Why don't more people with John Deere backhoe problems find this forum?

JCB is big in England and Europe but pretty universally disliked here in the states. When I worked at that dealer, there were constant problems. Lousy electrical systems, cheap cylinders with thin chrome on the rods and poor sealing systems. We had torque converter issues in that they were color coated for size. The wrong ones caused engine and transmission issues. The only thing good about that line was our factory rep. He actually knew what he was doing and was probably one of the funniest people I had ever met.

Willie B said:

These port reliefs involve a piston triggered by a needle valve held in a seat with a spring. Never figured out why it leaks by occasionally, but I discovered 4 of these valves are identical with different adjustments. I swapped boom, for crowd, and cured the problem.

John Deere hydraulics are markedly better than all others when they work. Finding a mechanic who understands them, even at the dealer is impossible. Should you diagnose a part needed, John Deere won't discuss it. ALL John Deere parts are NLA!

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By the looks of it, Deere went from Gresen to Husco between the D and E series. That's a shame that even as "new" as the D series is you can't even get a relief valve. Parker acquired Gresen - that'd probably make it even harder to source what you need. Maybe they have a cross reference for old Gresen parts that are now Parker.

Sounds like something on the seat of the valve is getting washed in and out if it's sporadic. Have you had the valves apart yet? Could be contaminates in the valve bank. I was surprised at the grit in mine when I took them all apart.

AzIron said:

Before deeres c series they didn't start gaining on case cat threw the industry a curve ball when the hired mr Douglass from case and and he designed the first cat backhoes that were really just a hybrid case when cats b series came out in 18 months they controlled almost 15 percent market share there target was 8 if I remember right

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I always wondered why the early Cat machines had the dual boom cylinders and over the center design just like the Case. I'm sure that was something Mr Douglass brought over too.

boone said:

By the looks of it, Deere went from Gresen to Husco between the D and E series. That's a shame that even as "new" as the D series is you can't even get a relief valve. Parker acquired Gresen - that'd probably make it even harder to source what you need. Maybe they have a cross reference for old Gresen parts that are now Parker.

Sounds like something on the seat of the valve is getting washed in and out if it's sporadic. Have you had the valves apart yet? Could be contaminates in the valve bank. I was surprised at the grit in mine when I took them all apart.



I always wondered why the early Cat machines had the dual boom cylinders and over the center design just like the Case. I'm sure that was something Mr Douglass brought over too.

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Found no debris in the valves, but the hydraulic filter had a bit of the tiny cup shaped porous brass filters in the valves. They've been out three times now, no foreign matter. Any needle valve I've ever seen has a funnel shaped seat to guide the needle into the seat. This is a tiny hole drilled in a flat surface. I think it sometimes doesn't find the hole. Switching valves from one valve section to another seems to have solved the problem.

boone said:

By the looks of it, Deere went from Gresen to Husco between the D and E series. That's a shame that even as "new" as the D series is you can't even get a relief valve. Parker acquired Gresen - that'd probably make it even harder to source what you need. Maybe they have a cross reference for old Gresen parts that are now Parker.

Sounds like something on the seat of the valve is getting washed in and out if it's sporadic. Have you had the valves apart yet? Could be contaminates in the valve bank. I was surprised at the grit in mine when I took them all apart.



I always wondered why the early Cat machines had the dual boom cylinders and over the center design just like the Case. I'm sure that was something Mr Douglass brought over too.

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His brain child he built that changed the industry was cats original 446 first backhoe with a curved boom that's what pioneered the entire line of the b series from cats original series 2s dad had the original prototype 416 b form cat for about 2 weeks to test

Interesting story was they were not going to go with the curved boom on the 416s they were going to be straight sticks and dad told the owner of the cat house that as long as cat was making case backhoes he was not interested so a week later mr. Douglas shows up and asks dad why he wont run the product and after my old man got done telling how much he thought cat backhoes sucked at the time they claimed in 90 days that they would get him a machine that would out run his 310 so about 90 days later they showed up with a 416b that was all labeled up as a 446 dad bought 2 416 a year later and product developed for cat through the d series

Needless to say I have had a front row seat in the backhoe game my entire life

John C. said:

JCB is big in England and Europe but pretty universally disliked here in the states. When I worked at that dealer, there were constant problems. Lousy electrical systems, cheap cylinders with thin chrome on the rods and poor sealing systems. We had torque converter issues in that they were color coated for size. The wrong ones caused engine and transmission issues. The only thing good about that line was our factory rep. He actually knew what he was doing and was probably one of the funniest people I had ever met.

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JCB aka Junk Came from Britain!

To be honest only had to deal with one JCB a skid-steer and it sure did not will any points with me when compared to the old 1845 Case of various ages. The last Case 1845 C was bought in 1989, The JCB 185 was bought in 1999 to replace the Case. Well earlier this year 2020 the Case was sold on Iron Planet and I think now it is some place in Texas, think I recall it brought $7,000 not bad for a 30 year old skid-steer in a quarry. Talked to my old boss and he was not happy about loosing the Case but upper management said it was the oldest so it had to go. Not sure what model they replaced it with just know it was a Cat skid.

Funny thing about Cat building the first curved boom backhoe, that boom is just like the boom on a 1970 Ford 715 on my 4500.

We were building a 10 acre rose greenhouse, plus warehouse and etc. A good friend was the electrical sub on the job, and he showed me the brand new Cat he just bought, and showed me the curved boom. I went and got my 4500 and put it right beside it. His feelings were hurt.

Please excuse my ignorance, but why is a curved boom superior? I've only run straight boom backhoes (yea, all old equipment) so I haven't a clue why I would want that feature

colson04 said:

Please excuse my ignorance, but why is a curved boom superior? I've only run straight boom backhoes (yea, all old equipment) so I haven't a clue why I would want that feature

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The theory is it requires less power to move weight with a curved boom witch requires a smaller ram and therefore can cycle faster as well as it changes the balance point in the machine your able to reach deeper with the dipper closer to the center of machine therefore increasing leverage and balance a curved boom can also get you into a deep whole whit a little less wiggle room on the top

The largest draw back that came from a curved boom was almost double the engineering was required to make it work and cat had a hard time with booms on the c series machines because they thought they had them figured out and they made them lighter so they could be fast there were a lot of boom failures in the first run of c series machines deere came out with there curved boom and made a mono pin for the rams on top compared to cats double pin a few years later cat followed suit and made the curve less aggressive

At the end of the day it comes down to marketing and hey I am different from the other guy point being I have never seen a ford with a curved boom neither have I seen a case with one and when cat got serious about backhoes they were the market leaders so they made themselves different and it worked they became a real competitor in the game and ford backhoes are really no more and if you tell me there a new Holland yea that's true but you hardly see a new Holland backhoe. The thing that I see that keeps case up in the top two spots is the price point you can buy a cheap case backhoe or a more expensive one but it's still cheaper to buy than deere or cat

Just one point about Cat booms. I've never seen the design tweaked to make them anything but cheaper to make. It is the only manufacturer where I have seen boom failures that were all a result of engineering and manufacturing defects and not abuse.

Great information @AzIron . I appreciate the detailed response. I'll keep running my old 310A as long as I can for now. My next equipment purchase will most likely be an excavator (or a telehandler) long before I consider upgrading the old hoe. I've got work available for either machine, but my 310 sits at the house most of the time.

JL Sargent said:

I would have thought we would have more JD backhoe threads on this forum. Are there that many more Case or Ford backhoes out there? Right now only 1 JD thread on the first page of threads. Just interesting to me that JDs don't seem to break down as much.

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I have 2 or 3 threads about my old Deere 310A buried in the archives somewhere. She's been a fairly reliable machine, I just had to iron out a couple kinks early on when I got it. It's not flawless by a long stretch, but she keeps doing what I ask of her.

colson04 said:

Great information @AzIron . I appreciate the detailed response. I'll keep running my old 310A as long as I can for now. My next equipment purchase will most likely be an excavator (or a telehandler) long before I consider upgrading the old hoe. I've got work available for either machine, but my 310 sits at the house most of the time.

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310a are solid machines my dad started his buissness off a straight 310 and added a 310 a a few years later he put a dig more extenda hoe on the 310 the 310 a had the factory digmore cause deere bought out digmore about the middle to the end of the a series if i remember correctly different times man different times

I'd have said the banana boom (I've always called them) I doubt I coined the term, places the dipper like a pendulum over the ditch.
A straight boom loses crowd travel perpendicular to horizontal. Makes it tough to level a ditch without a scalloped bottom.
Banana boom allows it to continue past vertical. It's easier to keep a ditch bottom flat.
I presume it reaches nearer the ground placing the dipper deeper.

Willie B said:

I'd have said the banana boom (I've always called them) I doubt I coined the term, places the dipper like a pendulum over the ditch.
A straight boom loses crowd travel perpendicular to horizontal. Makes it tough to level a ditch without a scalloped bottom.
Banana boom allows it to continue past vertical. It's easier to keep a ditch bottom flat.
I presume it reaches nearer the ground placing the dipper deeper.

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I have heard banana boom my whole life I just didn't want to be the one that said it here

There's pros and cons to each case doesnt have a performance disadvantage to deere or cat a salesman will tell you different but at the end of the day it all these machines are in the same weight class so the real performance capabilities come down to operator and a life long case guy can walk circles around a guy that's a life long cat guy if there both running case it's just how the glove fits you and how you learn to feel the machine

From an operator standpoint of current market machines case feel like a fish bowl with bad balance to me so I dont like them same with cat terribly top heavy to me especially when your jumping things it's also my opinion that deere makes an ok cab not my favorite but the machine balances the best out of the three to me.

I think the op asked a good question originally my follow up to that is now that mini exs and skid steers are taking huge chunks of what was the backhoe market are backhoes going to become more specialized or be phased out all together

AzIron said:

I have heard banana boom my whole life I just didn't want to be the one that said it here

There's pros and cons to each case doesnt have a performance disadvantage to deere or cat a salesman will tell you different but at the end of the day it all these machines are in the same weight class so the real performance capabilities come down to operator and a life long case guy can walk circles around a guy that's a life long cat guy if there both running case it's just how the glove fits you and how you learn to feel the machine

From an operator standpoint of current market machines case feel like a fish bowl with bad balance to me so I dont like them same with cat terribly top heavy to me especially when your jumping things it's also my opinion that deere makes an ok cab not my favorite but the machine balances the best out of the three to me.

I think the op asked a good question originally my follow up to that is now that mini exs and skid steers are taking huge chunks of what was the backhoe market are backhoes going to become more specialized or be phased out all together

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Not for me, they won't.
I point out the customer who builds towers. He doesn't own machines, prefers to rent. The local rental company sends out machines non functional 95% of the time. He travels to Albany NY to rent functional machines. Then he pays an employee to run them.

One project was a 15 foot square hole, 5' deep. Sides & bottom had to be clean enough to pour full of concrete.

He said he wanted to rent equipment, but for some reason he asked me to do it.

In one day, I hauled in my backhoe, unloaded, dug the hole using batter boards, string to dig square, then laser to get the bottom flat. I placed his prefab galvanized tower base in the hole, while his employee fussed with it to be level. I moved all dirt removed from the hole, placing it on a stockpile 100 yards away. I was loaded & heading home before dark in November.

I pointed out he'd have needed a mini excavator for a day to dig, and a track loader to move the spoils. He'd have made four round trips to Albany & paid an employee for two days labor.

I charged $750.

I live 3 miles from another larger piece of land I own. I can be there in 15 minutes with a backhoe.

I went to JD dealer to buy a new air cleaner for my backhoe recently. The salesman standing nearby informed me that the mini Exs were king around there now. He said that only municipalities or goverment customers bought backhoes these days. I argued that a mini could not replace a backhoe. Our small local water dept. did just trade in their only backhoe on a new Cat mini and a new Cat skidsteer so there does seem to be some truth to what's being said.

Would get more Deere backhoe owners finding this forum if MG would wear his dress and high heels.

Backhoe sales have been falling for a long time. They still make sense for a lot operations, but the mini ex/skid steer/CTL has taken a lot of market share that belonged to the backhoe. Bobcat used to market hard the mini ex/skid steer verse the backhoe option.

A John Deere 410 weighs approximately 17000 lbs. It'll lift almost 10,000 with either bucket. When dealing with a big rock, I'd rather have a backhoe, than a mini excavator, and/or a skid steer.

A little excavator will dig circles around a backhoe in good soil, but it takes a bigger excavator to win the race in big stumps or rock.
A skid steer loader is no match for a backhoe/loader. Only the biggest skid loaders have reach to load tall dump trucks, & few have a 1.3 yard bucket. Until very recently, my 29 year old backhoe had original tires. No skid steer can say that.

The gas & electric utility I work for still uses small tlb's for repair work. When we are doing new install work, we use full size backhoes. We really have not ventured into the mini excavator realm as of yet. Bringing both a mini and skid steer to a job site would not sit well with mgmt. When we are doing new install work, road plates are used, and they are very heavy. It would have to be a very large mini to move them around, and I doubt a skid steer could move them at all. In NJ, the towns give us very small windows of opportunity to open the streets, so road plates become a necessity. In the last couple of years, they don't even want to let us open the roads when it is emergency repairs...crazy if you ask me. lately we have had several work area intrusions...I guess the drivers cannot wait till we open the road to traffic. One went in so far he put his entire vehicle on top of a 36" main we were working on...Prolly on his cell phone