Your Volvo EC140

Common jobs for the Volvo EC140

The Volvo EC140 is a Swedish standard machine. You see it on civil works, road and foundation jobs where it works in production day in and day out. At 14 tonnes you have left the midi class and can start thinking in systems, the machine drives most attachments with power to spare.

On a road job the EC140 digs ditches and service trenches, grades slopes and loads spoil. On a foundation it digs out and backfills. It is a machine that handles almost anything in the mid class, which makes it a good base to build an attachment set around.

Since the EC140 drives so many different attachments, it pays to invest in several and swap by job. A tiltrotator and three or four attachments turn the machine into a complete tool carrier rather than a plain excavator.

Buckets and attachments that fit the EC140

For a 14-tonne machine you choose a toothed bucket for excavation and trenching, a wide grading bucket for levelling and slopes, and a cable bucket for narrow trenches. Most who run the EC140 keep at least two buckets and swap by task.

A sorting grapple belongs on the EC140 in demolition and material handling. It loads stone, pulls apart and sorts spoil. At 14 tonnes the machine carries the grapple steadily even a fair way out.

All attachments run on the S60 hitch, the standard for this class. With the same hitch and ideally a tiltrotator you swap between bucket, grapple and breaker in minutes and get more out of the machine day.

Hydraulic breaker and heavy attachments for the EC140

A 14-tonne machine drives a strong hydraulic breaker for rock, concrete and frost. In this class the machine handles a serious breaker, and that opens up demolition and rock excavation beyond ordinary digging.

Check the oil flow against the breaker spec before you buy. The EC140 has the flow, but the breaker has to be matched to your machine hydraulics to hit at full force and not wear prematurely.

On demolition jobs a demolition grapple or pulveriser is an alternative to the breaker when you want to take concrete and rebar apart more under control. Which one suits depends on what you demolish and how often.

S60 quick hitch and tiltrotator

The Volvo EC140 runs an S60 hitch, the standard coupler for the 13-15 tonne class. Check the attachments are listed for S60 before you buy. With a common hitch on every attachment you swap quickly and build a set over time.

In this class a tiltrotator really pays off. It lets you tilt and rotate the bucket so you grade slopes, dig ditches at an angle and work near kerbs without moving the machine. For a machine like the EC140 that does mixed jobs, it is often the investment that gives the most back.