Hello fellows, i´m new in this forum. I am in charge of several New Holland excavators model E215C evo, E385C evo and E485C evo, and they have presented problems with the oil seal of the motion planetary reducer even before they reach 1000 hours. Our dealer says it´s because of long distance they travel with out stoping, and claims that after 800 meters they should stop for a few minutes. I´d like to know what´s your opinion of these excavators and aslo if you´ve heard of these type of equipment having the same problem, cause maybe it´s a matter of cuality. I´d apretiate any advice from you, thank you.
Duo cone (floating face final drive seals) are very simple, and generally robust. Are the drive units filled to correct level? Looking at failed parts after removal, are machine faces still corrosion free, and uniform? Are you running the correct track tension (too tight can cause bearing deflection, leading to bearing failure)?
Thanks for your reply heymccall, neither the oil level nor the track tension were the problem, they were ok. After checking the changed part you could see it was corrosion free (the excavators have been in use only for 4 months), the iron part of the seal was ok, the problem was that the rubber seal melted because of the high temperature casued by the long distances travel. I just wanted to hear some thoughts about these equipment cause maybe this problem is usual in these excavators due to the low cuality of the planetary reducer. If some of you out there own or know about some of these excavators, please let me know your opinion
How far are you tracking non stop? Graham
Your in Cuba and with all the recovery efforts going on I'll bet your driving several miles without stopping, ?? If correct, need to load those puppies on trailers
If possible you need an infrared thermometer to actually check to see how hot they are getting. When I used to travel to Southeast Alaska working on Komatsu Dash 3 shovels we would see this issue as well. The roads up there are pretty primitive and low boy trailers would only go so far because of road width, tight curves and steep grades. It was not uncommon for a shovel to travel a few miles at a time. The machines that ran 30 wt. engine oil took a little longer to get hot. The other brands running gear oil got hot real quick. It was determined that this was normal. The fix was to only travel for a specified amount of time and then stop and wait for the final drives to cool. The infrared thermometer will allow you to get a handle on how long you can travel. As I recall those people tried to keep the temps below 250 F.
A quick search shows the seal O-rings are rated to 180°C.
Thank U for your answers guys