towable back hoe

I am in the market for a used towable backhoe, can anyone who has one give me some info as to what to look for and look out for

I've got a Trencherman 2--Northern Tool sold them for many years, though I didn't notice one during a quick perusal of their site just now. Bought it used 10+ years ago, and have used it extensively. Beats a shovel all hollow, particularly in ground with rocks, tree roots, and other debris. On the other hand, if you're thinking of putting your dragline out to pasture with this unit, you might want to reconsider. They're not terribly fast and getting from place to place, if those places are more than a few dozen yards apart, takes a while--you crab yourself around by lifting the front stabilizers with the bucket, move the stick in or out to go forward or back, lower the stabilizers, move the stick the other direction and repeat as necessary. If I have to move it an appreciable distance I usually put the bucket in the front bucket of my tractor, lift the stabilizers off the ground, and move it like that. For towing, the stabilizers are removed and the wheels are moved to the rear of the unit--once you're familiar with the process, and aided by the engine and hydraulics, you can switch things around in under 5 minutes without tools. You can also dig with the machine in tow mode, though I don't recommend it--A friend borrowed it and hitched it to his 120-horse SAME Buffalo 4x4 tractor to keep it steady, figuring that was simpler than switching the wheels around and putting the stabilizers down. Found out in a hurry it could pull the tractor around before it ran out of digging force, and the SAME weighed over 5 tons.
Like any ground-engaging implement, if you use it, you're gonna break it, and it doesn't have bushings on the pins, so as they wear you'll need to redo them or live with a bit of slop, but that's to be expected on a machine of this size and price point. I've bent and replaced a few pins and had to strengthen the main pivot point, but it's done a lot of digging for me. I do wish it would dump higher--nominal dump height is 3.5 feet, but in practice, it's a bit lower than that, and even a pickup tailgate is out of reach. I typically dump into my tractor bucket if I need to remove the spoil, though I've used a yard cart or even an old car hood as a stone boat on jobs where a tractor wasn't available. Overall, if you're willing to accept they're not a replacement for a full-sized excavator, I've been very happy with mine, and have done a number of jobs, including several full septic systems, tons of water lines, percolation test pits, stump removals, drainage ditches and such, that would have been anything from hard labor to nearly impossible to do by hand.

thank you for that info

No problem--here's a picture from last summer of doing some stump digging. Oak tree about 8" that was leaning and needed to go. Certainly doable with just the tractor, but by digging around it with the hoe, severing the small roots and pulling the big ones up so I can get at them with an old double-bit axe I keep just for the purpose, it makes it a whole lot easier. I've also noticed my hands fit the controls on this a lot better than they do a shovel!

Doesn't look like much weight, how ruff is the ride?

It isn't much weight--you learn in a hurry to dig as close to you as practical, and use the bucket curl for your breakout. Trying to dig at full horizontal extension and using the dipper stick for breakout will just pull you toward your work unless the ground is very easily broken up. Of course, it's a small unit, and was never intended to replace a full-sized machine, but once you learn its quirks and respect its limitations, you can do far more work with it than you'd give it credit for on seeing it, and without beating either yourself or the machine up.

I know how much small backhoes can do, I bought a terramite 7 years ago, 1200 hours ago. I will never be without it.

Yesterday, I helped a guy put firewood on his truck. The forks on the loader can easily lift 1000#. The bucket can lift 1750#. The man was impressed with my little girl.

I've been looking at the Allmand backhoe, it a little stronger. The thing that bugs me is there are two seats on it. Every time you want to move, you have to get off the hoe seat, go to the front seat, move tractor, then get off that seat and return to the hoe seat. I'm spoiled, I like to just sit and spin around. That doesn't sound right.

Half my work is with the hoe, the other half is using the front bucket, sometimes to put the dirt back. How do you back fill?

Well, depending on circumstances, I either walk the hoe back up the trench and cuff the dirt back in or backfill with either the tractor loader or a back blade I have for the tractor. This unit replaced (or should I say I owned this one after) a '63 Fordson Super Major. 50-odd horse, 2wd, TLB setup with a hard-attached Ford hoe. Was several times the rig this is for pure dirt moving power, but nowhere near as maneuverable, portable, storable, economical to run or fix, etc. etc., so I did a number of jobs that this would would have been too small for and then got this one instead.

I've got an Allis Chalmers 720 w/loader. I would like to find a cat "0" 3 point back hoe for it.
Not many used ones out there.

Dusty

anyone else have a towable backhoe they can tell me about the pros and cons, I see Harbour freight has discontinued theirs, Wonder why???

When I was looking for a sub-compact hoe a guy told me the same thing. His ford hoe drank gas, not very economical.


Depending on how hard I'm pushing my terramite, 20 hp gas kohler, it uses about a gallon/hour. And I can get a lot done in an hour. Mine will fit in a garage, 7 ft tall. I 3 places to store mine depending where I'm using it, never sits outside.

I need both the front and back of my hoe. Mine is only 4 ft wide, so I can get in tight spots. Don't put ruts in yard like the big boys and bobcats eat spin the sod up.