I have to reseal the boom and bucket cylinders on my CAT 225. I priced out all the parts online via a few different methods: 1) CAT Parts Store via my local CAT dealer. ("High" quality, I assume all made in the USA/West) 2) Online using Amazon & eBay only. ("Aftermarket" quality, some made in USA/West, some Asia) 3) Cheapest prices online via https://propelparts.us/ ("Lowest" quality, I assume all made in China) Here are the results of the pricing analysis: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gIPorXAd9OlhiPX-uHidM8R5G5TmZhVs/view?usp=sharing This is a hobby machine and not a production machine. I may use the machine another ~1000 hrs or so. (Never know however, as once you have a machine like this you "find" more projects that requires its usage etc) What is everyone's thoughts regarding buying the cheapest seals possible vs. the CAT OEM? I have resealed just about all the cylinders on my Ford 575D TLB with eBay/Amazon "cheap" seals, and have not had any issues yet after about 300-400 hours of use.
I would not pay those cat prices.
I use https://baumhydraulics.com/
Hercules/bulldog is another.
Thanks for the vendor suggestions, I have used Hercules in the past, will look into them and the others mentioned.
Well, I tried Hercules, Baum & Bulldog. Only the Hercules website returned any results on the part numbers (new or old). Hercules is more expensive than my local CAT dealer... As an example, seal 8J-8767 is a piston seal for a 5.50" bore cylinder. CAT dealer wants $53.23 ea., Hercules wants $155.48 ea. What??? I may order a few samples of the really cheap ones from PropelParts to see the quality first hand.
Do the cylinders in question have Part Number tags on them.? If so a seal kit (if available) might be cheaper than buying piece parts. Kits are generally available for most Cat cylinders from around the time frame your machine was built.
I will look for tags, have never noticed any. If there were kits I figured the parts book would list them...
Yeah, Baum has kits for most Cats quite reasonable. Look up the machine first, then the cylinder, then get into cyl. numbers and machine serial number breaks.
I do not see any tags on the cylinders, but my parts manual has part numbers for the cylinder assemblies, so I'll try looking for re-seal kits for those.
That 8J-8767 becomes a 4T-5173. Serial number on machine?
I just Googled "3g-2996" seal kit and got this. From here https://hwpartstore.com/products/cat-225b-excavator-boom-seal-kit Myself, I stick with Cat as mine are production machines and downtime hurts. Had a 322B that swallowed 2 sets of Bulldog piston seals on the arm cylinder in 3 months, after a rechrome (electric wire strike). Put Cat seals back in and never touched it again.
51U2607
Just searched for "8J-1698 seal kit", got this: https://www.ebay.com/itm/7X2823-Boo...021016?hash=item4b71933918:g:M20AAOSwr21e-5Ct That entire kit is cheaper than the CAT piston seal... Seems pretty crazy.
from baum: 51U2034-2831, 5.5 3.25 525347 AA20664 110.87 MC 4-SWR SBR Without Stop Seal
Oops, that didn't come out right, but, it's their part number 525347, fits 51u2034 through 51u2831, 110.87 is my resale price, I don't know what your price will be if you call them, but it will probably be less. I like them because you are dealing with a 140 year old company who WILL make it right if need be.
I second the suggestion of buying the kits instead individual parts. Much cheaper. We resealed some tilt cylinders on a farm use track loader about 8 years ago with Baum seals. They are still dry. Granted they only have about 450 hours on them. I recently bought some swing cylinder seal kits for a JD 310 SE from HW Parts. They are clearly from China or Korea based on the writing on the package, but they appeared like quality seals. One of the inner seals was individually wrapped with with a little bag of silica. The kits went together so well, I just bought two more kits from them for my loader curl and the stabilizer. They are about half price of the dealer. Baum doesn't list the 310 SE on their price list, otherwise, I'd probably have bought from them.
This is what’s listed for the 225 (20S, 51U, 61X, & 76U prefixes) in the Cylinder & Seal Catalogue. You can see now why I asked if you could find Part Number tags on the cylinders.
To answer the original question asked about genuine v's aftermarket v's cheap source. As a parts sales guy I don't mind which way my customers want to go so I am none biased in this, but with the lucky position of seeing products from all sides. Genuine parts are a plain rip off, no two ways about it, you are paying more for the brand name and convenience of having the manufacture on hand to help. Aftermarket, now here's where it gets tricky, there are oem and cheap suppliers. We have a supplier of parts who are as good if not better than genuine products (normally oem products) at a lot less in price, we also have a supplier who provides a more "cost effective solution" for the customer with a smaller budget, but the product isn't always as good, not wrong or anything just isn't finished as well, and may not last as long. for my personal money knowing what I know, unless I cant buy it i'd buy aftermarket from a decent oem supplier over genuine every time. The problem you guys running CAT stuff have is CAT make an awful lot of stuff in house under patient or oem under licence and so you just can't get oem aftermarket. and those instances where there is an oem supplier they know what they have and will make you pay for it anyway.
Now I understand what you were getting at. Hmm, I have always just used my parts book. My Parts book only lists the 8J-1698 and 3G-2996 boom cylinder groups. And for the 3G2996, it only lists two serial numbers, neither of them mine. So theoretically I use a kit for 8J-1698. However, I can understand on a machine this old that the CYL's could have been swapped out... Do we know if the cylinders would have a tag, or would it be a stamping? And if I may ask, where is this seal catalog? It's a catalog I can buy? Are those seal kit numbers CAT part numbers? The seal kit from the CAT dealer is definitely much cheaper than buying individual parts: Though none of the kits are "verified" matches to my machine, likely would need the exact cylinder assembly part number and call the dealer... I agree with you completely about paying for OEM name, that is not something a CAT hobbyist (like myself) can usually afford/justify, but a large operation can. I'm fine with well manufactured aftermarket components, I just don't want "Chinese" aftermarket quality. I figure the super cheap seals on eBay and PropelParts.com have to be the Chinese variety? Leading me to look into the direction of Baum and the like as suggested in this thread.
All Part Numbers on that illustration are Cat Numbers. Regarding the catalogue. See if you can find a copy of Cat Publication PEXP1020 anywhere on the net.
My Google kung fu comes up empty. Other than websites in Chinese characters which I am afraid to click on as I am at work. I went to Cat Publications website to try to find that catalog, or even any seals catalog, but I only get results if I type in a serial number prefix, and only get machine specific manuals.
Holy cow that seal kit in the UK is nearly double that!!!! but from an aftermarket company a 5th of that price. Just goes to show how different markets work. We are currently in the process of overhauling a CAT 950M transmission and it is surprising how many parts have "made in China" embossed/written on them. I do agree with the really cheap stuff, stay well away from. also stay away from Turkish stuff especially cast parts, their tolerances seem to be measured in yards not thou
Are you saying the replacement parts have China stamped on them or the parts you are removing from the unit? I sometimes really hate globalization. It would be fine if the quality was the same everywhere, but it's nowhere close in most cases. When I was a kid, Made in Taiwan, Mexico etc was a joke to us here in the USA. Now we're very happy to see that as opposed to Made in China. I know, Taiwan is technically China, but just seeing "Made in China" feels worse for some reason...
quite a few parts fitted to the machine as we are dismantling it to get to the transmission have it on, my fitter came round to tell me because he was surprised at how many had it on
Cat has been manufacturing machines in China for many years. You will find almost every machine built in the last twenty years will have some part somewhere on the machine was built in China.
That sucks... Found the same thing out on my 2013 GMC 3500HD, was dismayed how many OEM parts were made in China. I guess CAT machines are not what they once were.
I have no idea why you should think that so long as the quality control works as it should. A large range of Cat electrical/electronic parts & hardware (and many other parts as well) have been manufactured outside the US for at least the last 20 years that I know of. Cat is no different to any other OEM in that regard.
Nige, the problem is, especially in the states, that it was drilled into people that China and Chinese products are of poor quality. and they can't see through that most of us in the rest of the world can.
My reply above was penned somewhat tongue-in-cheek.
It's more that I have been burned by Chinese poor quality many times, personally and professionally, to the point that I don't want to touch the stuff if I have other (reasonable) options. I work as a mechanical design engineer in the Aerospace industry, and over the last 20 years have seen familiar product lines used in machine design drop in quality due to manufacturing being moved to China. Quality did not stay the same, not even close, no matter how many reassurances the vendors gave. Personally for my own projects and hobbies, it's a huge crap shoot that something bought online from China will have even decent usable quality. You just don't know until you receive and try to use the product whether or not it is a paper weight. And with globalization, it is quite hard ahead of time to know where stuff is coming from. Everything is "assembled in the USA with foreign and domestic components" or "Made in China to US manufacturer specifications". Some stuff seems decent/usable, and other stuff is just lighting money on fire.
Got my seals in from HW today. Interesting, one of the rod seal kits has a blue seal stamped with USA. The other is made by Corteco now owned by Freudenberg out of Germany. I know they make some OE automotive seals for BMW and Volkswagen. Don't know where these are made. But this particular kit says sourced from the US. The buffer seal in the other kit is made by Wonyoung out of Korea. The cure dates on the bags are August of this year. When I replaced my flasher relay on the 310, the old one made in 1997 was "Made in Germany". The new one I bought in 2020 at the dealer was identical with all the same part numbers written on the relay, except for the little white letters that said, "Made in China". Sign of the times.
I bet that China one won't last 23 years....
It's most likely, no replacement you would buy these days will last 23 years no matter the country of manufacture. Globalization, on-time manufacturing, along with the acceptance of very poor quality by various markets, the quality of all products has suffered. Not to mention planned obsolescence. That's what sucks IMO.
Vertical integration has magnified all that as well!
So far I have not been able to find this seal catalog. I am in need of a CAT seal kit part number for the parking brakes on this 225, 8K-0177 Brake Group.
The catalogue is only for hydraulic cylinder seals and does not include components such as brake groups. Kits for non-hydraulic components (if available) are usually listed in the Parts Manual for the machine. The 8K-0177 Brake Gp is not one of them. TBH it's not often that brake groups have seal kits listed.
Good information, thank you.
Try ours from www.mxpseal.com What items do you need? Will be here to advise if you need
Let me explain, what is OEM and Aftermarkets seals. (Pardon me, as I am in the seals industry for years, let me share my experience) Lots of people say our is OEM, which refers to Original Manufacturers. But for Cat machines, there is no OEM, yes some items do have. Cat makes seal themselves, especially all the newest models. You can never get it from outside, so it makes aftermarket a rather end user’s choice cause its much cheaper. But what about its quality? Depends on whom you purchase it from.