What's your hoe doing?

Hi All, I saw a thread or two in other areas that are a showcase of the projects you have but I hadn't seen one in this section... I'm curious to know both what projects you've done, and what get's your BHL's use most.

I'll post a few pictures below and I'll have to update some as well. My biggest use is knocking over dead trees and dragging them back to a pile or two and digging holes in the pond to build the big dirt pile seen in one of the pictures or creek to fill in holes from removed stumps. It's really incredible how much labor can be saved with these machines. 50-100 foot trees are no match and work that would take days by hand is done in a couple hours. Then filling in holes or ruts, again, would be backbreaking, but is make fun by the ol' Backhoe Loader.

I think the order goes (though it's probably pretty apparent):

Pond digging for a hill I built for the Fiance in a picture to come;

Stump removal. That stump was really in there and is bigger than it looks. I had to dig about 6 feet deep and maybe 15 feet wide to get it out;

Bridge work over the creek, if you haven't tried it leave some bags of Quikrete or whatever just laying around outside for a bit and they turn into pretty decent giant bricks, these were leftover from the previous owner of the house:

Digging out some of the creek to fill in for that big stump.

What's yours doing?

Part 2.

Tree dragging and The Hill, which is now covered in river rocks and plants! That gray spot is my lady, and she doesn't really look like that.

Nice tank hammertime!

Here's the hill now! The plan was to make the hill tall enough to block the view of the neighbors across the way (behind where this picture is taken from) but it was determined that would make the hill probably 10-15 feet tall and to be able to either cut grass on it, or landscape it, it'd needed to be probably 50 feet wide, and that wasn't conducive to our plans. Instead, she started planting stuff on it to hopefully grow and give us the same effect and it's about 5-6 feet tall and 20-25 feet wide.

Who is underneath it ??

Ha! I didn't think fast enough, not even a past dog!

Making dinner

Bls repair said:

Making dinner

Click to expand...

There we go! That's the response I've been waiting for!

Renting a backhoe for jobs is okay... if you have a major project. But having the hoe just waiting to help out on the farm is priceless. Today, while setting a post, I found a bunch of roots in the way. The choice was digging, hacking & cussing. A better choice was fire up the hoe and tear out the offending roots, then dig the post hole. A 5 minute hoe job that saved hours of hard struggle. Only possible since the machine was already at hand.

Bls repair said:

Making dinner

Click to expand...

beat me to it! LOL

My hoes don't have wheels like yours...

But they does a handy job of grading and spreading

The base was pretty hard clay with some soft areas mixed it.

The 36 came in handy for trimming the fine points you just can't get with the cx60( aka jiggles)

The CX60 is a bit big for starting in a corner, good thing it has a rear camera

This is how far a couple loads of 1/4 went.

aighead said:

Hi All, I saw a thread or two in other areas that are a showcase of the projects you have but I hadn't seen one in this section... I'm curious to know both what projects you've done, and what get's your BHL's use most.
What's yours doing?

Click to expand...

Judging by the sheer number of threads in this section of HEF, most of them are broken down....!!

Mine is new to me and I got it for a great price but it is sitting waiting on me to do all the PM and repairs. I am not restoring it but repacking all the cylinders, fixing the brakes, replacing some fogged or cracked windows and making everything work.

I am going to build a house and need to clear land. I rather do all the work on it now rather than wait for things to fail while I am trying to use it.

Ronsii said:

My hoes don't have wheels like yours...

But they does a handy job of grading and spreading

The base was pretty hard clay with some soft areas mixed it.
View attachment 202029
The 36 came in handy for trimming the fine points you just can't get with the cx60( aka jiggles)
View attachment 202028
The CX60 is a bit big for starting in a corner, good thing it has a rear camera
View attachment 202027
This is how far a couple loads of 1/4 went.
View attachment 202026

Click to expand...

Nice work. I have a CX60 on rent while my Taki gets some new pins. Not a bad machine. More powerful than I was anticipating, good lifting capacity. I have been using to pull concrete so no a lot of fine work, but the more time I spend in it, the more I like it. Other than the odd location of the dozer blade lever and the two speed switch being on monitor, that seems odd to me for some reason.

Yeh, I asked about them programing the speed to one of the buttons on the sticks and the dealer said probably could... but nothing ever came of it...

And yes the blade lever back so far gives me pains after a several hours of precision grading as for lifting caps... it's tippy as heck IMHO and ours does have the added counterweight. It does seem fairly powerful but at the same time limited... if you know what I mean... seams like there is more power there but it won't let you have it???

And I hear another undercarriage roller or two going out they already changed out a few plus one of the top ones that were going out before the 300 hour mark!!! it now has over 800 hours.

I nick named it jitters/jiggles cause it doesn't take much if you're trying to fine grade or for that matter any kind of fine movement and off it goes!!! I don't think I've ever used a machine that had this much wiggle/wobble in the rotec before... almost like they left the main bolt that holds the house down loose by a quarter inch!!!

Then on friday doing that grading not even working it hard I got this error popping up and dinging at me:

outside air temps were around 65F with a bit of drizzle, you could smell something to do with the exhaust about 5 minutes before this thing lit up so I gave it a break and left it on 30% idle for 5 minutes and still errored so I let it sit another 10 minutes at min. idle then killed it cause it was still lit up.

And like all the previous errors that pop up if you go into the menus to find out any more there is never anything listed... it's all A OK!!!

Overall it's an ok machine for demo and moving stuff but I wouldn't have dropped 80k on it...

hosspuller said:

Renting a backhoe for jobs is okay... if you have a major project. But having the hoe just waiting to help out on the farm is priceless.

Click to expand...

This is what took me from appreciating what one of these machines can do to spending more than I did on a new car for one. I still struggle when I think of spending 25k on a backhoe that gets used only occasionally but then I really, really like how easy it makes all kinds of jobs around the house and yard. Got a 100 foot tall tree that needs to come down and be cleaned up? Backhoe! An old stump getting in the way? Backhoe! Need to plow some snow? Backhoe! Want to make a giant pile of dirt somewhere? You guessed it, backhoe! Projects that I would have never started or considered are now possible, often times easy, and fun!

I didn't have much picture taking time today, until I blew a dump cylinder hose. $35 later and we were back in business

Naturally, I had to remove 2 hoses to get to the bad hose on the loader spool. Douched my hoe in oil pretty good too. I was stripping top soil and clay off a strip of sand I needed for around my barn when i got shut down. I'll try to remember to post more pics tomorrow

LOL I thought the first picture was going to say 'Digging in the rain' but I see it wasn't rain

Bls repair said:

Making dinner

Click to expand...

Reminded me of something I said once. We (wife & I) were building a rock wall. Rocks were roughly six feet long, two feet deep and 12-18 inches tall. Needed the backhoe to move/lift, adjust.

Also needed someone with some 'oomph' to try to guide the rocks (boulders).... so I grabbed the shovel and was doing the 'oomph' work, wife was manning the controls.

I told someone about this situation later on (my wife is NOT the kind of gal you'd find on construction equipment).... none the less...somewhere in my story, I slid the line out that because she did such a good job at it, she was the best hoe'er around......

Coytee said:

hoe'er

Click to expand...

I'm curious to know how you pronounce that? Ha!