Love these games of where did it come from! We recently found this piece of metal lodged in the Tilt spool valve in a new to us 966 G Loader. We drained the tank, cut open the filters and cant find any sign of it. We put a bore scope in the head end of tilt cylinder and everything looks good, The valve body itself isnt happy about having metal shards jammed in it. We pulled that out today to see if we could find any clues but it all looked pretty straight forward. Any ideas where this thing could have come from? The notched marks is a pretty good clue, thought i'd post on here to see if anyone recognizes it. Or has some other ideas. The main line comes from the hydraulic vane pump straight to this valve body, so potentially the pump could have shed it, but it is still working fine and not sure it could pass through it. The steering pump and brake pump are seperate.
Couple more pictures
I think you may have been looking at the wrong end of the tilt cylinder. Try looking in the barrel end, especially the very end of the cylinder rod and the slim section of the piston retaining nut where the nyloc sleeve is located. If some operator in the past has had difficulty dumping damp material this area will have taken a pasting.
Sounds good Nige, we'll take that apart today and report back
Can you not get a borescope in through the port shown on the top side of the illustration.? I realize it will require the hard line on top of the cylinder removed to do that.
Well, we actually did have it in that side, I got my head end terminology mixed up. We inspected the nyloc nut and that looked okay. But we weren't able to look at the end of the cylinder bore where the piston could be hammering the end of the barrel possibly. It stuck open when they were in the full dump position and stuck there. Since the pieces are fairly large and there are 2 of them, I seem to be leaning towards the closest cylinder before taking cab off and diving really deep.
Thanks Nige you won the accolades! We pulled the tilt cylinder apart and the nut was about to fall off. It was bottoming out against the barrel shedding pieces of the nut. We found pipe wrench marks on the nut so someone must have improperly torqued it at some rebuild point in its life. Nice to find and verify the cause and effect, Happy New Year
Hopefully it won’t have done too much damage to the system. I suggest that you take a close look at the bottom of the tilt cylinder barrel for any hammer marks caused by the nut. You may even have to get the barrel into a machine shop and have that area cleaned up.
Surprisingly the barrel wasn't too damaged. A little buffing and it should be good to go. It must have just happened
If you want to know what torque the replacement nut requires then post a Serial Number. The only thing I know is that it will be eye-wateringly tight, probably somewhere around 5000 ft lbs.
5,000 ft/lbs? Better make sure you use a big pipe wrench last guy must have just used a 24 inch one, I'd go for a 48 incher with a long pipe on the handle! I think I would give that machine a close look over and make note of anything that looks like it has been apart, paint chipped off the heads of bolts! Would not be surprised if you find more less than professional repair work done. Actually if what you found was the only real damage you have to be one of the luckiest people around.
NIGE for the win......................again!
Just did the math and only need 10 foot pipe with two 250 lb "mechanics" on the end.
I'm amazed that the operator didn't notice the lack of control over the tilt cylinder, or at least some unexplained "cylinder drift". The piston must have been moving a couple of inches on the rod what with the nut being loose.
Well we got it all together, this particular nut was 4795 ± 480 lb ft. I brought the wife's scale over and we did some high tech engineering and mathed it out. I was sure to make the appropriate *click* Click* sound when desired tightness was achieved. Everything seems to be working as it should. We'll put the bucket back on a do a drift test to see if the main spool is holding as it should. But feels good with initial tests. I agree Nige about the operator not noticing.. While I'm typing I might as well give the whole story. Its a CLASSIC auction machine and a classic story to boot, but at least I know what I'm getting into and dont have the farm wrapped up into this machine. Its a 2005 966 G w/ 11700hrs we picked up for fair basically market value down south. I had a buddy down there that was going to go look at it, and I really wish he would have. But it was Veterans day and they were closed. So, I bought sight unseen. 1st unforseen that is entirely my fault was a 8.25 State sales tax that bumped the overall price up nearly 10k... Trucking company shows up, cant get it loaded. runs for a couple minutes and dies, They said it fired right back up then dies. I asked if it was enough to get it on the RGN and they said yes but wanted to make sure it got OFF. I told them about the master switch and they kept it off for the transport. They made it to the port of Seattle, Yay. Called said everything was good, dropped off no problem. Few days go by, port calls and says it wont start, just cranks and cranks, now batteries are dead. Lovely.. So, I called my local Cat rep and he put me in touch with the Seattle branch who were extremely helpful. I just love Cat service and the information available.. Anyway, they went over and found aftermarket fuel filters and a primary filter that was loose, maybe unscrewed? I thought about some shady auction goer trying to pull a fast one and get that "inoperable" price tag. Cat replaced the filters and new batteries and its good to go. Missed the barge that week. Next week, they go to load on a barge shipping pallet. Port calls again, this time they weren't happy. They were dumping the bucket down and it slammed to the ground and hydraulic fluid went everywhere and no hydraulics work. At this point, I was getting a little bummed about my purchase. I had Cat come back, hoping it was maybe a blown hose. But it came out of the tank? no functions except for steering. Around and around they went, but they ended up finding the pump was fully stroked at 3000 psi but no function. This led them to the spool where they found the metal chunks jammed in full tilt. Fished them out, capped the lines because the tilt spool was a little rough. It finally made the barge! Got it trucked up and started the tear down... But besides being a pain in the butt it wasn't too bad. I like changing all fluids out on a new to me machine anyway. Se we had a good bonding experience the last few days. All in all I think these ol pilot controlled G's were pretty bomber, she seems like it will be a pretty stout machine. Oh yeah, the last oopsie was the tires, all decent except one! Its great shape and same number size 26.5 as the other ones but its a good 5" taller. So thats another expensive hurdle to jump through. Gotta love those auction machines, ya never know what you're gonna get! Happy New Year fellas
alaskaforby4 I could not click on the "LIKE" button after reading the problems you had just getting this machine to your place then to find the nut backed off do to poor workmanship at some point. Hope this is the end of the problems!