What brand of pin on bucket teeth do you guys like. I'm wanting to replace mine on one of my excavator buckets, for some reason I'm forever replacing the teeth, they fall off and we lose them, then run a day or so without the tooth on them, then the holder is worn enough it won't fit a new tooth tight and from then on its downhill attempting to put new teeth on and keeping them on. I've thought the holder itself should be bolted on, have a few of them on other buckets and for some reason if the holder gets worn, they should be much easier to replace. On all the buckets with bolt on holders, we've never replaced a single holder, not even replaced a tooth on them either. I've checked and those holders are not large enough to fit on my thicker cutting edges on my excavator buckets. Basically, what does everyone use, how do you like them, and would you put them on new again, holders, teeth and new cutting edge again? Would you recommend welding the holders on or bolt or is it a toss up for an excavator? Thanks in advance
I use the Cat J series on the track loader and K series on the track hoe bucket. Really like the K series teeth, they're easy to change and we haven't had any issues with teeth coming off. All the shanks are welded on. The Cat teeth are more expensive but they have a GET program you can get enrolled in that offers a discount.
Our cat excavator has J300 series teeth, the tips are always falling off because the holes the retainer pins go in are too worn. thinking about putting something else on, how much do the plain digging tips for the K series cost CM? Randy, what size machine are you putting these teeth on?
Bought some penetrator plus K series for our 321 last week and paid $69.35 each plus 9% sales tax. The retainers are $16.22 plus tax each. Those prices include the 20% GET discount. We get really good wear rates out of the Cat teeth.
They are going on a smaller size 120 excavator. Do these pin on from the flat top or into the sides of the teeth. My old one's on this excavator had the pins on the top side you can see, we'd put new one's each week it seemed, all the rest of the buckets on larger and smaller excavators have the pins that go into the side of the teeth, same as my crawler loaders have, those I've had for over ten years and never changed a tooth yet other than from being worn completely out, never lost a single tooth in all that time. We tried welding the pins in because we thought they were coming out, turns out, we were breaking the pins, welding them in didn't help a bit, we'd still lose them. I asked a few aftermarket places about the differences and was told six of one half dozen of the other. I then thought if they went into the sides of the teeth, I'd hunt up the one's with the largest pin and weld the pins in again, just I have to cut all the old holders off the bucket edge to try anything different, not sure how many times I'd want to do that just to try a different style or brand. What are your guys thoughts on the pin location holding on the tooth?
I have Esco super V on my 160. You would probably use the same size on a 120. I have yet to have one come off. They are very similar to the cat k series teeth. I have Esco ultralok on my 200. Also have been great with never having a tooth fall off. I am happy with both. The super v uses a vertical retainer that installs along the side of the shank. The ultralok has a built in retainer that uses a pry bar to remove. Both very simple and easy to change out teeth
Hard to beat the Esco Super V and the Cat K Series is very similar in design concept. The one's I dislike with a passion, even though there's literally tons of them out there and they work fine, is the Cat side pin teeth. Somehow, beats me how, the pins fall out, and they're a PITA to knock the pins in. My favorites are the Hensley XS Series teeth. One of the easiest teeth/retainers I've ever worked with, super durable teeth, retainer pins can be re-used many many times, and they rarely fall off. Hensley originally made these teeth proprietary for Komatsu as the Komatsu K Series teeth, they then decided to slightly change the dimensions and started offering the same tooth system aftermarket as the XS tooth. > http://www.hensleyind.com/parts_boo...eService/Hensley_XS_Construction_Brochure.pdf
I have found that worn out shanks are the primary reason for tooth loss. I've fixed many shanks. If it's really bad, I'll get some AR400 or T1 bar stock and add a piece to the end. Heat everything up good, weld, weld, weld, then beat the hell out of it with a 4 lb hammer. Grind it off to where you think it's close, and stick a new tooth on. If the tooth goes on all the way, it needs more weld. If it doesn't, a couple raps on the end of the tooth will make marks on the high spots on the shank. I have spent as long as a couple hours on a shank to get it right. If you get the shank back in shape, it will hold the tooth. Breaking pins is CLASSIC worn-out shank problem, IMHO.
Those Hensley teeth and pin are the way to go. At my last company I could flip the teeth on my 480 kobelco in about ten minutes I have lost a few think the pin holders wear down and some times fall out but best system I have worked with
Never a truer word spoken ......... I can't recall a single instance of losing teeth regularly that wasn't down to a worn tooth adapter (shank). When pinned in position on an adapter of the correct profile the tooth should have just a slight amount of up and down movement (but no side-to-side) on the adapter. The gap between the tooth and the adapter will fill with fine material within the first few minutes of operation, that fine material acts as a shock absorber between the tooth and the adapter. The tooth should never be tight on the adapter because that transfers all the digging forces of the tooth straight to the adapter and usually results in it shearing. If anyone is planning on welding new adapters on to a bucket the usual procedure is to preheat everything to 150 DegC and beat the Bejasus out of the welds with a needle peening gun after completion of each weld pass.
Thanks for the replies, I'll check into the one's mentioned. On my crawler loaders, the holder is bolted on, never had an issue with any of those before, my thoughts were to use bolt on holders on my excavator as well, so when they did get worn, I could change the whole holder instead of doing the welding up procedure, which I've done so many times its not funny and gets old in a real hurry. Anyone see any drawback on the bolt on holders or had issues with them?? I've been told a bolt on holder wouldn't last on an excavator bucket which didn't make much sense to me on that logic, how can an excavator bucket so much worse than a crawler loader bucket?? I'm not sure the brand of tooth on this machine, I'd buy them in bulk and the pin was serrated and you had a rubber washer to install along with the pin, biggest joke of anything I'd ever seen, once the rubber got soft on the washer thing, the pin would fall out, if we welded the pin in, it would melt the washer and there would be slop in the tooth and you'd shear the pin. All the rest just have a pin that gets pounded in to hold the tooth on and your done, simple as can be.
Our pc 220 has bolt on holders originally off a 950c the welding shop opened them up a bit to fit over the thicker edge when they built the bucket it doesn't get extreme heavy work mostly stripping in the gravel pit but the teeth have not gave any problems
-X3 We don't loose teeth. Teeth get changed when their wore and before it gets in the shank. It's cheaper in the long run to replace the tooth instead of having to deal with a wore shank. Also depending on the digging conditions, wore out teeth will slow production and use more fuel. For example I just spent $400 or so on 5 new teeth and retainers. The teeth had a little more life in them but were worn down to the dot. Currently digging in a heavy sandstone clay material and the nubs for teeth were killing trench production. On the low side I'll estimate my crew bills out at $400 and hour. That's an operator, pipe layer and support guy with a 321 and 420D. I didn't track the increase in production by putting on new teeth but one can get the idea. All that was needed was to pick up an hour of crew time on the next 200' of ditch to pay for new teeth. Simple yes, exact no but that's how I operate.
I don't do production work like most of you, but I chose Esco Ultralok chisel teeth for my excavator bucket & an Esco Ultralok pick tooth for my excavator ripper. When the teeth are easy to change, like Ultraloks, you are more apt to do it rather than postpone it & wear the shanks, which leads to bigger problems.
I knew a guy who did pipeline and dug in all kinds of conditions including perma-frost and he swore by Hensley teeth.
Heo math skills 200' per day. ....9 hours. ....New teeth 8 hours
Seeing as how Komatsu owns Hensley, I bet it wasn't hard to get approval to brand them as Komatsu.
That's pretty much how things work, right?
Not to reopen an old thread, but I am reworking a used Digmor bucket I purchased for my JD 9300 hoe attachment. I have identified the teeth as 23 series and have ordered a set of 23SP teeth (forged in Tulsa) and 23FP retaining pins from ROMAC. The removal of the old teeth is slow with much heating, and pounding to get OLD pins out, and grinding a relief in the old teeth to get them off. It is over an hour a tooth...is there a better way? I had to take time yesterday to drop off an empty O2 bottle for refill, luckily the gas place was only 10 miles from the gym I use! Howard
i have ultralok teeth and I hate them. They are easy to change but also prone to coming off while im working. They are also very expensive.
Screw Esco. We ran them for years. If, no, when, an adapter broke, it was never, ever in stock. Turns out that it would appear that Esco releases a new design every time the patent runs out on the old one. Plus, we have other brands that came with different machines, and, spare teeth are never on the right jobsite, as the storage trailers don't always go with the same jobsite. So, what we do... A) enrolled in Caterpillar's GET program. 2) watch for incentive programs, like buy 2 sets of teeth and get a discounted, or free, edge assembly. iii) change the lip or adapters to Caterpillar style. d) every Caterpillar tooth is a day away or less 5) adapters remain available, even when Esco is on their 3rd design, Cat still stocks J & K adapters, that they've had for years. I still have V, Super V, Rotoloc, R style, and many other teeth lying around that became obsolete, to me, when adapters weren't readily available. I suppose it doesn't matter if you only have two machines, or one jobsite, but when you have 80+ buckets on 6 jobsites, with Caterpillar, i don't have to stock any teeth, as I can have them today or tomorrow.
I too have a JD 9300 backhoe attachment that uses 23 series teeth. I gave up on the retaining pins and use a grade 8 bolt and nut. Since going that route have not lost a tooth.
Use grade 5 bolts because they will bend. Grade 8 will snap. Learned from pipeline guy digging perma frost. To build up shanks consider using a special build up rod instead of something like 7018.or Mig. It is also used for build up before hard facing. Big advantage is it doesn't mushroom like standard welding rods. It comes in a wire form too. Might be harder to grind or shape but will last longer if you get the right profile to match the original.
Thanks! Rick
+4 on the worn shanks thing above. I have 2 CWS buckets with hensley tigers on them, and I can't recall losing a tooth on that machine. The buckets themselves are in bad shape but the shanks are good.
Glad I could help. Guy I knew swore buy Hensley teeth but that was from several years ago. He was one of the first to dig pipeline with a hyd. Hoe so had lots of experience with different teeth. Welded teeth (shank part welded to a big flat bar) are junk and will break. Depending on the tooth they could be hardfaced but would have to see if it's worth the time and money. Somewhere I have an old copy of the Stoody hard facing guide. It had procedures for building up shanks on stripping shovels. Chunks of steel are welded on to build up shanks to size. Then they use build up rod for final size and shaping. The teeth weigh 350lbs. each!
Oops. Just remembered it wasn't the shanks they built up. It was the teeth themselves. I think the guide book I have is from 1966 when way more hard facing was done on all kinds of equipment. I think by the mid to late 80's into the 90's was when hard facing took a nose dive. Had work experience at a shop in 1981 than ran 2 idler build up machines and 1 or 2 roller build up machines 24 hours a day. Not sure if on weekends though. I don't even think they do any build up anymore. I think aftermarket brought the price down where hardfacing wasn't economical except for the big machines D8 and above. They used to have machines for building up rails as well. Another shop I worked at did chromium carbide overlay on pipe. They would get the wire in 500lb. drums and about 16-20 drums in a shipment. It was made for them by Stoody. If I recall it was over $10/lb..!!! It outlasted standard pipe by 3-4 times depending. They mostly did the pipes for Syncrude and lots of spares so there could less downtime changing out worn out pipes.
23 series shanks have a small margin of wear for sloppy fit and when they do the pins bend and fall out that said Romac pins are junk of course so are there teeth if I have been having great results with h an l teeth and I get them cheaper than genuine Hensley
i'm still not a fan of esco ultralok but to be fair I discovered that a previous owner put u40 teeth on this bucket and its suposed to have u35. The new 35 teeth I bought seem to stay on ok. They are insanely expensive at 185 per tooth!
Are they gold plated teeth or something? It's been a bit since i've bought a tooth for my 210, but I think it's like $30.....
plain old painted teeth, but apparently patented to protect them from aftermarket makers. So with zero competition they can pretty much charge whatever they want.
Unless they charge way too much and nobody buys them.
If you go through a lot of teeth, i'd be cutting off the shanks and going to another system that isn't stupidly priced. Actually if it was me, i'd switch just on principal to not give crooks that much money for teeth.
In backhoe buckets (smaller) I had a Hensley preformed cutting edge with integral shanks. When they got worn I explored replacing with the same edge. It would cost about the same as a new bucket. I burned & ground to use weld on shanks from the Case dealer with good results. I used to buy edges & shanks & teeth from Adirondack Road Materials, but they appear to be out of business. The Essco system is very appealing, but they don't seem to offer small enough for my needs.
It's funny how the construction end seems to have the exact opposite experience of the mining side. We find Esco teeth are less expensive than the Hensley teeth. The Escos last longer, and stay sharper than the Hensleys that turn into a boxing glove very quickly.