Has anyone herd of supply constraints on a CAT Pin 3894857, no stock in Australia and being quoted 90 day lead time, seems a bit excessive, 3 months to manufacture and supply ? oh but they can hurry it up if we pay 11k extra, seriously!? it's for a CATERPILLAR 994K LOADER
Has your dealer not heard of a MEGA (critical mining machine down) order, or don't they have those any more.? Back in the day we'd have been on to the factory to pull one off a machine on the production line if necessary. However for something as sommon as a linkage pin that shouldn't even be necessary.
Welcome to the Forums RD! Glad to have you.
Yes they do, but the freight cost is as much as the pin 11K and still isn't that quick, thinking it may be more of a selective supply issue Thanks, just trying to get a handle on CAT USA V's Local AU Westrac Branches and what their Geographic supply priorities are to their customers is??
Yes they do, but the freight cost is as much as the pin 11K and still isn't that quick, thinking it may be more of a selective supply issue or a profit-based decision?? being a world wide supplier someone would have to make the call on who gets priority. just not sure what the criteria is.
Let me put out some feelers. It may take a day or two. Here's a story for you though, just the opposite way round. One time i was looking for a complete rear wheel/final drive group for a 789D. I was in the Caribbean at the time, the nearest available one was in the Cat Melbourne warehouse. Go figure..... However at the end of the day the FD I needed came off the factory production line.
Used to work for a company that machined parts for Cat....Phone rings on night shift, you have 3 castings part no xwxxxx coming in air freight, we need them yesterday. Call when there on the way back to the airport. 100% arseholes and elbows in the shop, machine setups being taken out, new installed, correct programs loaded, gaging being setup. It was not taken lightly... . Ed
I agree with you
Update, Our 992K pins are 3/4 week from Cat at the moment in UK and £10k each. Obviously not 994,but I was curious
Wouldn't a machine shop be able to make these pins in a more reasonable time frame? I suppose that would put you into the arms of the safety man, for using "non manufacterer" supplied parts? I don't imagine its easy telling the big bosses "the loader is going to be down for 3 months". That's not a small loader.
Can you get chrome rod for cylinders in the right size or something like 4140? That shop in Aus. that has video's, Cutting Edge Engineering could probably make you a pin. They do a lot of big repairs on heavy equipment.
We used to use parts from Geographe Engineering back when I was working in the mining industry. They supplied good quality then (about 20+ years ago). They are in Bunbury.
Just looked on CEE's website and if you scroll to their last video, it is making the main articulation pins for a 657 scraper. They say they take a beating. They are 5"+ in dia. and made from induction hardened 4140. Could be similar to what you need.
The problem with that particular pin is that it has an HVOF surface finish. No stock showing anywhere worldwide.
However it still wore out with the HOV. Looks like spray metalizing, but the actual composition is not revealed. As above ^^^, a local machine shop should get you back up and running, if it does not have the HOV, and wears sooner, will you still be money ahead ?
Based on a large amount of experience with that particular model of machine the pin in question is one of the most highly-loaded pins on the linkage - the other is the lift cylinder rod end pin. Without knowing too much about the particular circumstances of failure in this case (if indeed a failure occurred at all) such as machine/pin hours, etc, I would be looking closely at the functioning of the autolube system injectors for that particular pin, of which there are 2. It’s perfectly possible for one to fail and the pin to be apparently getting grease, the problem being that it’s not enough. It’s also worth pointing out that linkage pins on these machines are classed as consumables, just like GET. They have a hard life and are expected to wear out. The trick is to replace them before a failure occurs. EDIT: For clarification it is the pin marked with the arrow. Could be either LH or RH side but this is the best photo I have.
Thank you for this Nige ^^ "Hard" and "Tough" are 2 separate things. Probably can't make it glass hard all thru, as shattering would be catastrophic. so tough would be my first thought. If you make it hardfaced (with the HVO coating) and it does not wear, would you rather replace a pin or bushings ? Sounds like CAT is doing a fine line walk here.
All I will say regarding ALL the linkage pins on the front end of that model and its bigger brother - "Lubrication is key". If you don't keep on top of ensuring correct autolube system functioning and use a VERY high quality 5% moly grease, your life will quickly become a misery.........
Although it doesn't help you right now, also be aware of this from the OMM. "A lift arm power down against the ground should be performed after every five lift and lower cycles of the linkage. When the linkage is cycled outside of normal digging operations, the load zone between the pin and bearing can be starved of grease and dry out. As a result, we recommend that a linkage power down against the ground should be performed during the following: Lift arm cycle time checks Payload calibrations Warming up the hydraulics Operator training or other routine maintenance activities"
Would still be worth talking to CEE. If they make 657 pins and specialize in large hydraulic cylinder repairs they could likely make a suitable pin. If the pin is spray welded and turned down they likely do that as well.
I spoke with CEE about helping a mate out making new shafts for a big woodchipper. Through his fame he was totally loaded with work and would be 3mths away from starting the job. There's probably other outfits who could help but finding them is a task in it self.
Geographe manufacture pins for Hitachi mining shovels. They might be a good place to call to find out if they have the material and machine shop availability.
Nige, what rough sizes are we looking at here ? Maybe 6" dia. by 36" long ?
Looking online the pin is just listed as hard chrome plated. I don't know if that's a thermal spray process.
9.45" dia. x 16.73" long. It doesn't list a weight but would be damn heavy!
10+" diameter, 24" long with a hole down the middle. Actually hard chrome plated, I thought it was HVOF'd.
Maybe either of the two shops would do a rush job (after hours) for a $1000 or $2000 extra? Even if the pin ended up costing similar to the OEM pin or even a little more would still be worth having it made. It is odd Cat doesn't keep more accessable stock of a critical pin like that. I thought most mining machines the dealer generally keeps good stock of the most common wear parts to keep their customers happy. Maybe a closer pin was recently sold and they hadn't had time to replenish stock? I can't imagine the downtime cost.
From Nige No stock showing anywhere worldwide. It’s also worth pointing out that linkage pins on these machines are classed as consumables So a part that is considered consumable is not available anywhere? Seems some **** poor planning there. Joe H
You'd think there'd always be a couple kept in stock.
Thing is most mining customers running machines of that model that go for more than $3m a copy these days would keep spare linkage pins in their on-site warehouse just like they would keep bucket teeth. They would never depend on the local dealer to hold parts stock for them. It's pretty easy to figure out which are the high-use pins, aka the most highly-loaded ones and/or the ones where the grease system fails as a result of poor maintenance. So possibly some of the planning deficiencies are on the customer side. I have no idea in this case.
Either have spare parts, or spare machines.
The mine that was the location for the photo on the previous page held somewhere in the region of $10m worth of parts in the on-site warehouses last time I was there. That was just for the mobile equipment, I have no idea what value of parts the process plant kept.
With some mining machines the dealer is required to keep stock of common wear items and parts. It was one of the reasons Komatsu didn't sell many D575's. They were too heavy but I read years ago that if the oilsands were to consider a 575, the dealer (SMS) would have needed to keep $1mil. of parts in inventory. That might not be too bad if multiple machines were bought but takes away any of the initial profit of the sale if only one is bought. You'd think for mining machines there would be something similar to what Saskatchewan has for any new tractors sold. Parts in 48 hours or the dealer provides a loaner till the parts come in. I do realize getting a loaner is impossible but that makes it all the more important to keep good stock of common wear items. Maybe it was an isolated blunder by Cat to not have at least one pin in stock somewhere. They have sold quite a few 994K's. I mentioned in the past when Finning was trying to break the union here their parts availability went to crap. Instead of 2 days or even next day it was down to 3,4,5 we really can't tell you. One of their largest customers was losing hundreds of thousands at one of their quarries waiting on pistons for one of the main generators. I think it took a week and a half or 2 weeks to finally get the parts. Finning picked up the bill for the downtime. It was over $1mil. I think it was a senior parts person who I'd dealt with a few times who told me the story. They moved parts out of their warehouse to a logistics company and it was a complete SNAFU! Wasn't too long before they turfed the logistics company and moved parts back to their warehouse and inhouse parts people.
BTW on a mine site that large, what would a typical diesel fuel tank farm look like there ?
It was 150k gallons IIRC, with deliveries from the fuel supplier arriving 7 days a week.
Can not the pin be re-done with HVOF? It should be a matter of grinding the old layer off and re spraying it. Plenty of people doing it these days
Good suggestion Ray. I suppose it all depends how badly the pin O/D was gouged before the machine was stopped. To the best of my knowledge the pins are also heat-treated (actually induction-hardened to 100mm depth), probably before final machining and certainly before any HVOF. I've seen some weird low-hour failures where the inside of the pin looked like wood rather than steel. Believe it or not but the two pieces that are visible in the first photo below are both from the same pin.
https://ascmparts.com/389-4857-linkage-pin.html China source says in stock, probably means they'll make it but that shouldn't take long. Joe H
I think you probably mean 10mm depth of hardness? If the gouging hasn't gone through the hardened outer redoing the HVOF is probably worth a crack. The induction hardening is around 60 Rockwell and the HVOF probably exceeds that.
I did. Sorry if that wasn't clear. The spec is for minimum 60 Rockwell @ 10mm depth from the surface.
The pin is hard chrome plated not HVOF. I don't know if it could be successfully built up and turned down. I'm fairly certain there are metalizing sprays of suitable hardness but don't know if the heat would have an effect on the structural integrity of the pin. A lot probably does depend on how badly the pin is worn. If it is gouged badly on one side could make building it up with metalizing not practical.