Howdy. I've got a 2006 New Holland LT185.B track loader I bought used about a year ago. It's a 10,000 pound machine and the tipping weight is about 4,000 pounds I think. The bottom pins, as in the two biggest closest to the ground, have about 1/8" of play in both of them. I can see this when I lift the bucket high and shake the front of the machine back and forth. It operates fine but looks like the grease isn't held in there too long and well due to the play in the area. Is that the bushings and pins fault or the seals? When does operator know when the pins and bushings need replaced and what's a fair price and source for a set? Do these commonly fail if using to lift 3,500 pound bucket loads? Or do they typically only get sloppy but don't break? I want to finish a project over summer and am planning if i should delay finishing it or complete and then repair over winter, which I'd like to do. Thanks for advice!
My advice would be to remove the bucket and assess the wear. If the wear is only in the pins and bushes, change them now before it goes from a cheap repair to an expensive one. If the wear has progressed past the bushes into the loader frame or the bucket structure then you are already looking at lineboring the worn components. If you run it for a couple of months longer in this state it shouldn't make much difference, as long as you get some grease in there every day to stop things getting a lot worse. As to the last question, the slop will get worse. The pins will have to be REALLY bad to break.
I'm sure its different with different manufacturers, and I am in no way suggesting running the machine till the pins break!! But.... we had a asv rc-50 that had a set bucket pins that got a little worn, went from 1" stock to around 1/2" thick once worn, they finally broke after trying to pick up a over weight stone pallet. For anyone wondering why they got worn so far, the machine needs line boring and new bushings, it wasn't worth replacing the pins before doing the line boring.
As long as the movement can be isolated to the pins & bushings, I would replace them right away. If it gets so sloppy that line boring is needed, I can not imagine that is a cheap repair. They usually wear so much from being in the dirt all day long & they are almost never greased. I would urge your operator to grease them everyday. I think an operator should be able to handle all greasing on a machine that makes their jobs any easier than it would be without that machine. Maybe consider giving your operator a $1 raise, as long as you can verify that he greases the entire machine before use every single day. After all, grease is cheap, repairs are never as cheap.