Hello All, I'm brand new to the forum here and looking for a little advise on plumbing my Cat 215C with aux. hydraulics so I can add a hydraulic thumb. I'm doing this completely myself and not looking to break the bank, but would like to make it nice. The 215 currently does not have aux. hydraulics and I'm hoping someone can point me in the right direction to either add another valve off of the main valve bank ( if a power beyond circuit is available? Or would adding an electronic diverter valve to the bucket cylinder ( with a relief port ) be easier? Looks like the valve would be about $500 plus required hoses etc. My current control valves seem to have capped ports at the bottom ( and also at the top ) and I was curious if those are power beyond ports? If anyone has a 215 with aux. hydraulics I would be interested to see how they are plumbed.
Welcome Ray. If you have a machine serial number I can look at what was available in the way of Aux hydraulic piping for it.
Thank you, my SN is 4HG01578
The only Aux piping that popped up was for adding a grapple. In view of the fact that system I imagine would be bi-direction I guess it ought to work. Let me find some more details.
Yes, anything bi-directional should work, probably just need the appropriate hoses to go from the piping to the cylinder.
I'm sorry I dug into it a bit and most of the parts are cancelled.
Ok, I appreciate you checking. Perhaps someone else with a 215C with Aux. will chime in and have an idea how the factory system ( or an aftermarket ) works? It's hard to tell looking at the parts manual. It almost looks like they use a 3rd pump but that seems pretty strange. I'd think they would use an electronic solenoid tied into the power beyond ports. Parts book shows PN 6T6552 which appears to be a solenoid valve, but the piping arrangement still is unclear to me. Probably if I keep looking at the books it will eventually make sense.
Getting back to this project, I have everything in place with regards to piping and an additional solenoid valve, return line etc. The last stumbling block seems to be getting hydraulic pressure to the auxiliary valve I added. The parts manual I have shows a port near the exit of each of the 2 main 4 spool control valves that are labeled as "Power Beyond", so I made up a hose to go from that 1" CAT fitting to my new control valve, but there is no hydraulic pressure currently at that port. I'm assuming there is a power beyond sleeve that needs so be installed in that port to bring pressure out of the port, which I assume is currently being dumped into the return lines. However I haven't found anything in the parts or service book or on-line with regards to a power beyond sleeve. Perhaps I will try researching High Pressure Carry Over HPCO instead of Power Beyond, but wanted to ask here is anyone knows of a power beyond sleeve used in a CAT 215C main 4 spool valve?