Backhoe Recommendation

Welder Dave said:

Either one requires lots of practice to get proficient with. Skid steer is more stable from sideways rollover but you have to be careful going up and down slopes. Need to keep the heavier end on the up side. I wouldn't tackle what you want to do right off the bat. Maybe you'd be better off hiring a contractor to build your jumps for a few thousand dollars. You didn't answer if you own the property?

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Good info. As far as your continued concern about trespassing, it is well received, but unnecessary. I'm a fortunate man, I don't roll that way.....or jump.

It's a liability issue. I have an MX track and a guy that does freestyle wanted to put a jump on the property. Said he'd sign waivers and everything, blah, blah, blah. When he's laying there with a broken neck you can be darn sure those waiver forums aren't going to mean much.

Welder Dave said:

It's a liability issue. I have an MX track and a guy that does freestyle wanted to put a jump on the property. Said he'd sign waivers and everything, blah, blah, blah. When he's laying there with a broken neck you can be darn sure those waiver forums aren't going to mean much.

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I almost offered that it sounded like you've experienced misdealings with either dirtbikers or trespassers in general, but didn't want to assume....

Would I be wrong to assume that you do the dirt work for the MX track?....and use a skid steer/CTL?

There used to be a guy with sand pit that let people ride there. Great place to ride. It was the first place dry enough in the spring. They even had a race there and he did a bunch of work for it. Some idiot in a 4x4 went out there and drove off the bank. I don't think he was killed but was badly injured. I think he tried to sue the owner because he didn't have a no trespassing sign. The dirt bike riders were very respectable but it was shut down after that. The other thing you need to worry about is if someone else rides there and gets hurt on one of the jumps you built. All it takes is 1 guy to cause you a lot of grieve.

I do everything at the track. It's hard to get help to water the track to make it better. I have a Cat 931B crawler loader with a backhoe attachment for digging the clay and sometimes rough shaping if building a big tabletop jump. I use a skid steer for final shaping and finishing and building smaller jumps. I have a dump truck as well but didn't originally. The skid steer is so much faster maneuvering and is much easier to get the desired result. It doesn't look like you have wet ground to deal with so a skid steer should dig it OK. If there's lots of rocks a rubber tire skid steer is probably better than a CTL. Anything with an undercarriage will cost more in maintenance and repairs. You might find a skid steer with a backhoe attachment. It's hard to tell exactly what you're trying to build in your picture.

It my experience, it is hard to do pretty much anything with just one tool. I imagine when you are working on your dirtbikes, you use a 10mm end wrench for a lot, or even most of the work, but eventually you are going to need a phillips screwdriver, allen wrench and so on. Pretty much the same story here. Backhoes are great for a lot of what you describe, but I'd much rather be in my skid steer for finish or precise bucket work. You can't completely get away from roading machines from time to time, but dump trucks and trailers are sure handy. $25-$30K is a pretty decent budget. If you have patience, you could probably get a wheeled skid steer and a backhoe for that price. You would probably be looking at a mid-90's backhoe and an early 2000 skid steer.

I'm a new BHL owner and I struggle, so far, a lot with smoothing out surfaces with the machine. What I've started doing, as I make a wreck of my yard, is back-filling ruts, as possible, then smoothing it out as much as I can with the loader side, then spinning around and doing a finer smooth with the bottom of the hoe bucket. I'm sure there are operators out there that could teach me a million things that I'm doing wrong and they could do it way better. That being said, prepare for a learning curve as far as grading and smoothing goes. My neighbor has a skid steer and though he's pretty experienced with it he can smooth a surface very quickly, in comparison. I don't know how much that has to do with seeing the bucket well or not. I think a 4 in 1 bucket would make my grading/smoothing life a little easier too, to be used like a box blade, but that wasn't in the cards for me.

The learning curve of using the machine effectively (but maybe not to the fullest of its possibilities) isn't too bad. It is possible to get over-confident a bit too quickly, so beware of that.

As someone else mentioned getting stuck may be a real issue, even with 4wd, not having any trees out there to tie to to drag yourself out of trouble may be bad too... Ground that seems hard doesn't seem nearly so after moving 15000 lbs around on it. I'd suggest, if you get a BHL, that you practice, somewhere relatively safe, moving the machine around with the hoe side. I've had my front wheels almost completely buried in mud, to the point where they were stuck in their own channels and wouldn't turn, making it (along with a creek nearby) really challenging to get out of, I'm pretty sure I was also bottomed out on the bottom of the machine. I was left lifting the whole machine with the hoe bucket and shifting sideways, hoping I didn't slide back into the muck. The whole thing felt like it was going to fall over and it took me about an hour to unstick. Once you get good at moving around with the hoe bucket it makes all the leaning and bouncing less terrifying.

JBrady said:

It my experience, it is hard to do pretty much anything with just one tool. I imagine when you are working on your dirtbikes, you use a 10mm end wrench for a lot,

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.....when I can find it.....

or even most of the work, but eventually you are going to need a phillips screwdriver, allen wrench and so on. Pretty much the same story here. Backhoes are great for a lot of what you describe, but I'd much rather be in my skid steer for finish or precise bucket work. You can't completely get away from roading machines from time to time, but dump trucks and trailers are sure handy. $25-$30K is a pretty decent budget. If you have patience, you could probably get a wheeled skid steer and a backhoe for that price. You would probably be looking at a mid-90's backhoe and an early 2000 skid steer.

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This makes sense. I've been mentally going through the current builds....each one is an entire unique set of challenges with regard to construction.....this makes the "right tool for the job" principle resonate.

I may break down and make the days drive to rent one for a week, then rent a skid steer for the next week....and see what happens.

That's a good plan, you can see which machine is more suited for the task. Maybe both.

Definitely rent before you buy. You'll see what you like and what works for you as well as learn on a machine you won't have to fix - and that's worth the rental fee.

aighead, smoothing with a loader can be done in reverse using the float feature. Push the loader control all the way forward until it sticks. tilt the bucket a little until you get the result you're after. You'll get the hang of it. A lot of new to machinery owners don't know about the float feature but it's common on loaders and dozers.

Grady said:

aighead, smoothing with a loader can be done in reverse using the float feature. Push the loader control all the way forward until it sticks. tilt the bucket a little until you get the result you're after. You'll get the hang of it. A lot of new to machinery owners don't know about the float feature but it's common on loaders and dozers.

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I rented a new machine that the float function worked well with... On the one I bought I'm not sure it does but I need to go look at how it's supposed to operate again. I have plenty of practicing to do, just now need to find where, in the yard, I don't mind losing dirt from, to fill the holes.

It turns out that I'm just dumb and wasn't using the float function properly... I figured it out and it works really well. Now my big ruts are fairly manageable. Thanks!

I'll admit that if I could have only one type of machine it would be a backhoe for versatility. For road building and grading, however, you need a dozer with a six way blade. The bucket on a loader will only grade to the same level as the rear wheels. Many times I've tried to re level a spot in a road with the backhoe and had to go get the dozer.

aighead … I found using the heel of the bucket and back dragging works very well for smoothing. Especially, if material is in the bucket. Also doesn't put a strain on the cylinders like using the edge to back drag. (Several farm loaders have damaged cylinders using the edge. Of course a farm loader is not the same as a TLB)