Hi Guys, long time lurker, first time poster. I bought a certified used 2018 304e2 with 2000hrs from Cat about a year ago. This machine was Maintained by Cat from new, always on schedule and had oil analysis done at every service. So when I got it it had probably 8 samples done from each compartment between 2018-2023. Engine an Hydraulics look great. Final drives not so much. For the first 1200hrs or so they were changing the oil in the drives every 300-400hrs. And everything looked great. Then I guess theu decided to follow the manual and go 1000hrs on the oil without changing. It’s insane that this is Cats recommendation. They hold barely a half quart, roughly $8 worth of oil if you buy it from Cat. But I digress. Ever since that sample all subsequent samples have not been good. High iron, and chromium , and high levels of oxidation. My SOS advisor said the machine should be brought in to cat for inspection. It’s under warranty anyways. They pulled the covers off the finals and said everything looked great. Gears looked good. I assume there wasn’t any play suggesting bearing problems. They flushed out the drives to hopefully get out any residual metal from that long service interval. I pulled a sample 77hrs later when I was doing my yearly service and still iron was high, as was oxidation. This whole time I been running Lucas 75w140, as that’s what cat sells you and the parts guy says it’s the only oil indicated for this machine. The service department uses the same oil. My SOS advisor thought that oil may be too thick for my climate. Not sure about that, I’m in Nc so it’s very hot. But she suggested I try 30wt TODO, which is TO-4 spec oil. So I flushed the drives again using Diesel and refilled with 30wt TODO. I’ve been doing some research since then and 30wt seems pretty thin. There isn’t really even a comparable SAE viscosity for the 140 gear I’ve been runnng. 90wt gear oil is like 50wt SAE. I guess 30wt is like 80wt gear oil. Seems like the recommendation is typically a 50wt TO-4 oil for final drives. What do you guys think? I want to get the wear metals back to normal, if that’s possible. Or atleast get them wearing at a slower rate. I’ll probably pull a sample at 50hrs and see how things look. When cat had it in for inspection they pulled a sample on the oil that had been in there for just 16hrs and everything was elevated. So 50hrs should be plenty after the flush to get a good idea if this 30wt to-4 oil is doing a better job. I’ve attached the latest oil analysis on both drives. I appreciate any insight you guys can provide.
Your numbers don't look that bad to me. I would change the oil more often if that makes you more comfortable. Moving up to 50W TO-4 might be ok if the dealers agrees. One thing I notice is the oil additives in the last two samples like zinc and phosphorus are not depleted so that's good. I think Nige might have something to say on this topic.
Can you post a Serial Number so I can look at the O&M fluid recommendations for the final drives. EDIT: It was on the oil analysis report. So confirmed that CAT Synthetic GO is what's called for in those mini-ex finals. The one issue with a machine this small is that without a complete disassembly and cleaning of all the parts in a parts washer contamination from the oil that was in it previously will hang around like a bad smell. It may take a while to get things back to "normal", whatever that is. It's interesting that there are significant amounts of silicon (aka dirt) in the analysed samples. Increased silicon will cause increased iron (and other metals) - you can see it right there in the analysis results. That could suggest that cleaning of packed dirt/mud around the floating seals of the final drives may not have been the best. Take care to do this cleaning on a regular basis. It should be done at least daily and probably more often if the ground conditions require it. TBH I think that it won't matter too much what oil you put in it, if you don't stop the dirt getting into the compartment any oil will suffer, especially considering that there is only 1 litre of oil in each final drive.
Thanks Nige. So cat Synthetic GO is the 75w-140. Im taking a huge step down in viscosity with 30wt TO-4. But that’s what the advisor recommends so will see how it does. I think 50wt TO-4 would have been the better choice. Regarding the silicon, the oil tested with 1000+hrs on it had 49ppm. The next test when I owned it with 117hrs also had the same. But the next two weren’t bad. Most recent with 77hrs had 12ppm. That doesn’t seem too bad? But also, how do we know that’s dirt Entry and not an additive for anti foaming? It’s looks to me that 2 different kinds of oil was used in these drives. The kinematic viscosity of the 10/22 and 5/23 tests were around 13-16, which would seem to be around 50wt oil. It had the exact same amount of silicon in both of those samples, 49ppm, and oil was changed between the tests. Then the June and Nov 2023 tests viscosity was 24-26, which was the 75w140. And silicon was 12 both times. Seems like too much of a coincidence to me? So it may not be dirt entry, but the Antifoaming additive used in those oil formulations? I have no idea how it’s possible to clean out the area around the duo cone seal on these small machines.. I’ve looked at it a couple times now. It’s always packed. But there’s no room to reach in there behind the sprocket. I think the track would have to come off. You can’t reach it from the other side either. I had the cover off that protects the hydraulic side not long ago to clean that all out and you can’t see or touch where the seal is. I’ll have to see if I can fab up a tool to reach behind the sprocket.
Clea .your tracks the best you can with a track shovel after every shift. Be careful when power washing as to not drive the dirt into the cone seal These machines have their advantages and disadvantages.
I try to keep the the tracks cleaned out well. But man is the area behind the sprocket caked with hardened dirt. I gotta figure out a way to clean it out that doesn’t involve pulling the track. Im definitely keeping the pressure washer away from them now. Think I might have got a little too close last time I washed the machine. When I drained the 140wt oil to flush and refill with the 30wt the left side drive either had water in it, or it was just foamy. I made the mistake of not pulling the level plug first before pulling the drain so I didn’t get to see if it was overfilled which would indicate water in it, since i know I put the correct amount of oil In it, filling till it ran out the level plug. But this is what the oil looked like. Hard to say if that’s milky or foamy/froathy. But I’m keeping an eye on that. Got about 17hrs on the 30wt oil so I’ll probably pull the level plug soon and make sure the oil looks good and isn’t milky.
From those photos the oil being drained is clearly heavily contaminated with water. If the water came from outside through the Duo-Cone seals as a result of pressure washing it would have obviously brought silicon/dirt in with it.
Let's get the subject of viscosity out of the way first. See the illustration below. The SAE30 TO-4, whose viscosity is measured on the SAE crankcase scale, is heavier when cold and somewhat lighter when hot than the 75W/140 that is measured on the SAE Gear scale. TBH apart from these mini-ex machines and the tracked skid-steer product line EVERYTHING ELSE in the world of Cat uses TO-4/FDAO-specification oil in final drives. (This is most probably why you were recommended to switch oils by the dealer) Until I looked for myself in a case a few months ago my first recommendation of oil for any Cat final drive would ALWAYS be a TO-4 product. The only reason I can come up with for the recommendation of a multigrade gear oil is the EXTREMELY small quantity of oil contained in these particular final drives.
I've never seen silicon used as an additive in any type of oil I've come across while working with heavy mobile machinery. I have contacted a couple of people for their opinions but to me silicon always equals dirt entry. The only potential caveat to the above is the possibility of it being used in some type of off-brand product or in a "snake oil" additive of some sort. Edit: Have a sample of new oil analyzed. If there is no silicon present in the analysis you have your answer.
It could also have been an SAE90 gear oil. See the chart.
IMHO you are going to have to find a way to keep that area consistently clean without having to resort to pressure washing.
Cat can only test what is in the sample bottle, and the sampling can vary enough that the 49 vs 12 is not really significant in the single digit place, call it 40 vs 10, pure coincidence that it was 49 twice and 12 twice. Two other samples from the same drain oil could easily have come back 35 and 55, or 6 and 20. Notice everybody is saying to avoid PRESSURE washing, but you'll have to get the hardened dirt out of there so you can keep the seal area open to shed dirt instead of running in dust or mud. You're going to have to bite the bullet at some point and get it clean, and that's probably going to involve getting some water through the seal. A garden hose will rinse the dirt off eventually. Helps to start rinsing with the machine cold so you're not causing vacuum inside the compartment to suck water through the seal when the hot drive is cooled off by water, or even cools off from evaporation after you've washed it with hot water.
I'm surprised they bothered to oil analize that. Cost of oil analize kit far exceeds the oil cost. Change the oil and go on with things. It is what it is. My machine had the factory oil in the finals with over 5000hrs and I've run into that often. Same with swing gearbox.
Lol, ya, when I buy the gallon of TO-4 it costs $2.75 per side to change the oil. Or $17 to sample each drive. But the purpose is to get an idea of the health of the drive. It’s a $3000-5000 part so $17 is minimal.
Analysis paralysis is a thing. I’m having difficulty opening the reports on my iPhone for some reason. Nige asked me to chime in. Abnormal silicon levels with fresh gear lube does cause alarm. Most PAO synthetic lubes have up to 24ppm si in the additive package. It’s important to sample the new oil, too. If the lab doesn’t already have the data on record. Various blenders also add si to value-priced conventional gear lubes as an anti-foaming agent in the 5-10ppm range. If that was my machine, I would flush the finals with diesel and start over fresh. I would also think about how you are taking the sample. Suction gun, warm oil, contamination control, etc.
Try closer to $10k. Oil analysis is one of your best insurance policies, along with using quality lubricants & filters.
Some dirt up in around the final drive typically shrinks as it dry's out pulling away from the crevice. I agree with the last two posts.
So the 12ppm in my last 2 samples isn’t necessarily dirt entry, it’s just the additive package. The silicon levels didn’t worry me too much. More so the high levels of iron, which indicates gear wear, and oxidation which could mean overheating. That’s what I did 17hrs ago. Drained, flushed with diesel an refilled with new cat TO-4. So I’ll pull a new sample around 50hrs. They were also flushed around 100hrs ago by cat when they took that same in June of 2023. Was hoping everything would look good after that but the next sample in nov 2023 wasn’t very good. The fluids Been changed 5 times and flushed twice since that 1000hr drain interval. Hoping the next one after this flush will look better. The only way I can pull a sample is with the drain plug. These drives are small so there isn’t room to put the suction hose in and turn it before it hits a gear. I get them warm before I pull the sample. I wait for a some oil to run out then put my vial under and collect it. After cleaning the cover on the final really well.
I would suggest confirmation of that from an analysis of new oil, or ask your local Lucas oil rep. Certainly the TO-4 SAE30 oil you are using now has no silicon in the additive package. It will be interesting to see what happens to the silicon levels subsequent to the change of oil type.
I can ask my monitoring advisor. She had a virgin sample of Cat hydo advanced 10 when I asked. Or ya maybe Lucas does. Do you think Lucas makes the cat synthetic GO? I thought Mobil made all their oils. Will see how the next test looks. I feel like should be running 50wt TO-4. That’s similar in viscosity to 90wt gear oil, which is the lowest viscosity oil the manual recommends for this machine. But I’m in a warm climate, rarely below 32 and half the year is over 80 so there really shouldn’t have been any problems with the 75w140. If these next samples don’t show improvement I’ll either try some 50wt TO-4, or ditch cat oil all together and try some amsoil severe duty 75w90.
FWIW so do I.
Regarding the presence (or not) of silicon as an additive here's a question for you to ask your SOS person at the dealership - if their wear tables include an allowance for the fact that new oil has silicon in it.? What I'm getting at here is that if the recommended oil in the O&M Manual is a GO type containing X ppm of silicon in the additive package (as opposed to a TO-4 that contains none) then the Wear Table number ranges for the silicon ppm numbers covering the three ranges - "Action Required", "Monitor Compartment", and "No Action Required" will take into account of the fact that new oil has silicon in it and not flag it as "dirt entry" until it exceeds a certain amount. You could also follow up with a question regarding how they would interpret results from a TO-4 oil sample from these final drives that has no silicon in the additive package.
I've done finals and never spent anything like that. Not familiar with little CAT stuff though. On a home jobber excavator seems like just easier to keep good oil them it and run it till it makes noise. Pull the covers off and take a look if it's really keeping a guy up at night Seems like it'd be VERY hard to overheat them unless someone is trying to use it as a bulldozer and not as an excavator.
Cat procedure is every 500hrs
Hitachi is 1000. Same as hydraulic oil
Actually for the OP's particular S/No it's recommended to change every 1000 hours, but IMO anyone who doesn't change the final drive oil every time they change the engine oil needs their head read......... This type of machine can end up walking miles, and for 1 litre of oil per side it's worth it just for peace of mind. YMMV.
It’s not, atleast not with a 2018 304e2. Its 1000hrs. Max id ever go is 250. For $2.75 worth of oil and a few mins of my time there’s no excuse not to.
With cat whatever you think it should cost it typically costs double lol. A final from them is around $5k, and probably another 5k in labor. Aftermarket they can be had for $2000-2500. And probably only a few hours to swap them. But my Machine is under warranty so I’m not worried about it. Although I’d love to get them to replace them while I’m still under warranty. But they don’t want to, atleast not yet.
See my Post #22 above and ask your SOS person the next time you speak to them.
I’ll ask them about it. There must be some allowance for silicon. If you look at this test which was May of 2023 they said all tests appear normal. silicon was 50. Iron was 379. That doesn’t sound normal to me. But I guess iron is going to always be somewhere elevated in aa compartment like a final drive with no filter. But that still seems high on both counts. One thing I found kind of interesting with these drives is the manual say they hold approx 1 quart/ 1/4 gallon. I have never gotten more than about a half quart in out of them. So you figure it must be that you just can’t drain it all out, and a lot remains in the drive when you drain it. But when I did the flush with diesel, I used off road diesel which is died red and fairly distinct in color an viscosity. I filled till it got to the level plug. Ran it a bit a drained and got exactly the same amount of clean red diesel out. Not mixed with what would have been a half quart of residual gear oil. So i don’t know what’s up with that. If they want gear oil in the drives, it must be for good reason. That recommendation must come from the manufacturer of the drives right? Or Cats testing? Think maybe I should have tried 80w90. Amsoil makes a great quality gear oil if cat doesn’t sell that viscosity.
You would think so if the recommended oil contains silicon (still unconfirmed as of this moment) as some part of the additive package. HOWEVER if you switch to an oil such as a TO-4 that has no silicon in the additive package how does the lab take account of that in their interpretation.? Surely there has to be a different approach on their part.? Have you tried swining the upper frame 90 degrees then using the bucket to elevate the machine so that the final drive is on an angle towards the drain plug.? Also according to the manual there is a drain plug (1), level plug (2), and filler plug (3). It appears from the illustration that (1) and (3) are not exactly in the same position so it could affect how much oil is drained out by whether or not the final drive is correctly oriented.
Jfitz, The lab takes into account the oil you used. Especially, if the lube is Cat branded. They already have the spectro data in their system. The fill amount in the O&M could be incorrect. That’s not uncommon. High iron, early on, could be related to break-in. The 50ppm si marked as normal could have been a mistake by the lab tech who clicked the wrong pull down menu. Or, not. There might be enough data available in the system indicating these machines are trending higher than traditional si levels, for some reason, yet to be discovered. Poor contamination control procedures at the factory? Pick a lube and stick with it, so we can actually start trending performance over time.
I'm of the same mindset when it comes to final drives. Run the oil no longer than recommended and if there's no sign of water contamination, no brass flakes in the drained oil and no chunks on the magnet then put in fresh oil and go back to work. Final drives make so much fine metal during normal use I don't think they're really worth sampling.
It certainly isn't. All our maintenance procedures contained the phrase "Listed refill capacities are only approxmate. Always fill to the dipstick, sight glass, or level plug as appropriate."
The data can be handy when justifying a repair to a customer, or if you have an entire fleet of similar models for analysis of predictive maintenance. Just another tool in the tool box. But sure, you can have large chunks of debri, while at the same time having a “normal” sample. Especially, if the chunks haven’t been ground into particles, yet.
I knew a guy who had a P&H excavator that was the updated model with drive motors at the sprockets. He showed me the oil level plugs for the final drives. One side was about 4" higher than it should have been. Almost looked like they made the one housing kind of upside down or forgot about moving the plug when they flipped the molds for the casting.
they make it pretty fool proof, luckily. Each one is labeled, fill, drain and level. So I make sure I have it in the right orientation. I have put it at a bit of an angle but nothing crazy. I’ll try to raise it up significantly next time. But like I said when I did my diesel flush I got the exact same amount out of clean red diesel. if it was a situation where you don’t get it all out when you drain it, that diesel would have mixed with 1/4-1/2 quart of darker thick gear oil. But that’s not what came out. It was nice clean red diesel of the same thin viscosity. So this leads me to believe the capacity is not 1 quart/1/4 gallon. It’s a little over 1/2 quart. So I guess the manual is wrong.
I think it’s also handy for the customer justifying a repair to the dealer while under warranty. I had no idea there was any issue. Nothing felt or sounded off. Until the analysis showed me there was a potential problem. And since I had that cat had to open up the drives an inspect them. They said everything looked good. But another test that comes back red/action required or whatever and they’re going to swap or rebuild them.
I think it depends if you’re under warranty or not. My machine is. So if there’a a problem they’re going to take care of it. Luckily my cat dealer is awesome. And you’ll be hard pressed to know there’s an issue without oil analysis. But if the machine wasn’t under warranty, I’d still sample just because that’s how I am. But what’s the point, if it shows a problem there’s nothing I can do about it. I can’t afford to pay cat service $150 to do exploratory surgery lol. Nor would I be paying to replace them when theres no issues with performance. Id just run them until I have an issue that affects the performance and then fix it.
I was thinking of doing samples on my crawler loaders vs spending $$ on dumping everything.
Funnily enough Cat mysteriously changed their factory fill oil mid-production on the smaller 1.5 to 2T next-gen mini excavators from GO SYN 75W-140 to TDTO 30, approx 2021-ish. Yet to find any publication explaining why.
The reason why, was the great c-19 force majeure. Remember that thing that happened during that time period that shut down the refineries and the blenders? Remember Lubrizol burning down? Many of the index improver additives for synthetic blends were unavailable. Some still are unavailable in bulk form.
That makes complete sense now you mention it. Lubrizol fire was Sept 2019. Here I was thinking it was because the manufacturer realised TO-4 oils are more suitable for final drives.
Get rid of that junk Lucas oil!!!! It’s some of the worst out there. If you want the best get Amsoil I’ve seen the difference first hand
That’s already been done. Every sample over 6-7 years was the same oil, atleast if you trust what the dealer was recording on the sample cards (I think they were using something different earlier on based on the viscosity, but they were always writing the same oil type/weight). The trend was good samples for the first 3-4 years as they were changing the oil every 300-400hrs, then everything went bad when they 1000hrs without changing. Sample oil was used for the next 3 samples, all were bad. So now we’re trying new oils trying to see if we can reverse what appears to be a trend of excessive wear metals and try to get wear metals to return to normal or atleast lower.
Agreed, I have not been impressed with this Lucas gear oil at all. I’m thinking amsoil 80w90 severe duty would be a solid choice. Although I’m in a warm climate here in the south so there’s really no reason the recommended 75w140 would be too thick.
Nige, what’s your opinion on cat FDAO spec oil? I see you mostly recommend TO-4 in final drives but I don’t think I’ve seen you talk about FDAO. According to Cat this oil was developed specifically for final drives to address some shortcomings of TO-4 in planetary finals.
There is a good reason for that. FDAO was developed specifically for mining machinery that runs 24/7 and is only very infrequently allowed to stop for long enough to go completely cold. Even if this was to happen there are electronic onboard protection systems that limit the machine travel speed until the differential/final drive oil is up to a certain minimum temperature. FDAO is also designed to be used in very heavily-loaded final drives. I'm talking 200+-ton haul trucks or D11-size dozers here Your mini-ex neither operates 24/7 nor has protection systems for cold oil. Neither does it travel sufficient distance to get the oil hot and keep it hot. Therefore my opinion would be to not recommend FDAO oil which is an SAE60 viscosity. It also goes some way to explaining why the final drive oil recommendation is a 75W/140 GO.
Good info. So a say 315-325 size machine or smaller dozers still call for TO-4 in the final drives? FD-1 oil is only recommended in big mining machines that are running basically around the clock, never really letting the oil get cold, or with computer controlled warm up procedures. it’s not that they’ve switched all non compact equipment over to FDAO, only very specific equipment. Regarding your comment on why they spec 75w140 in my mini x. Based on what you’re saying something like 50wt TO-4 wouldn’t even be a good option since it’s too thick when cold, and may not even warm up sufficiently for that 50wt oil to flow well? So I’d be better off sticking with this 30wt todo, or a multi viscosity gear oil.
Correct. Actually in the excavator range everything from a 308E-upwards calls for TO-4. This is why people like me who have only worked with larger equipment using TO-4 (and its predecessor TO-2) find it difficult to believe that GO oils are specified for Cat final drives on ANYTHING. Again correct. All I can say is that on a slightly larger excavator (308E) both TO-4 SAE30 & SAE50 are listed as options. SAE30 is for an ambient temperature range of -20 to +25 C SAE50 is for an ambient temperature range of -10 to +40 C As a comment if you were using SAE30 and the temperature went a bit above above 25C that wouldn't mean you would have to stop work..... IMHO with your location a TO-4 of either 30 or 50 would work.
From a Chevron perspective, FDAO isn’t formulated with the friction modifier additive package required for clutches and brakes. That’s the major difference between TO-4 and FDAO. Next, is probably the cost. FDAO is expensive.
From a Chevron perspective, FDAO isn’t formulated with the friction modifier additive package required for clutches and brakes. That’s the major difference between TO-4 and FDAO. Next, is probably the cost. FDAO is expensive.
Good point. FDAO is only designed for use in rear ends.
Here in Nc it’s over 25c (77f) for half the year. With a good 3-4 months well over 80 and into the 90s and even 100. We’re getting into this time of the year now. But I’ll probably run this 30wt to-4 for a while and pull a sample before considering a switch to 50wt. I’d have to See what my sos advisor says too since the machine is under warranty.
Let me put the question a different way. What is the MINIMUM ambient temperature at your location.?
Ah i stand corrected, my dealer has us do it at every 500 so i assumed that was a CAT standard
cat just wants to make the cost of ownership look as low as possible, hence the long intervals in the manual. Most dealers want to ensure the greatest longevity for your machine. Mine recommends 500 for the minis as well. And 250 for skid loaders since they typically spend alot more time tracking around. I do my mini at 250 as well. It’s too cheap and quick not to. Also, I think with minis cats really only focused on the first 3000hrs of ownership. I don’t think you’d have much trouble getting to 3000hrs with 1000hr OCIs for the finals.but idk how far past that you’d get with 1000hr ocis. You probably be replacing final drives not far past 3000 with only 3 oil changes in the past 3000hrs..
Between Nov-March Typically about 35-40 degrees F is the coldest it’ll be when I run the machine. With the very very occasional sub 20 degrees temp. I’m good about doing a thorough warm up though. Usually limit it to slow speed for a while before kicking into 2 speed.
OK so 20F is -6.5C. -10C is 14F. As posted above - With 40C equalling 104F...... I stand behind my earlier recommendation of SAE50 TO-4.
Thanks all for ongoing discussion on this, albeit to some extent redundant. I'm wrestling with similar issues described some here: HeavyEquipmentForums ...especially the cleaning out of mud and crud from the seal area Nige graciously posted in the above thread,; I can say I was on my back just yesterday with a sort of custom scraper tool I made, digging crap out of the cavities on the 304 with nearly 5000hrs, without removing the track. It may not be any less futile than a lot of other sorts of remote property management I'm involved with year round! At this point, I'm not a big fan of the design, to make a critical seal area so prone to mud cakes so inaccessible, but I'm not a mechanical engineer. I'm just a schlub who's seen too many pictures of WWI tanks, thinking they managed to work in the trenches, at least for a minute or two. I've done a bunch of flushing and oil changes also, and taken y'all's advise to run TO-4 50 - holding my breath on another set of SOS in 100 hours or so. I do a significant amount of travel and dozer work with the thing. Anyway, I have a tendency to over-think things and it is helpful when all the experience here says relax, change the oil often, it's cheap, and pay attention to how the machine responds. Please report back with your ongoing experience on the matter. -gibbs
I had been following your thread. lots of good info in it that’s applicable to my machine. I agree man, the accessibility of the seal area is just awful. I cleaned both sides of mine out the other day. You can’t even reach your hand in there behind the sprocket, there is no room at all. I had to just start chiseling from between each tooth on the sprocket until the clump was broken up enough to fall down and then had to chisel that up until it could be pulled out of the area entirely, if that makes any sense. But it’s fairly clean now. it’s just something else I’ll have to add to my maintenance regimen. I do a lot of tracking as well. It’s not the kind of machine that spends most of its time stationary. At the least it’s always moving back and forth in our wood yard moving logs around, and sometimes goes out on longer travel bouts like when I’m cleaning up our trail system. Overthinking is what I do best. Both of our threads are great examples of people that overthink stuff lol. I’m definitely interested in how your next analysis looks with 50wt TO-4 after all the flushing. I’m going to pull my next one at the 50hr mark. That’s sufficient of time for an accurate sample in my experience. When I took my machine in for Cat to inspect the drives the oil had just 16hrs on it and they pulled a sample of it when they drained it. And the results were already not good. Iron and oxidation were highly elevated already. So I figure 50hrs will be more than enough to see if this new oil is doing any better than the GO was. Seems like we do somewhat similar work with our machines so the samples should give us pretty good insight into 30wt vs 50wt TO-4.
That's what you get when you buy a "Lawns & Gardens" size machine. The designers had the unenviable task of trying to squeeze a quart into a pint pot. I suggest that you either get creative or employ a dwarf....... And right there is the reason why the FD oil should be changed much more frequently than the O&M Manual recommends. Somewhere in the Manual will be a statement something along the lines of - "Machines that operate in severe operating conditions may require more frequent maintenance." For an excavator "a lot of tracking" is classed as severe (in other words not normal) service - but of course nobody ever reads that caveat.........
Ya I think I’m going to fab up some sort of a 90 degree pick tool to be able to get behind the sprocket easier. But all in all it wasn’t too difficult to clean out. But it’ll get repacked the first full revolution of the final in wet dirt. I’m not sure the drain interval is the issue with mine. The longest I’ve ever gone on FD oil was 117hrs. And the sample did not look good at all. Then next drain and sample was pulled at just 16hrs, also bad. Next was 77hrs. Also bad. I’m sure youre not suggesting going go 10hr drain interval lol. Can’t imagine the severe duty interval is shorter than any of those. Probably more like 250-500hrs, If normal duty is 1000. What do you thikk a good OCI is for my use? They could do a better job with the manuals, especially considering how expensive these machines are. I’ve read the maintenance section cover to cover many times now and find it really lacking in detail and specifics. For 80 grand they should provide a manual that’s just for a 304e2. Not a 303, 303.5, 304, 304.5, 305, and 305.5. While these machines are similar in many ways, they’re also very different in a lot of ways so alot of the directions for certain things are flat out wrong. But I digress.
Exactly the same as my reply a couple of pages back - for the quantity involved I would say change the oil in the final at least every time you change the engine oil.
Man, amen and we're livin' parallel struggles seems like. I just saw a couple of springs that might help with the blade float sensitivity, for a mere $165 each. If I was czar of a 'product' (which will never happen) I'd first put the CFO up on a coat hook and then instruct him that 'all manuals will be free of charge.' !
They are - for the original buyer of the machine. Direct your ire at those people who don’t take care of their manuals. Or should manuals be FOC to anyone who wants one for the entire life of a particular piece of equipment from cradle to grave.?
Absolutely. When you buy a service kit from Cat you get oil sample bottles included. Taking a FD oil sample is part of the service. What oil comes out must go back in to maintain the oil level. The compartment as mentioned holds less than a litre of oil. I've got no problem letting all .8 litres fall out every time I take a sample (into an approved container of course ).
Seriously man. You know the tiny little level plug for the final? that thing probably took 1oz of steel to produce, or less. Cat charges $50 for one! I found the same size plugs online from zoro for $3 a piece. I really hate the Allen head plugs for the finals. The tiny level plugs with the 5mm head strip out so easy. I wish they would have done either just square 1/4 inch drive, or recessed them down a little into the cover and did regular bolts.
Does that $3 plug have a magnet in it that saves your final drive from early destruction? $50 is cheap when you see the price of a new drive motor.
I take your points, one should take care of things, indeed. And I'm not entitled to support from Caterpillar as one only on the grave side of machinery. I'm not in a position to pay retail, and I can't expect something of value for nothing. One could dream that servers filled with information on discontinued products could be made available, for example, to foster brand loyalty, or more 'good will', but I admit there's little incentive for corporations to care about such things. I also confess to being far out of the league; I'm a 3-hour drive from the ballpark. All the more reason to value DIY forums!
It doesn’t. But neither does the $50 plug From cat. I think the fill and drain plugs do though.
You can get drain plugs from McMaster-Carr with a magnet for about $3.50. I have a bag of various sizes of plugs on hand for various contingencies . . .
I reckon it will be magnetic. That thing is worth $90 down here. If it's not somebody should be put in jail.
Alright so finally logged enough hours to pull a sample using the 30wt TO-4 recommended by the lab and im super happy with the results. Got a “passing grade” on both finals this Time. Iron was way down, so was oxidation. Everything looked pretty normal. I had about 55hrs on the oil with a lot of tracking during that time and in some very hot weather. I was worried the 30wt would be too light in the NC summers but I was wrong. 55hrs should have Been more than enough time for an accurate result considering It in the past 16hrs was enough for a very bad result. Only thing I noted was silicon was higher than I’d like it to be in the right final. Which may be contributing to the higher levels of iron in that one compared to the left. Right is also the side I have the aftermarket $3 level plug on. I can’t imagine it’s letting in more dirt vs the oem plug. It’s the same type of straight British pipe thread with the oring seal. But maybe I’ll flush that drive, refill and go spent $50 on a replacement oem plug just to see. But ya overall im really happy with the results and will continue using 30wt TO-4 going forward.
Right final drive definitely needs a flush. So long as silicon is in single digits that's good.
Agreed. It’s a little bit concerning as I flushed both drives before refilling with this current oil in it. So should have gotten all the crap out. Another thing to note with this right side drive. I came out one morning right around the time the weather turned and warmed up here and I had a leak from my duocone seal. I cracked the fill and level plug and a bunch of pressure released. I refilled it which only took a few once’s of oil and it hasn’t leaked again since. not sure if that has anything to do with it.
Good to hear that some comprehension emerged. I can appreciate that if oil was dribbling out at the tricky hidden seal, you might pull out some (more) hair. I've yet to sample again, because now i have other problems with other systems, of course I do, but I'm a little anxious as well to see the 100 hours on the TO-4.