I am looking at buying a wheel loader to fit with a set of 500kg spears to handle 2500kg cotton round bales, and afterwards doing some de-silting work in some dams. I have never had much to do with wheel loaders - I would really appreciate some advice on the best machine for the job, as well as what I need to look out for if buying a second hand machine. Thanks, Mark
Welcome to the forum, MRP. Komatsu would be my choice, I have three of them from 4,000 hours to 12,000 hours and I have not had a problem with any of them. For desilting dams, you definitely need limited slip or torque proportioning diffs. A WA350 or WA380 should be plenty big enough for what you are doing, but depending on the size of the dams, you may need a bigger machine. I am not saying they are better than anything else, that is just my choice. The lower the hours the better, check for pin and bush wear in the loader frame and articulation joints and general overall appearance of the machine. Take it for a drive and push some dirt, the transmission should be reasonably responsive and spin the wheels when you bury the bucket. If possible, try driving up and backing up a steep slope with a full bucket, if the transmission does it easy, you should be right, because pulling out of a soft dam with a bucket full of mud or clay is about as hard as a loader will ever work. Some loaders almost stall the transmission out, trying to pull out of dams. Check the engine for all the usual signs of wear, blue or brown smoke when revved up after idling, runs reasonably clean under load. The quality of machine will depend on how much you want to spend. Advertised machines in Australia are overpriced, I use a dealer to buy my equipment, our last Komatsu came from Germany, because of the high dollar, it was landed in Australia, slightly cheaper than the equivalent machine for sale here. He also quite often knows of machines that people have for sale, but are not advertised. RnR.
Hi MRP, Check the auction pages in the Courier Mail and be prepared for a fly to Brisbane or Townsville. There should be a reference there to "Grays on Line". What RnR said is all true - don't pay a dealer. You could end up with a lemon from the auctions, but with what you will save, you can pay to fix it. Um, you may know more about what you want to do than me, but i"m thinking that if you are shopping for a front-end-loader to clean out dams, you should look for an excavator too so that you can pull the loader out when you are bogged! ha ha. Even an excavator can get into trouble doing that job but is the right machine for it.
Thanks stondad, just really looking for the ability to keep the loader working year round rather than just for a few months at picking time, (the bale lifting is the main requirement for this machine). The bloke who I am contracting for has a number of excavators, so we should be right when I get bogged! MP
Ha ha. So you know what I mean. Forgot to mention that it's Saturday's Courier that has the auctions in it.