Old ducks

[Vinpetrol]

Hi all
The first rubber duck I ever drove was a hitachi wh051D I think it was about a 1982 it had a manual gearbox . I drove it for Marron plant a London based firm for about 3 years in the late eighties . I can't find any pics of it . Has any one on the forum driven one? It was superceeded by an ex100wd this was a fantastic little duck and lead to me buying my first one. Does anyone have any pics of a wh051D ?

Vin

[Wee Jim]

I did a google image search and these came up is this what you are after? https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=wh...L8HC0QXawYCoCw

[Vinpetrol]

Hitachi wh051D

I did a google image search and these came up is this what you are after? https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=wh...L8HC0QXawYCoCw

Hi Jim

Thats it
it was an animal of a machine to drive I was wondering had anyone else in the uk had the pleasure of driving one ?in all my time I have only ever seen one other one in the UK . The cab was built by Japanese for Japanese , I had to have the door open to work the levers . The one I had had a breaker circuit which was piped with the jack legs via a change over valve The levers were short and by the side of the seat which meant I had to lean over one side to operate them , I was doing a job one day with the breaker and I was getting a pain in my side leaning over to work the levers so I tied a rope to them and to my ankle I was delighted with myself until i was left hanging upside down from the cab when i went to jump out quickly and forgot about the feckin rope. I'm glad there were no mobiles with cameras and videos in them days !!!

Vin

[APH2007]

My baptism to Ducks

Hi there,

My 1st experience of Ducks was working for R G Jury, operating a Case 688b p2al then moving on to a Daewoo solar 130 3, then a Case WX120 before venturing out on my own in 2007 with the Old WX120 i brought of R G Jury, and now operating the CASE WX125 brought new in 2008, some great ducking about over the years.

[APH2007]

some of the ducks driven over the years before going it alone

Hi there,

My 1st experience of Ducks was working for R G Jury, operating a Case 688b p2al then moving on to a Daewoo solar 130 3, then a Case WX120 before venturing out on my own in 2007 with the Old WX120 i brought of R G Jury, and now operating the CASE WX125 brought new in 2008, some great ducking about over the years.

[APH2007]

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?f...type=3&theater

[245dlc]

The first duck I ever spent time on was something called a 1085C Cruz-Air rubber-tire excavator. It was unusual to the ducks you guys are accustomed to as the engine was mounted to the carriage and connected to a powershift transmission so it had a somewhat higher road speed than the competitor's machines at the time. I was about ten years old and was watching a crew clean a drainage ditch on a golf course expansion project by my hometown, the operator lowered the outrigger and invited me in to the cab and showed me the controls which were also unusual as the left joystick raised and lowered the boom and did the 'wrist-o-twist', and a left pedal did the swing, while the right joystick did the stick and bucket curl. The tires were also quite large so most machines had quite a bit of reach to over come this, but as a ten year old boy none of that mattered, and when my dad showed up because I was late for supper (again), the owner/operator stuck up for me and also said though I was a greenhorn I also seemed to have a natural knack for operating his machine. A few weeks before I was late coming home so late in fact it was after dark because I had been watching the same crew work with a skid-steer and a tractor backfilling and grading some weeping tile and drainage ditches, my parents were yelling at me like I murdered somebody. lol
About 14 years later when I was 24 I worked for an excavating contractor that had a John Deere 595D rubber-tire excavator they put me on it when I showed interest in it (a move I later regretted at times). The machine hadn't been maintained very well over the years and had a poorly constructed tilt-bucket that was designed so you could remove the bucket without the tilt mechanism which was a novel idea at the time but wasn't really built strong enough and required numerous welding repairs. The machine was also difficult to operate without the outriggers and I believe was in the 18-20 tonne class and was usually too big for much of the jobs thrown at it, but if I was loading high sided trucks it was nice to be able to put the outriggers down and lift it up a little bit so I could see where I placing the spoil in the truck box as the Cat 320L I had been operating prior sat lower making it difficult to see. I did however like being able to bounce around on site freely if the ground wasn't too soft and I got to do more little jobs like digging driveways, sidewalks, repairing boulevards etc. etc. and without having to lowbed the machine from site to site or clean the muck out of the tracks.

[APH2007]

[ianoz]

My first and only "duck " experience was on a Hymac . No tilty , No quick hitch , Just plenty of oil Leaks

[245dlc]

My first and only "duck " experience was on a Hymac . No tilty , No quick hitch , Just plenty of oil Leaks

I guess it's like somebody said to me when he was talking about the first Poclain he operated 'if it's not leaking that's because it's out of oil'

[APH2007]

Yeah the old Poclains did have there leaks but they was a good machine the 75's

[245dlc]

Yeah my friend owns a 1986 Case/Poclain 125B tracked excavator he says it's still a very powerful machine and fairly reliable, though he has had to do some welding and fishplating on the boom.

[takecare]

595d john deere

what was the company name you were driving 595d john deere for? do they still have that machine?
this model very popular in the eastern states here but slowly being sold much of it

[245dlc]

The company in question is called Ken Palson Enterprises. They folded a couple years ago and had traded the 595 for a Cat M318 at some point as the 595 was in poor shape.

[N & A plant hire]

back in the day

first duck I drove poclain 75b . 4 jacks. super single tyres . fwd and back on steering column 4 speed box side of seat brilliant machines in the day .. feel old now