Branching Out, Going Solo

Taking a break from our post Bauma 2022 coverage with a second Yanmar feature this week, and a look back at one of my articles previously published in Earthmovers Magazine, with video footage.

Based just outside the market town of Crediton in Devon, Ethan Pearce (22) took the leap of faith into machine ownership and established his new business E.R.P Groundworks and Landscaping last year.

Like many a young person in the South West Ethan left school and went on to attend a 3-year agricultural course at the renowned Duchy College facility in Stoke Climsland, which when completed led to an apprenticeship.

Ethan went into the farming sector straight after college, but after 2-3 years, in a familiar tale, he quickly realised that there was not enough money to be made in the industry, so his thoughts focused on how he could find better paid work.

His father, Kym Pearce, also runs a successful contracting business called Terraform, so it was a natural decision for Ethan to join him on the firm. For a while Ethan was operating their then brand-new CASE 695ST backhoe loader, which was featured in the August 2020 edition of Earthmovers.

The following year I caught up with Nathan once more on a job in Exmouth where he was operating another new addition to the Terraform fleet, a Hyundai HX145LCR hydraulic excavator.

However, like many before him, Ethan had a hankering to venture out on his own, and it was shortly after our last meeting that he decided to go for it, talking about his decision Ethan said, “I just felt that I could potentially make more money for myself, learn more and build up a bit of a reputation for myself too, I also think that when you are doing it for yourself, you just have a bit more heart in it all, so that’s what led to me being here today”.

To get started Ethan set about finding himself a decent mini excavator, that he could legally tow behind his truck. He located a 2015 canopy model 1.8-tonne EC18C Volvo mini excavator with just 2700 hours on the meter, from a company called Barnes Plant Sales in South Wales, which proved to be a good start up machine for him.

However, just recently Ethan decided that with plenty of work lined up for the fledgling business, now was a good time to upgrade to a brand-new machine.

Having done his homework and discovered that availability for many brands was something of an issue, Ethan spoke to the local West Country Yanmar dealers Machine Serve, a company well-known to the Pearce family as they have dealt with them on many occasions over the years.

Machine Serve owner Phil Davey, said he had a Vio27-6 model in stock and ready to go and invited Ethan to pop along to take a look and try it out. Ethan said, “To be honest, it was not a machine that had been on my radar previously, but it was there, all good to go, had everything I wanted and more, so it was a bit of a no brainer really, so from going to look at it to finally taking it home, it was only about 2-3 weeks in total which is pretty good going in my book!”.

The deal was done, with the old Volvo being part exchanged, but before picking up the new one Ethan had specified some extras to be fitted, which included a Harford Uni-Lok fully automatic hydraulic quick hitch, a full set of Rhinox buckets, a couple of LED work lights on the cab roof and a hydraulic thumb from JB Equipment.

We visited man and machine, on a rural jobsite location close to Tedburn St Mary in Devon, where they are working within the grounds of the historic Fulford Estate where Ethan has become quite regular doing a wide variety of excavating jobs previously.

This current job, was the biggest he had undertaken so far and involved the excavation of some 755m³ of trenching to replace existing over-head electric powerlines with new cable in the ground at a depth of around 1m³, the job has also included installation of around 250m³ of ducting as and where it was needed for extra protection of the cable, we arrived as the backfilling and reinstatement works were underway.

It was still early days with the new machine with only 136.9 hours showing on the meter at the time of our visit, but asked for his thoughts, likes and dislikes on the machine so far Ethan said, “It’s a really smooth machine to run, and I find when you are tracking and using other services there is not much lag in the operation, also considering it’s a genuine zero tail swing model it remains very stable, and I have had it at some pretty steep angles on this job already to testify that.

I also like that fact that it has the ram rod guards included all round as standard too, especially good on the bucket cylinder which can be vulnerable to damage”.

“My only major dislike is the size of the cab, as you see I’m quite a big lad, so it can feel a bit tight inside, and the fact that there is no air-con available on this size machine which would be very nice during this heat we are currently getting at the moment, to help with that I have retro fitted a couple of 12v electric fans in the cabin which definitely help”.

The Japanese designed machine which is built in Yanmar’s European facility in Saint-Dizier in North Eastern France, is sporting the all-new red livery for Yanmar excavators, which I have to say looks superb and certainly makes the machine stand out from the crowd. The red examples have been filtering through to dealers now since the start of the year, and one would imagine that any examples sporting the old yellow paintwork are now exhausted at the factory.

The official Yanmar line on the colour change is that their compact tractor range has always been red, and the fact that customers in the North American market had requested a change to red for excavators, which they changed to in 2020, and this colour scheme has now been rolled out globally from 2022.

The Dash-6 Vio27 model was originally launched as far back as 2017. A popular misconception is that the Vio26-6 and Vio27-6 are very different machines, in reality however they are both pretty much exactly the same, but with the Vio27-6 being aimed and marketed at the end user/owner operator sector.

Reflecting Ethan’s comments about the smooth simultaneous operation, the Vio27-6 features Yanmar’s patented VIPPS hydraulic system which comprises of 3 pumps and a high spec valve chest arrangement that allows for a more fluent, smooth and shared hydraulic performance.

This will be of particular use to Ethan, as he also runs a Ghedini flail mower, as Phil Davey of Machine Serve explained, “The VIPPS hydraulic system will be very noticeable with the tracking and flailing being very achievable in addition to accurate boom, arm, crowd and slewing movements all being achieved with virtually no loss of oil flow to the mower, however in a normal trench digging operation the difference in the two machine models would probably not be noticed”. 

Walkaround

I took a look around the machine, which is brimming with top quality blue-chip Japanese components, starting with the powerpack. Opening the rear panel door reveals, perhaps unsurprisingly the in-house manufactured Yanmar’s Eco Friendly 3TNV76-NBVA1 3-cylinder diesel engine which offers a gross power output rating 15.8kw (21.5hp) @2500rpm. An auto-idle system is fitted as standard which helps with saving fuel, especially important in this day and age, with the enforced use of white diesel.

Although tightly packed into the engine bay, access to all fluid and air filters is very good, as is the plastic coolant expansion bottle for topping up. A curved panel to the right of the engine bay can be unbolted and removed quite easily to enable cleaning of the coolant pack during routine maintenance. Recommended service intervals are 500 hours for engine oil and filter with 250 hours for fuel filters

Moving around to the offside, a large plastic bonnet cover lifts up and secures in place to allow access to the 25-litre hydraulic tank, the 12-volt battery and the 30.5-litre diesel tank which is right at the front and allows excellent access for filling from a 25-litre drum.

At 1500mm wide and with a length of 2040mm, the undercarriage is a stable platform for this true zero tailswing machine. 250mm wide rubber tracks are the standard fitment, with 3 bottom rollers and one upper carrier roller.

Yanmars Vio design ensures that neither the counterweight or any front part of the upper frame protrude outside of the track width, making it the ideal machine for close quarters urban jobsites. Even the dozer blade looks well designed with plenty of curve to promote forward rolling of the material being pushed.

At the business end as previously mentioned, ram guards are fitted on every cylinder as standard, and this particular example was fitted with 2 pairs of auxiliary hydraulic lines. Talking of auxiliary lines, the Vio27-6 features a proportional control rocker on the joystick to adjust the speed of the attachment while operating, and in addition, a potentiometer dial can be used to fine tune and lock the oil flow for individual attachments, especially helpful when performing flailing operations.

The cab is described as spacious, I personally would call it cosy, and while it was fine for someone of my stature, larger fellas might find it a bit of a squeeze. The Vio27-6 does get a different seat which is said to offer a bit more room, and I have to say, it’s extremely comfortable.

Leg room at the floor space is quoted as 385mm. Track pedals are fitted as standard but I noticed that Ethan had ‘doctored’ his a little by fitting some wooden chocks on the fold down section of the pedals, he had also removed the T-Bar handles as they were knocking his knees when tracking using the foot pedals only.

As you can imagine, all round visibility is about as good as you can get from a machine, the only thing I didn’t like is the telephone kiosk style two piece folding door, which can create some significant blind spots to the nearside front, having said that, I would tend to have that door folded back open anyway.

All the control buttons are within easy reach and of a practical and workmanlike style, nothing too fancy, even the monitor, or as Yanmar describe it, the digital interface, is a pretty simple affair. The 3.3” LED screen provides the operator with all the basic information that he might need and an easy-to-use menu is provide to navigate around the system and settings.

Summary

In these times when we are all talking about the need to see new blood coming into the industry, it was a delight for me to visit Ethan and his sister Ellen on site and even more exciting to see him with his new Yanmar machine, which I’m confident will serve him well for many years to come as he forges ahead with his plans for the new business, I’m confident this will not be the last time this company will be featured in this magazine.