Hello All. New here, and have enjoyed the learning. I have a '03 242 with about 620 hours on it. Everything works as it should. Recently, have noticed that when parked on level ground, the rear wheels seem to show about a .5 degree negative camber (leaning in at the top). I can't feel any play in the hub bearings, and can't seem to find another machine around to look at. Anyone know if this is tremendously abnormal, bad situation, or what? I'm going to try and attach a couple of pics, but the situation didn't show up very well in these pics. Any thoughts? Thx, Richard
I can see it, looking across at the straight up-and-down line of the side of the bucket. Dosen't seem right to me.... Seems to me like it all should be straight. I've seen maybe two Bobcats like that-they got dropped and bent the axle tubes where they meet the chaincase. Does the cat have Cast hubs that bolt on to the side of the frame? I'm interested to know if this is normal, also. I need to learn more about CAT's.:beatsme
Yes, there looks to be a pretty substantail cast housing bolted to the machine. I was reading a thread about tracks. This is now a "home use" machine and I run tracks on it in the winter particularly so I can feed round bales of hay. I use Prowler over the tire tracks. Love 'em- can go darn near anywhere and they don't seem to hurt the tires. Probably got 25 hours of track use.... It is only the rear tires with the camber question. Any Cat techs out there???
at a guess id say that the previous owner liked to show off and has had a few heavy front wheely landings due to poor control, it hasnt bent the stub axles as the wheel would then wobble id say that has stretched the chassis where the casting bolts up. probably expensive to fix. if it where my machine id just keep an eye on it see if the chains etc start wearing funny other than that not much else you can do except put it to work and hope it doesn't fly to pieces.
You might check the rim, perhaps it took a hit to the side (slide into curb during snow removal?) and bent the rim. Whatever the cause I would be for fixing it. It will only get more expensive to repair if this causes other wear issues.
All good thoughts. Watching it operate there's no wobble, indicating the hub flange and the wheel are both not bent. I'm not sure when this first appeared, but not that long ago. Now here's my question- This machine is usually used with a bucket and root grapple. It moves fairly heavy rocks. Its not unusual for the rear wheels to be light, but I don't ever remember any hard bounces. But- I have an Okada 302 breaker. My instructions tell me to apply downward pressure on the breaker and lift the front of the machine before activating the hammer. I did about 15 hours of breaker work this summer, about when the camber problem appeared. Surely, could this be the root cause of the problem? From all indications the side frame/plates of the machine that the hubs are bolted to are where the actual bend has occured. Not looking to be very fixable. Did I miss anything about using a breaker on this type of machine?
My machines get heavy use with a breaker (750 pound Okada) as did all the machines I have had prior (13) and I have never had an issue with anything like that. It would seem to me that it will need to be fixed. They certainly are not supposed to be like that. I would at least take it and have them look at it and tell you what your options are.
I do not work on these- but try putting level against tire vertially to see which end is bent- also if both sides are the same - if it is the counter wait end it probable is not overloading I would think if tracks had bent it ,it would have come forward as well
It is definitely the rear that are bent. One may be a little more than the other. Haven't yet chatted with my dealer. Scared of paying for a lot of head scratching time....My normal CAT mechanic hasn't done much with their skid steers. I was hoping someone else had seen this before and could point out a "known issue" so to speak. Maybe not so lucky am I.
You know- maybe I'm missing the boat here. Porsches & Corvettes carry negative rear camber to enhance high speed handling in curves. Maybe I'm just using this machine for the wrong purpose..!
The way some are driven -their operaters think they are
OK, now given the economy I'm working on this myself. Have the side case cover off to look at chains. Anyone have a spec on tension for them? What type of lube?
i have an old 236 and ran over the tire tracks for over a thousand hours, i had a few rocks get in there but it always just blew the tire off the rim or bent the rim. part of the jobs that we have to do. when you said that you feed with it, that rang a bell with me. i would look at the bearings that are in ther you may have a piece of wire debri that got in and tore the seal and caused bearing failure. that would cause that kind of lean. i have seen the axel housings on mine and the rim would not have taken enough abuse to bend them things. remember look for the simple fix first. bearings!! if you bent the houseing you could see it
Good thoughts. Trying to check all of that now.
did you ever find out what the problem was?
Funny you should ask. I was just into checking as much as I can see. Had all wheels off. Looked at wheels & hubs. Cleaned & scraped all dirt and grunge off. Pulled the chain covers and checked tension (was fine, thanks to help from Steve's specs. BTW Steve, a piece of 1/2" conduit lays in the chains for a great straightedge). With the wheels off I could see no issues, nor what looked like stresses in the side cases. I rotated the wheels R to R and reinstalled. I can still see a bit of the lean. The two rear have just a smidgen of bearing wobble to them, ansolutely none in the front. But I'm not seeing how the very little I can feel by shaking the tire/wheel is showing up as it does. With the machine stitting level on blocks, it is still visible, which makes me think that with the wheels unloaded it isn't the bearings. The only thing that could cause this would be for it to have actually bent the side housing (plate steel) on the machine. I had to run it yesterday to feed a bale of hay, but it is now back in my shop waiting on me to get smart enough to figure out what I want to check next. Any more thoughts?? On edit- The axle housings look to be cast. Would they not break/crack rather than bend?