Hi folks, i Just bought my First used mini excavator and i m not sure i made a good deal. It s a 2018 volvo EC18D with,1000 hours claimed but i know for sure many of them have bene done using a Hammer. I have no prior experience with escavator, when buying It i made a few basic check but didn' t properly test It. Today i got It delivered and tested It in my yard for a few hours. I noticed some issues and i d like to know of any of you Expert can help me out: 1) when trying to lift the machine by pressing down with bucket and Blade i noticed that the Blade Will only lift the machine if operated first and then i press down with bucket. If i try to reverse the sequence Blade won't have the Power to lift the excavator... Any idea why? 2) the machine rotates smoothly left and right but when trying to move around some material with the bucket It has very low Power... I know this shouldn't be done but i wonder if such low rotating Power Is an issue? 3) when digging the arm It has good Power while when i tried to use It in reverse, trying to push away material, i noticed again very low Power.. Should i run a pressure test on the pump? Should i check the relief valves? Thanks
Its hard to say without actually sitting on the machine and running it, but most of what you are describing sounds normal. Side swing and pushing out with the stick usually aren't very strong and it is easy to be pushing harder/more than you realize when doing that due to the geometry. Moving dirt with the side of the bucket should only be done when absolutely necessary and done with care. As for lifting the machine with the blade, if it has enough power to lift it in a normal fashion (blade alone, bucket off the ground) that is acceptable. Overall, if the machine digs well and tracks well it's probably ok and I wouldn't worry much about it.
Hi MG84, thank you very much for your reply. Unfortunately i m a newbie and can 't really Say if the excavator digs well or tracks well as i don't have any prior experience to compare it with. another thing i noticed Is that when i lift the machine with blade and bucket pressed on the ground and did some cleaning for about 20 minutes the machine would slowly come down to the ground... Is this ok? Thanks again All in all i think i will spend some money to have It checked by a mechanic..
That is a pretty small machine and everything you are describing sounds pretty normal…as MG 84 says; hard to know for sure without actually operating the unit. Not sure that I would worry about paying a mechanic to check it unless there is a really obvious lack of digging power or very low tracking power. We run a 21 ton excavator as well as a smaller 5 ton; on the larger machine you really still do not have a lot of power on ‘stick out’: for example, if I have to shove a large fir tree with root ball attached straight away from the machine I will first get it moving with bucket curl; then transition into a stick out movement. Personally…. I never ‘side sweep’ Exception being: small loose dirt pile that can’t be properly reached due to tight quarters of machine…think about out the tremendous twisting torque on the boom to arm joint…