It was an awesome machine for the two days that it was running. It was delivered to us with 7 hours on it, by the time it had 30 hours on it, a steering pump or something went on it. Now I see it at the cat dealer completely taken apart. They had to pull the cab off and everything, it's a total basket case but man can it push mud.
This is the part that I don't understand. :beatsme You say or think that a steering pump "went" on it. But you're not sure Then why do you say it "blew up" when you're not sure about the "pump or something"? Got any pics of the "basket case" blowing up in the mud? With 30 hrs, I'm sure theres a warranty. Wait, let me guess.... It's a rental...
I called one of my friends for some excavatro help, i needed a wheeled excavator to pic up some concrete blocks that had been cut loose at a balkony renovation site. This guy has a new CAT315m (?) with a lot of good attachments, he is the only one with demo grapple attachment on a wheel excavator around here. but the 315 had some gearbox or reduction broken for the 3 time in a short period of time... he was quite pissed of... I could guess you vere also with the 973 bloving up! I think it has a lot to do with peoples mentality these days! people go to work just for the money, and they don't care about anythink else than the money... and that shows also in the quality of stuff! of course they are built as cheap as possible, so they can compete with the chinese machines.
I have any money that what went on your 73 was the pump drive. The 73's are a sensitive machine, you need to love them, and treat them well, caress them if need be. While the machine was there, was it really bogging down in the turns towards the end? Were the tracks not counter rotating all the time? And did some character leave the fill cap off the transmission? The problem with those machines is if you get one flake of brass past the main filters, it migrates its way through the system and takes out the entire driveline starting with the pump drive. We have had 2 already this year go down, some brass makes it past a filter, then contaminates the pump drive, which will be sent through the drive motors and then back into the filters. My old 973A is brutal for pump drives. It has 19000hrs on it now, and has been through a pump drive every 1100-1300hrs. Its always the same thing everytime. The last rebuild it got saw new pump motors, all new lines, new pump drive, a tank flush and everything.... lasted all of 1364hrs. Right now I have our oldest 73C with just over 5500hrs on her, everything with the drivetrain is original except for the final drives. Tell your cat guy to call Finning in Edmonton and patch him through to our track loader man. He is the master when it comes to 973's. He has 2 in his shop right now, we apparently just wrote off a 973A and we're taking its internals and tossing them into my old unit.
Is this really true?? usually people don't use tracloader because of UC wear, but the UC wear is small compared to this! how much do it cost to rebuild? i assume you do it once a year :beatsme the 963 and 953 are probably longer lasting.
That is only 1 of about the 17 973's we run. It has been a problem unit for us for a long time. It is actually our worst unit by far. The unit I am on now is also the next most problematic unit. It has had engine trouble, final drive problems, hydraulic issues and some other things. Our 973's are used in applications they aren't made for. Most people don't push great distances with a track loader, all ours do is push. We push in piles of dirt, and then we flatten it out. Yesterday I was pushing clay for 1000ft to my spill pile to mix some dry with wet material to make it useable. Our 1 963 isn't fairing much better at this point. We are having problems with it right now. It is seeing the same problem mine has had, the low oil pressure light and check engine light are coming on all the time. Oil pressure is a bit on the low side but it's not low enough to trip the buzzer. And.... its tiny, nobody wants the dinky little loader with only 1 bucket cylinder. And undercarriages are a big thing with us, thats why its pretty much policy to run them until there is nothing left. One of our 73's last year had such a worn undercarriage that the rails would sometimes skip out of the lower guides when you turn.
Unfortunately I wasn't even on the jobsite where the 973C was working nor have I spoken directly with the operator so my information on it is sketchy at best... The 973C is property of Toromont Cat (rental/demo) The operator LOVED the 973C compared to the 963C he usually runs. Unfortunately I bet we'll never buy a 973 now... Toromont was going to give us a 973A while they fix the 973C but we took a D6R instead... The D6R and a 330 both backfill behind our old 345BL II, a brand new 345DL is on the way straight from Illinois? (They're built in Aurora I think? Or is it Germany like the 365 and 385?) to the jobsite in Winnipeg, MB, Canada. In the meantime they're putting together a 345CL at Toromont for us (just to hold us over while they build the 345D.) Better fix that 973C and get it back on the job before that D6R gets buried Burnout, you guys get a 973D to test out? If anyone should get to field test a new 973 it should be Sureway.
I was told when the next field followup unit comes it is supposed to be heading our way. It would be nice because we have cancelled all plans to buy more 73C's because of the problems we have had with them. But like I said, the way we use them is definately considered a harsh environment. My cab filters are changed weekly due to dust, my engine air filters around 150hrs. I couldn't imagine backfilling with a dozer and an excavator. I am watching another company do it down the road from us with 4 excavators and a dozer and I am blowing em away with just 1 973 in the amount of work I get done in a day. The 73 is a absolute beast of a machine. With a good operator they will outpush a D8N in a day of backfilling. The downside to 73's is they are finicky, use a ton of fuel and most companies consider them too big. The company I mentioned above said they wouldn't use a 953 to backfill residential water services because of the size and weight, and yet we are using a 35ton 973 to do the same thing. If we get this new jobsite done in time, then I might be lucky enough to get sent to the 10m deep sewer job we're starting up. Whoever goes there gets 2 973's and a D10 to backfill with :cool2
good God. i wanna play with you guys. do you dig house foundations with a 385?
no offence, but isnt pushing dirt 1000' with a track loader a little stupid?? A 200 hoe and even one 40 ton adt will out move that anyday
Whilst I agree with what you are saying, and understand your thinking you are adding 2 more operators and machines into the equation. A truck and a machine to lever the fill. I dont suppose ( hope ) that Burnout is regularly pushing 1000'
For years we've been asking for a 973 but they're just such a rare beast and such an expensive investment the managers and owners didn't think they were a good idea... then we got a 200 lot sub-development and suddenly we're getting everything we ever asked for. Our 345CL loaner is on the job and has hydraulic quick attach (FINALLY!) and our 345DL that we're buying will have it as well. I don't see how any track loader is too big/heavy for backfilling services... :beatsme
Me pushing 1000' for dirt is not a regular event. The new job I am starting is very wet material. Our earthworks division is working on site as well and they have been layuing out material and disking it for weeks, so I was stealing the dirt from their fill area. I don't have permission to take the dirt so I have been casually stealing it in 4" lifts across the back end of the site where we are working. I have my spill pile layed out about 100x200' so I go make 10 good pushes across the back end of the lot, bring it up to my pile, rake it in, shuffle it around and then letit dry. After an hour or so, I push the dry off the top into another pile and start the process over again. My disc tractor shows up monday morning so I won't be needing to do this anymore. Today one of the grade girls was out and I think they caught onto me. They had the back side of the lots up to grade and packed and somehow :beatsme over the last couple days the ground must have settled because there is now a fill of 10-12" in a strip about 1000'x100' that is low. No we don't dig foundations.... ever! Backfilling services with a 973 is sometimes a rough job. I don't know how you guys go about backfilling a jobsite 928G Boy. I have seen quite a few companies just run a dozer down the trench and then toss the dirt in with a excavator for the next lift. What we do is actually dig all our dirt out from the walls as we go up. And when you have services 20' apart and your wigglign in and out of service holes with a machine 26ft long it starts getting old quickly. And We still lay copper service line, so you have a foot of sand, and then a foot of clay over a 3/4" copper line and your walking and twisting all over it with a 35ton track loader. And we have plenty of times when the water is higher than the sanitary sewer so I ramp up over the watermain, but then you run the risk of blowing it out sideways from the force of you rolling into it with the front idlers. Quick attach eh? All of our 375's, 385's, 750's, 800's and a couple of the 245's have WBM Wedglelock Quick Attaches. Only the smaller services hoes like the 330's have manual wedgelock couplers. I sometimes wonder why our smaller machines just don't run hydraulic pin grabbers for the amount we change buckets, but oh well. We are getting what we asked for though around here, I was informed the rumors are true that the 2 brand new 385CL's at Finning are ours. I wonder if anyone has more of the 385's than we do kickin around. With these 2 I think that would put us up between 12-15 385's?
thats nuts you guys must have an enormous amount of long term work. the housing market in canada must not be as bad as it is in the u.s. do you guys just do residential or commercail as well?
We do residential, commercial, and now were nudging our nose into industrial. The 385's are a small part of the fleet. We are more known for the largest fleet of 657's. We're in Alberta and here we are in a big boom because of oil.
Our new 345 has hydraulic pin grabbers, not the wedge-lock... when I worked for Kiewit we had the hydraulic wedge lock couplers, I wasn't a big fan of those. pins are always way better than wedges in my humble opinion. One of our paving crews was in fort mac a couple years ago doin' a job, the paver operator was tellin' me he was watching a sureway pipe job there and you guys had a 385 with the hydraulic wedge-lock... It's the cat's ass and we've known it for years here but nobody listens until suddenly now. I just don't have the balls to ask for a 365 or 385 yet. lol I can just imagine the look on the boss's face. Those 385s are slow though I hear the 65s aren't too bad for speed. Is Sureway putting Accugrade GPS on any of their 385s for pipe? I know your earthworks division has it on dozers and whatnot. How many pipe crews are at Sureway?
Dont wana take this too far off topic. But Alberta sure sounds a lot like Detroit Mi. Bigger and badder is the answer no matter what. Before things got slow around here, you were a nobody unless you were putting pipe in the ground with at least a 375 365 or 385. This even means using those monsters for putting water line in. At a depth of 4-8ft. I think its crazy, but when your competition is putting in x amount of feet in a day with a 385 because they can lay 3 sticks, You need to keep up.
Out east out here all we are using for laying pipe is a 320 maybe the "A" crew will get a 330 when there are no trucks to load.
We have no excavators with GPS on them for laying water or sewer. The Hydraulic Wedgelock is ok, but I am a pin grabber man myself for smaller machines. Especially with the versatility of turning that bucket around to dig under things. Last year we had 12 pipe crews going for underground, each with a 385, a couple with either 750 Komatsu's or Deere 750/800's for service machines, and then the other with 330's and 400's. Yeah the 385's are slow, but one of our biggest competitors in the city runs a brand new 600 Komatsu and doesn't do half the work we do in a day. Turbo21835 I grew up in Southern Ontario and took trips to Michigan all the time. It might sound weird but MI is nothin like Alberta. I have seen some of the bigger outfits in MI workin, but never anything like this. We run the 385's because we like to bury watermain, sanitary sewer and storm all in one shot if we can, and thats when you need the big reach and big bucket. It only gets clumsy with the 385 when you start trying to pull the services. As for laying pipe with a 320, I grew up that way. In all honesty I have only seen 1 320 of Sureways and all it does is hoe pack. For any small work we normally float in a 330, but generally if the 330 fits then either a 385 or 375 goes for the job.