Warming Up Your Backhoe
It's important to take care of your backhoe for many reasons, but two always stand out for me. Firstly, it will help prevent accidents because you'll be spotting potential prolems early on. Secondly, if you look after your backhoe it will be more reliable and it will almost certainly last longer, and we both know – backhoes ain't cheap!
Ok, so one of the best habits you can get into with your backhoe is to let it warm up properly each day before you use it. Just like in your car, whenever you don't use it for a while, say overnight, all the oil gathers in the bottom of the engine and stays there until you start it. It's only when the engine is running that the oil gets circulated. That means when you first start your engine there's not much oil on the engine parts, which means there's no lubrication.
It's important that your backhoe is lubricated and running smoothly before you start work with it, and it can take as long as 20 minutes before the oil is fully circulated. In any case, you should let the engine run for at least 10 minutes before you use the machine for any work.
Whilst it's warming up, you should avoid putting any strain or stress on it. That means you can move your backhoe, but don't use the bucket or loader to move or lift anything. If you do put strain on your backhoe before it's warmed up properly you will greatly increase wear and tear, and you'll almost certainly increase the likelihood of damage.
I know it doesn't seem like such an important thing, but it really is worth waiting that extra few minutes before starting work – in the long run, not allowing your backhoe to warm up before you use it will cost you time and money, both with servicing and repairs. It might even mean that you need to buy a new backhoe sooner than you would have done, so come on, 10 minutes is not that long in the course of a days work. Be good to your backhoe and it will be good to you.
Hi there. My name is Buddy and I built this site so I can share some of my experiences and talk about backhoes with like minded people. Please leave a comment if you get a chance.
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