Does anybody else own one of these? We bought this as a toy, because the price was right. It has the Detroit Diesel 4-53. Seems to run and operate good. A 1988 model. Bucket needs some steel plate and welding work. I'm working on changing all the fluids now. Before we picked it up, the seller told us it needed a throttle cable - I thought "no problem, I have a few throttle cables sitting in my storage container" - Well, when the machine arrived here, I went to look at the broken cable - Heck, that thing is about a half inch thick and 13 feet long! a push-pull type cable. Has a ball joint on the engine end, and the locking control lever thats supposed to be in the cab is gone! The cable itself is probably $200. Any suggestions for a cheaper alternative? Does anyone have any literature pertaining to this machine - the Koehring Bantam C744? I've been reading up on the lube oil requirements for the DDA 4-53. There's a consensus that the motor requires straight 40 weight Delo 100 or equivalent and I have no problem with that. I was surprised when I examined the lube chart on the inside of one of the access doors - it says to use 15W-40 lube oil! Not sure what's going on there! I included a photo of the lube chart - not sure if you will be able to read it - I'd love to have a legible copy. These are the Fram filter numbers that I will be using on the machine. The numbers on the old filters were not readable. I got these off the Wix website. If anyone can check their C744 (He he, if there's anyone here that owns one) and confirm these, I'll go ahead and purchase them and proceed with all the fluid changes. These may be universally used on all DDA 4-53s, but I'm new to the engine and I'm not sure: PH3612 (oil), PH3645 (primary fuel), PH3595 (secondary fuel). Thanks! J. Stewart
Welcome to the forum joestewart. :usa I don't care what the lube chart says, if you have a 2 stroke Detroit use SAE40 that meets Detroit specs. As for your throttle cable, you could try a Cablecraft dealer. Cablecraft can custome make nearly any cable you can imagine. http://www.tuthill.com/us/en/brands/Cablecraft.cfm
Looks like you got a great machine for the price! I had to replace the throttle cable on my Bantam C450 back when I got it, it also had a 4-53. I bought a cable at NAPA, it was 90 bucks I think... If I remember right it was 1/4 inch and it worked just fine, 1/2 inch is probably a bit overkill...