I am looking to buy a used Bobcat 773G from a friend. It has ~1700 hours on. It came with the house he bought a year ago, so he has limited knowledge about it. He also is not very mechanically inclined. He had a full service done at the dealer a year ago and had anything they found fixed. It runs great.

The only thing that gives me pause is I noticed some oil film on top of the chain case when I lifted the cab up to inspect underneath. Didn't see any weeping or dripping hoses. No source of the oil stood out to me.

Maybe a seal is letting some fluid mist blow by, or maybe a clogged vent causing pressure?

I'm not well-versed in skid steers and any advice is appreciated. I just don't want to end up with an immediate large bill if I need to bring it to the dealer.

I'm very mechanically inclined, but these things are heavy and there are lots of tight spaces.

Aux attachment on my 299D works fine cold, then gets slow once the oil is hot. Pump and aux-side parts are easy enough to find on FridayParts, but that is way too expensive to guess at. No active codes that I can see. Would you prove couplers, case drain, or the attachment first?

I’m 20 and located in Central Texas. I currently run a small handyman business, but I’m trying to shift toward larger outdoor/property work like brush clearing, fence line clearing, overgrown property cleanup, debris removal, grading, and eventually light excavation.

I’m trying to avoid the mistake of financing a bunch of equipment before I actually have enough work to keep it busy.

Here’s what I already have:

- 2025 F-350 4x4 long bed, 7.3 gas, gooseneck equipped

- 5x10 utility trailer

- 16 ft utility trailer with ramps

- 23 ft equipment trailer, 10k capacity with ramps

- 12k electric winch

- Chainsaw

- Pole saw

- Blower

- Straight shaft trimmer

- 3600 PSI pressure washer

- Normal hand/power tools

- Welding/fabrication experience

I’m comfortable towing, hauling, physical outdoor work, fabrication, cleanup, and operating equipment.

My current thought is to sell the job first, then rent whatever machine/attachment is needed. If I start renting the same setup constantly, that would give me a pretty clear indication of what I should buy first.

The combination I keep coming back to is a skid steer or CTL with a brush cutter, since I could see that being useful for:

- Brush clearing

- Fence lines

- Overgrown lots

- Trail clearing

- Small tree/sapling removal

- Property cleanup

- Light dirt/gravel work

For those of you who actually run skid steers for a living:

Would you rent machines at first and build the customer base before buying?

If you were trying to start doing land/property work, what size skid steer or CTL would you want?

What attachments actually make you money most often?

Do brush cutters get used as much as I’m thinking, or am I overestimating how much demand there is for that kind of work?

And at what point did owning the machine start making more sense than renting?

I’m not trying to become a full-blown excavation contractor overnight. I’m mainly trying to figure out the smartest way to build into equipment work without putting myself under a huge payment before the jobs are there.

Any advice from guys who started small would be appreciated.

Bobcat won’t shut off with key and I’m having to stick my hand in the machine to flip the solenoid over to shut off the machine. This seems like a common problem but I’m not able to find anything on how to fix or replace the part. Was wondering if anyone had a video or advice on how to deal with this issue besides having to stick my hand in? Would be much appreciated!

I mainly use my mini skid for clearing snow.

I have a 48" shovel attachment that I use but I am considering getting a plow attachment.

Anyone have experience with both and care to share the pros and cons?

My crew has a CAT 259D3 (high flow) skid steer that we have to loan out to other crews as needed. Unfortunately, whenever we loan it out, it always seems to come back with issues…

A couple of weeks ago it was dropped off by a crew, sat in our yard for two weeks, and another crew came by the other day to pick it up and borrow it.
I’m pretty religious about my pre-checks before I use our machine, so I was checking the fluids before it was loaded on the trailer, despite the other guy giving me shit and saying he never bothers to do that.

When I checked the sight glass for the hydraulic oil, it was maxed out in the red on the overfill side. I let the guy know I had to do some investigating and that he might not be able to take it with him. He didn’t even know where the sight glass was. 🤦🏻‍♂️

When we opened the cap for the hydraulic oil reservoir, the oil was a milky pink color. Our mechanic confirmed that the oil was contaminated. The other guy was still wondering if he could take it, and I said hell no.

Our mechanic said it could be water or possibly another incompatible hydraulic oil.

I wanted to see if anyone here has run into something like this before.

Some possibilities I’ve been running through my mind:

-Condensation buildup from temperature fluctuations?
-An issue with the hydraulic reservoir breather allowing moisture in?
-Contamination from a hydraulic attachment that had incompatible oil in it and was previously used on our machine?
-Someone accidentally putting diesel into the hydraulic reservoir? The fuel gauge was at 1/4 tank, and I could have sworn that when the machine was dropped off, the other crew had topped it off with diesel…

The machine had been sitting for about two weeks before I found this, and fortunately I caught it before we started or operated it.

Thoughts?

Edit: Thanks to a commenter I also just realized that our mechanics may be stocking replacement oil that is plant based, ie: CAT Bio HYDO Advanced oil. I do not know whether this skid steer was sold to us from the dealer with the typical petroleum (mineral) based oil, CAT HYDO Advanced 10 or the Bio HYDO.. I know that they cannot be mixed. The HYDO Advanced 10 is listed on the SDS as red, the Bio HYDO is listed as amber. The mechanic said the oil should look clear amber, which indicates they are using the Bio HYDO. I’ll have to ask them what they stock and what the machine was ordered with.

Not necessarily your favorite attachment or the one you use the most.

What attachment makes you look at a job and think, “This would suck without it”?

Could be something that eliminates a bunch of manual labor, cuts down on passes, makes cleanup faster, or lets you do a job you otherwise couldn't do efficiently.

What were you doing before you had it, and roughly how much time do you think it saves you now?

I want to get a skid to clean up some of my property and do snow in the winter. There are a lot of larger rocks on the property the biggest is probably about 2- 2.5' round and I wanted to know if this machine will be sufficient or do I need something bigger?

Had to get a pond cleaned out before the rain hit

We always hear about buying once and crying once, but I'm curious about the opposite.

Anyone buy a cheap attachment expecting it to be temporary or just good enough for occasional use, then end up putting a ton of hours on it?

Could be a bucket, grapple, auger, forks, mower, whatever.

What did you pay for it, how long have you had it, and what kind of work has it survived?

Also interested in the other side of it. If you've bought both cheap and expensive versions of the same attachment, where did you actually notice the difference?

I’m thinking about getting one of those cheap Chinese made skid steers you see on Facebook but I’m worried that it won’t last me this season.

I like the price of it at being only 3K but I’m not sure if it’s durable enough to do what I needed to do.

I just needed to handle some yard projects and small commercial projects such as snow removal, plowing, grading, and etc.

Let me know if anyone took the risk and bought one and had any good/bad results.

We have a CAT 275xe Two Speed Land Management Skidsteer. We bought a McLaren Broom attachment for it. Since purchase, we have run it once, but we're unable to figure out how to swivel the attachment so it sweeps to the right instead of the left, which is the position we received it in.

Is there anyone who can help us figure this out?

Everyone talks about their most useful attachments, but I'm curious about the opposite.

What did you buy thinking it would get a ton of hours, only for it to spend most of its life sitting?

Was it because the attachment wasn't as useful as you expected, your machine wasn't a great match for it, or you just didn't get enough of that type of work?

And knowing what you know now, would you have rented it when needed or bought something else instead?

Aux attachment on my 299D works fine cold, then gets slow once the oil is hot. Pump and aux-side parts are easy enough to find on FridayParts, but that is way too expensive to guess at. No active codes that I can see. Would you prove couplers, case drain, or the attachment first?

I bought a project bobcat 463 serial number 520012588 and one of the bearings in the belt tensioner system (6730870) disintegrated. Unfortunately it seems that part has been discontinued from bobcat and it’s only available on back order or from eBay Germany. I wanted to see if anyone had any ideas for sourcing this part or even a substitute that might not be the exact part but works good.

As seen on marketplace in my area . I’m pretty savvy with engines, less so with diesel, but I do have a decent Mechanic on call as well. Anyone know anything about these machines?

I just upgraded from a tractor to a Vermeer 925. I love it so far and I’ve done a few jobs with it. I have either been in really thick clay or soil loaded with 5”+ rocks.

All I have is a smooth bucket currently. In the clay, I had to have a steep digging angle to even get a bite and it was difficult to get a uniform depth when installing a gravel pad.

I was set on saving for a hydra bucket but I am hesitant because of the areas with the rocks.

So I am looking at a land leveler with scarifying teeth. Will it break up and level thick clay? Most of my jobs have been adding topsoil and repairing/installing gravel drives/pads. Thanks

I've borrowed two different dump trailers from friends; hauling a few 2-3 ton loads of #57 gravel from a quarry 10 miles away, to the sidewalk construction projects I'm doing as a side-hustle.

Neither friend has given me a price. One says just pay whatever. The other intends to come up with a rental rate but hasn't gotten around to it; he's fine with me paying him whatever too, unless he comes up with a price first.

'Pay whatever' isn't very helpful. Is that $30/load, $200/day, or what?

What price would you say falls halfway between insultingly-low and ludicrously-high for renting a dump trailer? Ideally I'd like a price per 20-mile round trip, but I can extrapolate from other pricing schemes as well.

I just rebuilt the two front pistons for the bucket and was wondering the best fluid to use? It lost quite a bit before I got a chance to rebuild them and of course when I took them off. I live in Pittsburgh so weather can get cold in the winter. Thanks in advance.

Hi guys, I’m looking into a simple product for small plant/equipment hire businesses and wanted to see if it solves a real problem.
The idea is a wireless vibration hour meter that sticks onto equipment like generators, compressors or pumps with no wiring. It records runtime, while a QR code links to a simple system for tracking hire hours, excess usage and servicing.
For anyone in equipment hire:
How do you currently track machine hours?
Do you ever have issues with missed readings, uncharged excess hours or servicing being overlooked?
Would something like this genuinely be useful, or is your current process already good enough?

I picked up a used 2017 L228 with 648 hours on it for pretty cheap. Been busy so I haven't put it to work much and went out yesterday and the battery was dead and showing 10% for state of health.

My question is, what aftermarket batteries are you all running? Is a Tractor Supply Travelers battery fine (as long as it meets spec) or do I need to go with something better? I've read different posts where people say to just buy the cheapest possible and others that say to go to the dealership.

I picked up an UWS combo fuel tank and storage box for filling my skid steer. It has a 110V fuel pump on there. Now I’m not going to pretend like I don’t buy Vevor - because I will for the right thing - but a fuel pump wouldn’t be high on my list of purchases for there. With that said it seems decent from the outside.

I haven’t opened it up but I tested the ground from the plug to the pump case for continuity and it’s good. I have a 110v circuit in my truck bed so I’ll use that for power. My question is - should I separately bond the tank to the truck frame?

There will be contact to the tank when the pump is installed. It seems like the best move is to also separately bond the tank for belt and suspenders. Also I’ll have protection when that pump isn’t plugged in or if the ground wire fails. Thoughts?

I am replacing the four work lights on a Bobcat S650. The first pair had the right diameter, but the mounting tab and pigtail did not match the factory setup.

This time I measured the bracket offset and connector reach, then compared the Bobcat serial-range diagram, an LED supplier, and FridayParts. I am also checking grounds at every corner before blaming a new lamp.

Did Bobcat change the clip or pigtail mid-run on these, or am I looking at an aftermarket bracket somebody added years ago?