I looking at buying a 98 Kobelco sk200 lc mark 4 with 9500 hrs the machines checks out pretty good can you guys tell me if I'm going wrong buying this machine the only thing that I'm not sure of is the controls seem to be slow but I've heard that is normal for a Kobelco
I think that they use a weird british hyd fitting on the hoses you need to check around local hyd shops to see if they stock them. they also used a compression/ferrule on the steel tube lines that were hard to find and prone to leak.
It's been some time since I've been around a Mark 4 machine so I'm not real clear on how they're set up. But if they're like most other Kobelco machines they use JIS fittings on hoses and many of the tube lines are British Pipe Parallel, actually pretty common for Asian built machines and a good hyd hose shop should have be able to make the hoses, but if you get out in the sticks you might have difficulty. I'm not aware of Kobelco machines being unusually slow in ops, on the contrary, most hands we've rented them to like them better than other brands. Check to see if the machine controls are set for Heavy Lift mode, that slows down the operations of boom functions to make it easier for the operator to handle heavy loads gently.
It think Clint is referring to the Kobelco tube ends which aren't interchangeable with much of anything. I have only seen them on the bottom side of the machine unless the machines are real old.
I have the exact same machine but only 64xx hours. I've owned it for about a year and put ~800 hours so far. I was very impressed with the speed. I usually run it down one notch from WOT unless I'm digging heavy clay. I've replaced a fuel solenoid valve otherwise it's been bulletproof. I'd buy another one in a heartbeat.