Any clever, cheap, ways to flush out an old 811 backhoe i got for my 843 bobcat. It's been sitting for a long time... the oil I did intentionally bleed out to get it strapped up for transport looked fine, but I'd feel better not having my 843 ingest whatever secrets it might be hiding elsewhere in the lines if possible.
There isn't any easy way to do it. If you really want to I'd take each cylinder loose from the machine, disconnect the hoses one cylinder at a time, cycle the controls for that cylinder to push new oil through the hoses, then by hand manually extend and retract the cylinder to push the oil out. Once the oil it out hook the hoses back up, and bleed the air out of each cylinder. To bleed, with the cylinder still unhooked from the machine, ports facing up, slowly move it back and forth starting at just a 1/4" each direction, then go another 1/4" further on the next stroke, and so on until you've gone full stroke each direction. This will get all the air out. Reinstall cylinder and go to the next one. It's a big job but the only way to really get the old oil out.
Unless it looked like water, I wouldn’t let it concern me.
There is this big concern over draining the fluid in attachments, maybe I am on the wrong side of this, I don't see a real issue. I am not saying that it wouldn't be ideal, just I don't know if its worth the effort unless you have reason to believe its contaminated somehow.
My cat dealer has a kidney machine (their words) $500/ per attachment, but they said it would only get 95% of what ever maybe in there. I have been told you could put a inline filter between the machine and the attachment to do the same thing with probably the same results. Metal would be my biggest concern. I am super weird about cross contamination and my friends hate me because I won't let them use my attachments.
I wouldn't worry about it if the oil looked good as Harley said. Those are really good hoes, I had several before mini excavators replaced them.
Hey, it’s one thing, if it’s missing hoses and buried in mud but if it’s just an attachment, I refuse to worry about it. If I was suspicious, I would probably take the quick connects off and just blow some air through it. That or use my hydraulics and push from one side to the other, into buckets, very gently. Of course, I would certainly get an oil bath, that’s always my luck.
I have heard horror stories about the guy that buys the brand new machine and uses his attachments and get metal in the pump of the new machine and spends a while bunch of money cause it wasn't covered by warranty. My personal experience was my sister rented a auger attachment and contaminated my hydraulic fluid from whatever ever milky fluid was in the attachment
Another idea, on an attachment that would be hard to drain would be to get a hyd sample from it and send it in.
Can you mount the implement to hold it steady and then use come along or another machine to move the boom/stick/bucket through their range of motion with implement hose ends stuck in a bucket? That’s what I did with a really old bobcat/melroe backhoe attatchment.
That's what we did to get it loaded. Cracked the fittings enough to leak, and a boatload of straps and ratchets and let it bleed out. That's not a bad idea to prime them back up though. It's definitely bigger than my little tractor hoe - it's just an attachment, but it's not playing around for sure. Honestly the oil didn't look bad and neither does the hoe overall - mainly some rust on the outside. I am probably overthinking it. I knew it was either missing or very leaky line while it was sitting - that was the part I was worried about.
If the oil didn’t look like a milkshake, then I would not worry about it.
If you're worried about it it's not that hard of attachment to drain most of the oil just by taking the hoses off. I think on most skid steers the return line on the aux. hydraulics goes to the filter.