The control levers have a lot of play in them and as I've just acquired this machine I'd like to tighten things up a bit. Seeing as the machine is mid 80s getting OEM parts could be very tricky and expensive. Has anyone here had success "tightening up" manual control levers on a PC60 or any other machine? I'm thinking it may involve replacing ball joints etc, and I'd be interested to know if there is any place online to source non OEM linkage parts.
My deere 350 dozer had 2 inches of travel in the handle before it would lift the blade. The holes were egged out from use, but the pins had no real wear. Rebuild kits were expensive, so I pulled out the 6 way control, redrilled it for and installed larger pins, and its as tight as a nervous prom date.
Getting parts should be no problem, might be a bit spendy. Lots of needle bearings and seals in that lot, some bushings and a few places where yes you will probably need to drill and repin. Usually the worst wear is right at the joysticks themselves in my experience, YMMV.
I had a good look at it today and after a rooting for a while I saw a lot of the unwanted looseness/play was due what seems to be a bushing missing or worn out in the lever where it pivots just below the bellows. The lever will probably settle in position (i.e. loose the floppy feel) when I replace the bushings, pins etc. This is the LHS lever and now I'm mainly concerned with the fact that the digger slews almost by itself, and sometimes does when I'm tracking along. In operation the lever seems like it is always very close to falling back with no spring force pulling it to the center. (lever back: slew left, lever forward:slew right, lever right:boom in, lever left:boom out). In operation when I pull the lever to slew left the lever does not pop back when I let go. When the machine is off and I pull the lever it pops right back when I let go. There doesn't seem to be a problem with any of the other controls. Any idea what could be causing this to the slew?
lol, I'll see how I get on with the bushing, hoping for same.
Ah, you have the Japanese control pattern, interesting. Not sure why the spool would be binding when under pressure, but have a look at the valve stack, make sure all the spring covers on the backside of the spools are on tight. If you can, watch the linkage and spool action while moving the lever. It's possible that the bolt that holds the spring on the back end of the spool is loose, but not likely.
I managed 1/8 turn on both hex nuts on the spring cover so was pretty tight to begin with but is solid now. There does seem to be a leak around the cover though it's very wet in that area. No change with the swing of course. It's funny that the lever pops back to neutral when I let it go while slewing right and not when slewing left.
Probably the weight of the lever working against you as a guess...
From the exploded diagram below I only see 1 spring. When I pull the lever to slew left the spool is pulled outwards from the assembly and when I push the lever to slew right the spool is pushed into the assembly. I assume this spring is connected to the spool so that it pulls the spool back when the spool is pulled outwards from the assembly? The other movement compresses the spring and pushes the spool the other way? I'm wondering if a weakened/damaged spring might not work (in tension) while slewing if it's tensile strength is weakened. It may not work due to it being more difficult to move the spool when it's slewing... I dunno really, never worked with this stuff before!
Spring could be weak, the way the mechanism is designed the #14 pieces will slide on the shoulder bolt #15, so the spring gets compressed going either direction.
I'd never have copped that, cheers for the info! I'm pretty sure I get what you mean. the shoulder bolt #15 screws into the spool end. I'll order a spring so, maybe a gasket too seeing as there looks like a leak. Any ideas if I'd need anything else while I'm at it?
#10 "U-packing" will be the spool seal, get one of those as well I think. You could do the other end at the same time if it looks weepy, same parts.
Good call on the u-packing, they had gone hard and cracked to bits. The springs seemed like new so I left them be. Now the unwanted slew movement is gone and the lever springs back in operation so happydays Next job is to tighten up the levers.. though the LHS one is much better now.