Vicsec VC13 mini-excavator

[WI-citizen]

This past weekend, I decided to buy a mini-excavator via our local heavy equipment auction house. I had been watching their site for several months and noticed that these were selling for a reasonable price. I wanted to share my journey here, because I could not find any recent threads anywhere on the internet describing the journey of purchasing and upgrading one of these machines. There is one rather epic thread here on the topic, describing the ordeal of importing and upgrading one of these machines. Lots of useful information there, but it's slightly dated and unwieldy (148 pages as of this writing!). Notably, it is no longer strictly necessary to go through the hassle of importing one of these machines to get the best price; several manufacturers now routinely sell their excess inventory through auction houses.

I bought a new Vicsec VC13 unit with "Canopy, Auxiliary Hydraulics, 16" Bucket w/ Teeth, 7" Multi Position Manual Thumb, 37" Backfill Blade, Work Lights, Rubber Tracks". The faceplate on the machine indicates that it was built just last month. I also won a set of nine Vicsec attachments that fit it: a quick connect, rake, ripper, grapple, 20cm digging bucket, 50cm and 80cm clean-out buckets, and an auger with 20cm and 30cm rods. The set came with hoses for the auger and three sets of pins for using the quick connect. With buyer's premiums and taxes, the total price was around $4625, which is far less than these units sell for in other contexts. I probably could have held out and got everything for less, but I am a little worried that we might see a slew of new tariffs in the coming months.

I brought the machine home in my dump trailer yesterday, and I spent some time today going through the machine and fixing some issues:

1. The throttle cable was not secured at the engine, so it slipped through until the engine was "stuck" in idle. After re-adjusting and tightening it, I found the throttle lever only travels about 1/3 of the way before the engine hits the upper limit. Amusing, but not a real issue. If anything, this will keep me from hitting the lever with my elbow.
2. Hour meter was not connected. It runs continuously when the battery is connected.
3. All of the cylinders were fitted with needle grease fittings. I immediately replaced them with standard zerk fittings (8mm). None of the pins were greased. When I attached the quick connect, I used a brass brush to clean out the bushings, as they were filled with some rust and paint chips. Some of the fittings were a challenge to reach with my grease gun, notably the boom pin and the blade pins; however, everything has now been lubricated.
4. The engine came with a full tank of gas and good looking engine oil, and the hydraulic fluid was full and looked clean. I suspect these were filled by the auction yard.
5. The welding on the attachments all looks like it was done by hand. That's surprising to me, given the ingress of robots into Chinese manufacturing.
6. The painting was not well-masked. For example, the manual thumb cannot be pinned into working position, because paint inside the hole prevents the pin from being inserted.

I still spent a lot of time researching the shortcomings with these smaller machines, so none of these issues really surprised me. Moreover, I am planning to make the following upgrades to this machine (in approximate order of priority):

1. Hydraulic thumb (~$200): I have become accustom to this feature on my bigger excavator.
2. Cushion valve (~$125+): An essential upgrade that prevents problems with the swing motor. Once I get the parts, I will have a local shop fabricate a new pair of hoses that fit between the valve and motor.
3. Electric fan (2 for $25): Active cooling should help prevent boiling the gas tank this summer.
4. Hydraulic cooler and filter: These should extend the longevity of both the hydraulic components and fluid.
5. 3-way auxiliary hydraulic diverter valves: These will allow mounting and using the auger (and other powered attachments) without needing to disconnect the thumb hydraulics.
6. Extra attachment pins: I need three more sets of pins to avoid the need to move them around between attachments.
7. Battery charging: At the very least, I'll install a trickle charger, but I want to find a way to attach my shop charger or jumpers without needing to remove the floor panel.
8. Cone splitter attachment: I imagine using one to split both firewood and stumps. Low priority, but they come up at auction from time to time.

As the prices indicate, I already have ordered parts for the first few items on this list, but I am still shopping around for the others. I have found a suitable cooler and diverters from a couple different mini excavator part suppliers, but they currently have those parts listed as out-of-stock. I have been unable to find second sources domestically, but I am continuing to research my options. Suggestions would be welcome. All in, I expect that I will spend another grand on these modifications (excluding the splitter).

I have a fair bit of experience operating and maintaining heavier equipment than this machine, so I am capable and comfortable making repairs and modifications myself. If you are similarly equipped and experienced, these machines are a great value. If you do not have the necessary tools or skills, then I imagine these machines would quickly become a nightmarish money pit. I suppose the jury is still out on that.

The engine runs fine, and the controls are smoother than I expected. After one day, I feel good about my purchase. It fills a gap in my equipment portfolio and will save me countless hours of manual labor. Later this week, I will put it to work on a number of tasks around the farm for which it is uniquely suited, and I will have the wife take some pictures to post for your entertainment. Come Spring, she's looking forward to using this machine in her raised beds and hoop houses, where our other equipment dares not go.

And so the saga begins....

Sorta off topic but does this model come with splined shaft drive motors? You're going through with a fine-toothed comb and might have noticed. I noticed this on Miva labeled machines and the Vicsec look a lot like them. This was the reason I stopped bidding up the price on a Miva.

 

[zwelch]

I managed to take a few photos of my machine today before/after installing its new hydraulic thumb. My Sany and Komatsu are in the background of the first. The last shows how I’m keeping it dry when not in use, until I can clear out some space in my garage (or I finish working on it and drive it down to the barn). The tarp works fine for now, but I will be much happier when it is parked under shelter.

 

[etpm]

A bigger or better machine would have been beyond my current cash-only budget

It's a good thing to stay within your cash only budget, especially with the way things are today.
Eric

 

[zwelch]

As my last post indicated, the new hydraulic thumb arrived today, so I took some time to get that installed. It would have been a quick job, but there were no grease fittings in the cylinder rod eye and the thumb pivot points. Consequently, I spent a little time drilling and tapping ports for new zerk fittings. I also replaced the stock needle zerk with a normal zerk.

After I got everything mounted and plumbed on the machine, the new thumb worked perfectly… well, almost. While testing it, I noticed that the pivot pin rotated along with the thumb, so the new pivot point grease fittings are inadequate/ineffective. I will probably just go ahead and install one on the stick mount point where the pin does rotate, but I feel a little silly for failing to predict this outcome.

 

[zwelch]

My thread is long, but it IS searchable and I do get notified if anyone adds to it.

Your thread has grown to contain dozens of intertwined topics. While I have spent the last week working to read through it from beginning to end, I am still not done making my way through all of the posts there. There are so many people chiming in and posts almost constantly jump between topics; it takes significant mental effort to keep track of everything that's being discussed. That said, more power to you for having started what must be one of the most epic threads in the excavator section (if not on the entire site). Your contributions have been legion, and your thread has precipitated an incredible amount of useful information from the community about these machines.

This new thread aims to keep a record of my personal journey. I intend to document all of the upgrades, improvements, and repairs that I make to my machine. New threads are free, so I did not want to add my content to your pile and watch my posts get lost in the shuffle. Nevertheless, I do plan to chime in with relevant follow-up questions there (if they remained unanswered when I finally get to its end).

In the US, hundreds of these 1-2T minis are sold every year thru live auction sites. Given the low sales prices (under $4K net cost, incl fees and sales taxes), I gotta wonder if many are imported directly by individual buyers or purchased directly from the few US direct sellers who have US inventory.

The auctions seem to be dumping grounds for full container loads, shipped from a factory or reseller in China. Names are changing often. The name, VICSEC is less than a year old, as I recall, and may be gone soon. The last monthly auction here in NorCal featured units with names, Aboss, TPM, and BTTL. Just a few using the older name, AGT (AgroTK).

The name didn't matter much to me, because the low end models are nearly all the same. That said, Vicsec has a US web presence at usavicsec.com (registered in March 2023). Amusingly, I was never able to find that site while doing my initial research about their machines; I only know about it because they included it on the machine nameplate. According to their website, it looks like they have a Washington state office, so I suspect they are importing container loads for US distribution.

My optimistic hypothesis would be that they have a regular supply of containers coming across the pond, full of machines and attachments that they try to move through wholesale/retail channels, and any inventory that does not move through those channels gets sent to auction. The local auction listed the machines as "manufacturer consignment", and my machine's nameplate indicates that it was manufactured or assembled in November 2024.

On the other end of the spectrum, my cynical hypothesis would relate to the fact that these are manufactured at high volume with heavy subsidies from their state/regional government, and China has a reputation for intentionally dumping products in our market at prices that are well under cost. There's no way domestic manufacturing capacity would even try to produce anything remotely equivalent at these prices, achieving their nationalistic goal of preventing us from being able to compete in this sector.

But this is not the place to dive deep into that particular discussion.

I now have access to Facebook groups, but having back-and-force discussions that include photos is clumsy at best.

I don't use Facebook and never will. It makes me a little sad to know there is good information that is forever locked up in their walled garden. But not sad enough to consider joining.

 

[zwelch]

Sorta off topic but does this model come with splined shaft drive motors? You're going through with a fine-toothed comb and might have noticed. I noticed this on Miva labeled machines and the Vicsec look a lot like them. This was the reason I stopped bidding up the price on a Miva.

I posted a picture of one of the tracks. I can't see the drive shafts directly, but perhaps the picture is enough to infer? Otherwise, I am sure to throw or replace a track eventually, and I'll take a better look when that time comes.

 

[WI-citizen]

I posted a picture of one of the tracks. I can't see the drive shafts directly, but perhaps the picture is enough to infer? Otherwise, I am sure to throw or replace a track eventually, and I'll take a better look when that time comes.

I haven't seen one taken apart yet either.

 

[Carl_NH]

Thanks for the pics - my machine had a similar thumb and we have a lot of rocks and boulders and the tines were flexing too much for my liking so added two pieces of 3/8" x 3" steel braces between the tines - but still allow for clearing the boom and mating to the bucket properly.

 

[John White]

Where did you get your cooling fans at? At that price of $25? I mat also need one.

 

[dfkrug]

The name didn't matter much to me, because the low end models are nearly all the same. That said, Vicsec has a US web presence at usavicsec.com (registered in March 2023). Amusingly, I was never able to find that site while doing my initial research about their machines; I only know about it because they included it on the machine nameplate. According to their website, it looks like they have a Washington state office, so I suspect they are importing container loads for US distribution.

Yeah, that website still does not come up using a search engine (I use Brave Search). And, when I go to it directly, it is very slow-loading.