3 Point Backhoe

[jwmorris]

As a follow-up on that, unless you're going to use it a LOT, if you have rentals available, it may be cheaper, in the long run, to rent for a week, use it long and hard and send it back.

If you know you can't get everything done in a week, I have just bought the right piece of equipment, used it for how long it took to complete the job or jobs I needed it for and sold it. Most of the times, I have made money, buy low/sell high.

I will say, a time or two I have found that I like and used something enough, I just kept it.

 

[Jaygyver]

Sub frame mounted backhoes don't really exist on this side of the pond but 3 point backhoes are fairly popular.

However, they typically add 2 extra links attached to a solid point on the tractor to spread more of the forces so it's not all concentrated on the top link mount of the tractor. It also adds stability to the backhoe. Just like this:

View attachment 4506737 View attachment 4506738

The ones sold here also have side-shift which is honestly a must.

View attachment 4506740

That is what's really needed for the 3pt hoes is the double brackets instead of just the top link connection.

If I had a choice I would definitely get the frame mounted one. It would just be so much easier to mount and dismount and one less thing to worry about.
And as also been mentioned I would look into a rental hoe and just plan out exactly what you wanted to do and just spend as much time as you can on it and "geter done". I did that when I built the house but I only had so much time due to work and after the second or third time of renting one the payment on the JD was less then the rental. (Without the backhoe as I had mainly used the rental to get the ones I needed out.)

With my JD-770 it had no problems digging. The backhoe was the one doing all the work. The JD does have the heavier frame than the subcompacts so maybe that was a help. My problem was popping wheelies all the way across the field to do something over there but throwing sumething in my bucket solved most it.
It does take a bit more time to do stuff like digging out stumps but I just used a pulley system on most of them after I dug out just enough roots to yank them out.
Yes, it does take longer for the smaller equipment to do stuff but it is what it is. For ME I wasn't going to use it commercially so I could go the smaller/cheaper/takes longer route. I was also looking at a mini ex but I really couldn't justify it and didn't want another piece of equipment to store and maintain.