I've been looking for a mini excavator for about a year now. I fianlly bought one from an online auction a couple of days ago and will be leaving tomorrow afternoon on a 10 hour drive to Houston, Texas to haul it home. The model I bought is an IHI 15NX-2. It does not come with an owner's manual and I have searched online with no luck so far. I was hoping someone here may be able to point me in the right direction on finding an owner's manual. I want to give the machine a good cleaning and check over everything really well and a manual would be very helpful. Also, I will be needing a thumb. I have not decided on mechanical or hydraulic because I am not sure of the availability/price of each. Does anyone have any reccomendations on a thumb for this machine? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Jason
IHI builds a good machine. IHI in usa is out etown, ky. Its called compact excavator sales, they can get you a manual. Great people. I would put a hyd. Werk brau thumb on it with a coupler, get asuitable sized clean out bucket for it in addition to the dig bucket. Very handy.
Thanks for the info. I have a very long drive ahead of me and it will be a great time to contact them about the manuals and thumb. Thanks again for the help. Jason
Thanks again for the info, I have a manual on the way. By the way, I got home with the machine last night. Unloaded it this morning and checked all functions. Everything seems to work perfectly. Everything also seems to be very tight with the exception of the arm-to-bucket pins which have a moderate amount of slop but not too bad. It starts and runs perfectly. I am very satisfied so far. I will do a little cleaning on it this weekend and take a few pictures. Next week I'll start weighing my options on a thumb.
Good Luck