So we took a hyd cyclinder off to get a complete rebuild, so while we are waiting for that to get finished we drained the hyd oil out. We discovered filings,:Banghead WHAT IS THE BEST THING TO DO???
Let the insurance company pay the machine off .:cool2
well, i would HIGHLY recommend a COMPLETE system flush, by a trained technician....you don't need those filings going into your valving, cylinders, motors, sensors....good luck, sounds expensive!
Well how would you flush it? How would you tell were the filings came from? Thanks for the help.
Oil Samples. I beleive some dealers can flush system with a filter hooked to flushing system. Use higher efficency filters after repair complete.
You should take an oil sample and have it analyzed. They can usually tell where it came from by what type metal it is. It's nearly impossible to get all the contaminated oil out just by draining the tank. Over half the oil is still in the system. Make sure you put on high efficiency clean-out filters when you're done. Oop's, too slow.
What brand and size of machine is it and what was the cylinder doing that caused you to take it in for repair? Also how many hours are on this machine? Those shavings could have been there from a prior failure. When was the last time you serviced the hydraulic oil filters? The other issue is what kind of metal was the shavings. Brass and rubber particles could indicate a motor issue. Steel would indicate its coming from a cylinder. Yes it is kind of a serious issue and there might be something starting to come apart. On the other hand, if you didn't have any issues with the machine other than a leaking filter your might be OK. Good Luck!
Its a cat, go figure it has less than 3500hrs. I change the hydraulic oil every spring with filters aswell. The reason I toke the cylcinder off was that the boom started to fall down by its self, It really works well other than that. I will get the oil sample done this week but I called them to find out how that works and they said they could tell me the type of metal that's in the oil. So how do you find were it came from? It could be from all the hyd cylinders, track motors, pump, etc... Is everythins a different type of metal???:Banghead Thanks again
It is very difficult to get metal in the tank, since all the hyd system only have return filters, I said you need a complete flush, and take the sos sample to the cat lab, they wil find if the metal came from any component like the pump or any valve, this component are made from different types of metals, but since you found the metal in the tank that means your whole hyd system is contaminate.
You might want to remove the case drain hose from the main hydraulic pump to see if there is any debris in it. As IDLER mentioned the hydraulic system has return filters. I am not that familiar with CAT, however the case drain on most excavators goes directly back to tank. Sometimes there is a case drain filter. When a pump gives up it usually will spit out through the case drain, it is the path of least resistance to the tank. That would explain why the metal got in the tank instead of the return filters.
if you found shavings in your tank then your to late its already gone through the system depending on how much you found if it was alot then yeah your sytem is already contaminated drain out what you can and have a dealer look at it most of the time a good tech that has been around heavy equipment can usually get pretty close if the machine is acting funny in any way as to what they need to look into it may not be off to you but a tech that has seen it worse can pick up on the early stages of something going out not all the time but i have caught things on bobcats before they go out that saves the customer money in the long run by fixing before it take out the entire system out and multiple high dollar components
Cat has a separate case drain filter, check that as well. Clean out the tank 100%, put in new high effiency filters and run it for a while and check filters again. I'd suggest you also remove the suction line and clean it as well and check the return filter housing so that it is in order, you don't wan't any oil sneaking past the filter.
attachments have you ran any attachments or aftermarket thumb fitted ,i have heard of these contaminating a system before
Once you get enough metal in a system that you see the metal in the tank, it's difficult to flush the whole system to remove all the debris. Excavators have a lot of components and hoses. Once you get it cleaned out the best you can, I'd change the pilot system and tank filters frequently. The tank filter has a by-pass valve, if it becomes restrictive from debris, the valve opens and let's unfiltered oil back into tank. When you change the filters, allow some excess oil to drain from the filter, then wash the filter in a clean pan with clean parts solvent. This will remove the fine particles in the filter and you can tell how much debris is still in the system.
hydraulic system, ouch: Hello, w2bstoned. Did you notice any changes in the "normal" sounds the hydraulic system makes, on your machine, before you removed the cylinder? If a pump is starting to fail, it would be very unusual to not hear something different... such as a lot more "whine", "howling", or other bad sounds coming from the pumps area. What JackDeere posted is correct... most case drains are not filtered, so it could be possible to get metal particles in the tank, without having a total melt down of a pump/motor. Do you only have one boom cylinder? Also, do you know what the problem with the cylinder was? I'm just trying to get a little more info., so I have a bit more to think on... Regards, OCR
If all your problems were in the boom cylinders then you do not necessarily have comtaminants in all the system. Return oil from the cylinders goes back to the valve,then the cooler and back to the tank through the return filter. As stated earlier there is a bypass on the return filter and it does open when the oil is cold. Return oil will drop directly into the tank in that situation. At any rate you do need to drain the tank and clean it out as best as possible. You do need to pull the suction strainer, wash it in solvent and blow it out with air pressure. You do need to change all your filters now and again soon after you start running the machine again. If you had no other problems than the boom cylinder drift you vary likely are OK. On the other hand, if there was pump noise, low power on the swing, other drifting cylinders or the tracks would not walk the machine in a straight line, we could be playing "Taps" for your hydraulic system. Good Luck!
magnets we had a pump disintegrate in our 30 ton machine which did put metal through the whole system after pulling rams apart , draining system , refilling with new oil and pumping new oil out every hose i also put six radio speaker magnets in the bottom of the oil tank . it is amazing on how much fine metal they pull out of the oil and hold onto which gets carried through the filters by the oil so theres a thought
I would be more concerned about where the metal came from. The correct way to repair this problem would be to do a complete system clean out. Disassemble all components and clean. Flush all the hoses. It's labor intensive but, it's cheaper than buying a pump or a control valve. By doing all this you will find where your metal came from. You said you had a boom drift problem. This could of been due to debris stuck in the boom circuit protection relief valve or sometimes called line relief. This debris could of came from another cylinder, pump, motor, and etc. Therefore, maybe their was nothing wrong with your cylinders after all.
thanks for all the replies, The one lift cylinder was bad, it scored the the barrel, it also had some pits in it aswell. The cylinder is suppose to be completed friday and the shop is recommending a flush of the system with a machine they have? The pump sounds the same as the day she left the cat yard, The track motors are good aswell as the swing. I hope I caught this before It wreck the machine? How far would you go with flushing process? THanks again guys for all the help:drinkup
Sounds like vandalism. Don't rule out vandalism. Unless you have a return that is not filtered, or you are running with out warming up ( high RPM ) and causing the oil to bypass the return filter I don't see how filings could get into the tank. Does your CAT hydraulic pump have plugs with screens on the bottom of the pump like Komatsu, if so check that. Just an other suggestion. I know people that have had stuff put into the hydraulic tank (vandalism) and after several pump replacements they told the dealer to keep the machine, (insurance claim). So if it were me after you think the system is cleaned I would run it like the suggested (new high effiency filters). Plus I would run a filter buggy (2 micron filter) on the hydraulic tank wile you operate all the machine controls maybe 8 hrs., this may sound like overkill but you are talking about big $. Then you know that you have done all you can.
If you found metal shavings in the tank it has come from a motor not a cylinder, as others have so noted a case drain returns usually direct to the tank unfiltered. so I would lean toward a track drive or a swing motor. Does the machine walk straight with out vearing to one side or the other,did it track straight before ?
Well Its finally all over, She up and running:cool2:drinkup. I Drained all the hyd tank out and the return filter was good and the suction filter was about 1/16 filled around with o rings rubber. No metal shavings...:notworthy I also dropped the main hose to pump and everything was good. Thank you very much for all the help guys
Maybe I missed this but most excavators have a suction screen in the hydraulic tank. Pull it out and take a look at it. As mentioned I would think your leaking cylinder is suspect number one. If it came from a pump/motor/cylinder and it is cutting shavings you will find out pretty quick where it is coming from because it's life will be very short. Pull the suction screen and give us a picture of the debris.
I would get a magnet into the tank asap, either at the drain port of simply by attaching the strongest magnet i could find to the bottom/side of the tank. Magnetic drain plugs are a good idea all around
Thanks for the info. That will come in handy down the road. :drinkup
I had a problem with a Cat 320 where all of the cylinders started to creep when the levers were released, at around 800-hrs on the meter from new. We thought it was going to be a new set of cylinders (rams) but it turned out to be the spool block. When the machine had been built the spools weren't properly flushed and casting and machining swarf was sitting in the ports and spools, causing leakage. It ended up with a complete new spool assembly, and a complete oil and filter change but after that we never had any more trouble with the hydraulics. If you remove the spools from the block and use a bore-scope you'll see the debris easy if that's what the problem is. If this is the problem, I hope you're still in warranty, as it's an expensive swap. If it is just debris in your tank, it isn't hard to remove and steam out the tank.
Do you have a filter cart? If you do you can run the oil thru the cart... I would recommend pulling a few spools out and looking at them for scratches.. If none found than you could loop the hoses and run filter cart with both hoses in tank.......
if the cyl was the problem clean the tank out good put in a flushing fillter block the fillter relief and run it for 4-5 hours change the fillter to standard one the damage has been done already. if everthing works ok Whew! if not deal with that specific issue unless you got alot of free time it would take 100 hours at min. to diasembled all componats and clean them.
Just like Bigsteve said....the damage is already done....You need to find the root cause.....remember where there is abnormal heat there is problems....shoot the system while running the filtering system....hand held heat gun......