by Nick Drew | Wed 13 Mar 2019
Rare long reach Hymac still earning its living
I have no shame in posting yet another blog on the old long-gone British excavator brand Hymac, as I spent a lot of time on them in my youth and indeed spent 9 years on a 580D model, before I made the decision to re-locate from my home city of Southampton.
Chris Cardinal made contact with me via our ever-expanding Instagram account to tell me about his rare NEI Hymac 580D which features a variable geometry long reach boom. Its unclear as to just how many of these long reach specials were manufactured and I have been trying to contact my old friend and Hymac aficionado Jeremy Rowland to see if he knows, but so far, I have not had much luck.
What I can tell you is that according to Jeremy’s highly regarded book, The Illustrated History of Hymac, there were 870 Hymac 580D’s built during a 6-year production period from 1980-1986.
Chris told us he has owned the Perkins powered machine for around 18 months, having bought it locally up in the Lancashire area, which was a real bonus. The machine was primarily purchased to work in his yard performing lifting duties, for example loading buckets and the fuel bowser onto the back of his pick up to take to whatever jobs he is working on with his main machines. The also loads a bit of soil and stone as an when its needed and so far, has done everything he has asked of it.
Talking about the venerable old machine Chris said, “When I first saw it, I thought it was unusual, so figured it would be worth buying. Since owning it I have done a few jobs on it as and when I have some “spare” money!”
“I have put new brakes on it which greatly improved the tracking. Fixed a couple of hydraulic leaks and fitted a couple of “fire washers” which I think is the right name for the washers which seal between the injectors and engine block? I’ve also replaced the old hydraulic filters and the next job which is meant to be this week is new hand throttle”.
Those of us who have spent a long time on these machines will recall the rather antiquated track brake set up mentioned by Chris earlier, and the track gear box which was prone to imploding, not to mention a similar scenario with the slew reduction gearbox. But you cannot help but love these old girls and there are still plenty around if you look hard enough.
They were from a simpler age with no expensive computers or electronic gadgetry on board to go wrong and if things did go wrong, you could fix them with a box of spanners and a big hammer! You can catch up with one of my previous posts about the 580D I used to drive by clicking on this link.
Just the other week I was on a photo-shoot in Somerset where I came across another 580D that is still a well-used runner with over 25,000 hours on the meter. Checkout my video walkaround.
We would like to thank Chris for getting in touch and sharing his photos here on the Digger Man Blog.