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jdemaris
11-12-2004 18:36:49
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Re: Ford 4500 backhoe and G. Lewis in reply to GLewis, 11-12-2004 11:46:27
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I've never owned or run a Ford 4500 backhoe, but I have two ca. 1963 Ford 4000 loader/backhoes. There are some things about my Fords that I like better than Deeres and Cases of the same vintage.
I was a Deere industrial/forestry mechanic for over 30 years and used to believe that John Deere made the best stuff. I'm not that sure anymore. My Fords have relatively high horsepower (172 cube four cylinder Red Tiger engines) for a small machine. Deere 300 has a 138 cube engine. They also have a lot of digging power - including the swing circuits (dual cylinders, not chains). Brakes are excellent, and have excellent traction for a two-wheel drive hoe. Many parts are generic, not proprietary, easy to get and cheap, and basic design is simple. Many Deere machines from the same generation, e.g. 1010, 2010, 300, 310 have less digging power, some have very weak swing circuits - especially those with either a "barrel" swing cylinder, or with the 300, a single swing cylinder. Hydraulic systems are closed-center and complicated and exsensive to fix (not counting 1010s and 2010s), lower horsepower to weight ratio, etc. Some have power brakes and steering that is absoluety non-existant if the engine dies, or in the case of 1010s and 2010s, hardly any brakes at all - even when the machines were new. Most Case 580CKs I've run hardly have any brakes either. Deere of course had some good machines. We sold many 310s and 410s and we had many loyal customers. Sometime in the mid or late 80s, Deere came out with a new generation of backhoe/loaders, and we started loosing customers. Most common complaint was that the new machines would not pick up what their predecessors would. If my memory is correct, this happend when the "C" series came out. We had many customers trading in their old Deere 410s, buying new 410Cs, and then coming back complaining that the new machines would not lift septic tank covers and such, whereas the old machines did so effortlessly. We had quite a go-around with Deere engineers who made many feeble and failed attempts to improve machine performance. We lost many of those customers who changed over to Ford or International Harvester. There are certainly many things about my Fords I'm not crazy about, and yes they aren't much more than beefed up farm tractors. But, that being said, they've been darn good machines and will do anything, and perhaps a bit more than what the competition offered contemporaneously. Again, I've never owned or run a 4500 Ford, so I can't comment on that.
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