Is ther anybody out there who has pics of this great machines? Seen around here and its not much of them here. So if you have pics or stories of the 225 so bring them on opcorn
Well... There is a old saying if you want something done,do it your self So i have done some digging on the web to find some pics myself of this classic model
how old are those machine...i am a bit of a "newbie" when it comes to older equipment...
Oldest is from 1976 and i would think the last one is from late 80s
Its a 215 but it is in very good shape worth showing
Great looking that 215. Some machines are lucky to have owners who takes care of them just like they where women:exactly Or better...
I once had a 225, the year of the machine was 1978.It had a different boom then most.The boom was two pieced where you could adjust the length of the boom forward or backwards.Had three postions to pin the boom at. It was suppose to help the machine lift more like when working with heavy pipe.The stick was a medium length stick.I was using a 72" ditch cleaning bucket on it at the time.Also had a 36" bucket with 6" side cutters Which made that bucket cut 48" at the bottom up part way on the sides. You don't see to many pictures of guys using the side cutter on the bucket.I just had good dirt,and muddy clay to work in,no rock. The old machine was pretty stong runner for those days,lot more productive machine now days i would say.:usa
Ive got pictures of 225s and 245s from when I was younger, ill try to find them.
Did Cat actually build them, or did Mitsubishi build them for Cat back then?
I think the 200 series were built solely by Cat. Mitsubishi came in on the E series I think (like the E120 and E200). The 300 series was the big new cooperation. My only question is why did Cat produce the E series and the 200 series at the same time. I may be looking for an older excavator for light duty work. So I was wondering on the 200 series Cats (like the 215 for example) did they have high pressure hydraulics? I've got an old old old American that has a crane undercarriage, leaking hydraulic system, low pressure hydraulics, and is simply too big for our uses on the farm. Would a Cat 200 series be a step up or just a different manufacture of the same generation of technology.
The 200 series was all cat. The E series was done when Cat bought out the Mitsubishi excavators. They ran both of them for a little bit. Around this area, the 200 series was the choice of many. The EL series I belive were just about all Cat. They were very bad with pumps blowing up and putting debris through the whole system. When Cat decided to get rid of the 200 series, many people in this area bought new ones crazy. Mitsubishi went on to make an excavator called MDI/Yutani for a few years. They were not suppose to after Cat bought them out, but they found some little loop hole. As far as the 215 on the farm, should work out great. The hyd system pressure is roughly 4500 psi. Do not know what your current american should be at? All in all, you can't go wrong by getting one.
How's that one lever steering work? Oh course I usually use the pedals anyway. So the EL series wasn't that great eh?
Been a while since I was around a 235C. One pedal makes you go forward, the other backward, and the stick moved side to side for steering.
Boy that sounds very difficult. At least not as easy as just a pedal for each track. That's what I like so you can run the controls and move the machine at the same time.
Been awhile ,so might not have it quite right.Not sure but you could use the stick for forward and reverse and turn left or right.Or you could use the pedals both down at top same time forward. Then to counterotate use your heal on one and the toe top on the other which ever direction you wanted to turn.Both down same time with heal was reverse. The stick in the middle had a button on the top which was the 2-speed i think.Like i said it has been awhile.I also think the 225 weighted in around 52,000 to 55,000 pounds.It was make only by Cat then. 30" pads or 32".I think it was about 11' 6" wide to the outside of the pads. They was heavy so when in mud they was hard turning,especially if you was trying to counterotate in the mud.The travel was the weakest part of the machine it seem like to me.But i thought they dug pretty good.It would handle the 72" ditch cleaning bucket i had on it good,even in muddy clay with it heaped to the top,and reaching out all the ways.:usa
ah the joys of running 225s... i like to use my knee to control the middle stick when my hands are busy lifting the tracks during a turn... more challenging than simply using your feet in a 300 series hoe. That's about the only good thing i can say about my experience running a 225D... kind of a fun machine, but the one i ran has way too much slop in the pins... and no air conditioning or radio, and smashed up windows... lots of fun.
More pics.. Not much pics to see here? Too old for you guys:ban
I'm not sure about the 225 but have 1000s of hours on a 235. Right peddle was forward. Left peddle was reverse. Stick side to side was steering. There were three positions to the stick. First position was track in neutral, second position was track locked, third position was track counter rotate. The button on top was to kill the travel alarm if you were traveling long distances. It reset itself every time you released the peddle. There was a spring loaded high speed button on the floor in front of the seat you activated with your heel. It didn't have a lot of power in high speed and was seldom used.
Lashlander has it right on the controls and buttons.They were a nice machine to run.Grease fittings in the cab for the swing gear and table.Sometimes the travel pedals would stick if you didn't keep them clean around the boot that the control rod went through under the pedal but stepping on the other pedal would allow you to refocus your eyes again )I used to oil those boots once in a while.You can tell when they are going to hang long before it actually happens if you are paying attention. I still think that the system Cat used for their front window operation and storage was the best I have ever seen on an excavator.You could use either half depending on whether you were trenching or loading trucks to either stay dry/warm as the case may be.I think their biggest weak point was the boom cracking up near the stick pin.They all did it once they got some hours on them. I worked through a tornado once without a drop of water in the cab.Ron G
I'll agree with Ron on this. However, I still have a dent in the top of my head from that window. I raised it once and went to digging. An hour later I ran into some rock. I guess it shock the cab enough that the window unlatched. It hit me hard enough that I didn't know for a few seconds what had happened. It drove that button on top of my hat into my head. I still have a dent there. I think the only thing that saved my life was I didn't have the bottom window in it so it only weighed about half of what it could have. I think when I put it up only one side snapped shut so when I shook it a little it released. I always made sure both sides were latched after that and it never happened again. We broke two booms on it too. It snapped off about a foot behind where the boom cylinders attach. Snapped three sides. The top plate was all that was left holding it. Cat flew in and inspected it and decided it was a bad casting and gave us a new one. 20,000 hours later we broke it again. It broke one of the ears off where it attached to the machine. We sold it as is. A scrap yard bought it and fixed the boom. They still use it daily.
I do agree to about the front window system :drinkup Easy to use and you got the front completly open that one ( if lucky two) day in the year when the sun is up and it is good and hot:cool2 And welding of the boom i can remeber we did on the 225 too
I got a good thump on the head just one time from that cussed window and I think they were both stored but my head is harder than most and I survived it.I agree that it was my fault as well. I saw the results of the bottom pin working its way out of the boom on a different machine and the boom layed over on the cab.I ran the machine in the winter with no window before they got it repaired.Ron G
Ha ha boom issues on the 200's, last summer we had a 77 model 245 shipped out to our site when the 330 went down. She only had 4000hrs on the hour meter (that time around). We used that old beast for a week or so until the pin walked 3/4 of the way out of the boom/stick joint and we parked her. The mechanics came out layed the stick down in a sand pile with intentions to fix it. About 2 weeks later they finally hauled the hoe away but left us the stick and bucket in the sand pile. They ended up bringing us an even older nastier 245 that swung all by itself. It took about 2 days for them to bring our 245 back, and both of em got parked side by side and they switched the boom and stick over to the good one. I drove by a couple weeks ago, the spare stick is still laying in a sand pile on that job site. Everyone on site dispised that 245 but I loved it. That is a quick machine, much faster than a 385 and much more fun to run. That has been dubbed my machine on account no one else will sit in it.
Also on the early 200 series, while digging if you wanted a little more boom up power, you would press down on both pedals. This turned into a option called the increased lift capacity option on later model 200 series.
The good ol, not so old days. I spent a little time on these models, what a well thought out cab, lots of stretch room, good grab irons, big space behind seat for lunch pail and the instrument cluster made a good cupholder on top. Was it just me or did a 225blc have the hardest seat bottom? Like the D8h the 225 has to be noted as a "classic" imo. I was lucky to cut my first teeth on my dads 215s and 225.
Some pics of the front shovel arrangment for the 235 & 245.
231 Great pics 992G:drinkup Have anyone operated this beaty? Undercarrige from 235 and top from 225 made the model 229 first and then it was renamed to 231. Had a V8 engine (3208) About zero tail and long working range. Was on a job where a contractor had one of these and i think it was a very good machine. But that is just my :my2c Found some pics so you can make op your one mind about it
I've never heard of it.
229 An outfit I worked for had one set up as a roadbuilder. The only thing I remember about it was the day the 3208 blew up. It was replaced by a 900 Thunderbird.
I forgot I do have a few pictures of a 225. This is one we used a little in Akutan. The processor owns it and its in really nice shape!
Thanks Lashlander,that seem to be one very well treted 225 Almost as good as the 345 maybe
From CAT 245ME Well I dont believe it, the 225, my little brother. Actually there is two of these ol Cats near me, the first is from the late 80's (I think) that sits by a saw mill all painted up & lookin nice. The second belongs to a small company, this machine is from the 70's cause it has the funny shaped cab on it and is used for rock breaking. I know one large saw mill has close by has a 235 that is used for clean up around the mill. And lastly my employer has a 245B ME with the shovel boom on her, I think she has around 25000 hours on the meter and sees everyday use for about 8 months of the year in the quarry.
funny shaped cab The second belongs to a small company, this machine is from the 70's cause it has the funny shaped cab on it and is used for rock breaking. Did the cab get to be a funny shape due to the rock breaking, in UK we use breakers. :Banghead Only teasing CAT245ME, my first big seat was a Cat 245 backacter on a muckshifting job, there was another 245 with a shorter arm and boom ( prior to ME spec, were talking 1977 ) and a face shovel, all with the funny shaped cab along with 12 769 trucks. I got into that 245 from a Poclain 75 (about 18t) and it was like I was in a dragline the bucket was so far away I still remember the tinted windows :cool2
they make a production scale model of 1 of those for kinda cheap, dont they?
Yes, NZG made a 245 hoe and shovel, didnt have funny cab though, can find on ebay.
typical 225 operators that theres the only 225 i have ever ran.
Thats one of them Canadian Coneheads eh?
Good 'ol Canucks, always good for a laugh :drinkup
models Somewhere buried in the loft is a model 245 back scratcher with the funny cab, cant remember if I got the face shovel, think its an NZG, even has spreadable tracks one screw each side, not like the original serious exercise in them days :Banghead. See if I'm allowed to dig them out for a photo shoot. lol
231's were a hybred 235 bottom/225 house. Used around here at some landfills mainly for the long life on oversized undercarrige. Good for lots of tracking around onsite. BFI owned the one I ran, it was optioned out which made it anice machine in '94. Were all 200's built in Belgium? Every one I've been on seemed to.
The 225 thru 245 were made in Aurora, the 215 came from over seas, however I believe Cat had a plant overseas also that made Excavators, wheel loaders up to a 950 and some scrapers. I remember seeing an article about this plant somewhere. Did you happen to work up in Zion at that landfill.
I agree with you!I operated a 235's for many years and that's a real challenge but it was stong and powerful...and verrrrrry slow!!!!!
225 (51U prefix I believe) was Cat's first excavator 1972 was the first year. Lots of different versions of the 225 came later. Later 225's were the first Cat excavators to use Rexroth bent axis pumps - I think that was the C model. 229, 231 and the "Custom 180" (180HP 3208). I recall Cat wanted to introduce the 325 as the first 300 series out of the gate to revisit the heritage of the 225's intro and make a kind of departure from the mitsubishi E/EL stuff. The 325 was really not much different than an E240B really as far as I'm concerned. The E/EL240B was a big step ahead of most of the E/EL series problems
oh, and if I recall, the 231 was different from a 229 in that the 231 had 2 speed travel- a foot operated switch electrically shifted travel motor displacement. The turbocharged 4 cylinder 225's used turbo boost to pressurize the hydraulic tank and 3208 NA powered units (no turbo) had a little electrically driven air compressor in the radiator compartment and that little compressor pressurized the tank.
Welcome to Heavy Equipment Forums WhyWhyZed! :drinkup
Very interesting! Welcome to Heavy Equipment Forums! The 225D that I posted a pic of earlier has a 3208 in it... My old man and some other operators from work had the displeasure of running the old 4 banger 225s, apparently they were absolutely gutless.
I believe that the 215 was made in Aurora too, but like you said they also made them in Europe. My cousins have a 225 with the 3304 in it (Europen version) and the love it. Better on fuel, quieter, as much if not more power, and without a doubt better reliabity than the 3208.
Nope, worked the sludge ponds in Elgin.
215 was built in Belgium and USA only 2XC, 14Z, 61Z prefixes were USA built
I am very impressed with what you guys know about this late models:notworthy Is there much differenses betveen the European built models and the US model or is it just engines that seperates them i wonder?
Swapping a 3204 engine for a 3304 I was wondering if anyone knows if the 3204 engine in a caterpillar 215 can be replaced with a 3304 engine?
some of them had 3304 engines
Swapping a 3204 engine for a 3304 I was wondering if i will need to repalce the pumpdrive & radiator for this engine. Thanks.