Hi everybody been a long time reader of HEF, actually had an account back in 2013 but havent been active for the last couple of years and cant remember my password (email has changed too so cant reset it, gotta love technology!). Anyway i appreciate the wealth of knowledge and service that this forum has given over the year and wish to pick the brains of some JCB gurus here, or anyone who might have some knowledge that can poiunt me in the right direction. im looking at an older JCB 210S backhoe for sale, went to take a look at it and test it out. really impressed on how stout they are built and other than the odd leaky cylinder and some old rubbers i could see picking it up. the main issue is that I had a heck of a time getting the machine to shift into gear. With the shuttle in neutral i would try shifting into gear and the machine would creep forward as i applied more pressure on the gearstick. it will eventually "pop" into gear with a lot of effort and work fine until you have to shift into another gear. it does this with all gears and shift better on the go but still not right. Acting almost like the clutch packs in the shuttle are not completely releasing (solenoid?). It also seemed to keep driving in the given direction for a moment when i shift the shuttle into neutral. The brakes dont work so it maybe just the momentum of the machine but it does feel like its still trying to move for a moment as you shift out of a given gear. The hours are unknown (clock is stopped at 74hrs so im assuming it has over 10 000hrs). I am aware of the hefty premium on JCB parts, and the strong aftermarket thanks to this forum. not affraid to get my hands dirty provided it doesnt require a ton of special tools. would like to pick it up and make a small project of it which i will post on here as i go along. am i getting in over my head? or is it worth looking into? thanks again for this forum and the loyal members it has! Mike
What year is it, and do you have a serial number.
Im told its a 94 s.n. 657424. I got some manuals (for a newer model) and am leaning to an issue in the shuttle. Like its not completely disengaging the packs.
Had one similar, if you leave it in one gear, like second and use the forward/reverse lever, is there a problem then? Have you checked the trans fluid for contaminant's, those machines had a cooler in the front that were prone to leak and contaminate the trans fluid.
Check all my previous post's, you should see picks of my 210S.
I did not, i had a lot of other functions i wanted to check while there and was not sure where to look. I will be going back though. The shuttle function works good, when moving it shifts better between gears but still not right in my opinion. I should have checked whether the machine shifts easily when off. At least that way i could rule out the shuttle. I will update after my next visit. Thanks for the reply
If you see a milky substance in the trans fluid, check or "bypass" the cooler in the front, it's cylindrical looking. Water or anti freeze cools the tranny fluid.
I noticed a few of your posts when searching the forum, lots of good info. I will check the oil, but would that lead to hard shifting? Even if the shuttle works good?
I made an offer and he seemed to accept so im gonna get the machine home soon and dig into it. Any rrcomendations on where to get parts? I read in this forum that bec equipment is a good plqce for aftermarket. Any experience with them?
Reis Equipment - St Isidore carries JCB, expensive though.
After some back and forth and mistrust between myself and the seller we ended up buying the machine for more than we wanted to pay and less than the seller wanted to get, so in the end at least we were both unhappy about it . After getting it home and doing a more thorough inspection there was a lot more wrong with it then i initially expected. Although i do consider myself somewhat of a redneck these guy were something else, some of it boggles the mind. I will say that most of this is my fault for being too trusting of the seller and not doing my due dilligence when initially looking at the machine. To start my saga, there was a missive deisel fuel leak coming from an injector tube, was an easy fix after removing the air filter box (must have ran out of fuel and bled the system but couldnt be bothered to get good access to the injector under the airbox to properly tighten it. Since i had the filter box off i took it apart and couldnt beleive how bad it was. After looking into why it was so grimey and black i noticed that the engine vent tube had come off the valve cover and was venting into the engine compartment, add to this the air hose from the external precleaner to filter box was dislodged and the front lower engine mount was loose causing the exhaust to not line up with the hood coupling and spew half of the gases back into the engine compartment and we had a homemade EGR PCV system! Filter was totally blocked. Ordered new elements and the old Perkin ran instantly better. Looked into the fuel system further and found a new ecosystem living in the fuel prefilter bowl. it was a mix of ice, gelled fuel, dirt and algae. cleaned it out nice and installed a new filter too, feels so good seeing clean fuel in the bowl now. reattached the vent tube but noticed more blowbye than i expected which alarmed me. I rechecked the engine oil level and it was somewhat above the high mark. Thought nothing of this as i was going to change the oil anyway but was surprised when almost 15 liters (4 gallons) of oil came out. changed the filter and refilled with the recommended 10.7 liters (2.9 gallons) and the blow bye was almost completely unnoticable. Found a water leak that i thought was coming from the lower radiator hose, after wrestling to pull it off i determined that it was fine and reinstalled it. Found that it was leaking from the rear of the pump housing which i initially though was a crack but i think there is a weep hole there. it leaks at certain RPMs but not others so im guessing its the pump seal and coolant is coming out the weep hole, i will order a rebuild kit or a new pump. Cleaned up the bottom of the engine pan and transmission to find some more coolant leaks from air hose that was used to replace some coolant lines . replaced them with the proper 5/8" coolant hose. An aftermarket heater was installed that was leaking and broken. Replaced it with another aftermarket unit for now but would rather instal one directly into the engine if possible, if anybody knows where to do this on a Perkins 1004-4 than i would be all ears. There is a drip coming from the converter housing. looks to be transmission oil and after removing the inspection cover the converter itself is dry and clean so i may have a main shaft seal on its way out. for now its about a drip a minute so i can live with it but will have to adress it eventually. this led me to add some oil into the transmission which to my surprise greatly improved my shifting issue. Still not quite right though. it feels like the transmission dump is not working. If I put the shuttle into neutral or use the dump switch and immediately try shifting into gear it will not go in. If i wait about 5 to 10 seconds it slips right into gear. i will investigate this further but for now I can live with it. Finally we have the brakes. they work... sort of. The pedal has almost no travel, if i hold the pedal down it takes about 2 second to get a reaction out of the brakes and then come on pretty strong. From these forum someone was talking about the accumulators going bad so may check that but was wondering if the pedal is supposed to have more travel? as it stand it moves about an inch from released to all the way down, is this normal? There are a bunch of electrical connections with marrets, oil leaks from pretty much all the cylinders, some wood blocks that where used as hydraulic line clamps and to stop the seat from dropping and other forms of neglect but i can deal with undoing these hill billy "fixes". Otherwise its coming on well so far. Its worth noting that I got all of my filters and parts from BEC equipment in Missisauga Ontario. They will find an aftermarket alternative to most common JCB wear parts for reasonable prices and all of them fit, so have been happy with them so far. I will not be able to do any more work on this machine for a few months now due to work but will be sure to adress the cylinder leaks, hydraulic oil and filter, transmission oil and filter, axle and hub oil and some electrical issues that i can report on here. for now, take care...