650k bulldozer update

My boss finally got tech manual and had a local self employed heavy equipment mechanic come up and work on the dozer. Pumps checked out pressure wise around 5400 psi. It ended up I had put to much dielectric grease on electrical connections. It also had to have potentiometer adjusted. This was most likely the problem to begin with! This machine was checked over by trained Case mechanic and we were told pumps were bad and repair was going to be around $9000! Isn't that funny! Greg

I love it when the "trained" guys give customers a death notice on their machines. I had one customer told that their engine was worn completely out because they had problems starting it. How the guy knew it was worn out is beyond me because he never checked compression or did any kind of diagnostic to tell him that the engine had any wear at all. Turned out the seal on the fuel transfer pump was bad and had filled the part of the injection pump that should have had oil in it full of fuel, and the injection pump was worn out. Cost about $800 to get the pump rebuilt and the engine started like a champ.

Had another with a 345B CAT excavator with a problem with the pilot pump. Getting to it required pulling the main hydraulic pump, so the dealership guy said they had to take the machine back to the shop. That would have required getting a crane in to remove the counterweight, a special power unit to get the boom positioned to transport, as well as getting the machine jacked up far enough to put a beam deck trailer under it and then set the machine on it. In other words a couple of days work, and thousands of dollars just to move the machine....and then more for the repair. Me,I"ve pulled quite a few main pumps over the years, in the field, with absolutely no problems. So, I drained the tank, removed sheet metal, etc in the way, pulled and capped the lines, and had the main pump sitting in the back of my truck and ready to go home in about 5 hours. When it was all back together, my total bill for nearly 400 miles of mileage, 8 hours of ride time, time spent pulling and reinstalling the pump, a night in the motel because I worked on another machine on the re-intall trip, etc, etc, was still far less than just the cost the dealership would have charged just to get the machine moved.

While I will gladly bow out to the dealership guys on the new electronic, computer controlled crap that us independents can"t afford the diagnostic equipment to work on, I absolutely love the job security they provide on anything over a few years old that requires them to use their "personal computer" (ie-brain) instead of the company issued PC that talks to the machines"s computer.

This machine only had 1400 hours, I had told the boss no way those pumps were bad! We got it back together and didn't work was real disappointing. With the tech manual we can finally do some problem solving ourselves. We have an older Case that saved the day while this machine has been down. We have only had to change a few hoses and new undercarriage on older machine, we have said older machine will still be going long after the electronic nightmare is scrapped. Our new excavator is worse yet has electronic controlled throttle which has already had problems at 200 hours that was Doosan DX80R. It would only idle kind of hard to use like that! Thanks for the reply. Greg

Be care full with the dielectric grease on some of the newer Deeres. Deere is using some gold plated pins in the connectors which doesn't react well with the grease.