The swing tower on my 416C has wear in base pin swing and the boom to tower as well as swing left and right. Does any one know an average cost to bore these and fit bushings? Around 2005 the D models were factory fitted with bushings. I have replaced some of the bushings about 2000 hrs ago and noticed then the bushing and pin had very little wear it was the ductile that was worn.
Mods , I meant to have this in the backhoe forum , pulled trigger to early.
I moved this over to the backhoe forum. Unfortunately I do not have an idea on the cost to line bore.
Almost impossible to quote a price without seeing the parts in question. About how much ware is there? There may be a way other than resizing the bores.
The two main pins that connect the tower to the tractor are supposed to be bored. The up hole is good , the bottom hole is questionable but the guy says both have to be bored for proper alignment. I first thought the whole tower would get every hole bored , but the tower was bad. I can't see it taking a half day to do it but I may be wrong. We have a lot of rock here , not huge but layers of rock then dirt . Its hard on equipment. Plus the design of this part is little to be likened.
Do they have oversized bearings for it? If it ductile you will more than likely have to bore it and have a sleeve installed. RayF would be one I would ask.
I ended up buying a new swing tower , the guy doing the repair said the tractor holes needed to be bored. If your familiar with the B , C and early D series CATS , this is a weak point as far as I'm concerned. The newer D's had bearings in the swing tower at the boom base and swing cylinders. I guess it will be what it will be. When I get it back I'll put it on here what was done and cost for others. Thanks for your input.
Any line-borers I know would turn their noses up at such a job, trying to do it with the swing tower still attached to the machine, & dealing with ductile iron, hyd hoses & grease. In reality you would likely need to remove the tower from the machine, clean it, & carry out the job on a mill. :my2c :drinkup PS - just pipped me Dickjr...
Oh , the swing tower is removed alright , and hoses and grease etc. The only holes getting bored are on the tractor frame which is steel. I did opt for an aftermarket swing tower which was 1500 dollars. A Cat tower was 2800. Same warranty. And I was told that one makes the other. We shall see tomorrow ,I'm going down to check on it.
This repair was much needed. The boom base bushing on one side was busted and came out in chunks. The upper and lower pin bores where it connects to the tractor were welded and line bored. Total cost of this repair was 5462.80 , which I think is fair. Parts were over 3000. Other work done , all the resolvers were replaced in the rear valve and front valve and the front tilt cylinder was resealed.
Thats a big chunk of money but now you have a working machine . You had two bores resized? What was the cost for machining? It took all day freeing up 8 clogged grease fittings. Most of them I had to remove the pins and heat the bushing with an acetylene torch, and had to drill out one broken retaining bolt. All this because some butt head can't grease the machine once in a while. Grease is cheap, repairs are expensive.
The bill has 900$ to weld and line bore the upper and lower holes. The swing frame had to be replaced as well. The boom base pins were replaced and the bearings. He replaced all the resolvers in the rear valve and front valve. And the front tilt was resealed as well. I keep it greased , I used a grease by Castrol , its good stuff. The swing frame was 1600$ alone.
Are you still happy with the aftermarket swing tower? How many hours on it now since the repair? I have to do the same to my 2000 430D soon.
I am curious as well. Also wondering what a symptom of a bad resolver is? Thanks.
The price seems fair for the weld/bore work. I've done a few of those repairs and it sounds close to what I've done it for. Cat doesn't recommend welding on the swing frame. I've seen it done and you can do it. You just don't know if it will break afterwards. It does make a hell of a difference.