New heavy equipment is expensive. Very expensive. If you find an older piece that can still pull its own weight you hold on to it. Sure, the hydraulics may not cycle as quickly as a newer machine and there certainly isn’t a computer screen to be found anywhere in the cab but getting the job done is the most important task. Here is a Ford 755 still doing site work at a new housing development. Based on the front tires 4×4 power could be an option on this old backhoe.
Here we have a pair of John Deere 544 wheel loaders. These two machines are currently stationed at a local shopping center. Sometimes they sport plow blades while other times they run just buckets. I hope to grab some operational footage of these two before the winter is done. These 544s bare the company logo of Seneca Pipe which we’ve seen before on this site in the form of some old International and Ford dump trucks.
Looks like the JD544 is a popular machine among the mall crowd. Zack sent me this photo the other day of a one clearing snow at shopping center in Connecticut.
Cool! My father has an old Ford 550 backhoe we use around our farm. Its pretty worn out, and the old 3 cylinder Diesel is pretty tired. He keeps saying we should replace it, but the old dog never seems to skip a beat! (As long as the battery is charged up…) Long live old equipment.
Well said!