Anyone know tractors? Deere 300 backhoe on CL

[Jay Champagne]

I'm going to be doing some construction at the house, probably starting in the spring.
Building a large garage in my backyard. I also have a lot of site work, grading, landscaping etc to do.
I have wanted a "compact utility tractor" for some time. But I figure the earthmoving needs of construction and what I want it for later are different needs. So I was considering buying a larger backhoe, and selling it in a few years, trading for something smaller.
Came across this today though, and older John Deere 300 Industrial, with loader and backhoe. Only $3k. Supposedly good to got ready for work.
It's gas engine (booo) but PTO power and whatever aren't really a concern in this machine.
Is anyone familiar with these or similar tractors? Is this up to the task of digging trench for building footings (4' frost line here) and general earth moving?
'https://nh.craigslist.org/grd/d/rindge-john-deere-300-industrial/7002375814.html

[John Ziebron]

Jay, even if this John Deere runs and the loader and backhoe work now I wouldn't touch something like this that is obviously not been maintained and looks to have been sitting around for a long time. One issue I see would be the hydraulic hoses used for loader and backhoe operation deteriorating due to age and UV exposure. This tractor could turn into a real money pit for you. And there is nothing worse than having a machine like this break when you're in the middle of a project.

I would recommend just buying a new tractor with any implements, like a backhoe, that you know you will need for your spring construction. BTW, even the smallest backhoe attachment is capable of digging a 4 foot trench. Good deals can be had this time of year on a tractor and many dealers are offering zero percent financing. Figure out what all the things are that you need a tractor for and go from there. You can get a lot of good advice on tractorbynet.com as there are over 5.5 million posts. They even have a separate categories for buying/pricing/comparisons and owning/operating. You can view all the threads but have to join to post one (it doesn't cost anything to join). Feel free to PM me if you want to get into any details.

[Mark Bolton]

My 0.02 based on owning and operating small and large equipment for 20+ years is that you will waste more time working on and keeping that machine running that it will ever save you and when your done (which you will likely never get there with that machine) you will be in the scrap value market.

As a GC for 30 years and owing a large piece of property (115 acres) I would strongly advise you to setup a simple spreadsheet or pad of paper for the math and apply some numbers on the cost of owning a piece of equipment and what your perceived savings are over the course of your project and the projected lifespan of the machine and be absolutely sure to include factors for your time in hours for ownership, maintenance, and operation (i.e. time away from your family).

Then have another column for the cost to rent machines on an as needed basis that will land to you fully maintained, they will be the most current, fastest, and so on. And also account for your operating hours.

Then have a third column that covers hiring out the work.

I will almost guarantee you, column two will be the smartest if some component of your math is getting to sit in the seat of a machine.

With an assumption that your semi-savvy with dirt work and wont make more of a mess than work completed, on week X you need an excavator to get work done you have it, clean, new-ish, fast, maintained, week XX you dont need it its gone, not costing you a penny. Week XX.X you need a skid steer for a period, it lands, new, clean, works, week XX.XXX its gone. On and on.

Owning equipment sounds like a jolly that gives you a warm fuzzy. And the deathnell rationality of "Ill own it instead of paying to rent it" is what gets people sunk. If you truly have a long term need for a compact tractor and implements I wouldnt consider anything other than a 4WD machine regardless of flat or hilly terrain with a loader if only for a bit more robust front end and I'd guess you'd be in the several thousand, to 10K+ range used for a machine that will have a loader, backhoe, and some other attachments (grade blade, box blade) and mind you it wont do ANY operation fast or well but of course you will own it.

If you have work to do, and want to get it done quickly and cleanly, establishing a good relationship with a local rental yard will land you far more productive machinery to get the job done than owning a small, multi-use, machine. And when your done you can go fishing.

I personally own a 33HP 4WD tractor, every implement (backhoe, loader, grade blades, box blades, rippers, tillers, splitters, bush hog, finish mower). Its somewhat inevitable with the piece of land but when some real work needs to be done, I rent.

Just my 0.02

[Tom M King]

For general earth moving, I wouldn't want less than a category 2 tractor. I started with a 35hp category 1 tractor, but soon graduated to a 70 hp category 2 with loader. The little tractor would get stopped by a full box blade. Then you have to lift the blade, and fight the hump it left for a long time. The 70hp will pull a full 7' box blade, and not be stopped by any amount of whatever is in the box, and do a good job of grading something out nice, and smooth.

Depending on how much land you have, and how much shaping you need to do will determine whether you need a tractor, or not, and what sized one, or more. We have 163 acres where we live, including a horse farm, and miles of trails. I've ended up with three tractors.

I'm all for used ones, and you will learn to work on them. I put 3,000 hours on that 70hp John Deere. I paid 12k for it 30 years ago, and might have spent another 10k on it since then, including having the engine rebuilt once. A new tractor like that is 60 to 70k, and would still need some work during those 3,000 hours.

My 117 hp 4wd was also old when I bought it, but all it needed was a new air conditioning compressor. I paid 7500 for that one, and 1800 for the 15' batwing mower it pulls.

The little one is not worth talking about.

I rent mini-excavators for digging footings. I'd like to have one, but don't need one bad enough to cough up the cost. I do have a gooseneck trailer that I can go get whatever machine I need to rent, so that saves a lot of moving fees by the rental company.

I wouldn't take that 300, if they gave it to me.

[Adam Herman]

something that looks like its used, and has been maintaned will be better.

ex 'https://nh.craigslist.org/hvo/d/pelham-1972-ford-3500-backhoe/7009182492.html

or something in the 15 to 20k range.

i have a 3000 lb utility tractor with a loader and some attachments. i would not want anything lighter, and i cant do all that much with it beyond moving dirt and plowing snow. even a full back blade of snow will get the rears spinning.

check out tractorbynet . com for a ton of info.

[Tom M King]

The trouble with a dedicated backhoe is that it's not really a tractor that you can use for other things. I think the one on that 300 is an implement, but not sure.

[Jay Champagne]

I appreciate the honest opinions haha.
I should probably add that I am a mechanic, and fixer-uppers usually interest me when the deal is right.
I am not however, a large land owner. A backhoe will have little use to me once my projects are finished. That's why if I were to purchase, I would like it to be something flip-able.
Renting is an option. I have rented machines on several occasions. I built a large addition to my house, and over the course of the project rented a loader/backhoe 3 times at $500 a day. I've also rented a mini-excavator, a sub compact tractor, and borrowed tractors a few times.
I would prefer to have the convenience of having the machine always available, vs renting, but only at a reasonable cost. After my big addition job, once the machine was gone, that's it. Anything you forgot or wanted to add or fix, either rent again, or borrow of possible.
It would be an ok idea to buy the compact I'd like, with the loader and implements. And just rent the mini excavator, for the limited work I have for it. I actually have a relative with a large-ish excavator. He might loan it, (he has loaned me equipment before) or even come operate for me. It is not light-truck towable though, he hires a truck to move it.

[Tom M King]

Here, a mini-excavator (35) rents for $235 a day. Even those little ones can do a lot of work in a day, especially a simple job like digging footings.

[Ronald Blue]

You have already received some good input. So my thoughts are mainly piling on. Unless you are ready to pull that in the shop and go through it it's not going to be reliable. I would want to replace most if not all the hydraulic hoses. That could cost you another 3000. When you have to pay someone to make them they are expensive. I'm a heavy equipment mechanic and we make 90% of our own hoses. The next area of concern is the hydraulic system Specifically the pump(s) and cylinders. A weak pump will only frustrate you. If you look at it and it runs then test the loaders ability to pick the front end off the ground. If it doesn't do it easily then that's a possible sign of a weak pump. The hoe should be capable of picking the rear of the tractor up as well. As has been stated it could be a real money pit. I'd keep looking but it's your call. Good luck
Also check what a contractors charge for backhoe work in your area. I just had 150' of 4 feet deep trenching done and it cost me $175.

[Mark Bolton]

Your location is specific to your cost of rent. We can rent mini excavators here for 600 a week delivered and picked up. That's a 7 day week with no hour limit. You have to watch the hours on rent as that where they can get you (cat /deere) A 40 hour week on seven days of rent for a homeowner who takes the week off and runs the machine 12 hrs a day for seven days can end up in a world of hurt.

The rental yards can haul equipment for far less than anyone can get their jollies off on riding around in a dually with a gooseneck. And while they are hauling the equipment back and forth your getting more work done as opposed to vibrating your jollies dumping fuel and wear and tear on the interstate. Your cost per mile is WAY more than theirs but you can lie to yourself all you want to feel like an equipment t hauler.

Smaller equipment is fine if you have the time and dont get impatient and beat the snot out of it. I dont care if your moving dirt with a 350 class excavator you'll always want a bigger scoop. In the end someone who is smart with their equipment can do just as much as the brute who isnt so wise.
.

[Tom M King]

Maybe not always so simple, Mark.

I'll give the example of this past Monday's work with the little excavator, and my jolly dually, and trailer. It had been several years since I really needed one.

Walking speed of this $235 a day excavator is 3 mph. My first job was using the weight of the 20" White Oak to pull the roots out from under the little bathroom house on our point. I pulled it down the hill on the trailer, dug around the tree base that was growing directly against the slab of the little house. I wanted to use the weight of the tree to pull any big roots out from under the house, without damaging the house.

When we first got this point, we had planned on tearing the building down, so I didn't worry about trees growing roots under it. Recently, plans have changed, and we're going to offer it as a Wedding venue, so the restroom house, from the 1960's, will be turned back into a restroom house.

I had already hired a crew with a loader, and dump truck(can be seen in the picture with them towards the end of the point)for cleaning up a lot of stuff off the point, and they took care of moving the stump. I didn't have enough work to hire someone else to come in with an excavator for this, and really wanted to do it like I wanted to anyway.

From there, it's only 300 yards up the hill to where I needed to dig the footings for a 24x40 addition onto the side of my mechanic, and metalworking building. That 300 yards might not have been too bad, walking it, but I didn't want to waste that time. It was quicker to use the trailer to move it, than to walk it. After I did that, I walked it another 100 feet behind that building to grade where I wanted the bottom of a swale to be beside where we're putting a shipping container for storage.

Once more the excavator was loaded on the trailer, and driven another 1/4 mile to where we bury animals. I like to keep graves dug for horses, and small animals, because it's so much simpler when the time comes. They can easily be filled by a loader. The holes, with ramps do deer can get out, fill in over time, so this was one of the convenient times to clean them out.

From there, the excavator was put on the trailer again, to move it to a Historic site nowhere near our place, to tear a rotting 20th Century garage off the side of an 1864 house. This site was only about ten minutes past where I needed to return the excavator, and the Foundation that owns it didn't trust anyone else to not damage the house, but me.

I felt like I got pretty good use out of the $235 for the excavator that day. I don't really use an excavator often enough to justify buying one, like John, but keeping up the Ponderosa, and making a living, the trailer comes in pretty handy sometimes. I'll leave it at that.

[John K Jordan]

Jay,

I don't recommend buying heavy equipment unless you know you will have a lot of long-term use, not usually cost effective. The lure of having the equipment is strong though.

An older used tractor like that you point to is likely to need a lot of expensive work to put in good condition.

A used "real" backhoe can sometimes be found for not much money. As someone mentioned, the backhoe is permanently attached so it's not a tractor which limits the use but it will excel in digging. I recently visited creeker David Privett and he used his to move so heavy logs around. His is a monster. As with a used tractor, expect some work and expense to get it in good condition. If looking at one, I'd pay close attention to all the hydraulic cylinders to see if there are any leaks. Rebuilding cylinders can be expensive. Worse, it may have internal wear or engine problems. Even replacing the tires could break the bank!

I don't know exactly what a "pin on type" tractor attachment backhoe is but if it is one that hangs on a 3-point hitch use caution. They are notoriously "weak" in operation and can over-stress the tractor. A friend had one and broke the hitch casting on the tractor.

My experience: I have a 40 hp tractor and bought a frame-mounted backhoe - it fastens to brackets mounted under the tractor and is much sturdier than a 3-point hitch version. It is powered by a hydraulic pump driven by the PTO. The backhoe is sized to dig a maximum of 7-1/2' deep but I think that would be pushing it. I've used it a lot over the last 15 years and got a lot of work done.
backhoe_steps.jpg stump.jpg
However, I got increasingly frustrated with it - it is slow to operate and doesn't have much power. I'd hate to dig an extensive 4' trench.
Regardless of what the salesman said, it's a royal pain to mount on the tractor.

With a farm here I have a lot of use for digging and clearing so I finally bought a small excavator/track hoe. Yowza, what a difference! The backhoe attachment for the tractor is a toy in comparison. A few days ago I dig an 8x20' pit, 5' deep, didn't take long at all.
trackhoe_1.jpg

I certainly don't recommend buying one of these just for a few footers. The advice to rent one makes a lot of sense - if not experienced you may have to spend a few hours ramping up but you can get a lot done in a day. Might be better to rent for a weekend. A better option might be to hire one with an experienced operator.

For landscaping, a small tractor with a front end loader and yard box would do the job and could be useful for years. If you can swing it, buy new and avoid the expensive problems that can easily come with a used one!

For light grading, a yard box can work. For extensive grading, a bigger machine would save a lot of frustration and time. I ended up buying a used John Deere skid steer and have used it a lot around the farm, for example to cut roads, move dirt, dig up trees, and to prepare the site for my 24x62' shop. I had to fill and compact over 3' in the back left corner. I couldn't have done it with a compact tractor.
roots_hackberry.jpg Clearing_2012-08-09_19-32-4.jpg
Here again, you can get a lot done with a rented bobcat (skid steer) or hiring out the work. An experienced operator could prepare a site for a garage is short order. Perhaps even hire the same guy to dig the footers!

JKJ

I'm going to be doing some construction at the house, probably starting in the spring.
Building a large garage in my backyard. I also have a lot of site work, grading, landscaping etc to do.
I have wanted a "compact utility tractor" for some time. But I figure the earthmoving needs of construction and what I want it for later are different needs. So I was considering buying a larger backhoe, and selling it in a few years, trading for something smaller.
Came across this today though, and older John Deere 300 Industrial, with loader and backhoe. Only $3k. Supposedly good to got ready for work.
It's gas engine (booo) but PTO power and whatever aren't really a concern in this machine.
Is anyone familiar with these or similar tractors? Is this up to the task of digging trench for building footings (4' frost line here) and general earth moving?
'https://nh.craigslist.org/grd/d/rindge-john-deere-300-industrial/7002375814.html

[Edward Dyas]

I'm going to be doing some construction at the house, probably starting in the spring.
Building a large garage in my backyard. I also have a lot of site work, grading, landscaping etc to do.
I have wanted a "compact utility tractor" for some time. But I figure the earthmoving needs of construction and what I want it for later are different needs. So I was considering buying a larger backhoe, and selling it in a few years, trading for something smaller.
Came across this today though, and older John Deere 300 Industrial, with loader and backhoe. Only $3k. Supposedly good to got ready for work.
It's gas engine (booo) but PTO power and whatever aren't really a concern in this machine.
Is anyone familiar with these or similar tractors? Is this up to the task of digging trench for building footings (4' frost line here) and general earth moving?
'https://nh.craigslist.org/grd/d/rindge-john-deere-300-industrial/7002375814.html

About 10 years ago I bought a brand new JD 2210 tractor and it had a defect in the transmission. The dealer I bought it from wouldn't fix it and I contacted the company and they wouldn't get involved. Told me I was going to have to talk to the dealer I bought the tractor from. Three times I took the tractor back to them and they sat it on their lot for two weeks and did nothing to it. I finally quit making payments on it and it went back to them. I will never buy a JD tractor new or used again with a company attitude like that.

[Mike Cutler]

Jay

I'm going to take the opposite approach.
You're a mechanic, correct? There is nothing exotic about the hydraulics on that Deere, and virtually every part you need is still available though John Deere, but the dealer is expensive, so I would get the hoses, wipers and cylinder seals somewhere else.
Yes, it has rust, and it's ugly, and it's been sitting outside, which those hydraulic lines better be able to deal with for many, many years. These aren't garden tractors. These machines were meant to spend their entire life outside.
It might cost you an equal amount of money in parts to refurb it, but you're not paying the mechanic.$140.00/hr to work on it. The expensive part isn't the hydraulics, those are simple, it's going to be the axles and seal assemblies for the gear train. If those are shot, it's a much, much bigger job.
If you're getting a front loader, and backhoe for $3K, and you put another $3K into fixing it up so that you can use it. That's not bad.
Go see the guy, determine it's condition, and make your decision from there. If it runs and all the hydraulic functions work, you're on pretty good ground
Oh, the weeds it's sitting in, are only a seasons growth max. That hasn't been sitting in that position for years. He probably parked it there, early this past summer.
The front loader can also be removed and a blower, or plow, put on the front. No way you can tell me that you can't put that to use in the winter with a plow blade, or blower on the front.
I don't know that I'd fit a box drag to that machine. That would be a lot of passes!!! They don't call NH the granite state for nothing.

[Jim Becker]

If it were a diesel I might feel differently, but I personally would pass on this "deal" even if I were a qualified mechanic and either rent when I needed a bigger machine or find a decent, later model to buy, even at a higher cost. I happen to own a small Kubota diesel machine which is pretty much setup as a TLB most of the time and while it's not in the same league for the kind of work I think you want to do, it still constantly amazes me at it's capabilities. It's been easy to maintain, too. The only parts I've had to source have been replacement tires and a bunch of hydraulic tables which do degrade over time, especially when a machine like this is parked outside in the weather for a couple decades.