep I'd definitely look that big. I wouldn't get the 48 as you will be limited with the backhoe digging out foundations. My one patient has a construction company and that's all they use is komatsu and have been happy. That 450 deere though is hard to beat as well. There are quite a few of them around for a good price.

 

[Anonymous Poster]

Get yourself a used CASE 580. there cheep and if 4x4 can do some of the dozer work your looking to do. I've got a l35 its a nice unit but a far cry from what a 580 can do.

 

[turbotec]

I bought a JD455D crawler loader for excavation work. It is a great size for small to medium sized jobs and compliments my JD4700 tractor. I would recomend a compact utility tractor with a FEL & BH over a construction type TLB, due to the ease of changing attachments, ie rake, rear blade, etc.
You can see the 455D in the photo section- JD4700's Big Brother.

Tony,

 

[PaulinSD]

Back when I did some excavating and railroad contract work, I had a Case 580D, 2 wheel drive and a Case 450 dozer with a 6 way blade. Both were excellent machines, but I'd go with 4x4 on the backhoe if I did it over. Both are big enough to serious work, and small enough to haul on a 9 ton tandem dually backhoe trailer. Prices are reasonable on both.

Paul

 

[Hillbilly]

Komatsu makes a compact dozer that weighs I believe about 8000 pounds. You can get rubber tracks or steel tracks,it has the big dozer features built into a small dozer.It would be great for backfilling around a house IMO,you would not have to worry about damaging the basement walls etc from the weight of a bigger dozer.