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What do you consider a worthless piece of equipment?

C

chidog

Senior Member
Joined
Jun 21, 2021
Messages
799
Location
kent, wa
Track loaders here.
Yeah they can lift stuff but that is about all they are good for.
One outfit I worked for had one of the older 977's and it could barely move itself, and they wanted us to use is like a dozer.
I've run the Internationals and the Cats, don't care for them at all, maybe for a home owner where speed doesn't matter one would be okay.
 
S

Spud_Monkey

Senior Member
Joined
Sep 15, 2018
Messages
6,533
Location
Your six
Occupation
Decommissioned
Built my driveway with my 977K, busted rocks buried in the ground with it, maintain 6 plus miles of private road to my house, flattened and cleaned up a torn down house with mine, plowed snow, plowed through a hillside and 900' for emergency fire break/ driveway with mine in 12 hours. Lastly moved stuff around the property as needed and pulled vehicles stuck wherever out here, and used it as a scaffold. Seven mph is top speed, we ain't trying to win the Kentucky Derby here, how fast do you want to go, might want to look into not tracked machinery.
Yep it's like a Swiss Army knife for around here.

Water tank 2.jpeg Bottoms up.jpeg Ladder extension.jpeg Axle removed.jpeg
 
C

chidog

Senior Member
Joined
Jun 21, 2021
Messages
799
Location
kent, wa
I guess having non loader pads helps a small amount. Sorry, I'm mostly a dozer person, but can operate many other machines as well. A 977K maybe a way better machine than the ones I have run I don't know.
I have thousands of hours dozer clearing, and never liked trying to do that with a loader, but then again the ones I ran had loader pads. One thing about the cats I just hated is the bucket control being azz back wards.
Pull to dump? Stupid
 
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suladas

Senior Member
Joined
Jun 30, 2016
Messages
1,731
Location
Canada
Years ago I was digging a basement addition for a guy and he said he would move the dirt with his old track loader, never really see them around I thought it would be so slow. It is slow, but it sure can move some dirt in a hurry. They will out push or dig any CTL any day without a sweat. I think their purposes on construction sites are limited, but for a farmer? They could be super handy.
 
skyking1

skyking1

Senior Member
Joined
Nov 3, 2020
Messages
7,673
Location
washington
Nod to the pimpless can above.
I'm not fond of fixed angle dozers that are one way or the other.
 
petepilot

petepilot

Senior Member
Joined
Jul 7, 2018
Messages
2,168
Location
central shenandoah valley va,
chidog said:
I guess having non loader pads helps a small amount. Sorry, I'm mostly a dozer person, but can operate many other machines as well. A 977K maybe a way better machine than the ones I have run I don't know.
I have thousands of hours dozer clearing, and never liked trying to do that with a loader, but then again the ones I ran had loader pads. One thing about the cats I just hated is the bucket control being azz back wards.
Pull to dump? Stupid
Click to expand...
best grading system ever invented pull both levers to lift and roll bucket at same time to spread
 
digger242j

digger242j

Administrator
Joined
Oct 31, 2003
Messages
6,644
Location
Southwestern PA
Occupation
Self employed excavator
chidog said:
Track loaders here.
Yeah they can lift stuff but that is about all they are good for.
Click to expand...

CM1995 said:
If I only had one piece of equipment to make a living with it would be a rear engine, hydrostat Cat track loader. Absolutely love my '04 953C.
Click to expand...

Well, I'm a little disappointed, CM. I had no doubt which side of that question you'd come down on, but I honestly expected your reply to be more along the lines of, "Blasphemy!!:mad:"

:)


I had to give the question a little thought, but I'd have to say that a backhoe attachment on the front of a skid steer was more trouble than it was worth, even 30 years ago when I last had the misfortune of being put on one.
 
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Welder Dave

Senior Member
Joined
Oct 11, 2014
Messages
12,548
Location
Canada
Skid steer rototiller. Maybe with a high flow machine would be better but still don't think comes close to a PTO rototiller in terms of efficiency.
Also a certain brand of hyd. breaker but the dealer renting it was even worse. Don't know what brand but would only work for literally 5 minutes until the oil was at operating temp. and then completely quit. You'd have to wait over 1/2 an hour for it to work for another 5 minutes if you were lucky. Took it back to the dealer and they were aware of the problem! They gave me another brand and it worked flawlessly.
 
Steve Frazier

Steve Frazier

Founder
Staff member
Joined
Oct 30, 2003
Messages
6,609
Location
LaGrangeville, N.Y.
I worked a lot of construction in my early years and around here I only saw track loaders in landfills, it was very rural and spacious here then. BUT...... I worked down in cramped Westchester County and saw how well a track loader works in confined areas. The company was leveling a very small lot for a structure and when I first pulled up there was barely enough room for the machine and my ten wheel dump to pull in. He went to work on the Cat track loader and had me loaded lickety split and it wasn't long before there was plenty of room on the same lot. In their element they can't be beat!
 
Tyler d4c

Tyler d4c

Senior Member
Joined
Mar 2, 2016
Messages
1,830
Location
Salix Pa
Backhoe attachments on any thing be it a skid loader wheel loader dozer tractor track loader. A square baler is also a very useless item that is literally way too much work. A trencher is about useless in our area 9 out of ten times it's too rocky to use. I realize in other places it would be great tho
 
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Welder Dave

Senior Member
Joined
Oct 11, 2014
Messages
12,548
Location
Canada
Standard backhoes are OK if you can move the machine in the backhoe seat. Skid steer backhoes either have a seperate seat or you sit in them and can't see what you're doing. A former neighbor made levers to go to the steering levers from the backhoe seat to make the backhoe much more useful.
 
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