New bucket

[baumeister]

I am in the market for a new bucket. With a sellers market, I am concerned about getting a quality bucket... even if I have to pay a bit more. I am looking at a 94 chevy chassis and a 1988 versalift boom that has been 'rebuilt'. Raymondbucketguys out of Raymond NH have rearmounted the unit on the 94 chassis. They refurbished the basket and control cover, new knuckle bushings and rebuilt upper cylinder with new bushings. New PTO w/new hoses from pump to unit. Unit has old hoses still. Hydraulics and outriggers are from old unit. All visually inspected with no leaks. The truck looks good, but I am a bit leary about the 88 boom. They are asking $49,000. The price seems a bit high. My questions are:

0. Do you know of any other companies that rebuilts buckets and do good work?
1.What concerns should I have on a boom that old. (was used by a local tree service)
2. What, if any, reasons would you have not to get this truck?
3. Has anyone had any experience with Raymond bucket guys? How has that been?

Thanks for any help, Christian /forum/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[Colin]

Rear-mounted is the way to go! Good luck!

 

[allmark]

Keep in mind the boom is 17 years old. Compare that to th cost of new. I als heard of buckets not passing inspection after 20 years. I dont know if this includes rebuilds.

 

[skew]

There are some serious benefits to buying new- check with your accountant. I just had a 6 mo. p+m on my 2004 Altec. The service guy said some dubious stuff about versalift- as in don't buy one. Having been the used vs. new route I am pleased that I decided to go new this time. I have a center mount with a chip box- 2 trucks in one- with the elevator. Amazing how much more effective this truck is than my old high ranger.

 

[Peter]

We've been using 2 van-mount versalift eurotel 38 booms, and in two years we've had two cracked flybooms, each one costing about £2500 to fix.
Quite why I dont know. The engineer put it down to shock loading, but we never lower off the boom or intentionally shock load it in any way.
We've also had two new buckets in the same time period, i would definatly look at cage types in preference to buckets in future.