Gents, Hey I just signed up for this forum. I bought 160 acres of undeveloped mountain top near San Diego 2 years ago. It has about a mile long drive way with some steep sections and plenty of boulders. I have been renting tracked bobcat type loaders to carve some new roads and I have paid a guy with a motor grader to grade and roll the road. Mostly the dirt is DG. steve
I am looking to buy a piece of heavy equipment to help me around the place. I was thinking that a loader tractor with a box gannon would help me the most. I liked the tracked bobcat for clearing brush and cutting new pathways but it was a struggle to use grading the road. Grading is my #1 priority over time. I would like to spend $30K-35K and have something that will work for years. I want 4WD. I was looking online and saw some JD 210LE/LJ at about 2011 for around $35K asking. Getting the tractor maintained will be a pain since I live so far out in the country and the road is not set up for a 18wheeler. In fact the road is steep enough it is best in a 4WD. Is the JD a good tractor and is do you think it is the right tool for the job? Any other advice? FYI I rented the beast below for 8 hours of use over a 3 day weekend. Including delivery and insurance it was about $1400.
This item caught my eye although I have not driven there to look at it. https://www.machinerytrader.com/listings/construction-equipment/for-sale/18519751/2011-deere-210lj another pic of the road above.
I guess my questions are: 1) is my concept for that type of machinery good? 2) is that a good type of tractor (reputation) I see a lot like it for sale and 3) if you see any other good deals send them my way. thanks.
Well, while its not 4wd, a D6 sized dozer will do a great job at cutting in roads. Dozers have been a staple of road building since they first turned a track. I'm not sure if california has any guides on road building but Maine does. Things like proper ditching and water bars, how to keep things stable over the years and reclaim any eroded material. If you need a tractor for utility, that's a nice looking unit if you can bring the price down some. Else, you might find a good old reliable road grader for sale.
If the majority of the road cutting is already done & you will be mostly using it for road maintenance, re-grading the washout areas in your road already there, I think a large tracked bobcat style machine like is shown in your one picture, would be a good choice. Once you get on to the knack of grading with a skidsteer, they do a nice job & are productive.......more useful all around on rural property than a bucket/tractor in my opinion. As fast_st says, if you have heavy road cut ins to carve out, a medium sized dozer is the ticket, but harder to haul around than a skid steer if you need to move it for maintenance etc. If you have some heavy big ole boulders to root out, dozer is better for that though. If you are spending that kind of money & road grading is making up the majority of your work, I suggest you hire an experienced tracked skidsteer operator on a Cat 299D sized machine for 3-4 hrs. & observe him do grading work & that will get you going on the right track. If you own a skid steer, you will find a 1001 used for it compared with a dozer on a large property like that. Good luck & keep us posted!
Yes, most of the road cutting and large scale grading is done. I want something for maintaining the roads, and utility of moving material or boulders or beating back the bushes. The few times I have rented the tracked bobcats and tried to grade the road I noticed a couple things. 1) you can't tilt the blade side to side so you can only use the blade at the same side to side level as the vehicle (So how to put a crown to a flat road for example) and 2) If I tried to skim the soil going forward I got into this hobby horse situation. It would barely scrape and material and then it would dig in and cut too much. I ended up with big gouges. On the other hand, the tracked vehicle was perfect for cutting new paths through the bushes. It was not tippy and it could fit between the rocks. It had plenty of power to mow down the scrub.
For instance one of my next projects is to cut a pad uphill of the existing trailer of (where that solar panel rests) for another trailer. It seemed like with a box blade I could just back up, lower the box with rippers, Tilt it a little to make it level with the horizon and scrape/pull the material out. Not sure how I see how to do this with a bobcat. Thoughts?
If there are no big boulders in what you intend to cut, a Cat 299D CTL (or similar machine) would handle that just fine. Again, if you were to have a professional come in & do just that one job for you, that would give you an idea just what a machine like that is capable of when working to its potential. Sometimes with pictures where slopes are present it is hard to see just how much variation in the terrain there actually is. Looks like in this case the deepest cut may be 30" for this proposed project that you mentioned?
at the most. Maybe a 20" cut.
to do that with a bobcat, lets see, first, a tooth bar on a bobcat is helpful if the ground is hard, I'd start on the high corner, dig in just a little and push it toward the low corner, back up and repeat, now you want to define your pad but having a taper leading down to it is a good thing, put some stakes set back as a visual reference, if you're going down 20, go back 40 -50 inches, start digging down and moving that material to the low side. Once you get a bit of a flat area started, you can work on smoothing that out and tracking over your filled areas. Flat scraping it not too bad but your arms need to be down, bucket just barely tipped down.
My dad has a Bobcat that has a side tilt contraption that can be added between the main attachment and bucket to rotate the bucket sideways and he uses the heck out of that thing. He takes it off for heavy digging to not put extra wear on it but for fine grading it is the cats meow. However he and my grandpa used to use bobcats way back into the 80s before the tilt contraption was invented and they still managed to make side tilts out of things, roads, ditches, with just sheer cleverness.
Thanks for the words above and the techniques described fast_st. I looked at a dozer blade and that looks intriguing. I hear what you guys are saying and I agree I would rather have a bobcat for general use around the property. Also i agree it would be easier to transport. I guess what i am struggling with is the skills and time it would take to turn the Bobcat into a grading machine. Remember I have 1 mile of driveway that probably needs to be cleaned up 2x per year. I haven't used a tractor but my experience with the bobcat is that is would be a pain (with my skills) to grade that much road. It just seems like for 75% of my use a tractor with a dragged gannon is the right tool for the job. The downside to the tractor is the transport, stability in rough offload, and size.
Size is an advantage in most cases, especially on 140 acres. I agree the skidsteer is not ideal for grading, neither is a tractor and gannon box blade. A small pull type grader is my choice for that size grading project. Maybe your road is steep and curvy enough that a pull type grader wouldn't be adjustable enough. That is, you'll be backing up to go back over the same spots more than typical road grading. The huge advantage of a skidsteer is the attachment interchange. Check out skidsteer grader attachments to see if that would tip the scales.
I would guess that a pull grader would be too hard to work on a mountain road like this. It might not even make the corners. A full motor grader would of course be too one-trick for anything else. I still think the Bobcat would be right. Use the front of the bucket to move material in problem areas and pull ditches if necessary. Then back blade with the tilt and you are done. If the road is constructed correctly there won't be a need to regrade the entire thing. Just the sections with washouts or damage every couple years. There is a grader attachment for Bobcat of course. It has a wheel that runs out front and then a blade in between. But I have never seen one in real life.
OK, I see what you mean. I had not thought of using the smoothing action of driving backward with a tilted blade. WRT those multi terrain skid steers - what is a good brand? Cat, bobcat, JD. Are they all good? I would certainly stick with a big name machine. Why would I want rubber over steel tracks? I don't have any pavement.
I was thinking more of a plane attachment than a full on grader with wheels, I had forgotten those existed. http://www.crownrent.com/equipment.asp?action=category&category=13&key=BOB763PLNKT This is the first one I found, I'd get one longer, with a couple of bars angled to help maintain your crown, and rippers like a gannon box or one of those DR driveway maintainers that gets pulled behind a lawn mower.
Unless we own a big construction company, we're not gonna have every machine in the tool box to fit every job...kind'a like having to use a claw hammer for tapping out a paper gasket...LOL Here's my situation, I can only have one machine...I have a 2004 JD 210LE and it has turned out to be absolutely amazing for our duties which is primarily road maintenance but it's also pressed into service almost daily for anything you can imagine. I also have about a mile of dirt to maintain here in So. Utah (also off grid as it appears you are). I bought from the Ritchie auction (for $12,000) a beautiful machine that needed an engine. Cutting no corners and $10k later I have a machine that at the turn of a key is ready to work. That approch is not for everyone, but Richie also has some amazing stuff (if you look closely!!) for great prices, just don't get caught up in the auction fever. Just log on and do a search, you can also bid by proxy for a set amount. That is what I did and had it delivered. Today for instance in Sacramento there are four 210LE's, some looking VERY interesting. The box Gannon on mine has turned out to amazing. It's certainly not a motor grader but with the box down in the float position it doesn't follow the tractor and will cut out washboards. Use the rippers along with the float and the washboards don't come back as fast. Mine has one tilt cylinder and has FULL tilt only one way, but some have the option of two tilt cylinders allowing for full tilt (think cutting a ditch down and then back up...just makes the job faster). Also get a 4-in-1 bucket in front! Anyway...my suggestion is on a 210LE...but opinions are like...well, you know. LOL
For instance... https://www.rbauction.com/2006-JOHN...10010610&id=ci&auction=LOS-ANGELES-CA-2017180 https://www.rbauction.com/2010-JOHN-DEERE-210LJ-4x4?invId=9911158&id=ci&auction=CHEHALIS-WA-2017181
Gotta say that's a beautiful property. God I love San Diego. The Deere 210 is the best skip loader on the planet. And I think you could use one. That property is huge for a skid steer. You will appreciate the extra weight of the machine when ripping/blading hard packed ground, and heaping full buckets of dirt. Takes some time to handle the beast in the mountain especially downhill in the mud. Skid steer wins hand down with the implements selection. My opinion, If you're leaning to the skid steer do get the biggest/heavy one you can afford. I think comparing the two is difficult. About 95% of time the size of a skip loader and lack of 4wd on mine is no big deal. The rest of the 5% time I am beating myself that I should have gotten something smaller and 4wd. Once you figure out what you want, try to get a mechanic to look at. Save yourself some surprises.
Thanks yes we are happy with that land. It is remote but it buys us the ability to do what we want without much neighbors/authorities/concerned citizens- peering in.
I was actually leaning towards the skip loader. The ones on this forum seem overwhelming towards bobcat. Give me a bit to look at your links.
I am a Cat guy, I don't like wheel tractors in steep terrain. I would like to get into road grading. I am thinking along the lines of a skid steer with a 4 in 1 blade like in your Cat video. I think one of these attachments would make one into a decent grader. https://www.quickattach.com/bladegraderleveler It looks like the blade and attachment are about 5-6 grand if the machine has the hydraulics to handle it. It looks like your grader guy did not do a very good job. I am sure you could do better than that with one of these.
Whew! Looking at your impending project causes me to reminisce...We started as well with a blank slate, on an untouched piece of ground. It has been an amazing, exciting, extremely laborious and expensive adventure that has taken years to complete. I wouldn't trade the experience for anything but I cringe at the thought of doing it over again! You're gonna have a great time! All the luck to you! Building your own personal sanctuary is like nothing else you can do...
Whoa ! tight, turny, steep road that changes things.... Yes i would not use wheel loader either that would be a wreck when muddy. I have slid enough on mine i cannot tell you how helpless that feels. Great pic Love the watercloset! I knew someone who lived on the side of mount helix over there...great views!
The road does get snotty when wet although realize that I don't drive the road when it is that way. It tears up the road way too much. I live on a separate property about 15 minutes away. At this point this property is a work in progress- but recreational.
Yes Mt helix is about 10 miles away.
Thanks!
I see model numbers LE and LJ... What is the difference and how do you know if you are getting the twin cylinder or 4WD?
I've never been able to figure out JD numbering scheme but an LJ is newer than an LE, somewhere around 2010 I think. All 210's seem to be about the same size (about +/- 15000 lb rolling weight)...larger the number the bigger the unit. Anyone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. If you get serious about a JD you'll probably get the fastest answer from a dealer parts counter. Mine is EXTREMELY helpful. On another note, mine is non-turbo and I've never felt the need for one and I'm at 6000'. Get a 4 in 1 bucket for sure (+10!!), the twin tilt cylinders on the back are just icing on the cake and not necessary, just convenient. I'd also never settle for 2wd and think about getting a unit with a PTO. It will expand your possibilities for rear 3-pt attachments. I love the E-brake on a Deere. It's a switch that electrically/hydraulically releases the brakes. A shrill beeper goes off if put in gear and it won't move until it's satisfied. You cannot drive off with the E-brake engauged unlike other units that have a lever...something I just like.
good advice thanks.
If I got something like the JD 210 at 15,000 pounds and it needed service or needed to be moved...how would that be done? I own a 2012 F350 with the standard hitch (bigger than 2" receiver) do places rent big trailers or am I going to be forced to call an 18 wheeler sort of transport?
Obviously bigger is better when it comes to moving these things but mine was delivered from Sacramento to So. Utah with a F-350 and single wheel/double axel goose neck. The boy had a load! but he got it here... As for Unicorns and 210LE PTO's...
[\Quote]As for Unicorns and 210LE PTO's.[/QUOTE] Yeah...and your manual states "if equipped". Like I implied good luck If I wanted a wheel loader with impliments and pto I would just go AG tractor.
This thread was started by Mr. Whiteside questioning HIS purchase of a tractor for his property. PTO's could be had on 210LE's...hand's down, period...as I have proven, and a myriad of attachments are available as well. Now, whether you like them or not, carries no value here. My interpretation is you don't like being called out for being wrong... Just my internet observation of your internet attitude. Paul
Glad you're not my neighbor!
Ditto...
Ditto? Show me the 210le with pto's for sale?
You're taking you're loss seriously! LOL Take a pill and get some rest, hopefully you'll feel better in the morning... Give it up...I'm moving on.
I have been chewing on which type of unit would be better and appreciate all of your opinions. It has given me a lot to think about. I think the JD210 with a box blade would work a huge amount better at grading the road than the Bobcat. However, the 210 won't be nearly as capable in the off road, steep sections Ive got. You guys like the attachments that come for the Bobcat. I agree but don't see too much utility for me. The attachments are a nice to have but only very occasionally. The other thing you guys brought to my attention is the portability of the Bobcat. I can see how I could buy a dump trailer, put the trailer on the receiver that came with my F350 truck and transport the Bobcat myself at almost no cost. I don't see a good way of doing that with the 210 unless I get some sort of 5th wheel trailer rated for 15K pound payload. I have 2 properties that I could use the machinery at the 160 acres of mountain and 2.5 acres where I live. I am still looking at both types but am leaning towards the bobcat mostly because of the portability. For instance: https://www.rbauction.com/2012-BOBC...d=9957825&id=ci&auction=SACRAMENTO-CA-2017187 thoughts?
I still maintain that a skidsteer would be a better choice than a tractor with a box on the back, because of their versatility & portability. Having a dealer nearby to support both parts & service is an important consideration as well. We have a 272D wheeled skidsteer and are amazed at the versatility of this machine.......our first skidsteer. Re the grading of roads, once you get onto it, it does a very nice job of grading, not to be compared with a road grader like you hired, but will certainly do a great job of spot repairs here & there, plus a great machine for carrying out a multitude of jobs around on rural property. A CTL is perhaps a better choice over a multi terrain unit, because of their more rugged construction. A CTL also costs more.
I have come around to agreeing with you! Maybe every 5 years I will get professional to grade the whole road and other than that I will repair as needed using fill and then backing down with a tilted blade to spread things out. Ive been looking at the T650 and the T770 thinking bigger is better. Are either of those CTL? How can I tell?
I am not sure about the Bobcats, but with the Cat's the multi terrain units have rubber bogie type bottom rollers, whereas the CTL style have more like a solid steel bottom rollers. I copied a link for one that I found that illustrates the Cat CTL type. Much more rugged & it will cost more too. I hope you can open this ok. https://www.google.ca/search?q=cat+299d&tbm=isch&imgil=6OsmRdGA14bJqM%3A%3BgioBEtsfM6NqhM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.tractorbynet.com%252Fforums%252Fland-clearing-equipment%252F243024-new-cat-299d-xhp.html&source=iu&pf=m&fir=6OsmRdGA14bJqM%3A%2CgioBEtsfM6NqhM%2C_&usg=__kkR9WwE6z9JkTxVcnkfbF3kKXgk=&biw=1920&bih=955&ved=0ahUKEwjps5-WqozUAhVI6oMKHW2mDEUQyjcITg&ei=W3onWamaI8jUjwTtzLKoBA#imgrc=6OsmRdGA14bJqM:&spf=1495759456335 BTW we have only a bucket for our Cat 272D that we purchased used & it acuually does a nice job grading. The blade may not be necessary in my opinion.
Here is a link for the Multi Terrain type of skidsteer with the rubber rollers. Not as robust. http://www.cat.com/en_US/products/n...n-loaders/multi-terrain-loaders/18484359.html Also, see the photo that shows the quality of grading you can do with a bucketed skidsteer.....CTL units do an even better job of grading than wheeled units do like the one we have in my opinion too.