How to Buy and Sell Heavy Equipment

all right I'm here with Brad from Bush's Bobcat service and today we're going to be talking about maintenance on heavy equipment whether that's a skid loader front-end loader any type of heavy equipment and then what to look for when you are in the market to purchase a used piece of equipment so Brad are you ready to take us through the steps yes let's let's go so we're going to go to the Dan's uh Lawn and landscape service shop this is where Brad operates out of and we're going to be looking at what machine are we going to be looking at today Brad we're going to be looking at a bobcat s205 an s25 okay so come on in let's check this out so tell me a little bit about this particular machine this is a used piece of equipment correct yep okay so this is the perfect thing for us to just to kind of go over if you were in the market for a used Bobcat what's the first things that we would be looking for in this well the first thing you're going to look for is any visible leaks on the outside of the machine if you're looking to you know purchase a used piece of equipment the best thing to do is do a walk around look at any of the cylinders um we can leave the rear door closed at this time but you just walk around look for any leaks of course you're going to see some looks like maybe possible oil leak but if you look it's just the grease from the grease being hot you know then it you know of course looks like it could possibly be an oil leak which it's actually not there's no drip or anything um then you can look behind the wheels um this is a pretty major one um on a little bit older um Bobcats that don't look wellmaintained you'll want to look for an actual seal leak you can either look at it from behind or in front if you do see that I would SU just at that point you Jack the machine up off the ground um so you can isolate whatever wheel that might have that leak and then you can check and see if the bearings are out or if the bearings are going out if the axle's loose you know you'll be able to move it in and out if the bearings are going out um and if that's the case you know it's it's going to be a pretty spendy repair because you're you're going to want to do all four axles at that time and uh if you do find that you may want to also come out to the front of the machine if you find axle seals leaking um you can pull this front plug off pull this plug out and all you need is a a halfin drive ratchet you can take that plug out stick your finger in there it should be about an inch down or what I do is just bend my finger down and the oil should be at the tip of my finger if you have oil coming out of here you probably have Drive Motors leaking or your chain case covers are leaking and you're getting water in there um so let me ask you a question Brad what's the deal with this surface rust is that anything to even be concerned about this is pretty common on you know all Bobcats after you know you can look at this one here this one I believe is a 2010 um and there's not much rust on there you know it's not a lot of surface rust where this one here I believe is a 2006 model year so and really it has nothing to do it's not going to more aesthetic than anything cuz I've had you know I've sold a number of skid loaders and pieces of equipment and we snowplow with them and for me when I see surface rust like that all that indicates to me is this machine snow ploted sometime and realistically I would rather buy a machine that spent its whole life plowing snow than working in Asphalt construction Rubble getting beat up getting cylinders Brent getting arms cracked doing things like that I'd rather have some surface rust that I can polish off and and put a new paint job over than replacing any of the major components yeah which isn't which isn't bad you know the snow plowing is rough if you don't have um educated operators on snow plowing I mean if they snow plowing and turn their bucket down you know and they're trying to scrape up ice or something that'll usually bend these tilt cylinders when the guys do that you know so when they run them vertical almost straight up down when they run them straight up down they're trying to scrape ice it's not good or or they pick the machine up you know they'll pick the front tires up off the ground thinking that they're putting more weight on the ground which they're not and then they push forward and then they push forward and bends them cylinders and okay so you try staying away from that um but the surface rust doesn't uh isn't doesn't going to affect anything on the machine you know it's just so what's the next things we're going to be looking for then the next thing is you're coming around the machine you can look at the Bob tach pins and bushings um tilt cylinder pins and bushings if you just grab the Bob tach if you have it laid out like this just grab the Bob tach and on this one here you can see that the Tilt cylinder pins probably should be replaced um but the bobat pins itself you can see that it's barely moving um this machine is a well maintained machine I maintained this one since it's been brand new including that one too same thing and it's got $1,800 on it with this will be the first time that the tilts the pins will be changed on it so I mean that's pretty good you can tell that this machine hasn't been beat um then you can go on the inside of the machine or open up the door um you know you'll want to look at the hours if you hit the headlight key that the headlight button that'll give you the hours the hours will come up on uh the side of the machine here and it'll give the hours um this one's actually $1,900 um but what you're saying is universal for all all Bobcat all Bob and I don't say Bobcat skid steers really we we've got to Define that you want to check the hours it doesn't they're not all going to have that control panel they're going to have different type even Bobcats are going to have different different from the the F or the CF g k m right you know they all are a little but the main components that you're talking about are Universal enough that we want to make sure you're going to check your your seals on it you're going to check your your pins in the front Okay those are and all the new machines also from the from the G Series on you can check for any service codes or any uh you know if there's a sensor or something out the Bobcat will prompt you to what's out so you can look at that to see if if that if the code history is clear okay you know so you'll know if you have any problems electrically that are visibly electric you know electrical problems and then of course just come back around to the other side and again looking for leaks you know don't see anything machine looks good then we can come to the back and uh and open up the back door and now you're in the engine department and uh you know you check the oil make sure that the oil level's good perfect on this machine um what about clean oil versus dirty oil what does that tell you well on a diesel engine it's you're not going to you're going to have your clean oil you know for about the first hour you know and then it's going to be then it's going to be black okay um it's just a matter of either it having hours or the date um on that part of it you know make sure that it's a fairly recent service you know so you kind of know that the guys may be maintain a little bit you can take off the uh air filter housing um you can check the air filter you know make sure the guy's not running it with a plugged air filter um yeah I don't know remember when the looks like I changed this one not too long ago but of course you're going to have you know the dirt and dust here at the beginning the filter you know you can just wipe that out and then you can also squeeze this little piece to get any of the extra dirt out I mean some big indicators that this machine has absolutely no tlcs if you find a m a mouse m in there mous pine needles or whatever you know those are typically things that you find for somebody that if they tell you yeah we service this thing and you open this up and you find that it's it's cake full of stuff you know that it's not something isn't driving at that point and then you know anybody can write hours on a filter so you got you got to have to well you're going to know simply because if you if you pull out the dipstick and you got oil dripping like this you know it's probably pretty good if it's the consistency of car you're probably going to want to stay away from the machine MH um so what about what about like Blow by or or things like that what are those is there ways of checking that to make sure you got a good machine there is um like on this Bobcat right here is the the blowby tube okay which is right here now you can look in this blowby tube and this is going to tell you like there's nothing there I mean it's it's what what would you find if there was you would if you would if you had a bad um cylinder you know bad Rings or possibly bad valves um something that was allowing the oil pressure to reach the top head it would be blowing that oil out that blowby tube and you would get smoke and oil you know droplets coming out okay and you know that's something you'll look at you know cuz you'll look for oil leaks on the machine you know in the inside of the engine right but some of that could be a maybe a h or something that leaks well it could be um you know it could be a turbo line leaking um but you're going to know the general vicinity of where it's leaking valve cover gaskets you can look at at at that type of stuff when you're looking for a new one um and most like the valve cover I mean that's something most people would be able to install themselves um but the uh engine Blow by you most people won't be able to repair that by themselves it'll have to come into a shop um what about the battery is that even something to be worried about or concerned about or doesn't that I guess you can but you can know by just jumping in and starting the machine but it is a battery so I mean every two years you know you should probably be putting a battery in anyway one of the things I want to point out that Brad didn't mention when you were in the inside of the machine one of the things that I look at is the seat and the seat I don't look at it because I care where my butt rests I care because it's an indicator how many actual hours are on the machine because when you when you have um a brand new seat and it's a seat will I mean I guess the way I'm trying to say it Brad is a seat will indicate how hard the machine's been used and where how old it is in case anything has been changed because if you see a wore out seat and it's ripped and tore and somebody's telling you the machine's got 900 hours on it it's not driving plain and simple well it depends because if like U me as a mechanic if I'm jumping in and out with like wrenches in my pocket screwdriver in my pocket I mean you you know you could have an accident and tear the seat or something right so but but a machine with 2 3 4,000 hours will usually especially 4,000 hours we usually be you're you're going to see a lot of problems come at 4,000 hours you're going to see a machine if you see a machine with 4,000 hours on it you might want to look that one over a little bit a little bit closer cuz that's about when they become problematic yeah at that time yeah right okay so and you're going to look at uh you know the condition of the Dr dve belt um in the alternator belt cooing belt um this one has a hydraulic fan so it doesn't have a fan belt um and that's pretty much it you know you can check the coolant level check for any coolant leaks up around the back I mean you'll be if you look down inh you'll be able to see if there's any coolant leaks um you can check the oil cooler you can check them seals make sure that there's not oil around there they're clean the coolant level in the bottom in the bottle there now we have we're lucky because right now we have two different machines here with two different styles of tracks and sometimes when you're looking at purchasing a used piece of equipment you may find a machine that has tracks and that may be the motivator of why you're interested in purchasing that machine can we look at the tracks and also how each set of tracks could possibly affect the machine because I know there's a set of Steel tracks over there and I know those steel tracks are tall tough on equipment so let's look at let's look at these rubber tracks here and what would we want to look at to tell us whether we got a good set of rubber tracks or we have something that maybe is in need of replacement well you know there's it's really I mean there's if you look at these tracks uh like I said these got $1,900 hours on them but these are you know ran by Dan um so it's basically just one two maybe three different operators are ever in this machine mhm um so it's taken care of um so the tread is still good so that that set of tracks has $1,800 on it yes does he use those to plow in the win time he does he keeps that on the snow plow cuz that you won't typically find a set of tracks in that well you see them like this because there's only there's myself and one other operator that would run this machine um so you know they're not beat up so what we're looking at is we don't see any major Cuts or tears mostly we've got some of these some separation but that's pretty typical just of age yeah well of Goodyear tracks too I mean but none of them are real deep for the hours on these tracks I mean they're they're decent um we have had to change tires um so I think this is actually the second set of tires in here um so let's go look at these steel tracks over here but the the rubber TR tracks here I would say these one these are the best to have um if you're not going to buy a designated track machine put rubber tracks on um put rubber tracks on they do a lot less damage on the yard I I I have both I have I have a dedicated track machine rubber track over the tire rubber tracks steel tracks I tell you I don't like my steel tracks see I like the steel tracks for dirt work if you're just going to be on dirt if you're just going to be on dirt they're okay um I don't like what they do to the machine what I've noticed and I love the results I love the handling of my over the tire rubber tracks and these I call them Chompers these things Chomp through the dirt when you need traction when you need yeah they're good for that but what happens is is these tracks get loose like right like we see right here they they can pop up and they can grab uh something like this they can grab an edge of a machine if you're not safe well any gusset you know they'll they'll catch they'll catch and then they'll pop they'll either they'll either pop the track when I say pop you you may not see it pop off but what you're going to do well I mean you can remedy that by you know you can remed it by tightening the tracks you know or make sure that your machine has the correct spacer on there I mean you can get from half inch to 2 in spacers um to put in there so maybe you need to add a little bit more spacers so so that's an important Point Dan because what happens is is you're going to be operating and then the tracks themselves will somehow start to get loose if you you got your tire wear y I mean these are loose just basically since cuz we put these on when we had new tires on y um and these tires have gone through three winners now so three winners on those T of course last winner didn't come right last we well yeah yeah cuz this is the the 2010 so since this machine's been brand new it this is still its original set of tires um and I I guess I can't I could tell you if I wants to get the machine but you know this machine here is only ran by two people this will be ran by Dan and by myself so they're so just be careful when you're buying a machine with steel tracks things to look for and that's the point we came over here we're not here to pick on your machine or anything but this is just a great example of when a track gets loose like this it can pop up and you can you need to look for any any bending on the frames or bending in the tracks themselves correct so um and it happens to to everybody I mean my steel tracks they get loose like this then we've got to stretch them we've got to get a stretcher out we got to pull them together and then we've got to yeah I mean yeah yeah it's just little little holes so they just if you pop this bolt out and you can tighten it up yeah so you want to make sure you've got a good set tight set of tracks on there you know a lot of little things indicate how well the piece of equipment's been taken care y yeah I mean you can tell that on on different machines so you know I mean I don't know what else awesome is there anything else you would look for if you were purchasing a piece of equipment well of course you're going to want to start the machine up and if you could if the customer is okay with it take it with the bucket on and maybe run up against something hard make sure that the machine will spin its tires you know so you'll know that the you know if you long as you check the dry belt so you know the dry belts tight and if it can't spin its tires you're probably getting you know maybe a weak Drive motor a motor that could be bypassing some oil somewhere bad sealing or something so okay so that's a great indicator um what happens if you're just driving down the road and you notice it kind of pulling to one side well that is usually just a steering adjustment or a you know the bushings could be worn big thing little thing um it depends how far it's drifting from right to left um you know it's not that big of a thing but if you have your machine stopped with the parking brake off and the Machine wants to spin circles then it's a big thing okay okay um okay so and one of the other things too I want to bring up Brad is these two pieces of equipment don't have dedicated tracks and when you have something with over the tire tracks like that and it's going to be used extensively for over the tire tracks is it typical to take take off a set of Drive chains on a bobc yes you'll want to uh take the front drive chains or rear drive chains whatever your preference is but typically the front drive chains come off um you can leave the front on but then you're going to run into problems with putting new bearings in new races new chains because everything's going to be stretched to the Max and so I want to clarify what exactly we're talking about there's four Drive chains the skid loaders front for one for each set of tires right and when you put tracks on like this let's go look at this well there's a front a front set and a rear set okay and so you've got the set and what happens is now when you have the tip the the wheels hooked together and operating together they're actually competing against each other at that point aren't they well they're not really competing against each other but it's uh basically the tension of of the track and the tension of the chains there's no give it anymore I mean it's like pulling it together and it uh puts a strain on the drive chains so if you go ahead and you're looking for a piece of equipment or you have a a machine and you taking the front drive chains off because you don't want to throw out your bearings and you take the the tracks off you've got a rear wheeel drive machine that you're going to have one hell of a time steering right okay right well the easiest way to do it is I just always take the bucket you can push it down and then just drive backwards okay tricks of the trade is the way is the best way to do it you can kind of get around okay but don't be surprised so if you come into a machine like this and you see it you know it has tracks on it and those Drive chains have been disabled some people like to do…