I'm looking for advice on the best skid steer to buy to use in swampy, muddy, mucky conditions where it's easy to get stuck. Will be using a boom mower, a brush axe, and a 6-way blade. Would like to stay 30k or under for a good used machine. Looking for advice on wheeled or tracked, best brands for the money. Want one that has good flotation, the power to run the brush axe, reliable, with the least maintenance possible. Will primarily use on my hunting land. Probably use 500 hrs per year. Will be grateful for any and all advice. Year, make, models that are best buys for my applications will be helpful. Thanks in advance!
Well you can "stick" anything, but I think most guy's that run mulchers (similar to your described use) like a tracked machine (CTL). IMHO a CTL has less traction than a SS with OTT's, but much more flotation. Once you "belly out" either machine, your pretty much done. HP is your friend in all situations, esp with hyd. attachments. Better have a winch handy on something that can get to ya when it's burried.
Thanks for the reply and your input. That is good advice!
I think the ASV/Terex machines have the lowest ground pressure when it comes to CTL/MTL machines. They're more of a fragile undercarriage then most of the other machines on the market but they seem to do pretty well in the land clearing market and were quite popular for a long time until the latest generation of Cat machines came out which seem to be really good competition to them.
Thanks for the input!
I would also suggest the ASV style undercarriage.
I'll weigh in... You mention "swampy, muddy, mucky conditions" This is what I have at our hunting property too and we have a wheeled machine with OTT tracks. It works very well until you have to make several trips in and out of the mud, then it sinks so don't count on it walking on water.
Not with these: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLSu3hsNRl0 Makes your machine 10' wide!
Probably cost the same as my SS
I also would recommend a CTL....look for good ground clearance. Last year we got lots of rain/flooding that took forever to dry. I was cleaning debris, brush, silt out of fences and drainage ditches while tracking through about 12-16" of mud and water. Was slick occasionally but I was able to push and power through just amazing. I keep pushing this thing to new limits. I've yet to get stuck anywhere. Even cleaning silt out of tanks with mud and water in the bottom. The clearance of my machine is just about 12". My tracks are low on tread and my last job in one area I was sliding around some, but never stuck.
Swannny; would have been interesting to see it actually do some work, especially in mud instead of just buzzing around on hard pack.
Here's an idea of the productivity of a large CTL. I cleared a 1550' fence line that was 40' deep of trees, dead brush, etc. Took me 9 hours to complete and pile. I used 3 different attachments to get it cleaned up very nicely.
Look for a ASV RC-100 that was set up from the factory for a mulcher, it will get you the farthest on mud for the price range your in. I wouldn't even consider a skid with ott. Mud isn't going to harm the undercarriage one bit. You'll just have to look and see what you can find for sale..
To the OP - What are you planning for the 6 way blade? Unless it's loose material and you have leading wheels, they're not too useful. If you're thinking dozing, you can do way more with a tooth bucket.
I agree with jnb regarding doing better work with a tooth bucket vs a blade. A 4 in 1 is pretty nice for it too when you get the hang of it. I can do a lot of grading with the attachment below. It's been really good on a lot of different uses.
I vote for the ASV, too. I have owned the little ASV RC30, for over 10 years, and it has been an overall dependable, rugged little machine. I wanted something small enough to haul on my box trailer, but able to handle 4' attachments. It has had a few mechanical glitches, But it is number 600 or so, so it was a relatively new design, when I bought it. One of the most important things, is balance, and that relates to climbing ability. I have challenged other operators, to play follow me, through the woods, but none have taken me up on the challenge, so far...:beatsme :beatsme Here's a good vid, on the subject... https://youtu.be/9qavETmMTs4
4 years ago I was looking for a similar solution to work on my wet property, & to plow snow. I wound up getting a new NH L220 ssl with Camoplast solid rubber OTT, a 6'-wide low profile bucket, an Erskine/Quick-Attach 7'-wide hydraulically-angled snow/light material blade, & Bradco HD pallet forks. It works great for snow (I can plow in my shirt sleeves & stay warm), but my options/recommendations for muddy work based on what I've learned are as follows (this is going to be long, so bear with me): If tearing up the ground is NOT a problem, then get a small bulldozer!! Nothing beats it in the mud, IMO. Look for a used Cat D3 or small JD, with as wide a track as you can find, & with a winch on the back (you'll probably still get stuck!!). Or, buy a new NorTrac dozer from Northern Supply for $20k, complete with 6-way blade, rear PTO & Cat-1 3-pt hitch ( http://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_200591685_200591685 ). You can easily add you own winch. Aside from it being Chinese (I'm not a big fan), the other problem with the NorTrac is that the tracks are relatively narrow, at only 10.25"& the ground clearance is not great at only 9.45". But, it's new, relatively low-tech, & easy to work on. If you need the lift & carry of a loader, & you want a cab, & size is not an issue, get a 4-wd tractor (NH, JD, Kubota, Mahindra, etc) & change out all 4 wheels for tracks, something like these https://www.mattracks.com/tracks/track-tor-assist/3k/3500/#200series . You still wind up with a rear PTO, a 3-pt hitch, & much more ground clearance. And if you do it right, you will have front & rear auxiliary hydraulics. If you're still dead set on a skid steer, then you need to realize some things: Metal OTT on a skid steer will give you dozer-like traction, but no flotation, My solid rubber OTT work much better for flotation, but 1 revolution in clayey mud & they are packed full & like slicks!! The other problem with them is that they are only 13.5" wide. Most CTL tracks are a 17" wide (like ASV/Terex's), but they will still pack full of clayey mud. The next problem is ground clearance. Once you bottom out in the mud, you're all done, so you want as much clearance as possible. My setup yields only about 8", which is typical of most skid steers, but Takeuchi usually has more & the ASV/Terex units usually have the most at about 15". But most tractors will usually have even more. Skid steers don't just get mud ON them, they get mud IN them!! That's because they have belly pans with drain holes & ports in them that the mud oozes thru like you wouldn't believe!! And all CTLs that I know of have their final drives EXTERNAL to their body, with hydraulic hoses routed thru a hold in the wall of the body (rather than thru bulkhead fittings). Yet another hole for mud to leak thru. And all that mud is a PITA to pressure wash back out, & you can never really get it all out because of the cramped, compact design of skid steers. IMO, skid steers were/are never designed to work in mud, In contrast, consider the relatively tight & sealed underbody of most dozers & tractors. The outside of the transmission & axle housings is the bottom, there is no "belly pan" to get mud up into. One advantage of skid steers is their compactness, but the downside is that they are cramped & hard to work on. Every time I work on my NH I swear at how cramped it is to get to some things, & my NH is actually pretty good compared to most. Dozers & tractors are much roomier to work on, IMO. Then there is the general lack of ANYTHING designed to go on the back of skid steers. Forget 3-pt hitch, PTO, or rear hydraulics. Or rear winch. Or even a hitch. Notable exceptions are a rear hydraulic ripper that bolts onto the back of a Tak; rear hydraulic winches as part of expensive forestry packages from Cat, ASV/Terex, JCB, & SuperTrak; a built-in receiver hitch on the back of ASV/Terex; & an optional rear drawbar for NH & Case. In my case, I opted for the optional drawbar on my NH, then improved it by adding two 2" receiver hitch tubes to it, & finally added a receiver-hitch mounted rear electric winch. The winch is invaluable when you get stuck, & trust me, you WILL get stuck. Just hope you have a tree or something sold to snag onto with the winch. The receiver-hitch mount allows me to also use the same winch on the back of my tractor, & on the back of my pickup. You can see all the "improvements" I've made to my NH L220 here HeavyEquipmentForums (see post 63 for the winch), & here are some solutions by others HeavyEquipmentForums . And finally there is getting in & out of your skid steer...All skid steers (except JCB/Volvo) are front entry, & therefore are hard to get in & out. If you work by yourself (like I do) you probably will find that you have to get in & out often (to load something by hand, to look at something, or at the very least to couple/decouple hydraulic hoses on some attachment). The ONLY skid steer that makes this easy is the side-entry JCB, with a single arm boom. Unfortunately, they don't offer a suspended under carriage like ASV/Terex, or even Cat's knock-off MTL, but their cab is in a class by itself in terms of roominess & visibility. And their 260T CTL does have a ground pressure less than 5psi, & based on my last look, at least one side of the hydraulic routing to the final drives is via a sealed bulkhead fitting thru the body, not just a hole. Once you try their side entry, you might be tempted... IMO, 6-way dozer blades on skid steers are a waste of time. The blades are usually too heavy, & skid steers just don't have the lateral stability & push power to use them to grade undisturbed ground. Maybe for loose, already excavated ground, but then a light material/snow blade like mine which can be locked against tripping, might be enough. So, if you're still thinking skid steer, then I would look seriously at the ASV/Terex units because of their suspended undercarriage & their built-in rear receiver hitch. But realize that their cabs are notoriously "primitive". The life of the undercarriage can be drastically improved by switching from rubber to aluminum components from Bair http://cart.bairproducts.com/ For me, ASV/Terex was not an option because of the really poor cab & lack of dealers. And regardless whether skid steer or tractor, I would recommend this alternative to a bucket or a standard grapple...it's called a Demo Dozer http://www.demo-dozer.com/ . It's really a grapple bucket with solid grapples that allow all sizes of objects to be picked up. And it incorporates two 2" receiver tubes in the grapples to which you can attach hooks & all manner of things limited only by your imagination.
On the Bigger ASV's, there is a scarifier available, at least on the oz side of the pond: https://youtu.be/PmNNYVvfrCk I wish it were available for my RC-30... IF you look around on the internut, you might find some attachments, for the rear of other makes, too.
Slight thread derail, how does that attachment do with fixing gravel driveways and getting rid of pot holes? It looks like it would be awesome but I'm not thinking it could dig in enough to really get those deep (3"+) pot holes ripped up and the material all mixed together so you can level the driveway out again?
Mark 13, they work great, at least the one I used did. A friend of mine built one and it was really nice.
Mark, you are correct in your concern. For the best results potholes need to be scarified to the bottom. The front serrated blade on the Roadrunner landplane that HRP has will extend far enough below the skids to do it. Landplanes with fixed, or bolt adjustable blades won't get down deep enough. I have a 3-point Landpride model with manual scarifiers. It's a pain to drop and raise all of the shanks, so I usually just end up using my Gannon box blade. Roadrunner builds a model with a QA at one end and 3-point mounts at the other so it can be run on the CTL or tractor. That's the one I'll be getting sometime this summer.
Yes that attachment has performed really good for doing just that. I occasionally maintain our county road with it that I live on, they've been slacking on it the last 2 years. I can do a better job with it than thier maintainer.....thinking about deducting from my property taxes lol. I also use it for grading arenas, house pads, our building pads, and cutting drainage. I was amazed how well that serrated blade tore up this county road. I made a few passes and tore up the potholes completely.
I don't doubt your statement but I would have thought that OTT tracks would be more effective, after all they offer amazing improvements in forestry machines such as skidders, forwarders, bunchers and processors. They help tremendously in mud, snow and soft ground.
They do HELP tremendously, but the specific condition I noted was stickey, clayey mud. The open, metal OTT will probably power thru it without clogging up, but will not help float the machine on the mud...the mud just oozes between the cross-bars. And they will tear up normal ground as bad if not worse than a bulldozer. The solid rubber OTT like I have do help the machine float, but the stickey mud quickly clogs up the tread, just like a tire. As soon as that happens, you loose just about all your traction, & then as the machine settles in the mud it becomes worse because of the limited ground clearance. As soon as the flat belly of the machine settles onto the mud, along with no traction due to mud-clogged OTTs, you're all done!! Get out the winch!! Luckily, it doesn't take much to pull (slide) the machine out!! The other smaller downfall of OTTs is that they are not suspended/supported between the wheels. They do conform to the ground, but not as well as a fully suspended, bogey-wheeled track. But the upside, besides being way cheaper, is that there are no final drive hose holes thru the body of the SSL to allow mud to leak thru, like on most (all??) CTL/MTLs. But like I've said, I wish they (the OTT's) could be wider. The problem with that is clearance with the body &/or fenders of the SSL. As it is, my OTT's needed 2" wheel extenders to widen the track spacing to avoid getting too close to the SSL body. IF you go even wider with wheel extenders the stresses on the SSL axles get to be a problem. Bottom line...there is NO perfect solution in the mud...any configuration has trade offs...
That's the info I was looking for. I keep seeing guys raving about how awesome attachments like that are for doing gravel driveways and I was having a hard time seeing the serrated edge being able to be lowered enough and being aggressive enough to really rip the driveway up. I was afraid it would just dig in an inch or two or skim the top of very hard packed stuff and at most get the little pot holes all ripped up but leaving the deep ones alone and just filling them in. It would look good but 2 weeks later I think the phone would be ringing with an upset customer.
The majority of guys (on the TBN forum to be frank) that rave on the magic gravel driveway repair abilities of the landplane are the same ones that have a hard time getting anything flat with a box blade or bucket. They're also typically using the machine for their own driveway and can run the thing up and down their driveway/roadway whenever it needs it. The skids and length make the attachment about as forgiving as it gets. For those of us that make a living operating equipment the landplane is a great tool that can enhance you're capabilities. I personally don't use it for gravel much since the skids actually make it harder to get that nice clean raised edge I'm looking for, especially on curves and the skids leave a mark in the gravel. Maybe I'm too picky, but I don't even like track or tire marks in my finished work. For a quick driveway spruce up and for spreading topsoil or arena work, the landplane is absolutely awesome.
And....remember to hang a "Rat Tail" on the back for when you will need to pull it out... Nothing like wading in thru mud (a third time) to reach down in the mud to attach the chain.....
The blades will lower 3" below the side skids. And close to 3" above the skids. I can adjust each side independently and crown roads very easily. Mark....grading real hard packed roads. Like a county road, with potholes can be done easily....it takes some time to figure out the best way to get the blades set for your application. I have marks on mine so I can set it quickly depending what I'm doing. It worked best for hard pack to just go easy on the potholes and turn the gravel up a little at a time. If you try to set 3" below grade in one pass it'll be way too difficult. With the angle of the blade to the side, and being serrated if you cut too much it'll want to pull you one direction. You want to set it to cut just before you feel it pulling to one side. Hope that made sense?
This one has 13" ground clearance / The self-adjusting track feature is very handy when changing from muddy conditions to regular dirt - As the rollers pack up with clay, the tension adjusts, as the clay dries out and falls off, the tension adjusts for that as well: VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpmjPbM0EeY
At the farm we had the same machine but the Gehl version. What a POS. Control problems, turbo problems, broke both lift cylinders on separate occasions, no digging power/ tractive effort, and the dealer ended up buying it back all before it had 600hrs on it.
HRPServicesTX what brand is that attachment?
It's a roadrunner. It's usually painted a yellowish orange color, I had them paint it black instead.
That's interesting to hear! This one has been working daily in nothing but hard rock for 3 years without a single problem. 2013 Model, What year was yours??? Curious
What kind of paint are they using on those buckets? Must be pretty tough to look that good after three years. Maybe they wore the first bucket out... :beatsme
It was a 2012 or 2013. Traded a Gehl CTL60 (repainted Tak TL130) with 2k+hrs on it for the RT210. Gave up on that POS and replaced it with a 2012 Case TR270 that's got to be getting close to 1200hrs+ by now. Also traded the Gehl V400 skid for a Case 321E mini wheel loader. The farm ran Gehl skid steers for years, 7800's, 7810's the V400, the RT210, I believe a couple 5640's or 6640's and the last batch of the V400 and the Rt210 did it for them. Switched to Case and never looked back, They had a 279C2 Cat on demo as well but the Case dealer was better to work with, our Cat dealer is kinda worthless even though they liked the machine.
I appreciate the info! It's funny how things go, We used to be Case from the 1840/1845C series through the model XT series and switched to Mustang before the next Case series came out! We like our Mustangs really well, sorry you had such problems with the Gehls... Really hadn't heard that before.
Tracked machines are king because they distribute their weight over a greater area size than a wheeled machine can, but they have their place as well, depending on how soft the soil is. My favorites are the 863 & 864. They both have a good working capacity & have never given me many problems. Depending on what you are clearing out of the way, an excavator is the very best, especially with a hydraulic thumb for piling. They have actually done testing on excavators versus backhoes, & the excavators win big time when digging / trenching. A 4wd turbo diesel (JCB 214 is one of my favorites!!) backhoe with a 4-in-1 front bucket & a rear extend-a-boom is also nice to have on hand. They feature a far larger front bucket & easier steering, when compared to skid steers. I think they are a lot of ways to do the same job. It will come back down to what you want to use or have available to use to complete your projects.