We had rented and borrowed lots of equipment at this point and had a good idea of what we needed going forward. The backhoes were far and away the most versatile machines for our purpose. Figure $1600 per week with transport not including fuel and repairs. One crapper that we rented broke 4 times in 7 days. 80 mile round trip to town for parts each time. Months of research, as I had zero equipment experience before starting this, had given me the basics of what I was looking for.
By now we had become pretty good at saving money. That, along with selling off stuff we could part with finally had us able to start shopping. I was ok with my reality, my budget would only go far enough to buy an older machine. I have a decent set of tools and am pretty fair with a wrench so I set out looking for something in nice shape that needed basic wear items taken care of, nothing major.
I drove 300 miles in every direction from Havasu and looked at a ton of stuff and finally made a deal on this. It was ten years old, fleet maintained by a large underground company in Phoenix. They had put a fresh paint job on it as well as new tires and a few other things that would have been tough on me and wallet. It was ready for a full service which was actually perfect. I had wanted to learn the ins and outs of working on it myself.
First trip to the Deere dealer was an eye opener. They are pretty proud of the parts but at least everything was quality and an absolute exact fit.
New, updated control panel to show correct hours on machine.
Rebuilt the seat assembly as it has 4.2 million moving parts. Huge difference, and fat guy approved. New spring, shock, switches and seat belt assembly.
New dual battery setup and all new cables with switch.
Replaced all 4 billion grease fittings and cleaned out a few plugged passages before pins got wiped out.
This all took a couple months after work but sure was nice doing it in a climate controlled garage with concrete floors (as opposed to ranch dirt), toolbox close by and a big compressor. I have a much better understanding of the machine and could likely handle a larger repair as needed at the ranch.
It was like Christmas morning when the transporter delivered from my house to our exit.
Once we had the areas cleared and we had saved up enough money, it was time to bring the big guns in. A friend introduced me to a guy that owns a BIG dirt works company. He drove up to check out what we were doing and wanted to be a part of it right away. He made me a deal I couldn't refuse in exchange for help setting his well pump and doing his solar for it after seeing what we had done.
Transport on a 80,000 pound machine is expensive. There's no way around it. To justify the cost we came up with three projects to spread it out on. House pad, barn/shop pad and the pond. A few days later this showed up at the bottom of our hill.
This is where I start to suck at taking pictures. A D8 moves so much material in a short amount of time, I was on the run with the fire hose trying to keep moisture in it pretty much the whole time it was running. There rarely was any opportunity for pictures of the process itself. Here's the best I have of pad #1.
Whoa....I have to wait until spring for the next chapter?
For an update on the pond, yes. That's only one piece of the work in progress. I still have a bunch more content, I haven't even told the story of making a rookie mistake which ended up with a hole in the water line 298 feet down in the ground.
...:thumbsup
Once we had the areas cleared and we had saved up enough money, it was time to bring the big guns in. A friend introduced me to a guy that owns a BIG dirt works company. He drove up to check out what we were doing and wanted to be a part of it right away. He made me a deal I couldn't refuse in exchange for help setting his well pump and doing his solar for it after seeing what we had done.
Transport on a 80,000 pound machine is expensive. There's no way around it. To justify the cost we came up with three projects to spread it out on. House pad, barn/shop pad and the pond. A few days later this showed up at the bottom of our hill.
