All Mand 220 TLB trial

daTeacha · Oct 29, 2007

I spent Saturday using an All Mand 220 TLB at my SIL's place. I've never heard of the brand, but it was a very stable, strong, and solid little machine.

Maybe it was due to the flatness of the ground compared to my place, but I never felt in any danger of tipping the little beastie over. The hydraulics were very strong, but I missed having my grapple. The backhoe was touchy to use, but pretty strong when you got the hang of it, picking the front end up before the relief valve kicked in, even with 210 lb. in the bucket.

The engine was gas, tranny a one range hydro. The rental shop guy said not to worry about breaking anything since it would either blow off the relief valve or stall the engine before anything broke. With that disclaimer, we worked the thing pretty hard -- digging stumps out, hauling chewed up stumps and brush, leveling ground, hauling trees to plant, etc. The most impressive feat was managing to dig out a piece of granite that, sitting on the surface, is about 4 1/2 feet long, 3 feet or more high and wide. I estimate this rock at several hundred pounds more than the 1100 or so pound granite rocks that my DX29 will just barely pick up. The All Mand was straining mightily, but we managed to dig the thing loose from being more or less completely buried, then, making a ramp in the dirt, roll it out of the hole using the BH. The BH was able to lift the rock by curling the bucket under it while flexing the upper joint and lifting the lower section simultaneously. This caused the front of the machine to lift up, but then it would walk very slowly forward, even with the front wheels in the air, until we got the rock out of the hole. It was way too big for the front bucket, but the FEL would roll or slide it without too much complaint. We managed to locate and orient a very impressively large rock with a ridiculously small looking machine.

If anyone is looking for a small TLB, find an All Mand dealer and check out what they have to offer.

MarkV · Nov 2, 2007

Good review teach. I haven’t used one of the newer models but the older one worked pretty much like your experience. Where they fall short in my opinion is no 3pt option and gas motor.

MarkV

whodat90 · Nov 2, 2007

Was the machine 4WD, and was it muddy out? My contractors rented one to dig the foundation of my garage/barn, and it was 2WD and it was muddy out. I ended up having them do the excavating with the hoe and I moved all the spoils with my little kubota because they couldn't go anywhere with any weight in the bucket.

MessickFarmEqu · Nov 2, 2007

daTeacha said:
If anyone is looking for a small TLB, find an All Mand dealer and check out what they have to offer.

Almond only sells factory direct, and mostly to rental yards. In my slightly slanted opinion, their machine are a horrible value for the average consumer. Your spending as much $$ as a Kubota B26 and its a much less refined tractor. Rental yards do like them because they are very simple, very rugged machines with few frills for rentel customers to break. Thats typicaly the only place you'll see them. Kinda like Terrimite.

bandit67 · Nov 2, 2007

MessickFarmEqu said:
Almond only sells factory direct, and mostly to rental yards. In my slightly slanted opinion, their machine are a horrible value for the average consumer. Your spending as much $$ as a Kubota B26 and its a much less refined tractor. Rental yards do like them because they are very simple, very rugged machines with few frills for rentel customers to break. Thats typicaly the only place you'll see them. Kinda like Terrimite.

I agree with Neil.

Very strong backhoe, very unrefined machine overall, expensive for a very bare bones 4x4 diesel version compared to Kubota, JD, NH, etc. It's a decent machine for a rental, but it seemed too unrefined for the average consumer with the quality of the competition available.

Most of the local rental yards here have dumped the Allmands because of reliability issues and difficulty in getting parts. However, I wonder how reliable anything smaller than an L35 sized machine would be at a rental yard with the abuse rental customers can dish out. Some local rental yards even got rid of their JD110's because of abuse from customers, and went strictly with the full size TLB's.

daTeacha · Nov 5, 2007

It was wet and rained while we were working. The tractor had 4wd, permanently engaged. Tires were R4 style. The thing was pretty primitive regarding ergonomics and such, but it worked hard.

With the rental guy saying we couldn't hurt it, we were far from babying it at any time. The hydraulic relief valve spent a lot of time screaming and the engine stalled a couple of times under the loads we put on it, but like the guy said, it either died or simply refused to do anything that would harm it. The stability was what impressed me the most, but again, I was on flat ground and down low as opposed to being on my 15 degree slopes on a DX29. The only stability issues were the result of the BH pulling the front end up in the air or when the stabilizers sunk in the goo, which was fairly frequently, even with wooden pads under them.

whodat90 · Nov 5, 2007

Traction issues aside, I will say that I was impressed with it's power and noise level. You had to be within a coupla-ten feet to hear it running, and it never seemed all that bothered with digging in the clay-shale my property is made of.