It’s been a good few years since we Iron Tested a Hyundai machine and it’s quite striking to see this one at first. It makes you want to know what is going on here with that cool colour scheme and also what the R&D team have been up to at Hyundai.
When running Hyundai 210’s in forestry land prep in recent years I found them noteworthy for their increased control speed and their striking fuel economy, so it will be interesting to see if those qualities show up in this bigger HX400 machine running a Woodsman Pro 850.
Our Iron Tester, Shane McGuire, has joined us from one of his own crews further south of Gisborne and reports that the Flavell Logging crew is a tight unit known for working hard.
“They have always been a high production crew. We see them here today in Wharerata… I mean who the hell has three loaders out in the cutover? Shovelling, bunching, feeding the hauler... These guys are getting after it, that’s for sure.”
Flavell’s Foreman, Kayle Beckett, is leading the charge out there today on his own Cat leveller felling machine and a couple of the loaders and a Falcon tether have his name on them as well. Kayle has been with Ray Flavell for almost 10 years and Ray is looking at passing the reins of the company over this year as he has grandkids to look after these days.
So how many loads a day are these guys pumping out? “About 20,” says Kayle. “It goes up around the 800-tonne a day mark when we have some ground based to do as well but when we are in hauler ground production sits around the 550- to 600-tonne mark.”
So, the Hyundai processor is obviously humming along, doing 20 loads on a normal day and stretching up to 26-ish when in ground based. What engine have they got in it? Porter Equipment’s Scott Turner says the HX400 runs the QSL9 manufactured at the UK-based Cummins Darlington plant.
“This is the same engine that has been fitted to Hyundai HL770 loaders and R380 excavators for the past 12 years,” says Scott. “It’s an incredibly reliable engine known to last – likely due to being under stressed in the application.”
Some history of Wharerata
All I had heard about the Wharerata Range south of Gisborne was that some of it had been logged with a Chinook twin bladed helicopter with a 13-tonne lift – the flying bus type with a rotor at each end.
I had been running pest control operations in my own forest further north of here and was on a ridge top when that Chinook (run by Columbia Helicopters out of Aurora, Oregon) flew right over me on the way to that Wharerata job and later that day I spoke to Winton McAra of PF Olsen fame, who was running night security on the Chinook and advised that he could easily park a couple of his Toyota 4WD’s inside it and still have room to move.
From that side...
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