I have a feeling I will be more partial to the joystick as well..
Hello again MDD,
Of course it's a personal preference... but I favor the 4 function joy stick for
loader and bucket myself.
Our old Hough 80B has 2 levers... for lift and bucket... and the lever throw is
too long to use both in unison with the same hand.
The MDT loaders that I run have joysticks, so you don't have to move your hand from one control to the other.
Our JD 750c dozer has one joystick for all 6 way blade functions...
Back/forward for raise/lower...side/side for tilt... and twist, right/left for angle...
I really like that control set up, because you can use 3 functions at the same
time... that is... raise/lower, tilt, and angle... with out moving your hand off the lever.
OCR
PS. I also ran a Cat loader with joystick steering... not sure, but I think it was
a 988 or the next size up, and I loved it too... no cranking that cussed steering wheel around and wearing out your arm... seemed very smooth too.
Also ran a Cat with that "half thing of a joke" steering wheel... and you can probably gather... I didn't care for that control set up.