I took the bucket pin/ bushings out because it wasn't taking grease and found the pin dry and pitted. It's worn but not sloppy. Will the pitting damage the bushings if I keep using it? The bushings "look" pretty good but I can slide them in and out of the stick with my fingers if it's very clean. Does that mean their shot too? It's a Takeuchi, not sure if this is normal for them. I hear people talking about using presses to get them out so it makes me wonder.
As long as the areas of the pin that contact the bushes are smooth I would use it... but that's me especially if it's not showing too mush play.
Yeah, pitting shouldn't matter, any raised areas would be bad. The bores in the stick being hammered out is bad, those bushings should be tight.
I just looked at the parts manual and it shows only two bushings at the end of the stick yet there where 3 of these in there. I haven't figured that out yet, maybe they changed the design or they may not be the correct bushings for the unit. If the bore is hammered out what do people do, get a machine shop to fit a slightly larger bushing?
I know why it has three bushings. It is from a hole that has some wear. Guys will have a bushing walk in due to wear and just put another bushing in to fill the hole rather than knock it out and line bore it. I have seen this many times on smaller excavators.
Obviously, the purpose of the bushing is to make sure that the pin rotates inside of it and not to rotate inside the stick. Therefor, if your bushing is going in and out by hand your stick is already worn out. You will need to bore through the stick, press in the new sleeve and than hammer in the bushing. That would be the correct way to do it.
You need to fix the oversize bore in the stick by building up and reboring. Those bushes should be tight in the stick. The expense you will go to in order to do this means that the cost of a new pin will be the least of your worries. Replace the pin at the same time.
Thanks Caterpillarmech! That makes sense so much sense, the middle bushing has a slit cut in it and that doesn't look like a very efficient way to get grease in there. In fact you can't. This it why it wore the pin out. So there should be a gap between the two bushings to get grease in there. I bought it from UR. My 1 month warrant just expired, not sure if they would have covered it anyway. Is this normal wear and tare for a 4k hour midi or is this likely the symptom of a breaker? Who do I get to do bore it out? Do I take the stick off and into a machine shop or is that something a mobile mechanic does? Do they just enlarge the hole and fit a bigger bushing or build it up with weld and rebore? Any guess on cost?
If it's had a breaker on it and not been greased at the correct frequency or using a suitable high-quality grease the possibility exists that the impacts from the breaker were the root cause. Have you disassembled any other pin joints..? If so what sort of condition are the pins/bushes in..? If you haven't taken any others apart I suggest you do because what you see in this joint may be repeated in others. Can anyone you know recommend a good machine shop close by..? If yes then have a word with them and get an idea of cost. It would be far cheaper if you remove the stick and take it to the shop rather than have them come out to the machine, also a lot of shops don't have mobile boring equipment anyway. The correct repair would be to build up the bore by welding and then machine it to take standard size bushes. That way if you ever have to replace anything in that joint in the future you don't have to start having non-standard parts made. Take a look at this thread. Although he's on the opposite side of the US to you Tom V does lots of boring in the field and the photos here will give you an idea of what's involved if you go that route.
Anyone ever seen or used these expanding pins that supposedly make line boring obsolete? http://youtu.be/nHjDwfwIZFk
So the dealer (Pape) quoted me $1000 for the line bore excluding parts +$400 for transport. But his mechanic that knew how to do it quit and the new guy doesn't know how yet. He also suggested just adding some spot welds inside die grindering them down with then down with a Dremel and then welding the bushings on the outside as a temporary fix. Thoughts on that? It's just being used on a farm.
How much is it being used on a farm? If you're planning on running this thing into high hours, then you might as well do it now. If you're talking about a thousand hours in the next ten YEARS, AND it's not "mission critical", then cobble it back together. I'd groove and drill the "center bushing" so it will take grease and put it all back together. You'll be wearing out the bore along with the pin and bushings, but as long as you keep it greased it's not going to wear enough to make the repair that much more expensive. And you never know, it might catch fire in a year and then what's your nice new tight joint worth? If you want to add some weld to the bore to keep the bushing from turning, I'd use a small diameter rod with high amps and spray a light quick bead the length of the bushing instead, easier to grind down that way if you get too much.
An old Canadian many many years ago told me in broken French/English....... if its worth fixing, its worth fixing right. Weld it back up, line bore it and put a new pin and bushings in it... :my2c
Everything should be fine as long as it's not sloppy like you say. Use a marine grade grease to hold up against the elements and make sure your remote lubrication lines are good if there are any. Bushings are meant to take wear. Seems like the pin may be cheaply manufactured.
It prob will only get 1k hours in 10 years. Putting a little metal with a mig on the stick to tighten them up enough to get rid of the center bushing so it can be greased sounds like it may not be a bad idea. As long as it doesn't make the proper repair more difficult down the road. One could add a drop of mig material as a stop inside to keep them from walking. I worry about adding metal to the bushings themselves as I would think they would rub inside the stick and cut into it. I would rather the stick cut into the bushings.
I'm curious if anyone has used the expander bushing system to say if it works or not, before I'd line bore it, I'd at least check into the cost of that system.
I've been making a living line boring for 25 years. Those things have been around for around the same time. They have never cost me a single job.
God Lord. Expander pin. Speechless. ( not in a good way )
Since you don't say how loose the bushings are, this may or may not work for you but... For a farm machine with low demand and not something that you need to operate 100% to earn you living with, there may be another option. There are many different versions of Loctite; some of them are for setting bearings and fill gaps of .010 or more. If the bushings will rotate in the bore but not rattle in it, you can likely clean the inside of the bore with sand paper and acetone, ditto on the OD of the bushing, apply a good coat of Loctite and let it set up. If you need to remove it later, gently heat it to 300F with a torch and they should pop out, no better or worse off than you are now. Obviously, you will want to insure that you can still grease the bushing after this operation, but if you can remove the zerk and clean the passage, you should be good to go. Obviously not as good as the weld and line bore, but likely better load transfer than random weld beads applied and cleaned with a die grinder... -Sean
From the comments it would appear the answer is no ...........
No...................... you mean it doesn't work as slick as the movie clip says it does, geeze that's false advertising then, and I was so hoping I could redo a whole worn out machine for a couple thousand dollars and get their advertised 10 year warranty, not sure what the warranty covers, maybe it guarantees your machine is still worn out, they never really stated, on the other hand maybe they give you a new machine, what do you guys think?
Well the local machine shop said $450 if I bring them the stick so they can use a CNC machine and 800 to do it mobile by hand. That's a lot better. Might as well. Now just have to decide if I want to take the stick off.
Is the price still $450 if you take the whole machine to them with the stick still on? If it is, I say leave it on. No point doing more work than you have to. Now, if the price is higher than if you delivered them the stick only, then figure out what it's worth to you to remove and reinstall the stick.
Well it'll cost a couple hundred to have a guy haul it 5 miles anyway. The stick seems very tight. No play. So how much of a PITA is getting it lined up to get back on? I've never tried but know these things came become nightmares. Could easily be worth 350 to not have to deal with it.
Another trick I've used on smaller machines is to get heavywall tubing the same exterior diameter as the bucket pin boss, and bore it and press the bushings in. Cut the old pin boss off the stick and weld the new one in. Use the bucket to line up the h link and bucket pin. Cheap and works good, and saves the setup and time of a lineborer.
There seems to be every method known to man suggested here to get around doing it the simple way. To weld and line bore the end of a stick on that size machine is not much more than 1/2 a day.I can't imagine its going to cost much more than patching it up and still ending up with half a job
Around here, portable line boring starts with 175 mile trip, either for the machine or the line borer, so we do a lot of welding on new pin bosses.