David McCallum and his three sons, along with a couple of other crew members, are working smoothly and efficiently when we arrive at McCallum Harvesting’s operation in the Deep South near Fiordland. It’s good to see family working well together.
There are a lot of big, shiny and notably straight machines on site but we’re here today to do an Iron Test on the Eltec FHL317L, Eltec’s biggest tilter running a fixed head Quadco QB4400. After over two years doing Iron Tests I finally get to sit in an Eltec.
First impressions are that this is one powerfully built machine. And power is the number one reason why David bought the 317L.
“I needed something that could lift our big fuel tanks and the first new machine I tried out couldn’t get them high enough, only maybe knee height off the ground, whereas the Eltec lifts it up to the height we need it easy,” he says.
The bare pin lifting capacity is over eight tonnes, so that’s a tremendously large amount of fuel tanks it can lift. The 8.9 litre Cummins engine supplies 320HP to the four Linde hydraulic pumps.
“It’s actually crazy how fast and powerful this machine is. The power levels go from 1 up to 5. I run it on 1 and it’s awesome. I accidentally bumped it up to 3 one day when we were resetting things after a service and holy f*ck was it quick. I wondered what the hell I’d struck, so I put it back to 1 again. Apparently over in Canada where there’s a lot of these, there are some guys that get it up around the 3 but I think that’s because they have the disc saws running and they’re bowling over bunches of pulp stems at a time,” adds David.
Deep South Eltec
One thing I observe via pattern recognition about the two guys I now know who own Eltecs is that they are both pumping loads in tougher ground or conditions, and they are both big, heavyset blokes who you would want on your side if there happened to be a street brawl on the go. This is David’s second Eltec and the other owner I know has four of them.
Reading Eltec’s brochure they state the 317L has an “Extremely robust design” – they’re not joking. At 43 tonnes this unit is sitting on a D7 tractor undercarriage with some seriously meaty track chains and the rollers and idlers look hard AF, like they are made of something a lot harder than normal. The tether mounts, track frame, tilt rams etc all look humungous. As well as IQAN there is a huge, variable speed and reversible 1143mm/45 inch cooling fan for when Southland’s notorious winters turn into their brief hot summers and the Eltec is called upon to log hill country that was harvested with a hauler last rotation.
In the cab there are plenty of screens as all functions are adjustable here. Great for lowering stress or addressing any Occupational Overuse Syndrome (OOS) or...
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