considering ck25

[coasterez]

Thanks to all for the warm welcomes.


Played (...er... worked) a bit more this morning trying to learn to use the backhoe. Dug up a nice stump with a five foot root tap. Everything's great so far. Foot throttle real sticky and tough. But, bought some lithium grease to put on it tomorrow. Almost lost the spring from one of the ROPS pins - poing!. I think I'll do the silicon-attach trick I read about on here.

 

[KiotiJohn]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( Dug up a nice stump with a five foot root tap. )</font>
I don't know how much experience you have with a backhoe, but you may want to consider some points:
Let your bucket do the major digging work, not the boom. In other words, let the bucket curl into hard, undug material before you pull the bucket back toward you. Pulling the bucket back through undug soil puts a lot of stress on your stabilizers, and they have been known to break because of it.

This conversation came up the other day out at my dealer's, where they have had to weld a few stabilizers back together because of people not breaking up the ground before dragging back toward the tractor. Best to keep your boom and dipper at angles, let the bucket curl dig in and loosen the dirt, filling the bucket, then lift up and swing it to the drop spot.

Another thing you may want to consider not doing, lifting the tires off the ground. You get much more stability with the rear tires touching the ground. These smaller backhoes are not designed to take the stresses of lifting the tractor off the ground for digging. The stabilizers are there to keep you from pulling the rear of the tractor down, and the tires will help in that effort. You can avoid future problems by following these tips.

Forgive me if you already know these things, but I wanted to bring this up for those who may not know the problems that can occur from the improper use of the backhoe.

John

 

[coasterez]

Thanks for the heads up on the backhoe. I had already discovered that the power is in the bucket. I am careful to stay witin the machines limitation. I will try to heed your advice an not damage the machine.