Hello everyone, my father owns a 1989 Cat E120B excavator which has been hurting for a bit, and I am eager to work on it. It has been out in the field for quite sometime now, as I only have my CDL permit and unable to run trucks on the road and transport our equipment. Hence our equipment doesn't make it back to the farm in northwestern NJ, where we store and service our stuff. However this machine will be making its way to my Mother's horse ranch in eastern PA sometime soon for me to install a 100' X 50' riding ring, a circle ring yet to be determined in size, dig out several Pine Stumps (18"-30"), Load out topsoil, and other misc. projects that I'm sure will pop up. It will be "Staying there for the winter" as I heard it from my Father. The only UNFORTUNATE part about this is that a service manual for the ol boy is $700+, or at least that's what searching the internet has led me to believe. It is clearly a Grey Market machine, which I've realized makes this an adventure. The first thing I need to determine is if its worth it for me to invest my free time this winter working on the machine due to the fact the grease seal is shot...My father found out we could replace it w/o having to take the house off of the turnable($$$$), but was hesitant to invest any money or time due to a "Clunking/Knocking" sound/feeling when the house of the machine spun around to a certain point on the turntable. However it no longer does this. I want to further inspect and learn about this to see if the turntable is still ok to make a decision as to wether or not i should undertake restoring the machine. I was told to unbolt a circular cap between where the boom cylinders are pinned to the turntable...I will try to attach images. Any advice on this procedure?
^There's a photo of the blown grease seal^