william127

A friend of mine has just sent me this ancient thread, this truck is now mine and no longer a 300tdi… I’ll post some pictures of it now👌👌😂

Dream list👍👍😅

I've run at least 2 vehicles for the last 3 or 4 years, now I have 3. All of them are 4wd but with very different bodies (130 tipper, discovery 2, double cab ranger), all can tow 3.5 ton, all can carry tools or materials, and yes its expensive/a lot of maintenance, but it does make life easier. Especially if I want to do multiple runs with different trailers on the same day. Theres no one vehicle that can do it all, its simply not possible.

Apparently not, but the tines on this scrap one look like new... I'll whizz over it with the nut gun but if it puts up a fight I'll just buy new ones when I've got the need for a digger rake. I'm not the type who spends an hour to salvage 2 quids worth of stuff!

Does this work well? I've just noticed a broken hay rake in the farms scrap skip...

Really good to be back on it, clearing, digging out stumps(and a couple of whole trees!) and ringing up with the digger! As always the customer was amazed by the amount of work done in a day with a little machine.

The warning sticker IMG_20211006_073131_310.webp

Had the thumb stuck on my digger the other day while I did a bit of maintenance on it. I also fitted a bar on the trailer to hold the buckets in place, and stuck on the only warning sticker you should ever need!!! IMG_20211006_073131_310.webp

I have a 2.0 manual wildtrak on lease as my main truck and its not great as a work vehicle in my opinion. It is comfortable, well equipped, and very maneuverable for its size, with great mirrors, camera and parking sensors. The bed is also a good size for a double cab. I don't find it all that good for towing at all though, never feels stable, the gear ratios don't feel right so it feels underpowered even though it has 213hp. Then there are the problems of maneuvering a heavy trailer with a part time 4x4- either smoking the clutch in 2wd high or lurching/skidding if you use low 4wd. I just don't think 2litres is enough engine for this type of vehicle, my Dad has the same truck but a 3.2 and its much better. Its also slightly more economical as its less stressed, and I'd put money on that engine lasting much longer! The back body also feels incredibly flimsy - the sides bow and pop when you lean over to put something in, and I had to buy a plastic top plate to protect the top of the tailgate to stop it bending. The ride is OK, it is a pick up at the end of the day, but the brakes don't feel as good as on my 20 year old discovery! Having said that some of the things I don't like about it are probably the same on most modern pick ups. I also think it would make a brilliant 4x4 car (with a canopy on obviously), I'd have it for that over a saloon or similar any day if that was what I needed. I doubt I'll have another one when it goes back in 3 years, but if I want new and the reliability/warranty that comes with it, there's not many alternatives! Grenadier maybe, or in an ideal world I'd rebuild myself a td5 130 double cab!

I work on my own most days, starting between 7 and 8 normally, 20-30 minutes at 10-10-30ish, 30 minutes between 1 and 2, maybe 10 minutes around 4 if I'm crrying on late. Normally I'll do about 9-10hrs a day, but I'll do whatever works best- Monday i only did about 5 hours, all in the yard, not on site, yesterday, I did 7.30 till 4 putting up a fence, then 4.30 till 6.30 loading up the digger and ringing up logs. Today I was in a workshop 30 minutes away working on the digger from 6- 1, put the digger away, finished a fence, back to the yard for 4, then 3 hours sat comfortably in the big tractor flail mowing a field. You can't beat a bit of Variety!

Finally got to use my big tractor, a bit different to the Dexta👌

Great job, great machines! How do you find the 4 in 1? Is it much good for grabbing stuff? I quite fancy one for tidying tracks and bonfires at my yard/field- being able to bulldoze rather than dig. With the added bonus of being able to pick odds and ends up without a load of soil.

Yeah the hydraulic pump had gone and I was looking at 1200 quid for a new one while I wasn't 100% that was the fault, and then I would have still needed to do the bushes and all the other niggles. I got £3500 for it which seemed pretty good given what I'd paid for it 5 years before, but given how things have gone...... Then we very nearly pushed the button on a new Bobcat, but the long lead times , 2 solid months of work through terraced houses and the headgasket going on my discovery (hence the new ranger) meant we decided not to. The Case was £7700, more than I wanted to pay but compared to my Kubota 6 years ago, given the hours and the way the market is, I'm ok with it.

Well after a year out I'm back in the digger club with a Case Cx15. Its an old 2003 thing but its tight and smooth and only done 1600 hours. I've put a quick hitch on it and I've got an rsl thumb ready to go on it when its back from its current job. Its got a few things on it that seem much better designed than my old kx36-3 kubota, like access to the battery and under the seat has a storage space. It certainly feels pretty sturdy. Luckily the kubota buckets fit straight on so I already have a rake, ripper tooth, muck fork and extra digging buckets, as well as the 3 sturdy buckets it came with. I've taken the main arm ram off to have a new rod on as this one is a bit bent so its rough on the up and down, all the pins and fittings I undid were in great condition.

A mate of mine has a tb215r on just over 500 hours, I've had it on hire a couple of times, its absolutely fantastic. So smooth and powerful(although of course the low hours helping!) He's had hire customers ask what size it is as it digs like a 2.5! if the 217 is the same but a little bigger it must be great 👍

I am always amazed people fall for these scams, if you have any clue about the market for what you're buying theres no way you'd fall for it!! Things at half the price you'd expect them to be, or less! If it was say 10% below you might be able to understand people getting done for a few hundred quid holding deposit, but buying unseen from someone who's clearly not a dealer, come on!! If you want machines/vehicles that aren't in your area youve got to put the miles in, or wait. Or pay the price and buy from a big, known dealer. Its not rocket science.

I had the rsl non hydraulic thumb, very sturdy. I can never decide whether I'd prefer a hydraulic one or not, certainly be better at picking things up but looses a lot of the simplicity benefits

Depends how high your trailer is and how heavy your timbers are really! If you need maximum height and minimum weight of attachment a thumb would be best, but if you have plenty of height/weight to spare a grab would be more efficient. I had a thumb on my kubota kx36-3 and that was not as good a machine as a tb016, I lifted and shifted hundreds of tons of timber with it, including some far far too heavy lumps! I started out using my ripper tooth as my bucket for lifting but I switched to these RSL bolt on teeth on a 9 inch bucket and that was much much better. The other good things about a thumb are the fact that you can always have it with you, and they are so cheap that if you decide to upgrade to a grab you have only spent a couple of hundred quid on something that will come in useful for other jobs anyway!

That does make a 1.5 mini look good value🤷‍♂️ But for whatever reason these these are what they are and we can only make a few quid where we can 😂😂👍

Nice, they're great tools, I bought mine for the simple reason that it was £750 used. Whereas a used Hinowa traked machine was £3000!😂 It's done its fair share with me, now it will either come on jobs or get hired out👌£££

My best mate/close business associate has one of these bought for a song that we slid under a generator. Tows very nicely 👍👍 Whether it's better value than a genuine replacement I couldnt say, depends on your use- if you load your chipper up with cones, arbtrolly, bags of takings etc it could be useful to have a bit more weight capacity?

And if it was only for my use, that's what I'd I've have/that's what I'd have the muck truck 250kg wheeled machine for👌 I'm not going to lie, I'm shamelessly piggybacking off my mates advertising with his 1 ton wheeled dumper! Share hire leads (his brand new 1 ton wheeled, my 1 ton brand new tracked), plus work on our own jobs should mean in 4 years time we both own valuable assets outright 👌👌

I really do know what you mean, but as a landscaper and with my particular network of contacts (plus an owned outright takeuchi micro on the books) it's an easy hire out, making it a zero outlay machine for my jobs👍 and it's a type of machine I've had used and admired since I was 15👌👌 Plus it's my first foot in the door of the big bad world of finance👌👍 And if that's plus vat its 2k over what I paid, just a decent screenshot I found👍

Not quite a mini dumper but I signed on the dotted line for this today. Available for hire Hertfordshire and the surroundings area 👍👍👍

Is anyone running a sherpa mini loader? Is it good or bad, worth having? Especially if you use it for landscaping, moving soil or sand, pallet forking, raking/sweeping, maybe hole boring etc as well as moving timber. I already have diggers, tractors and a loader, so don't need something that can lift loads. I like the idea of something that can get in more gardens, go on the back of my truck or sideways on the trailer and basically act as a labourer for me when I'm working on my own. Something I'm thinking about for in a few months time, depending on what works coming in obviously!