Anyone here do land clearing?

Spence

Spence

Well-Known Member
Joined
Mar 20, 2005
Location
Salisbury
Or know someone who does?

I'm having a hard time trying to find someone clear some land for me in Rowan County. I need about 3.5-4 acres cleared and rough graded, possibly level out a building pad for me if they have the right equipment on site. I had one guy that seemed great, nice equipment, insurance, a quote i could tolerate, but when i called to schedule the work he ghosted me. Ive had a couple others that just wont return calls, or say they will give me a quote that never comes.

I know everybody is busy now, and i'm not in a hurry, i just want to get someone scheduled.
 
Spence said:
Or know someone who does?

I'm having a hard time trying to find someone clear some land for me in Rowan County. I need about 3.5-4 acres cleared and rough graded, possibly level out a building pad for me if they have the right equipment on site. I had one guy that seemed great, nice equipment, insurance, a quote i could tolerate, but when i called to schedule the work he ghosted me. Ive had a couple others that just wont return calls, or say they will give me a quote that never comes.

I know everybody is busy now, and i'm not in a hurry, i just want to get someone scheduled.
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I had the same issue trying to get some concrete work done recently. I get everybody is busy but it sure is a shame to be pulling teeth to get you to take my money…..I’m not sure if he can do everything you’re needing but I had @Danger_Ranger come out and clear out the spot I ended up doing for my concrete pad for a shop
 
White Grading

Jaime is the owner. 336-492-6267

Good equipment and a good fella. He built my road and pad. Does this work all the time.
 
93redzj said:
I had the same issue trying to get some concrete work done recently. I get everybody is busy but it sure is a shame to be pulling teeth to get you to take my money…..I’m not sure if he can do everything you’re needing but I had @Danger_Ranger come out and clear out the spot I ended up doing for my concrete pad for a shop
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This is actual property clearing. Not just a couple trees and some underbrush. 5 acres of tightly packed trees and underbrush
 
I either made the best or worst decision ever and decided to tackle this myself. I will say thanks to Alex @CarolinaHD for looking at the job and working on a quote for me, but I found a good deal on an old John Deere 450C track loader with a 4 in 1 bucket that I couldn't pass up. I felt like this was a big risk because of how expensive any repairs could get, but if i can get ~2.5 acres cleared before anything major goes wrong the machine has paid for itself. Anything past that is a bonus.

So far i have spent about 4 hours in the seat learning the machine, and things are going pretty well. It has good brakes and clutches, rebuilt engine, strong hydraulics, recent hoses all over. Someone really maintained this one. The tracks/pins arent in the best shape, but i have no doubt they will last long past this job.
Loader.jpg20220417_160239.jpgDJI_0015.JPG
 
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Spence said:
I either made the best or worst decision ever and decided to tackle this myself. I will say thanks to Alex @CarolinaHD for looking at the job and working on a quote for me, but I found a good deal on an old John Deere 450C track loader with a 4 in 1 bucket that I couldn't pass up. I felt like this was a big risk because of how expensive any repairs could get, but if i can get ~2.5 acres cleared before anything major goes wrong the machine has paid for itself. Anything past that is a bonus.

So far i have spent about 4 hours in the seat learning the machine, and things are going pretty well. The machine has good brakes and clutches, rebuilt engine, strong hydraulics, recent hoses all over. Someone really maintained this machine. The tracks/pins arent in the best shape, but i have no doubt they will last long past this job.
View attachment 371690View attachment 371691View attachment 371692
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Welcome to the club. It's an expensive hobby, but it's kinda fun.
 
I'm jealous.
 
Paging @jeepinmatt and all yall others that are into this sort of thing. The loader teeth on this unit were worn through, and wearing down the adapters. I am assuming these have never been replaced, or if so its been a long time. After trying every combo of hammer and punch i had to get the roll pins out, i finally just took the torch out there and started cutting.

Now im second guessing the direction i installed the teeth, need some input on that. Is this the correct way, or should they be flipped up? I hate to say it, but if its wrong i'm probably just going with it because i don't feel like torching off brand new teeth. I had to use an 8# sledge to seat the roll pins, so I'm not looking forward to removing those. I stopped after getting 3 teeth installed, this is how it sits now.

20220503_152214.jpg
 
Yeah those suckers are upside down. :laughing: :(
 
They also look a little small, but yeah upside down. Need to build you a rake for that thing too. I've got a 450b "manual" you can have if you want
 
Seems like I never get a ton of time to spend out at the land messing with this stuff, but making little bits of progress when I get the chance. First off, got the teeth flipped and finished the rest of them:20220506_140107.jpg

The next couple of days out there, I had an intermittent issue where it would just die on me. After a couple hours with a multimeter, I traced down one wire in the harness that was bad, ran a new one from the starter to the gauge cluster and all was good to go. After fixing the wiring issue, I got about 10 minutes of runtime before this happened:
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I take full responsibility for this one, the grease fitting for the adjuster was leaky, so this track would get loose within a half hour of tightening. Instead of swapping a new fitting(which I have in my toolbox) I let it go, and this was the result.

@redneckjeep87 met me out there today, a few pry bars and come-alongs and we were back in business. New grease fitting, and hopefully this won't happen again.
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And one more drone photo showing a little bit of progress:
dji_export_1652661886493.jpg
 
Wasn't too terribly bad. They never break in the best area. Murphys law. Way back down in a hole....in the sun, no breeze, yall know the drill 🤣 . @Spence was gracious enough to go get a new ez up for us though.
Well placed pry bars/digging bars....I believe we wound up using 4 or 5.....a high lift, a bfh and some different come along tactics and bam!
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