Ok so I'm sure a couple guys have read about my little project over in Dirtman's thread. For those that don't know, I am digging out the road base down a city street so we can run sewer and water down it in a couple weeks. The road was a side street with just 2 lanes and was gravel. There is 1 house down there, but now a condo project and houses butt up to it on the other side. When I got there yesterday morning I saw a 330 Cat sitting there so naturally... I fired her up and figured thats what we were using since I only had 2 Volvo A40's. The foreman stopped me and told me they were bringing me out our 375 :Banghead This machine has been a trouble maker in the past, she went through 2 engines last year and for some reason the controls are so unresponsive she is harder to run smoothly than our old 245's. So we got diggin.... the road was built on topsoil....YAY. In some spots I was down 7-8ft before I hit clay. So most of yesterday we spent dinkin around because a sub contractor for us is working on a bridge at the end of the road where I started. He has a little Cat D300 ADT that needed access so I am doing one side of the road at a time, but since the clay is soaked he was havin problems as you will see. Today was a bit better, we got a pile of diggin done, but now I am swinging between hydro lines on each side of the road, digging over a waterline that we don't know the exact depth... and dealing with traffic on a 2 lane street with a 75ton Excavator and 2 40ton ADT's.
Oh yeah forgot to mention.... the big Sureway truck above.... new service truck. I am back to the high life. They show up everyday... fuel me, give me cleaning products and grease me all without getting out of the seat. Gotta love it don't ya?
Yep I think you need the 385 Hey I still see a bush in that fellows yard... make is dissapear by tomorrow. You have my permission
Oh you are soooooo spoiled!!!!!! I wish someone could grease up my 330 for me at the end of the day. My arms get so tired, it ruins my love life! But why the small bucket? My 330 with the 7 footer could out dig your 375.
So here are a few more, not a bad lookin jobsite eh? Another shot of our 627, and the new turnaround area for the Volvo's.
Small bucket? Where? That's a 60" Ron and she fills the ADT in 3 1/2 to 4 buckets. If I get a good full bucket on her with wet material the machine can hardly lift her. Grease gun.... why would your hands be tired? On the 375 I have a electric greaser on board.... so even if I did have to go at it myself I just pull the trigger. And a few of just the machine... I know you never get out of your machine with the bucket in the air.... especially when it's less than 10ft from a powerline, but these are the risks I am willing to take for you guys.
It's funny to see so many large excavators doing road work. In my area the biggest I've seen is a 365 extracting gravel on the river, and that's just on rent from cat for the summer season. Contractors around here use 400 size as their large hoes, even for quarry work. Road work is set aside for 200 and sometimes 300 size machines.
That's a 60" ?!?!?! Holy hell, the stick must be thicker than I thought on the 375! I tried an electric greaser, but it takes twice as long to grease because it only puts out half of what a manual gun can do in 1 pump, and my brother wants at least 1 tube in the bucket pins and boom pins on the 330, so I go through 2 tubes, I really want one of those nifty pneumatic deals.
I'll admit the E greaser is slow, but it's better than trying to grease that beast with a handheld. The only crappy part of my service right now is that I am being greased by the earthworks guys. They are known for getting grease on handrails, spilling fuel and putting way too much grease in the pins so you end up with grease jiblits falling all over the place.
Thats what the auto lube system was invented for! I need to save my arm strength for after 5:00 or 6:00 or 7:00 which ever comes first!:drinkup They maybe slow, but they are a horse
375's might be a horse.... but ours isnt. They are bringing me out a 120" bucket thursday morning, apparently it is for unit 117 which is my machines twin. I have doubts she will muscle the 120" through the ground. Last year I ran this beast a few times probably 100hrs over the season. I was bailing away from our 385 with a 84" bucket and she had difficulty muscling that through a nice fluffy pile. I know guys here seem to rave about the 375's but imho... their absolute junk. Out of our 30 or so 75+ton hoes the 375 is my last choice of the one to take. I'd gladly take an old 245A, Deere 750 or 800, Komatsu 750 or 800 or the 385. I will admit though, this 375 has a really long boom on it. She is a few feet longer than the ones on the 385's. I wouldn't mind this boom on the 85 with the long stick of the 385. It would even out the geometry a lot more, and make for some massive reach. Might need to crank up the jam on the machine though.... a LOT
"Oh yeah forgot to mention.... the big Sureway truck above.... new service truck. I am back to the high life. They show up everyday... fuel me, give me cleaning products and grease me all without getting out of the seat. Gotta love it don't ya?" How much did you say you paid them to work there again?Ron G
I haven't heard many good things about the 375. The early ones were eating up turntable bearings. I have a PC600 with about 3000 hours on it. Machine is great. I rented a 385 for a big job I had and that was great to, but I don't have the use for a machine of that size all the time.
Nice! My wife isn't that responsive.
Neither is my girlfriend! I am pretty sure our service guys make between 20-27 bucks an hour something like that. There are the regular service guys, the night service guys, and then we have a couple oil change trucks that have basically every Cat filter you can imagine.
Sorry for hi-jacking the tread, But have any of you tried the Lincoln rechargeable 14volt grease gun. I have one and its the best thing since sliced bread, Pumps 12 tubes of grease on full charge and I havent seen a manual gun that can keep up with it. Its kinda high, about $350 if I remember correct. BUT WORTH EVERY PENNY!
the 14v Lincoln is the Shiznit.
that grease gun is awsome, its come down in price http://www.northerntool.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_6970_200320629_200320629
i bought a 14.4 last year on ebay for $198 on ebay. second one that i have bought. and will NOT go back to manual ever! first one ,got a stupid attack and let someone barrow it and left it on the track of pc400 , and no i didnt rip the guys head off , but i did get a new one out of him plus a case of bud.:drinkup
One of our service guys has the Lincoln grease gun.. He uses it when we have fittings that wont take grease... usually blows the crap through the fitting..... or just shoots grease all over the place. I borrowed it one day to grease my steering linkage in the track loader.....I got that feeling I was being watched heavily. Oh yeah.... and the 375 broke down again this morning. The quick attach wouldn't lock so we couldn't put the bucket back on this morning. So I traded it in for something a little better.... a 312. Went and worked for some lady foreman.... she's HOT!
We need pictures now! And I ain't talkin' about the ho!
Oh arent you?
Yeah I didn't take any of those pictures. I figured that might seem a bit creepy. But I can give a description.... she's about 5'1, not too skinny, a nice front bumper, nice tailgate and a nice brown roof rack. I had a nice conversation with her and the stick girl in the truck at lunch and started hitting on em. Then I was told that apparently my exploits of last season are known to them and that they have also heard my 3 rules of women I date. She denied me on one of those requirements.... but the really really fun one... she was in for. And what made it a bit worse for me....she caught me checkin her out big time. Go figure, she's bent over to prime the water pump and I just happened to be sitting in a way where I could watch. And Corey...... you have a wife, what do you need pictures for?
rules? what rules?
Oh, this is getting really interesting! Just grab a pic of her anyways, I got one of my favourite cougar flagger!
Ha ha it might be pretty obvious if I start snappin pics of my foreman on site. As for the 3 rules..... if your that interested you can PM me about it since their not quite suitable for the forum.
I use to be with Thompson Brothers Thought about going back out west, Headhunted by Sureway about 4 years ago. I worked for for Thompson Brothers for about 5 years. are they still on the go. I use to alway end up in the middle of nowhere. Aww the good old days, Rainbow Lake, Zama, High Prairie, Concland, Red Earth, Can't figure out why I am not interested in going back.
Whatta ya' mean?:beatsme I was referring to the 312.
Hmmm...:yup I thought this was about the 375! But now it's a real sausage fest! Ever notice the absence of female members on the board...:beatsme
amen but don't let the mexicans get a hold of it. *sitting here wondering where the other half of the case of grease went* my truck seat?
Don't feel bad, I put my grease gun in the tool box oneday and somehow it bounced around and landed on the trigger pumping an entire tube of grease all over my tools and crap.
I was talkin about the 312....I didn't want you to get in trouble buying more iron. You thought I meant girly pictures?...... I would never think or do such things.
You know that's right!:cool2 Around the home now a days, if I say I am thinking of buying a piece of yellow iron, it better have ERTL on the box. Seriously, how do you like the 312, of course considering it's size? I rented one several years ago, a B model and it was jumpy. I have 2 house demo's and some small site prep projects coming up and I need to rent a 312-315-160 size machine. Reason for that size hoe is I can move it myself. My 325D is still on a job down south for a few more months. I am considering RPO'ing this machine so my initial choice is important, I may end up keeping it if the work is there. I owned a 315 a few years ago and it was a nice little machine, put 2K hours on it.
Now that was a nice save there Burnout! :lmao
Nice photos burnout! How'd that 120" bucket work out for you, or is that the reason the 375 went down? Got any photos?:notworthy
HAHA that really sucks! My finger always seems to finds its way on that trigger when I dont want it to!They need a child lock on it or somthing cuz I sick of the grease stains all over my cloths!
:iagree Or Norscot, First Gear, or if things get really bad, Matchbox lol. Let's keep this thread rollin'!!!
Well Corey... the 312 seemed like quite the weapon compared to that 375. She was a fast little unit, the hydraulics were nice on her, lots of grunt for what I was doing with it. I would say its a quality machine, but I think if you compared it to a 120 Deere the deere would be a little nicer. We only have 2 312's a B and C, the B is an absolute dog, but it's been rode hard and put away wet. I will have to get the pic of the unit I was running up.... you'll be amazed at how poor a condition it's in for only being 2 years old and having 4700hrs on her. This thing looks worse than the retarded 312B my old man bought a few years back. And I use that word literally on that one... she fell off a trailer and had computer problems among other things. But we got a 312B with 900hrs on it for 6000 dollars, put about 8 gallons of bondo in her, cleaned it up a bit and sold it for 40 000 a year later. Well my 120" bucket is sitting on site right now, but the 375 is down again. Apparently someone went to move it on thursday morning and after that the mechanic noticed a big puddle under a final drive so she is gonna be sitting still for some time. Now they floated in one of the other operators and a PC400 to finish the job up, and I got sent to my new sewer and water crew.....
Do you miss your track loader yet?
Hmmmm... do I miss my track loader yet? I shall create a thread on that subject alone.... there have been developments in the last couple days.
sounds fantastic dont they know you cant make a silk purse outta a sows ear ! dont forget to breath in
great lookin 375, just bought a model of that excavator
Why don't you come out here and take the real one to sit beside it. I can think of a few people who wouldn't mind seeing it go.
haha that bad huh
if it's anything like ours, It's as slow as a legless horse, trying to run uphill.:Banghead:Banghead:Banghead
Jim, how old is your guys 375?
Its probably got over 12,000 hrs on it by now. Hoeman600 would know better than me how old it is though, he was still working with us the first time when they got it:beatsme:usa
man 12,000 hrs....thats a few
12 000hrs is hardly broke in for us. Our newer 375 has 19 000hrs on it, on its 4th engine, and 5th stick. Oddly enough its on its second undercarriage. They said the first one went for 11 000hrs.