Good Morning Guys, I purchased a lathe the other day and yesterday I unloaded from the ute. I knew my bobcat did not work on the 'fine' controls but having the lathe nearly topple has encouraged me to get into what the cause is and how to fix it. Trouble is I don't know where to start or where to look? I am handy and have tools however what would cause the fine controls to only work sometimes? How would I go about checking stuff? This model has the controls for lift/tilt on the pedals on the floor. Thanks for any help you may be able to give, Regards, MX45. NB Being an optimist I am hoping someone will say some WD40 in that spot!
It sounds like you were lifting something relatively heavy, tricky thing to do with a Bobcat with foot pedal controls. Work like that is kind of "out of its element" for one of those machines, fine controls with foot pedals work far better with light loads as in working with material that would typically be worked with a bucket. But when you put them in a heavy lift situation, fine controls are pretty much non-existent, that's just not what they're designed to do, they're more designed to go high speed full tilt working material. Now if they had larger diameter cylinders on the lift arms and coupler tilt they'd work far better for fine controls, but then working fast with material would be sacrificed, that's just the way they're designed for the work they're designed to do.
G'day Willie, Yes - the lathe was heavy enough at the range of the forks on the bucket to have the rear doing a balancing act. That is an education for me. I was lifting some purlins off a truck with same forks on bucket arrangement and lifted and it went super fast and purlins jumped a lot. So not a problem with the machine but with operator knowledge (lack of). I just expected to be able to use fine control like the excavator - the difference is very marked. Thanks, Regards, MX45
Nope, no comparison to an excavator. Excavators have hydraulic systems that are designed to offer fine controls as well as balls to the wall operation. Not so with a foot control Bobcat skiddy, again, they're designed for production, as is pretty much any skid steer loader. Not really a lack on knowledge on your part, it's just a tricky thing to handle heavy loads and control them gently with a foot control Bobcat.