Good morning all, this is my first post after reading through many many pages of great info and pics. My problem is that my 2554 feels like it "ratchets" one track, usually only in reverse and worse if on steep ground. It feels as though the track catches on something and then releases. I've checked over the rails and see no sign of the u/c hanging up on anything, anyone have any thoughts?
Are the chains worn badly, and what do the sprockets look like? What I'm getting at is could it be the sprocket tooth tips hitting the bushings? Are both tracks properly tensioned? Could be a weak or broken recoil spring maybe, when in reverse the slack in the track bunches at the bottom of the sprocket because you are pulling over the top of the idler.
I will check the rails and sprocket tips again this morning, although things looked good when I've checked them. I'm almost wondering if it may be hydraulic, the rotary union for the track drive has a slight leak I think (I've yet to drop the stump pan, I've only owned the machine for a week). I wonder if the lazy track and 'ratcheting' could be caused by a blown hi pressure seal allowing hydraulic bypass into the other circuits (could feed both reverse and fwrd at the same time). I just repaired the rotary union on my IMAC hx40 power clam and it had some very wonky habits as the seals where worn/damaged. Thanks for the input, I really need to get this sorted out, all this machine does is hoe chuck on mountain sides, need good u/c power and control.
Do you always have the finals pointed in front of you?
Nope, it seems often though that when coming back down the benches I don't have much room to turn around so the amount of forward vs reverse travel would be close to equal. I may have found part of the low power to the right track. I believe there has been a hose leak on the travel motor for a while now and the mud and dirt in the dust cover had sealed it. I noticed fluid on the track this mornin after loading a truck, found a 1" supply hose had let go and lost about 20 gallons of the good ol $130 a pail Deere zinc free hydraulic oil (which is interesting to track down at 1pm on a Saturday I might add, thank you Clusko Logging). It had filled the entire travel motor housing and into the track frame tubing with oil, not good. Hose is replaced and oil topped up, also found a loose fitting leaking badly on the bottom of the rotary manifold that was an easy fix and may have contributed to the problem. I'll know more tomorrow as I have lost the last two days to downtime (yesterday had a turbo oil supply line start leaking directly onto the turbo, thankfully the skidderman saw white smoke and radio'd me) and will be working through yet another weekend trying to catch up.
That zinc free oil is a sham. I swapped mine to the standard oil.
Is that right? I've been using the deere oil for years because I was told it would ruin the pumps to go to a regular AW46 oil. Good to know.
Zinc is a lubricant and cleanser. My Pape' Deere service tech said the standard AW46 is just fine.
The zinc reacts with in the tank material forming sludge and emulsified oil. Within 1000 hours the oil usually looks like loon ****. If its an old machine with high hours standard oil is probably fine but no way would i put it in a machine I value.
There's so many opinions on this oil thing. I can see not mixing regular 46 with zinc free oil. But then I know of several Hitachi Zaxis machines that were bought new and I know for a fact that they never bought zinc free oil when topping off the tank. Most people I know of run the zinc free for the 4000 hours and then drain and refill with regular 46 and haven't seen any problems doing so.
I've seen a couple of Hitachi high hour pumps torn down and wasted from outside contamination but never heard of anyone around here using zinc free oil. Basically if you tell any of my customers that they have to run a specific oil that they don't run in the rest of their fleet, they just won't purchase that machine anymore. There are lots of Deere and Hitachi machines around here.