I am new to Skid Steer (Bobcat 632) use (have backhoe frontloader). I checked my chain case and found it highly overfilled. I have already taken out about 5 gallons of milky oil from the front overflow port. Still more to go. Any ideas how a machine can get that much excess oil in it and how it get's so milky in color. I will do a tear down to determine the condition of the chains. What made me check the oil level was the leakage from where the drive motors enter the chain box. I just bought this unit so I am feeling my way around it. Steve Vitale.
If the oil is 5 gallons overfull and milky you probably have 5 gallons of water.
Drain, flush with diesel ( if you feel the need to) and fill back with gear lube and run it .....jmo Pj
seach this forum for "suck bucket" , there is no drain you will have to remove the top front cover to empty and the suck bucket is the best way to do it. I believe Atco posted it. It gets refilled with 10-30 motor oil or most use the oil they drain from the hydraulic system when they change it.
I could not find it with a seach but it was postel by willy 59 a moderator. It is basically a container put in line between your shop vacuum and the muck so the hose goes from the vacuum to the container then out the other side to the chain case. 5 gallon pail with lid may work or a small sealed barrel. other option would be one of those pumps run by electric drill motor.
The suck bucket worked great. I actually removed 13+ gallons of milky oil/water from a 5 gallon sump I refilled the sump with 5 gallons and now the machine is no longer leaking from the motor drives on the side of the chaincase. The machine is a Bobcat 632. I did notice that there is a lot of play in the chains. They do not look worn but do have a lot of play. I cannot find any means of adjusting these chains (looked in the overhaul manual). Is there any? My initial complaint about this machine was that it jumps like a bronco during turns. I am wondering if the chain slack may be part of the problem.
Slow gradual turns work better, and make sure tires are inflated properly.
With a sloppy machine and an inexperienced operator it's real hard to tell if there is something wrong with the machine causing it to operate slightly rough, any chance you could get somebody with more skidsteer experience to run it and give an opinion? Hydraulics can be jumpy till you get the feel of how to operate them smoothly. One of the scariest experiences of my life was getting a rooftop shingle delivery and it seemed like the driver's first day, he was moving that boom as slowly as he could and the pallet of shingles was jerking around. I was hoping he knew he wasn't supposed to set the whole pallet on the roof but I wasn't going to distract him! I told him to take the truck out into a field with a stack of pallets and start swinging them around till the truck was rocking and he could throw the pallet off the forks onto a pile, that's a safer way to learn than knocking somebody's house or worse.
Wow, I haven't been following this thread, but I'm glad to hear that the "suck bucket" has provided a solution for someone. :drinkup Drive chains are not adjustable on Bobcat machines. Unless the slack in chains make the machine impossible to control and use, or the slack is so bad it's causing links to jump on the sprockets, I wouldn't worry about it. Only remedy is replacement of chains and sprockets as they both likely have equal wear. The milky oil is another issue. No doubt that's an ingress of water. If the machine resides outdoors, most likely the ingress is coming from leakage at one of the cover plates on top of the chain case, even a loose bolt in one of those covers. I suggest you "re-seal" the covers for you chain case. And that's not an easy job with all the lines and crap over top of those covers. The most important one to be sealed proper for leakage is the front one, the one between your feet in the operators cab.
I had a Local 15 machine operator with 10 yrs experience ride it and all he could tell me is "somethings wrong". I will have a heavy machinery mechanic take it for a ride tomorrow and see what he says. But you are definitely right, my inexperience makes it much worse. Plan on spreading 20 yds of gravel delivered and that should help me get a better feel for starters.
On every bobcat skid steer I've owned, I always drilled and tapped a hole in the front bottom of the chain case housing and tapped it with pipe threads and put in a pipe plug so I could drain in as needed instead of sucking it out all the time, that way if I needed to flush the chain case with something it was easier to drain it out. Nobody has asked so I will, how do the sprocket teeth look, like brand new and straight, or slightly bent or cupped on one side? The chains are supposed to be prestretched, whatever that means, but with water in the case, you'll have excess wear in the chain case, oil will float to the top and the water settle out, the milky color is the mixture of both, but with the amount of liquid you have in there, your chains were running in mostly water causing wear. The bad part of a bobcat is those chains can't be adjusted at all, unlike other machines designs where you can to take up the slack. I don't know what you paid for the machine, but if you have to put all new chains, spockets and before doing that put in new axle bearings and seals, you might be further ahead to put new oil in, bolt it back together and either live with it or trade it off.