Ok.... a couple guys have pm'd me about my interesting quotes of home and how I grew up with a virtual equipment junkyard. Most of our company has been sold off to what we call the "Big H" but some of the stuff still has our name on it. I'll start out with our first excavator, a old school Deere 690-D it's in a pretty sad state these days, but we never run her because it has this small problem of catching fire a lot.
Ok.... how about the home made crusher? Christ Hunter over at Eco Crusher got a kick out of our massive crusher. The jaw is supposed to be good for about 125ton an hour, we built it ourselves in the shop, and it has a Detroit 6-71 engine to power it, our record was a total of 220ton.... in a day. Stupid thing never worked right.
Ok.... how about some backhoes? I caught 2 of our new ones at the shop, and our new 580, and 2 old 580's I used to run.
Ok.... how about our dozers? The baby International has been running for 2 years now, after spending about 15years tucked away in the back of our old shop. It sat there so long I didn't even know it was there until I was about 15 it had so much crap piled on and around it. The little Deere dozer isn't and never was ours, it was owned by another old dude my grandpa knew named Slim. Most people said Slim was the best finish grade dozer operator out there. He used to do final grade on gravel underneath the concrete in the big pole barns we built when I was young. He died a few years back and the company was sold off. I didn't know they still had that old dozer. That thing has been everywhere.
And here is the famous phantom float truck. It's nickname is the Flying Dutchman because you never see it, but it makes it mark anyways. When Stew aka. the Pidster (Stew-Pid) bought that truck a few years ago and we always said it was too nice to be his float. Then I fired it up and smoke came out from under the hood, under the cab and up through the shifter boot in the cab, the brakes were shot, the engines junk and she's falling apart.... PERFECT. It matches the float trailer, we got it back in the early 70's and the trailer got parked in 1990 because it had no brakes, no deck, and it was junk. Somehow it ended up back in service. The DOT has been after it for years so it normally gets parked behind a barn, but it made a rare appearance near the road.
Nice stuff there Burnout. That's and interesting setup on the blue truck for the deere. Do the ramps lift if not how are they kept from dragging a furrow you could plant taters in? And thanks for the pics!
Oh yeah, and some shots I took on my way home from work today. a Komatsu PC800, Deere 1050J, Deere 450D and a Deere ADT.
The ramps are stationary, but the truck has air suspension under it, once its raised up she sits a few inches higher off the ground. That truck is a big lower than our old GMC used to sit with our dozer, but I never remember the ramps hitting the ground.
I figured it might have air bags. Still looks low but I'm overly cautious about things like that guess it may be flatter in your area than here, or the roads better. Either way it works so it don't matter. Looks liek a good way to haul it too, one vehicle to licencs and everything. Thanks again for the pics and such. Nice stuff there. Is your family company still active? I noticed you said a lot of stuff has been sold off.
Haha is the land flat where we are......yes You can see for miles and miles across Kent County. The roads are incredibly flat and pretty good in our area. Even the gravel roads are pretty nice. Some of the company is still active, some backhoe rental stuff, bit of stuff with an excavator or two, trucking and concrete work. In our area bulldozer trucks are really common for moving trim dozers. No one likes moving them with a float so it ends up behind a tandem truck. I know that truck looks pretty decent but its a pieve of junk. The frame, transmission and engine are all a 1978 Western Star T/A dump truck with a newer body on top of it.
It's a slick idea to haul a small dozer. wondre if you had the wheelbase you could put a 580 or so on one without the rops nd let the rear bucket sit between the ramps? Just a thought this time of day i get some odd ones.
Yep the 580 fits on there, so does a D series 310 Deere. If you put a 580 up there and curl the front bucket up and put it right on the headache rack and put the hoe down in the bucket well you can haul it pretty good. My grandpa actually has a backhoe truck right now. It's a International tri axle, you can run the backhoe up there, the buckets, breaker and hoe pack sit behind the cab and it will go anywhere. That truck sits a bit lower than most so it can make the 13'6" height restriction.
Awesome pics, lots of neat older equipment. Got any pics of the shop you work out of? Thanks for sharing. Trbo
great stuff there Burnout, And the Stew-pid story was classic:thumbsup
Wow! Love the pic's. I wish I had all that stuff to play with:notworthy
The shop is also in those pics, you can see it in the background, its those 2 old tobacco barns that have been joined at the hip. And in the shop is the SUPER 690D, it's got a custom 6ft welded into the stick so it has lots of reach, and no power. Apparently it blew its hyd. pump again which is about the 5th one in the last 5 years. When I was little I had no idea of the gold mine I was sitting on as far as junk goes. I wish the other homemade crusher would have been there, it was built out of 2 of our old Bucyrus Erie 30 draglines. Somewhere in that yard lay 5 of them though. 1 is still completely intact for the most part, it just needs cables, 1 is completely apart and in a crusher, 1 still has most of the house but no boom, and the other 2 are mostly just shells and an undercarriage. And my favourite dump truck "old yeller" has disappeared. It was an old Ford F-800 with an 8V-92 detroit under the hood. When I first got my dump truck license at 18 my first job was in an arena that we removed the floor. Our backhoe operator is horn happy so I backed into the arena and laid on the air horns for about 30 seconds. I was no longer permitted on that job.
"Horn Happy", I'm gonna use that someday on a bumper sticker.
Nice pics!!
The last time I was up through your kneck of the woods I went up to Yellowknife. I remember running up some of those gravel roads . There were times I would catch myself flying a little to fast,forgot about being on gravel. Guess what I'm saying is that I could not believe how smooth they were. Trucking through Canada was always an major adventure for me
Burnout, I'm lovin the ejection seat on the 690!!
Yeah its classic isn't it? Didn't they always tell you NEVER PUSH THE RED BUTTON? That 690 has definetely seen better days but oh well. Last time it ran it sounded like a gasser the engine was so far gone.