How to run a Skid steer

we're going to teach you guys how to run a skid loader today by teaching my son how to run one because he's pretty much a novice at it he's been in one a few times in his life so he knows how to get in and out of a piece of equipment but he's not efficient with it by any means and today what we're gonna be doing is grabbing this dirt and carrying it down and dropping it in the brown spots down there and all i want you to do is just pick it up carry it down and drop it okay once we get that down then we'll start to learn some of the other things but let's go get familiar with your piece of equipment now the best way to teach somebody brand new to run a piece of equipment is when there's nobody looking over their shoulder except for whoever is mentoring them the place i usually like to do it is snow plowing in the middle of night in a bit wide open parking lot but nope that's a mini loader today we're going to be running an asv 75 rt max series cab with joystick controls first thing that we always do is before we ever jump in a piece of equipment start it up is we check the oil and we do a visual inspection so we do a walk around we've got oil but we've got to make sure that the machine has oil so as i walk around i look i'm looking for oil leaks i'm looking for anything broken this is not an oil leak this is the fuel and this shows me that somebody's been sloppy filling up the fuel tank okay i look for any loose hoses these are hoses right here i look for broken glass i look for dents i look for any impairments on the machine now this is a tract machine so i'm also looking the tracks here they're nice and tight that means this machine's in good shape but we've only looked at half of it so we want to do a walk around and as we look at it we're also getting familiar with the machine and what its potential limitations may be so if it's broken in any way shape or form it doesn't mean it's not operable it just may mean that we need to operate it in a different way to get around whatever happens to be broken and the reason i bring that up is a lot of times equipment can still operate but it may not be 100 fully functional now on the asb we lift this up and we've got two side panels so this oil in this case is on this side panel and it's right down under here yep that other side panel will open up too yep you see these hoses now i'm looking in the bottom of the machine and the reason i point out these hoses i'm looking for leaks and any hoses anywhere and i look down at the bottom of the machine to look for oil and another place that i particularly look is under the machine so the machine's had plenty of time to sit and do absolutely nothing for quite a while and anything that may be leaking is gonna give you an indicator underneath a couple of places i look is on the ground and then i look on the belly pans for any indicators that there may be a drip coming now in this case this machine's in good shape there's a hydraulic oil reservoir there it looks like it's on the low side but still functioning so we're good our hydraulic oil is good git loader has multiple oils in it not just engine oil but in this case the hydraulic oil which makes all of the boom arms operate and we've got to check both of those so our engine oil you see we've got an indicator top and a bottom indicator we're right in the middle so we're good to go okay so the machine's passed initial visual inspections right yeah nothing no red flags no alarms going off no oh you know what do i do you had seen like an oil mess anywhere that would have been an indicator to stop if you would have seen like a spill on the ground you don't fire up the equipment all right so in this case what we're going to be using is just a dirt bucket and that's perfectly fine this is the best place to start go ahead and hop inside now we're simply at first just going to get familiar with how the machine is laid out i know it looks complicated but it really isn't this is your throttle yeah i saw that this is probably keyhole yep go ahead and put the key in now we'll have a control panel that comes up here here's our screen you're going to use that screen because when you go backwards this becomes your backup camera when you're going forward this is where you look and then both sides first thing that has to go down is your lap bar there you go now we're just gonna let the machine warm up for a minute then when we're ready to run it we're not gonna run it at full throttle we're just gonna run it a little bit above barbados yeah [Music] so the most important thing he's doing right now is just driving nothing else i just want him to get familiar with the controls and how this machine feels he doesn't even need to pick anything up or move anything with a skid loader at this point it's the best thing you can do now as a new operator what you're gonna see is you're gonna have a left hand and a right hand or you're gonna have foot controls in this case we're talking joystick control so let's concentrate on what we have here you're going to have a left hand and a right hand controlling different functions of the machine and a lot of times what will happen is you'll have an operator that stops the machine and then he'll lower the bucket get it in position then drive that machine forward then he'll scoop that back and instead of doing left right left right or to bucket controls then run in the machine then run in the bucket eventually you want to graduate up to running everything together so you're lowering the bucket as you're driving forward as you're scooping into the pile as you're curling backward or if you're going to take it so let's see how he does this will be his first scoop [Music] yup [Music] now hand controls are going to be different in every company [Music] this means up in a lot of companies this doesn't mean okay this means okay keep coming so learn the hand controls in your curl back curl back so you see my four fingers and my thumbs in the front thumb represents the front of the bucket four fingers represent the back this means curl back bring your bucket back now if i'm doing this this means curl down right okay there you go now raise it up a little bit now shake the bucket shake it yeah a little bit more shake it a little bit more a couple courtesy shakes there you go curl it all the way back and now you're ready to travel with it perfect so you want just enough ground clearance that as you're traveling with the bucket you're not hitting things you want to drive over anything so what he's doing right now you guys you may see he's he's trying to get tricky you don't have to do that yeah it's not a complicated move but he's doing uh i'm gonna use this hand then this hand and this hand i'm gonna curl the bucket raise the bucket dump the bucket once i got all that done then i'm gonna move the machine with the other hand and that's great when you're first starting out go grab a second bucket full if you can yup so we'll go up and help him here because i want to spot him you should spot people but he's doing the typical control the bucket get that comfortable then control the machine then control the bucket then control the machine it's just going to be the way it goes but just like i said graduate up to controlling both simultaneously that's how you become efficient see he stopped and now he's manipulating his bucket that's a nice scoop see he's got that bucket perfectly flat he's going into that pile good tip that back tip it and shake it there you go yeah okay now the reason i'm spotting this is his blind spot those boom arms right there they create two blind spots you can't see anything below those boom arms he can raise them up and he can peek under them or he's got to look over them but as soon as their mid height their traveling height is virtually blind so if you go into a pile you have to remember everything that's on both sides of you and what i mean is as you're driving forward you're looking at everything around you and you're remembering what's behind you so as you're backing up you can almost start to visualize it but you can't rely on that because a dog a kid something can come up that wasn't there just a few moments before and i guarantee you it will happen so you're still responsible to do that check but the more aware you are as you go forward the better off you'll be as you go back they call these skid steers because as they steer they are skidding and ripping up the ground below them there is a way to get away from that though so if you're turning on a fresh green lawn you're going to tear that grass up so you may have to do a three-point turn to do it soft and accurately that's a hard turn you guys see that that's a heart that's gonna tear stuff up three point it's gonna be a lot nicer you guys see that i'm controlling the machine now i'm controlling the bucket that's not a bad height he should have been a little bit more down with this front of his bucket it don't matter [Music] yep look at that there we go not the end of the world though ah he's going all the way down huh that's one way of doing it so when an operator or someone comes up to your machine it's always hands off the controls yeah that way they know it's safe to come inside [Music] like i just did it's not the end of the world but you've got to instantly take control of the situation by removing your hands and stopping the person or don't be afraid to just directly want things to be done so you guys this is for the noobs i'm trying to help the new guy that have never ran one every time he turns he's creating this but beautiful thing is once you start to get the hand with a skid loader knocking those ruts out is nothing but it takes a little bit more control and understanding of the bucket right so now when you go some machines well almost almost have what's called a float function so now you're basically familiar with the functions of the machine it's time to put it to work now let's put this down and get this to the grade that we think we want it controlling the height of the bucket to eliminate them runs it's easier going backwards and forward if you go forward and try to do it you can nose dive right into the ground which isn't the end of the world that can always fix it but it's just easier going backward first easier going backwards [Music] there you go now you got rid of your ruts go up there and do it again raise your bucket up put the front of your bucket so you can grab this so when i go backwards if i'm just trying to smooth i need the combination of front bucket back in the middle bucket but it depends on if i need to grab and carry material or not the back of the bucket tends to carry material when you're going backwards the best because it just is like a big dam it grabs the if you're going that way backwards the back is back to the bucket hits piles of dirt and just takes them with them if i don't need to move a lot of material but i just need to get rid of ruts then i use the front the front of that bucket i put that down and my back of the bucket is now off the ground and i'm just using that front edge to feather it and go backward see that down yes perfect that's perfect we're grading with the front the back is go ahead back up the back is off the ground and now we're literally controlling all of the grade with just that front of the bucket we're not trying to carry anything and we're not we're just smoothing you're just smoothing at this point so you're doing it perfect when you guys are first starting out this is not a high-speed operation you are at this speed you are work you're not working on a customer's job site you're out in a field you're out in the lot maybe trying to get just get familiar with a piece of equipment snow plowing at night when nobody's around that's my favorite place to train people i give them the basics throw them in and nine hours later they can actually move some some they can move a skid loader around and move some snow it will literally take you 30 to 40 hours to get so you're not uncomfortable in a machine what i see uncomfortable i mean nervous um slightly hesitant cautious that's all i'm not saying proficient i'm not asking you to be proficient because that's a it takes a while these are the skid loaders some of these operators make them look like they're easy to run when nothing is further from the truth all right you guys do me a favor and hit that subscribe button if this video has helped you out hit that like button it honestly goes a very long way in the algorithm but on the next video coming out right down the pipeline we go over some of the things that will get an operator in trouble all right break time and i want to go over a couple of the don'ts you're starting some of the ways that you can flip a skid steer onto its side roll a skid steer over or get a skid steer stuck and how to avoid potential problems so make sure you look out for that video because it's going to be coming out next god bless and go get him you guys