CAT 242B, SR#CAT0242BTBXM00597 Unit works fine for the most part. With the aux hydraulics are engaged in continuous flow, they will randomly cut out. When this happens, you have to cycle the parking brake and then restart the flow. Sometimes it goes hours between cut outs and sometimes you can hardly keep them on. No other hydraulics seem to be affected. I have noticed that the indicator light for both the parking brake and the seat belt flicker in the background. My first thought was a bad ground connection somewhere because of the flickering lights being a possible back feeding indicator. I took all of the chassis ground posts loose that I could find. I think I got them all....there's a bunch of them. I wire brushed all the eyelets and the studs. Reinstalled all grounds with conductive anti oxidation treatment. I have noticed that it is considerable worse in warm weather verses wintertime and the higher the RPM the more frequent it happens. Anybody else run into this issue? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I have several projects coming up this fall around the farm that are going to require the aux hydraulics. I'd like to try to get this figured out before that starts. Edit, I've owned this machine since new and have put 95%+ of the hours on it. It's low hours for it's age. Only about 1600hrs. Mainly used in farm/ranch support work these days.
Have you ever had the software updated? If not, it's a fine time to get Cat ET connected and read for fault codes, and install latest, greatest software.
This update sounds like a cure, but, as always, every update needs installed.
It has never had an update. In fact it's only been to the dealer once for a minor warranty issue when it was new. The last 19 years have all been at my shop. On the plus side, this is the first issue (other than operator damage) it's had in almost 20 years.
There are also updated solenoids for hydraulic valving. They only need updated if failed, but, that's why, in addition to getting the latest software updates, you need to have the fault codes identified.