I Bought the CHEAPEST Mini Skid Steer on Earth

there are a bunch of reliable mini skid steers out there on the market Toro Vermeer Bobcat there are just so many companies making solid mini skid steers but I kind of went a different route with this one before I give you a full run down on the machine and kind of show you what it can and can't do let me back up and give you a little story on how I got this thing so basically I went on the internet and found a heavy equipment manufacturer in China talked to the dude worked out a deal ultimately he shipped the thing I picked it up at the port in New York it took all kinds of crazy like Customs paperwork and getting a shipping agent and stuff like that but it ended up in a box on my trailer back to my place where it rained on the box for like two days straight YF 380. I have no idea what that means it did come through the port of New York number six so in a nutshell I cheaped out basically I was looking for many skids and every time I got a quote on one it was like a lot of money like many many Monies that looks like the bucket was welded well enough to hold water and the zip tied the keys up above I like that you know if it needs Keys zip tie the keys very close by what is this there's like a little tag that was driven on oh made in China oh and some other stuff I think first thing I'll try is just to lift it with the tractor I don't think that's gonna work but let me just see [Music] I mean it wanted to do it I think Plan B is to spin the Box [Music] all right this is the Box the very important stuff probably papers yes oh okay it's my toolbox and unfortunately I have another toolbox let's see what we got in here oh it comes comes with some wrenches screwdrivers and a grease gun manuals we're in a Ziploc bag uh open yeah that's the parts listener thing see if we can try those out in a couple weeks attraction mat replacement belt or the actual drive belt I don't know that's the manual it's I don't even know what else is in here oh what's that well electric cables and stuff it's good O-rings nice and that might be it in terms of the water retention facility reads that stuff you know it's just like a bunch of paperwork I wonder if there's little petrol and tank Maybe it smells vaguely fuel-ish but there's also like a bunch of grease and stuff in here yeah yeah oh they got like a little oil in there all right just trying to figure this thing out uh basically I'm kind of thinking this might be like the shut off for the battery let's see if we get juice oh we got juice all right just a walk around on the mini skid steer because you can kind of like get a feel for it I got the bucket attachment up front it does have this claw grapple for that grapple and any other accessories there are a couple other hydraulic lines a couple of tie points buried up front it just has the elliptical pads not what have become the more typical big on the back tracks I believe the big on the back give you a little bit more room underneath the machine so on this guy when you're backing up in rough ground you can definitely dig in the back this is your operator platform I'm thinking about rigging it up with some kind of counterweight on the back 23 horsepower gas engine kind of like a DIY welded job air filter battery cut off controls are surprisingly straightforward choke fuel gauge temp hour meter horn lights key on and throttle then as for the actual controls on the unit these guys are your two tracks so kind of like a skid steer or a zero turn mower these are your tracks This is Your Bucket up and down and this is your tip up and down up front it's mainly about the cooler this is your hydraulic fluid and I'm assuming to do anything in here you got to pop this plate and the tracks are 45 46 so you're definitely getting into four foot Gates not three foot Gates all right so let me explain what I've been using the machine for so far turns out it's pretty darn good at lifting and pushing stuff around that's kind of like it's Forte so I'm not saying it will lift like a thousand pounds of gravel or logs or anything like that it does not have the lifting power of a skid steer or a tractor but it's maneuverable it lifts more than I can lift so that's a big asset and it's pretty good as like a scraper Pusher smaller bucket not as much power but still pretty darn good as a scraper and a pusher for dirt work this thing really excels like it's actually pretty good for picking up Logs with the bucket it takes a little bit of finesse fitting the log in there and stuff but it's a lifter and it will lift high enough to get stuff into my trailer so for me the work I do it's actually been pretty convenient it's small enough to easily get to the job site in my trailer easy enough to move around in a backyard get through Gates and stuff like that again no comparison to a regular skid steer they're just two different machines very different scale so comparing them just doesn't really make sense but on the plus side the mini skid as compared to the big skid steer it's kind of nice you can jump on and off it and you can see a lot more like your surroundings are all really visible to you you're not stuck in the box of the skid steer kind of wondering what's behind you you just got more visibility so far I've been talking about the bucket attachment on this little yellow devil but it also came with a grapple it's one of the things I kind of worked out with the dude told him I really wanted to Grapple but I still haven't gotten the thing on the machine mainly because my pinholes are just a little bit off but I got to grind those out and if I can get it to fit we can at least demo this thing it's got some pros and cons [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Laughter] I think that's gonna do the trick I don't want to go too big on those holes but it just weren't perfectly calibrated foreign got the pins in there I can tell you something funky about it right off the bat and that is the weight so without an operator on there this thing is way front heavy just with the grapple without anything even grappled I think what happened is when they were manufacturing the grapple they got like a little bit excited made a big old nasty funky grapple which I really like but it would be better off on a machine like that than on a machine like this just given the weight but let me hook up the Hydraulics and we'll at least see how it functions this is the claw of death right here so it seems to be working let's go play with some brush I keep a little brush handy for moments like this [Music] that was not exactly the idea just to totally stab the log but I'll get a feel for this thing [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] I just gotta take back my pessimism and my negativity about the grapple it's actually a pretty sweet tool yes it's too heavy for the machine or the machine's not heavy enough for the grapple either way you see it it can't pick up everything but you can get a good load of branches on there it squeezes like a monster teeth are sharp in the long run I could see kind of redesigning rebuilding this putting on some eighth inch steel like kind of like teeth on the bottom instead of these spikes but not bad I also got to do some cord management these guys are just kind of flailing all over the place zip ties are definitely in order just so they don't get pinched under the tracks or grabbed or whatever but my mind the grapple kind of checks out just like everything with this machine it's got some kind of pros and cons but you know it's definitely something I could put to work you can't fault me for trying so that is the full story about how I found and got and have been using this little yellow Beast of a mini skid steer but I still think there's one topic to discuss and that has to do with money and the cost of tools and all that and it's really like a bigger issue about tool purchases and equipment and stuff the issue being do you throw down for the absolute best tools and sometimes but not always but sometimes the best tools are the most expensive they come with the big price tag and with that is the sort of belief and the Assumption and it works out for a lot of us the assumption that the tool is going to do the best job lasts the longest perform you know just just be an awesome awesome tool or do you cheap out do you go like The Bargain Basement route do you get like a cheaper tool and kind of hope to get luck this yellow dude this in front loader with the grapple and the bucket was a fraction like a mere fraction of the price of these skid steers I see people using out there on the jobs the dingoes the Bobcats the Vermeer and even though I've really been enjoying using this guy on a bunch of different kinds of jobs I'm not going to pretend that it's Flawless like it's got some downsides the back end is a little low just because it has this kind of elliptical track and not a taller track in the back back ends a little low well the Briggs and Stratton 23 horses do a job it just doesn't have the power and it doesn't have the power to weight ratio of some of those bigger machines do you spend the money for the bigger machine the bigger machine that is better quote unquote better or do you cheap out and get by with this guy that's something for you to think about and decide is something you know about yourself already probably we can chat about it in the comments down below also also down in the description I've got a link to this loader but remember it's not a simple process you don't just buy it and it shows up at your house it's a somewhat funkified shipping Arrangement between a manufacturer in China and if you're in North America or Europe or wherever you are there'll be some shipping and Customs Logistics and stuff to deal with I give you more details about that if you're interested just let me know in the meantime you should see the in front loader continue to do various jobs and projects around the channel

Channel: metaspencer

Views: 609,866

Keywords: mini skid, skid steer, skid loader, track loader, miniskid, skidsteer, heavy equipment

Id: XYQP1jmCBUA

Length: 14min 52sec (892 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 14 2022