Well, I never really liked them in the first place, preferring crawler-dozers and regular tractor-loaders. However, I didn't dislike them - much less hate them.
Oh, I hate them now!
Or, at least I hate this New Holland LS140 that has managed to land in my yard.
See, a friend at work bought this - not me. It's an eBay special. You know what *that* means! It's supposed to run, but miss on one cylinder. My buddy is OK with that, as he plans an engine rebuild anyway.
However, he lives in a subdivision and has no truck or trailer to haul even this baby loader on. He needs the machine to do some work at his elderly father's place. No problem. I'll lend a hand, haul it to his place where he can work on it in his garage, then haul it to his dad's after he gets it all sorted out. At least he has a garage to work on it in.
The plan was sound. Until we got to the place he bought it from, that is. I suspected we were in trouble when I saw the lineup of machines along the road, but the one he bought was out back in the weeds.
I *knew* we were in trouble when the guy loaded it onto my trailer using a Cat industrial forklift! :p
Well, we got it to his place OK. Too bad that the battery is no good. It read 10.5 volts and then instantly 14.5 when the jumper cables were connected. That means that the plates in the battery are sulfated. It's a 2000 model, and I bet $$$ that this is the original battery, so it all makes sense.
Well, it won't turn over at much more than a crawl. So, no start. I hadn't the room to get the trailer into his drive, so I hauled the thing to my farm. Heck, if he gets a battery and it actually starts, then I can haul it back, right?
So far, I'm not hating the thing, nor even disliking it.
Until we go to get the battery out, that is. That's when I discover that the oddball scissors boom lift scheme they have puts a big steel arm right in the way of the battery coming out. It was bad enough that they intend for you to pull the battery up by it's posts to get it out (it's down inside the belly pan on the right side), but this stinks.
At this point, I'm starting to dislike this thing.
I figure we can lift the bucket with a chain onto my tractor's loader and then engage these big old holding pins they have. Except, the hyd spool valves won't work with the low voltage. They have some safety lockout scheme going on here, and it's safe, all right.
Now, I do dislike the thing.
We revert to the jumper cables, pull the voltage up, and the thing still won't lift up. Time to read the manual, I guess. Oh, wait! You have to stick *blocks* under the tail end to stop the lifting loader from tipping the fool thing over backwards *before* you can actually get the thing up into the air!
What a PIA!
All I want to do is change the battery!
So, I *now* hate the fool thing!
We haven't even started into the *real* problem. If I have this much trouble changing a *battery*, what will we get into trying to pull, rebuild, and install the danged *engine*?????
Well, I can't block the tail end with it on the trailer. I may have to yank the thing off with the old 1958 420c to do so. I'm going to make up some big, fat 12" long battery cable extensions to hook the new battery up when he gets it. Maybe, we can get it fired, operate the hydraulics, and then swap the batteries.
Maybe.
If this works, I'll go back to just disliking it! :p
Gad. And I thought that working on crawler/loaders was a PIA! They're easier by far, I think.
I do know one thing - I'm not ever getting myself a skid-steer loader!
Later - and thanks for the venting space!
Stan
