So today's simple project was a no crank on a Zaxis 135 in the field. I grabbed batteries and a starter and headed up to the machine. When I got there it was burried in the back corner w/ no hope of getting my service truck anywhere close. I packed tools to it and diag a bad starter. No problem right? Wrong! The damn house was 90deg from the tracks and you have to pull the starter from underneath. There was only 6" between the tracks and the counterweight. It was clear I needed to rotate the house but it was dead. I didn't have a portapower with me so I fabbed up a few adapers and a grease fitting to the swing brake line, filled a grease gun w/ hyd fluid and used that to release the brake. I backed off the crossovers and used another excavator to push the house around until I could get the bottom panel off. The rest was simple, just thought I would share my redneck rigging for the day............
I'll bet that starter had been acting up for days before it failed completely, but it never occurred to anybody that maybe they should do something about it.
While I would normally agree, this time I don't think so. When I got the old one out the power cable from the solenoid to the starting motor had rubbed thru on the tie bolt and shorted out enough to blow the bolt in half. This is the 2nd of my Hitachi's that has done this. I replaced both with the same # Nikko starter but they have the motor turned 180deg so the cable doesn't rub. I'm going to check the rest of our machines with Nikko starters to try and resolve it before they short out too.
Interesting using a grease gun, I have a hand porta power pump, with various adapter hoses for doing the same thing, never recall needing to back off the crossovers though. Good job! Lee