-Updated October 25, 2021 -- Started May 30, 2021-

I had been looking to purchase a backhoe for several years, and I almost bought an International Backhoe a few months prior to getting the Wain-Roy. It was a 1970's model and had lots of rust, I even went so far as to put money down on it. In the end I decided, after much advice from my wife and my friends to back out on the deal. I had heard opinions both ways on the purchase and I just decided that sometimes I can force things to happen when it is not what God wants me to do.

Anyway, I decided to focus on the responsibilities that I had already and let the backhoe purchase sit on a back burner for a while.

I built my Grandma a house, worked on my wife's vehicle, and laid the toungue and groove floor in part of my house. I also completed several jobs (paying work), and generally didn't look to much for equipment.

So one day out of the blue I recieved a text asking if I was still interested in the backhoe, it turns out that I had texted this man about a Wain-Roy on Craigslist over a month earlier and he was just now responding. I arranged to come out and look at the backhoe, Dad and I took the 16' trailer and drove to Bryant AL to see it. When we got there the owner said "you aren't gonna try and haul the backhoe with that are you? That thing is heavy with a capital H!"

He cranked it up for us, and all the hydraulics, while leaky, did work. The shifter was broken off right at the transmission, and I found it laying in the grass under the machine. It was in neutral.

I offered him $1200 for the backhoe, and he said "No, the least I can take for it is $2500!" I told him the ad said $1500 (which it did), he said something about his wife posting the thing forsale and that she had done this last week on a motorcycle; he went off to check. When he came back he said that the ad did say $1500 and that since I had driven all that way to come look at it he would sell it for that.. We did the deal, winched the backhoe onto the trailer, (bent the ramps and broke some decking) it was HEAVY. And we eased on home.

I used the backhoe to pull itself off the trailer, and parked it at my Dad's house. I took the shifter finger and ball joint (probably the wrong names) off that day and took them home. I welded the shifter back together that night, the next morning I reinstalled the shifter and now its a running, driving backhoe for $1500!

Over the next few days I cleaned as much grease and grime as I could off the backhoe, and looked up all the numbers I found. The backhoe has a 4/47 engine in it and the engine and transmission are built by David Brown. The folks of at the David Brown Tractor Forum told me a lot about the history of the tractor and gave me much information on the David Brown 990 that the Wain-Roy is build on.

Update 10-25-21

It has been a few months since I bought the "Old Wain-Roy", I have done a few jobs with the old fellow and he likes to work! I've had a few hydraulic lines bust, but I just replaced them as the burst. I blew a tire on the back left and had to replace it, cost me $510 to replace the tire and install an innertube. Here in a short I am going to be taking the Wain-Roy to its's next job, land clearing! I am clearing a building site for a house that I am building for a client, and I have begun charging the backhoe into the jobs. This job will pay off the tire I had to replace, but hopefully the old fellow will begin to earn his keep and maybe even start paying for repairs in advance.. I can only hope!

But in all seriousness, I have been using the Wain-Roy for numerous tasks around the homestead and quite a few little job related things. I pushed over some trees near my driveway and dug up the stumps yesterday, last week I leveled a spot for my next work shed. The uses are endless and that David Brown engine just rumbles to life every time I try it, after I changed all the filters and fluids I have not even been using ether like the previous owner.

An excellent purchase.