JCB 3c... erm.... what?!
Posted: Sat Jun 18, 2011 7:45 pm
Chaps, just typed a long post and then lost it, so this will be the annoyed shorted version!
I've been hiring either a Man With a Shiny JCB or a self-drive 2t tracked digger for dutes around our land - 18 acres of mixed woodland, lake, paddock and lawns. I have a Massey 1235 with Lewis loader, 4-in-1 bucket and a 60" cutting deck for general mowing / loading / digging duties, though no backhoe. I'm now getting to the point where I'm bored of constantly shelling out for hires when I could have a machine sat here ready to work for not a huge amount of cash. The Massey has been fantastic but suffers greatly from a surfeit of power over weight - it can physically lift things which it shouldn't lift! Way too many wobbly moments and situations where I've just had to back off do things the hard way. It's an excellent tractor, but at only a ton or so, it's not really much cop for decent lifting / carrying duties.
My head says I ought to get a medium-sized tracked machine and be done with it, but my heart points out I could spend half as much on a Shiny Yellow Toy of Much Goodness.... it'd be being asked to do digging / stumping, general loading / carrying and some hauling of trees / logs in and around the woods and more to the point, out of the lake...
THing is, despite googling like a madman, I still don't really understand the differences between the 3C2 / 3C3 / 3CX and so on - childish logic tells me I need a 4-in-1 front bucket, forks, and preferably being a lazy and untalented backhoeist, a hydraulically side-shifting backhoe. Which model that actually equates to in real life is beyond me, or indeed whether some of those features are overkill is beyond my ken too.
Also how do they all comapre in terms of size / weight - one of the duties would be stump pulling / log shifting on the dam at the end of the lake and obviously I don't want more weight on there than I have to to get the job done... also around the grounds there are hedge gaps which may fox a larger machine... or rather the machine would fox the hedges!
So am I barking up completely the wrong tree and should I traipse back to the tracked forums, or am I thinking along the right lines with a 3Cxyz machine? If so.... which one?
For reference, I'm thinking sub-£5k, and have been wondering about these two which aren't a million miles away from me:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/JCB-3C-3-POWER-TRAIN-Digger-3cx-/290578532494?pt=UK_BOI_Industrial_Tools_Construction_Tools_ET&hash=item43a7d4888e
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/JCB-3CX-White-CAB-2WD-Digger-Superb-con-year-/290578495243?pt=UK_BOI_Industrial_Tools_Construction_Tools_ET&hash=item43a7d3f70b
Ooh, which raises another point - 4WD. Now this is no construction site, nor farmers fields, but we are on clay soils, and the Massey struggles when its not in 4WD mode, but then it's on turf tyres so it'd struggle in a heavy dew. The paddocks are fine, but away from there we do have some slopes and more to the point the land around the lake does get soft. So is 4WD a neccessity or not really a proviso?
Thanks for all your help in advance, and apologies for the lack of reverence in my post, and the slew of silly novice questions!
I've been hiring either a Man With a Shiny JCB or a self-drive 2t tracked digger for dutes around our land - 18 acres of mixed woodland, lake, paddock and lawns. I have a Massey 1235 with Lewis loader, 4-in-1 bucket and a 60" cutting deck for general mowing / loading / digging duties, though no backhoe. I'm now getting to the point where I'm bored of constantly shelling out for hires when I could have a machine sat here ready to work for not a huge amount of cash. The Massey has been fantastic but suffers greatly from a surfeit of power over weight - it can physically lift things which it shouldn't lift! Way too many wobbly moments and situations where I've just had to back off do things the hard way. It's an excellent tractor, but at only a ton or so, it's not really much cop for decent lifting / carrying duties.
My head says I ought to get a medium-sized tracked machine and be done with it, but my heart points out I could spend half as much on a Shiny Yellow Toy of Much Goodness.... it'd be being asked to do digging / stumping, general loading / carrying and some hauling of trees / logs in and around the woods and more to the point, out of the lake...
THing is, despite googling like a madman, I still don't really understand the differences between the 3C2 / 3C3 / 3CX and so on - childish logic tells me I need a 4-in-1 front bucket, forks, and preferably being a lazy and untalented backhoeist, a hydraulically side-shifting backhoe. Which model that actually equates to in real life is beyond me, or indeed whether some of those features are overkill is beyond my ken too.
Also how do they all comapre in terms of size / weight - one of the duties would be stump pulling / log shifting on the dam at the end of the lake and obviously I don't want more weight on there than I have to to get the job done... also around the grounds there are hedge gaps which may fox a larger machine... or rather the machine would fox the hedges!
So am I barking up completely the wrong tree and should I traipse back to the tracked forums, or am I thinking along the right lines with a 3Cxyz machine? If so.... which one?
For reference, I'm thinking sub-£5k, and have been wondering about these two which aren't a million miles away from me:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/JCB-3C-3-POWER-TRAIN-Digger-3cx-/290578532494?pt=UK_BOI_Industrial_Tools_Construction_Tools_ET&hash=item43a7d4888e
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/JCB-3CX-White-CAB-2WD-Digger-Superb-con-year-/290578495243?pt=UK_BOI_Industrial_Tools_Construction_Tools_ET&hash=item43a7d3f70b
Ooh, which raises another point - 4WD. Now this is no construction site, nor farmers fields, but we are on clay soils, and the Massey struggles when its not in 4WD mode, but then it's on turf tyres so it'd struggle in a heavy dew. The paddocks are fine, but away from there we do have some slopes and more to the point the land around the lake does get soft. So is 4WD a neccessity or not really a proviso?
Thanks for all your help in advance, and apologies for the lack of reverence in my post, and the slew of silly novice questions!