hey everybody it's Ryan welcome back to our farms work it's time for my
long-awaited review video of the JCB Teleskid 3ts 8-T we've had this unit
on the farm for a little over a month now and I've used it for pretty much
every single task that I could possibly think to use it for in this video I'm
just gonna walk you guys around the machine talk about some things that I
really like about it others that I think could be improved upon and just my
overall thoughts on the unit so without further ado let's get started first and
first let's talk about the tracks I have operated tracked machines in the
past but this was my first opportunity to heavily use a track machine for
everyday tasks around the farm the benefits are perks to having a tracked
unit were pretty blatantly obvious at first so the biggest perk that I would
have to say would be the stability of unit with tracks
now these JCB's do come in a wheeled form as well but the stability of the
tracks is just such a big plus that I really wouldn't trade trade it for
wheels on a telescope and the reason being is because with that telescoping
boom at the front which is another plus big plus I'll get to back to in a bit
with the telescopic boom it really helps to have a lot more stability to keep you
from falling forward and I've called full-sized trees around with this thing
going downhill up in the air and I never managed to tip it forward or feel light
on the front end I'm not saying that these units aren't invincible the
tipping forward I'm just saying that having a tracked unit really really
helps another big perk to having tracks is the traction compared to a wheeled
machine the tracks perform very well in certain conditions over a wheeled unit
so those are the big perks to having a tracked machine as well when you're
driving straight across grass it is a lot better to have a track machine over
wheels probably the thing that's growing on me the most over the last month has
to be the single boom design and the reason being visibility after hopping in
this unit and using it for several hours it really started to grow on me just
because you have so much more visibility in front of you to the left of you and
behind you that you really don't want to go back to the double booms and I will
admit that on this to the unit it is a little bit more
difficult to see just because there is so much more boom there and that is
actually a good thing because there's so much more steel put into this thing to
reinforce it that I really can't see how I would Bend this unit or do anything
that would damage it I've used it for a lot of different things over the last
month that have tweaked and torqued it every which way and I really can't see
how I would damage it and anybody can probably say that if you really wanted
to destroy one of these things single boom or double boom you could do it and
I've seen it happen with the double booms and I am sure that it does happen
with these as well but I really think that with all of the reinforcements
that's going on here I don't really see how it would be any less different than
a double boom design since we're on this side of the unit we might as well talk
about the telescoping boom which is easily the biggest selling point of this
unit to me we've used this thing for so much over the last month and being able
to reach out just a little bit farther is always helpful especially for things
like down in the barn yard where it was pretty pretty muddy and it got pretty
slick even for the tracked Telus kid so having the telescopic Forks on there we
were able to extend them out and pick up the bale feeder and then drop them down
on top of the bales and that's where that's really come in handy but the
probably the biggest thing where the telescoping boom was the nicest would
have to be when I was moving trees with the burning rock bucket you could just
grab the trees with the grapple and just latch on to them pick them up drive over
the pile extend the tree out over the pile and just drop them if you've
watched any of my previous videos I have said that you really don't realize how
often when you're in a regular skid loader just how often you think man if
only this boom would extend and that is where the JCB Telus kid really really
shines another thing that has really grown on me in the last month has to be
the hand controls I'm typically used to hand and foot controls however after
using ISO controls for the last month I really prefer them I feel like you have
a little bit more flexibility with it and I guess you could say you're not
working your whole body everything is just in the wrists and
it's to me a lot easier now this particular unit can switch between ISO
controls and h-pattern and ISO is where the boom and the tracks or the
transmission are separated so one for each hand I think that it allows you to
be a lot more focused on what you're doing let me show you guys the
difference in the pin and bushing sizes between the JCB and then the Bobcat so
there is our JCB pin and bushing and there are pretty freakin thick as you
can see there let's come over here and compare the pin size on the Bobcat much
smaller now that you guys have heard the big pluses of the JCB Telus Kidd I'm
gonna talk about just a few things that I would change on the unit or things
that I think could be improved upon if I could change anything about the Telus
kid it would probably be to add in a window on this side of the cab the
reason being is because when you're standing over here or when you have
somebody standing over here talking to you and you have the window open on the
far side it is rather hard to hear them now I can understand why they wouldn't
want to add a window on this side because I could really see some people
sticking their arms or heads out and having the boom come down on top of them
which is understandable for why they wouldn't put a window on this side but
that would be a nice feature to have because it is a little bit difficult to
hear on the other side something that I would probably change on the JCB if I
had purchased it would probably be the lights on the front end I don't feel
that they are super super bright no less bright than our Bobcats however I think
with a newer unit like this there should at least be LEDs which is pretty good
because JCB chose a simple design as far as they're letting goes and you can swap
those out really no problem at all so you can upgrade them if need be that is
something that I would definitely do if I were to purchase it both front and
back and something like that I actually prefer because it's modular
you can take them off and change them whereas with the Bobcat you're pretty
much stuck with a single design I'm not
totally sure there are probably different lighting kits that you can
have for these things but there's probably not as big of a selection as
you can of these because these are pretty much Universal now that you guys
have heard the positives of having tracks now it's time to talk about the
downsides and there are downsides of having a tracked machine while you may
not be able to pop a track like you can't attire there are a few things to
keep in mind when you're considering a purchase of a skid loader that either
has wheels or tracks JCB does make the Telus kids in both wheeled and tracked
models however in the Telus Goods case I would really prefer to have a track
model because of the stability and I've talked about the positives of having
stability especially with the telescoping boom so in that case I
really would prefer to have a tractor machine but if you're considering a
smaller unit that doesn't have quite as much lift capacity I would in my case I
would really prefer wheels just because of the maintenance aspect of having to
clean the tracks out every time you use them as well as the added cost of having
tracks because tracks are pretty expensive and really how they perform
really depends on your conditions there are I will admit there are several
conditions where a a wheeled loader will perform better than a tract such as on
concrete I noticed that on concrete that was wet Telus kit actually did slip and
slide around quite a bit however on dirt is that just completely
blew the wheeled machine out of the water they had a lot better flotation
but earlier today when I started this day off this track unit was completely
cleaned it was spotless Travis cleaned it and we had to move the
steer stuffer down the steer lot which may not be able to see now but there's a
bunch of dirt that's stuck underneath and I had to drive through some mud to
get out to it and that brought a bunch of dirt up over it and that's just
something to consider if you're in mud conditions a lot especially in colder
regions you may consider going the wheeled aspect just because in the
winter I could see it being fairly difficult to clean these out especially
when they do they do gather mud and it's important to keep them clean and as long
as you take the time to clean them out at the end of every day it's really not
much of an issue it just takes time so probably my one last thing that I want
to mention that I would change and this isn't a big deal is just the hydraulic
hoses on the back they are pretty exposed but I'm looking at you John
Deere some other skid loader models are notoriously bad for that in my opinion
that's one thing that I've always kind of kept an eye on is just how exposed
the hydraulic lines are in the back and I've noticed that John Deere is pretty
bad for that not on just one side of the booms either like on both sides they
stick out pretty far to me it seems like they would be pretty easy to catch on
something but I hear on the JCB at least they're up high enough where you're not
gonna catch something they aren't real far down but you never know and maybe
even just like a plate or something like on like that on the back just to help
protect them would be something else that I would change on this unit but
again not nearly a deal-breaker overall my feelings of the JCB tellus
kit are extremely positive it performed well beyond my wildest expectations and
I was able to accomplish way more this last month than I would have been able
to with our Bobcat with that I just want to briefly thank JCB for sending the
telus get down to us to use for the last month so with that that's about it for
this video I hope you guys enjoyed it I hope you learned something with that
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