Your Takeuchi TB216

Common jobs for the Takeuchi TB216

With the Takeuchi TB216 you handle garden jobs and the tight plots in residential areas. It weighs 1.8 tonnes and gets through gates and along house walls where a bigger machine never fits. On Swedish jobs that means drainage along the foundation, paving, small trenches and cable digging on plots with hedges and walls all around.

On a residential plot the TB216 digs a trench for the drainage, lifts topsoil away ahead of a driveway and grades the ground before you lay paving. It takes planting pits and post holes with the right attachment. It is a machine for the small and careful work, where you operate close to things that must not be damaged.

On a machine this light you get the most from a digging bucket for fine work and a grading bucket, plus an auger drive when you take holes. The attachment weight is the first thing you look at, since a 1.8-tonne machine gets tippy from a heavy attachment far out. Everything runs on the S30 hitch.

Buckets and attachments that fit the TB216

For a 1.8-tonne machine you choose a narrow digging bucket for trench and drainage and a wider grading bucket for levelling and fine work ahead of paving. On the TB216 it is about narrow buckets that get down into tight trenches, not about how much you take per pass. A cable bucket is often the bucket you use most.

A small sorting grapple can be run on the TB216 when you move stone or clear brush and roots in the garden. Keep the weight down, because on a machine this light the grapple sits steady only if you do not reach out far with a heavy load. The load plus the grapple weight has to stay within what the machine can manage.

All attachments run on the S30 hitch, the smallest quick hitch. With the same hitch on buckets, grapple and auger drive you swap quickly without leaving the cab, which saves time when you switch between trench, fine work and holes on the same plot.

Auger drive and light attachments for the TB216

On a 1.8-tonne machine an auger drive is often the most useful extra attachment. It takes post holes, planting pits and holes for footing piles when you put up a fence, a deck or a pergola. The drive is the motor that rotates, the auger bit is the part that sits in it, and you choose the bit size by the hole you need.

A hydraulic breaker on the TB216 is always a light breaker, and you run it only when you have to take out an old concrete edge or a stone in the trench. The oil flow on a mini machine is limited, so it is the flow and not the weight that decides which breaker the machine handles. Check the flow before you buy.

The most important thing on a machine this small is not to overload it. The most common mistake is fitting an attachment the machine cannot carry at full reach, and then it gets tippy. Stick to light attachments within the machine lift capacity so the TB216 works safely all day.

S30 quick hitch and fit

The Takeuchi TB216 runs an S30 hitch, the smallest coupler and the standard for the lightest mini excavators. Check the attachment is listed for S30 before you buy, a hitch in the wrong size will not fit. In this class it is the hitch that holds your small attachment set together.

A tiltrotator does not belong on a 1.8-tonne machine. It adds weight and cost the machine does not carry well, and on a machine this light the gain is small. Put the money into a narrow cable bucket, a grading bucket and an auger drive you use every day on the plot instead.