Oh man, sorry I missed that question. I'm fairly new to this forum, and was even thinking to myself the other day why the dum little envelope was flashing at me /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif . Gosh, maybe I otta' click around a bit more around here.
Anyway, price you mentioned sounds good. I got mine a bit less, but it has a SPRAY CAN paint job /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif that I will soon get rid of, and a couple other rough things. About 500 hours when I got it. But engine, chassis, hydraulics, etc, it's been great. I have got it seriously stuck in the mud a few times, but that's just dum driving I think. I have a manual transmission, so I'm still trying to figure out the footwork between shifting, clutching, breaking, and using the diff lock pedal... all at the same time.
I put a rather hefty box scraper on it, and have really been able to tear stuff up with that. I really want to look into a Top-n-Tilt kit for the scraper though. Getting old having to jump off and twist the link whenever I need a different angle.
As far as maintenance, I haven't had to do much except oil change. Probably should do a hydraulic flush and filter soon. Lots of little rattles that I've been tightening up over time. All the hydraulic lines on the FEL rattled like crazy when I got it. Weird.
As far as FEL strength, I have the 48" bucket, and had it absolutely jam packed with cement chunks and rocks the other day, and it handled it no problemo, as long as the RPMs are up in the operating range. The biggest problem was the front tires almost pealed off the rim when trying to manuever around with that much weight on them.
Anyway, still learning what this thing's capabilities are. So far, the biggest limitation has been my ignorance of it's capabilities. Surprised each time I use it what it can do.
Have fun! Let me know if you do any cool mods or jobs with it!
