Friendly welcome at Huddig

Wed 22 Mar 2017

Friendly welcome at Huddig

The Nordic territories are home to some of the most high tech backhoe loaders anywhere in the world, including Finnish manufacturer Lannen, who I will be visiting next month, Hydrema from Denmark and of course Huddig in Sweden. Huddig have been producing backhoe loaders since 1959 when the company which was then known as Svenska Hymas AB was founded by John Sonerud, his brothers and three Norwegian stakeholders. Since those early days the company has gone on to produce over 10,000 machines at its facility in Hudiksvall, the city which the company takes its name from.

Huddig are well known for producing some of the finest backhoe loaders in the world, which it’s probably fair to say are not the cheapest, but this type of quality never will be. The machines take backhoe loaders to another level and the attention to detail on them is incredible. I was lucky to be given a personal guided tour of the factory by Lars Lindahl who is the Managing Director of Huddig.

Welding and fabrication takes place in a number of bays where the sections of the machine are held in a moveable jig as the welding work is performed, for instance the rear frame assembly seen above and the main boom section seen below. There are also welding robots in place which do most of the major welding work in this stat of the art facility.

The main heart of the machine in terms of the main hydraulic control valves and pump with associated pipework is all put together on a special bench before being lower into rear section of the chassis framework, according to Lars Lindahl this used to be put together inside the framework but now doing it outside improves the quality of the fitments with obvious benefits for the engineer putting it all together in terms of visibility and access.

Talking of the engineer putting this unit together, I was delighted to see that it was a guy I have known virtually online for many years, since my early involvement on the Swedish Maskinisten.Net forum, Lars Eng has been working for Huddig for some considerable time now and is responsible for putting these components together at the factory. It was a great experience to finally meet him in person.

The rear chassis section of the 1260C model, complete with rear axle, that was to receive the main hydraulic components we had seen earlier was already heading down the line where it would be connected to the front section.

Bits of the new machine were being put together all around us and in the middle section of the factory the front loader arms for this model were getting the finishing touches.

In the booth next door the machines dipper arm assembly was approaching its completion in the manufacturing process. One thing I notice with these machines is they do not do an extending dipper arm option as we see on the more standard backhoe loaders from other manufacturers.

A bit further down the line and another 1260C was having its two sections put together by a two man team of engineers who were in the process of torqueing up the centre pivot joints using a dedicated powerful air tool.

Awaiting fitment into this machine was the “beast” of an engine that Huddig fit into the 1260C. It’s a powerful straight 6 cylinder water cooled Cummins QSB6.7 diesel engine which has a power output rating of 116kw (157hp) and drives a well proven ZF 2HL 290 hydrostatic gearbox transmission. This model is the most powerful backhoe loader in the company’s range.

Further down the line again we came across a Rail version which was painted in the customers colours and was now being fired up for the very first time as a nearly complete machine. At this stage the machine is checked over for any leaks that may occur before it goes on into the next section of the factory for further testing.

Showing the variety of colour options that can be made available to customers, in the final testing booth we came across this model sporting the blue livery of another Swedish Huddig end user.

Huddig manufacture backhoe loaders essentially aimed at 3 sectors, city (construction) cable (utility) and rail and the final machine we got to see was a completed rail version which was only missing its buckets. This machine once again was sporting its unique customer’s corporate colour scheme.

Unfortunately there was no opportunity to get “hands on” with a Huddig on this occasion but maybe it will be possible one day. We left the factory and took a short drive down to a local dealer’s yard who had a decent number of second hand Huddig machines available for sale.

It was clear to see just why these machines are so highly regarded around the world, the quality of design and workmanship that goes in to them is incredible, they are something of a specialist bit of kit though, but in the correct application there is not much that could compete with them. This is an old video but I think it gives a good insight into the company and its products.

We would like to thank the team at Huddig for the tour around the factory and look forward to seeing you again soon.

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