Brand new d8t, 130 hours on it. Hydraulic tank is very low. The oil looks very very bright green. I have generic hydraulic oil in 5 gallon pails. I don't want to put the wrong type of fluid in a brand new machine. Is there a cat specific oil made for these new machines? I'm sitting in the machine waiting for response. -40 degrees outside lol
I would contact the dealer, some of the newer Cat I believe come with special, possibly synthetic, oil that is good for much longer change intervals. I think there should be a label on the hyd. tank. One other thought would be to read the owners manual that should be in the cab of a machine that new, look in pouch behind the seat? Book will also tell you proper way to check oil level, unless there is a leak with only those few hours you should not need to add oil if it was properly filled when delivered.
There is a slight leak on the tilt ram hose compression fitting that connects the two rams. It goes away once it's warmed up. I have my boss going to the dealership to get the right oil. They might just get the service truck to come out. We have already had to fill the pivot oil tank, engine oil leak by the oil cooler blowing oil everywhere when the fan kicks in, now the hydraulic is low. I hope they send the service truck out to check it over quick before I actually start for the day. I don't want to go **** around in -40 with 35km/h winds
Is this one of those machines that were assembled late on a Friday? Or the first day back from a long weekend? If I spent the kind of dollars that cost and only had 130 hours on it I'd be dragging the salesman out there in the -40º temps and have him take pictures of all those leaks and give him 24 hours to have them all fixed!
Must've been. It's a nice dozer will be better once flaws are taken care of. No more wrist twist for forward and reverse, changed it to a toggle switch, and a thumb wheel for power shift through gears instead of the yellow push buttons. I'll let us guys know what they do, I might have to too up the pivot oil again because there's only 2" on the sight glass spot on the tank. 100 hours ago it was full.
Got a pail of oil topped it off. They're going to get a service truck out within the day I hope.
So the oil is CAT HYDO 10 or 30 hydraulic oil of anyone was wondering. That's what the dealership gave us and what I found in the manual. I put in almost 4 gallons of the CAT HYDO 10, and now there's a leak on the back of the unit above the rear facing ripper light.
What the heck did they forget to install any seals on that machine? I'm embarrassed to have even one leak on an old machine I had half apart and reassembled. Not saying it doesn't happen but I do my best to not have it happen. If for some reason I really need to leave a job to take some emergency somewhere else I will if at all possible leave the wrench right on the fitting I was working on to be sure I don't forget where I was when I do get back to it. With all new parts and a spotlessly clean place to work like the factory has there is no excuse for that many problems before the first oil change! Heck short of damage from an accedent it should not be leaking like that for a few thousand hours or more!
Forty below does funny things to seals and gaskets..... not making excuses, but if anything is ever gonna leak, it will when you fire it up cold like that.
Thought Cats were the best? Sorry, couldn't resist. :stirthepot
When it's -40 do you warm up/work in stages of load/rpm? OR let it run for a hour the run it WFO?
True! I guess I should have taken that into account. I know we have problems with some of our equipment at even the mid +20ºF . Every so often one that has not used a drop of coolant all summer and fall when parked for a few cold days in late fall will have a large puddle of coolant under them, one or more coolant hoses will be dripping. Just a quick snugging up of the offending clamp will solve the problem. Also once or twice have had a Duo-cone wheel seal on a 769 decide to leak when parked over the winter and as soon as truck is run a short time, couple hours in spring it is fine for the rest of the season. When Starting a machine at -40º one does need to be careful to warm up machine properly before putting it to work. I would hope that a dealer in Saskatchewan would be aware of that and have a procedure from the factory for customers to follow.
These machines go 24/7 usually, so when they are turned off, at most they're off for two hours. We usually start them and let them warm up for a good amount and then go bump up the idle. And then go out and drive it around to warm up the hydralics without even pushing anything for at least an hour. Cycling blade up down tilting it ripper up down tilt and so on. I never was taught much but I try to cycle all the hydralic system. I do the same for my equipment on my farm and never had a problem. I'm curious what's the proper warm up procedure with the load/rpm range? The owners manual was very vague on warm up it mainly said to ensure it was close to operating temperature before working it.
Not sure what Cat puts in them at the factory but all new machines hyd oil seem to have the green color even though the Cat hyd oil you buy is yellow. If you look in the OMM behind the seat it will tell you what the specs are that the hyd oil must meet if its not Cat oil. No need to fill with Cat hyd oil but its nice to use on a brand new machine especially if you are having leaks as I'm sure you can get a few free pails from the dealer. In a perfect world the "new" machine would go out and run flawlessly but unfortunately the world isn't perfect LOL. Pivot shafts are one of the hardest things to bled properly and usually use a thicker oil with makes getting all the air out very tough without operating it and topping up for the first few days. Leaks around the blade/ripper would most likely be the dealer but engine bay probably the factory unless dealer did a bunch of mods before delivery. -40 is hard on any machine at any time and leaks will happen but like you said get the bugs worked out and you should have a great new machine ready to push garbage (landfill right ?)
The cat HYDO 10 I put in it was almost clear! I don't know why the oil in it was such bright green maybe to highlight the oil incase there was any leaks like I have discovered. Made it a lot easier to find them! The service truck came just now and fixed the tilt ram leak, but he didn't know about the leak on the rear. He just called it in 2 minutes ago, said there's a valve right above where it could be leaking that he might have to rip apart the back end the shroud off and everything to make sure. Nice day for him to come lol -37*c and 60km/h wind gusts. As I'm writing this it looks like he's packing up his stuff, guess he's gotta do another service call first
If anyone's curious, it turns out by the main feed line at the valve assembly on the rear, the pressure sensor had the wrong o ring installed from the factory. It had a low pressure o ring that was too soft of a compound on it, and the pressure from the pump would bypass the o ring. And on top of the the sensor was backing out. He said it was a good thing i caught the leak and called it in and didnt go anywhere because just a little more and it would've dumped all the hydraulic oil in a matter of 20 seconds and then burnt the pump. Said i saved the hydraulic pump, so made me a feel pretty good especially on a brand new unit. Here's a little video i made, bored at work with some extra time on my hands. Low on snow this year. http://youtu.be/Ct_OexyIPUA?list=UU3TOUcTEDKxAAIoWYHgtC7Q
Just makes me sick. Every hour in that snow is like 10 in the dirt.
Honest question here, Why would it accelerate the wear the undercarriage out being on snow? Or is it the sand and salt that's mixed in with the snow that does the damage?
So did he say he'd bring you a nice Cat jacket as a thank-you next trip out? Or at the least a Cat coffee mug!
Ever notice how fast things polish up pushing snow? I don't know exactly why, but just know it does. I used to run a Case 1150E with my dad. Back in the winter of '97, we were running 24/7 pushing snowbank back off the roads. Some places the graders had it winged up 12' high. Other places we had to work the snow out from under a powerline to make a route to go with the snow. The rails on the tractor had about 300 hrs when we started. We put 700 hrs on it in a month and half, when we were done, the bushings had holes worn thru them, sprockets and bottom rollers were toast. I suppose speed might have played a small part, but that kind of wear, it had to have been mostly the snow itself.
If a guy was smart he would've asked for a jacket. But I was to astonished that he said good job! What is this you speak of "good job"? I've never heard those before in my life. Haha Honesty I think most of the paint wear on this machine is from the sand. Speed would do a lot I would agree. The paint on the pads is all worn off now 186 hours. I wish there was some corks still lol.
Thanks for making the video "ippielb" - very cool. As for the snow accelerating U/C wear there is nothing I can think of that is any harder on it than dirt. If I was buying U/C for machines I would take snow jobs over dirt any day. Like Shimmy mentioned I think speed is the biggest killer in any application. The only other thing is snow packing into the rails under the right conditions and turning to ice (if the shoes don't have holes for material to push through) , tightening the tracks and if bad enough causing a sprocket to skip under heavy loads, but again nothing that couldn't happen in mud. Any problems keeping up the engine temps during your -40 c days with no engine door covers ? Tier 4 Interm or Tier 4 final ? thanks
Can you ease enlighten us North Texas folks. What is your objective there? Are you clearing a parking lot or something? Looks like plowing over a field. JJ.
CAT add colour dyes to the oils so you can trace leaks easier, the Hydraulic oil would be HD10 that looks near clear when new. tctractors
Don't know for sure but Ill hazard a guess. Big cities that get a lot of snow fall need to remove the snow from the streets instead of just plowing it to the sides because then you end up with 20 ft walls of snow along the roads by the end of winter. So all the snow is collected and dumped in one location (basically a field) from the city streets. Then dozers push back all the snow to keep the area clear for trucks to continue to dump. By the end of winter you have a man-made mountain of snow that takes till about July to melt ! (then you have a small mountain of dirt and gravel that was mixed in the snow left)
On Cat machines the hydraulic oil put in at the factory can be dyed red, blue, green, depends on the factory. It's all either Hydo 10 or Hydo Advanced 10, and as TC says the dye is only to help leak detection. The advanced has a longer service life and is semi-synthetic, and out of the drum is almost clear with just a slight greeny-yellow tint. Also a lot more expensive. I'm pretty sure, not quite 100%, that the base oil is a Mobil oil. I'll look into that.
Exactly what I was thinking. I would even think snow would maybe even lubricate the rails pins and sprocket. No problems so far keeping up operating temperature when running, but when you turn it off she really cools down fast. We have a proheat unit installed to keep it warm between shift changes. I honesty have no idea if its intern or final, it has the dpf filter, no DEF fluid. Turbo timer on shut off so it runs until the dpf is cleared. This is a public snow dump, people remove snow, and the city removes snow from the street out here. We stack it up to make room for more. It is roughly a quarter of land, 160 acres. Fills up fast when we get snow That's what I suspected because it would be hard to determine if its moisture or oil. Good to know. That is exactly right. During the summer I built a road around on our snow dump. Two year ago we got so much snow that the snow dump didn't even melt all summer. It was around last year until around August. Hey I don't pay for the oil so I'm happy usin what cat gives me. It's under warranty so haven't paid a cent yet.
The "green" colour is actually (don't laugh) a blue dye. The thing is that if you don't put a large amount of dye in the oil it appears to be green ............ Generally the transmission will have red dye put in it at the factory, and the hydraulic system will have blue, so that if something starts leaking you can tell by the colour which system it belongs to. There are only 2 colours, red & blue, and from memory I think the Part Numbers are 9U-5031 & 9U-5032, but don't quote me on that. Any good-quality (i.e. major brand) 10W mineral hydraulic oil will mix with Cat Hydo 10W in any proportions. I hope the dealer is fronting up all the top-up oil FOC under warranty until his Service Dept can get there to fix the leaks ............... if not ask them why. Edit: Just re-read the thread - didn't realize there was a Page 2 ........
Good to see you back, Nige. Are you back on the IOM now?
No worries, everything has been under warranty this far. Except that jacket I deserve haha. How much is a hydraulic pump worth on one of these? Include the labor of course.
Not yet. No rush to go back into the middle of winter when the company is prepared to give us a month of "pack up & leave" time after my official finish date which was December 31st. Temperature today was 32C....... So we'll be heading back right at the end of January. A pump is US$5000 give or take, no idea about how long it would take to replace so take your best guess on the labour.
http://youtu.be/u-urVJM5GQY here's another video lol not much just got the guy in the loader to video me going up the ramp.
The Cat factory puts dyed oils in the machines, makes for easy troubleshooting while under warranty. We have gotten some of the dyes and continued the process for some of our hard to reach/see machines. It sure helps on the small leaks that don't show up on the tank gage right away. For those kind of temps I would want an enclosed service body so I could remove the part and work inside. lol
Being from Kentucky , I find this snow removal pretty interesting , I'm sure the ones that work it disagree. You should make a thread on its own about the snow and wear on the u/c. I can't see why it would accelerate the wear on the u/c but then again I'm not working that scenario. I do know this , it got cold here , what we consider as cold as it would ever get or close to it with temps near -4 Thursday morning. I have ran my tractor in 20* weather and colder , the one thing that bothers me is a first start the u/c pops from the frozen dirt. Until it breaks up and falls off it raises a little h*ll . After that its ok , Tuesday I was finishing a yard , and the frozen dirt never came off the grousers. The ground is only froze 4" deep or so. One thing , all this snow removal , it has to raise the tax base some? The other , that would be a good job possibly boring after a while but winter work in a heated cab in a new machine maintained and paid for by others would be a nice gig for myself when things slow up.
Dickjr. Just to make you feel good up here in Central NY we had a couple days in the mid single digits, like 5-8º. I still used my standard ride to work vehicle. 1981 XS650 Yamaha with sidecar! Okay so it's only a one mile commute and to be nice to the the old Yamaha I have been using a heated shop at work to park it inside during the day.
Boring some days yes, but it nice to have consistency. It's guaranteed work. At the end of every shift the person operates it cleans of the undercarriage as best as we can. So the snow doesn't freeze in place around the final drives. During the summer time and throughout the fall into freezing temperatures I was running a cat 963d track loader and when it would freeze over night it wouldn't take much for the dirt to come off the grousers. Never had a problem with it in and around the undercairage. I guess you can say I have OCD keeping everything clean and tip too shape. We are on our 3rd week of -40 degree windchills.
http://youtu.be/SqZD0JEznAw Got a video of going up the hill from inside the dozer
Watching this video , I have noticed one thing , others may have a different opinion. Loading the blade as soon as you start the push will give you the problem of washboarding. If a truck dumps a load maybe grab a blade and keep the blade skimming the slope , rather than constant rolling the snow. Take this with a grain of salt , like I said I have push as much snow in my life as you have in a week. But I would try it. Grab a blade full and push up the center of a wind row keep the blade skimming even loosing a little bit here or there. You may even traverse slightly to the left then cross back to the right doing this and keep it more level. One thing , your getting plenty of practice time.
Usually I only take half of a load, otherwise I just spin out. Problem with taking half a blade is takes two trips up the ramp and back down and in that time one or two trucks have come to dump. So i try to get the snow up the ramp as fast as I can to give me time to maintain it flat. I just wish the snow would all be the same lol. Some packs down some goes out the sides like soupy mud.