I’m currently working on a solar farm and I’m running a Cat TH406c telehandler. Since I’ve been in it it’s been nothing but issues. Randomly it’ll start an ear piercing alarm and the hydraulic temp light will come on. I’ve had the mechanic look at it and it shot a code saying the torque converter is overheating. He told me to just throw it in neutral and rev it up and it should cool right off but no such luck. It’s been doing it for weeks and earplugs won’t even keep the noise down from that alarm. Any ideas to keep it cool? I’m running in first gear in between rows of piling in the ground and it comes on randomly.
Did the mechanic by any chance take a good look at the radiator to check that it was clean.? The radiator(1) , hydraulic oil cooler(2), and aftercooler(3) are all sandwiched together in one unit. It wouldn't be surprising to find it plugged with some sort of contamination.
I’m not sure how deep he’s gone into the cooking package during his time with it when I’m not here but one of the first things he did was used compressed air to blow out all of that. I know that’s not checking for a blockage but that’s all I knows he’s done with the cooling system
Often the only way to clean an assembly such as that one is to pull it apart and clean each radiator separately. External cleaning with air or a pressure washer never seems to get them sufficiently clean.
Update on it, had the mechanic come out again and he brought someone with some more experience with telehandlers. Turns out it has some clutches slipping and causing the heat to spike inside the transmission. He figures if we send it to a different task a little more fast paced it might be a little better than creeping up and down these rows
Putting off the inevitable transmission overhaul for someone else I guess.......
I’m sure he’ll be the one that ends up doing it, they’ve got about 40-50 pieces of equipment out here and he’s the only certified mechanic they have on site. I’d imagine he’s more concerned with the pile drivers they can’t seem to keep running