We have a Cat 924G, serial RTA00400. It's a municipal machine in the northeast, so it gets buried in salt every winter. We just had a shop do a major restoration on it for rust repairs, blasting, and repainting of the whole machine. I know the entire cab was stripped down for the repair work and reassembled. We just received the machine back and are having an issue. The bucket kickout functions are not working - not up, down or leveling the bucket. When I say it's not working, I mean the joystick will not "latch" in the appropriate position. I spoke with Cat tech support, and about all the info they could give me without sending a tech was to check the 8 wire connector under the joystick that goes up to the magnets. There are 4 black ground wires and 4 power wires - 2 whites, green, and gray. I checked the grounds for continuity to a bolt on the frame and got tone on each one. The 2 white wires have about 24.5V with the key on. The gray and green wires have 22.5V with the key on. I'm on the schedule for a tech, but my dealer said they are swamped and won't get here for a while. If anyone can offer some direction, it would be greatly appreciated.
Because it's both lift and tilt kickout the first thing I would suggest is make sure everything is connected both inside and outside the cab. If the kickout set switch is mounted up in the cab headliner is it even connected.? You will probably need an electrical schematic to do that, so keep an eye on your messages. You can check for the presence of any Diagnostic Codes by putting the operator monitor panel into Service Mode. - To enter the service mode, begin with the key switch in the OFF position. Cycle the key switch OFF/ON three times within ten seconds. At the end of the 3rd cycle leave the key in the ON position. The displays are used to show active diagnostic codes and logged diagnostic codes. The MID is shown on the left display. The CID and the FMI are shown on the right display. When a diagnostic code is active, the letter "A" is shown in the left display. When a diagnostic code is inactive, only the code is shown. Each code is shown for several seconds. Then, the display will show the next code. After all the codes are shown, "---" will appear. To exit Service Mode turn the key switch off for at least 5 seconds. Your Codes will appear something like 030 0248 05. Pull the Codes and post a list back here. Pay special attention to the ones where the letter "A" is illuminated. They are the Active ones.
Nige, thank you for your great response. Oddly enough, the Cat dealer called later that day and managed to get a tech to me - I guess he got done early and was nearby. Turns out the issue was that the magnets under the joystick got a bunch of metal shavings stuck inside them from the cutting and grinding done during the restoration. You couldn't see the junk without taking it all apart, which we didn't do. Apparently these shavings had enough of an effect on the magnets to stop the kickout from working.
Glad you got it sorted either way.
We have another problem that I wasn't aware of (one of my guys met the service tech after hours and didn't communicate everything to me until now). When using the kickout function to curl the bucket back to level, it's not stopping at level and is curling all the way back. It sounds like the tech hasn't really diagnosed the problem, but suspects it's the sensor on the boom and would like to replace it. Presumably, there's a way to diagnose this sensor?
See my answer to your initial post. Get the Diagnostic Codes from the monitor panel.