I have an ancient IT12 that we mostly just use on the farm for picking up boulders and moving larger trees. Its got about 13k hours and has been a very reliable machine, but I’m wanting something a bit newer and a bit bigger. Ive had a few days recently where I was right on the edge of the machines ability with the rear wheels barely touching the ground and the wife is on me to cool it with the risky operating Issue is that i have 3 sets of forks, a GP and 4n1 bucket, broom, boom, auger, compaction wheel and a few other attachments for my IT12 and it would be hard to replace all of that. Was hoping to get some suggestions for an older loader to look for but maybe in the 5k hr range that will accept those attachments. I figured a 14 or 18 would work, but wasnt sure whether the 9 series loaders also used the same type of attachment? Any advice on specific models to look for also appreciated. Also curious whether a telehandler would be worth looking at. The biggest issue there is that we have a few more pretty big rocks to move and Ive been told the loader handles that kind of work better.
What style QC does it have now? Might be able to swap the QC to a newer machine?
It has what appears to be the standard IT connector, and it looks very similar to what I see other cat wheel loaders running. On the implement side, its a double hook over the top of the loader QC and then two holes down below facing laterarlly that the loader puts a pin through hydraulically to hold it. Sorry, I'm probably not explaining that well, I have a big farm and have many many thousands of hours operating but Ive never been a professional operator using lots of different types of equipment.
Heres a pick of the coupler on the front of my machine and then the bare forks. Just hoping to find something a little bigger and newer than my IT12 with 13k hrs. Still needs to be small because we are moving a lot of bigger boulders in thru tight corridors around the house. But just need a little more oomph but dont want to lose my other attachments.
Not sure on the ear spacing on your QC but looks very similar to the one I had on a 2002 420DIT backhoe. That type QC is fairly popular in the smaller Cat machines.