I think I shall call him Dug, although I briefly considered 'Tard(is) in honour of his shape and colour.
A few problems though - the worst is the play in the slew gear, which is VERY sloppy - almost the width of the bucket in slop when the boom and arm are extended - does anyone know if there is any adjustment for this? It seems like I might have to pull it completely apart and replace a bunch of expensive bits - which means I need a bigger digger to get the top off this one.
I've also got the bucket curl control sticking - and if you operate other levers when its stuck those other levers end up controlling something other than you are expecting which is weird - if I understood hydraulics better I'm sure it would make sense...
And there is a very annoying amount of slop in the slew controls (on top of the slop in the actual slew) - I've got 100mm (4") of play in the lever before it even takes up the slack and starts to operate.
So, I took up the floor for a look to see what I could do about that
I'm starting to see a lot of rust was painted over in this old girl... there are holes everywhere... but as long as the paint is still holding it together I'm ok with that
There are 4 linkages under the head of the ratchet - the far one is the bucket curl control - its on a bellcrank so pushing the lever to the right pushes the linkage towards the rear - and this is the worst sticking point. I took the linkage off to isolate that, which also enabled me to move the lever through a greater range of movement - it really binds up the more the lever is pushed to the right, and its the main pivot shaft that is binding
Sorry about the gif - but it shows the shaft that is binding up - but there is no easy way to get this out to sort it that I can see... there is a hard way, but no easy way. Has anyone got any experience of this kind of issue and thoughts on a fix? I don't know what is inside the tube - a rubber sleeve for vibration mitigation? According to the parts diagram there are needle rollers - I doubt there are any rollers left - you can see play in the shaft. Part 030 is the bit that is binding:
I can't get at it though - so I'm torn between just putting up with it for now, and pulling it apart. I dumped a heap of spray lube into it and its freed up a little, and is better when the lever is pushed left, but its still binding to the right.
The other problem with the slop in the slew controls is because a hole has ovalled out and the pin through it is just slopping around. I 'fixed' that with half a slip pin jammed down the side of the pin because its way under those big hard lines and back under the seat - it would be a big teardown to get to and re-sleeve...
Fixed!
Among other things, I've also ordered a strip of 5mm (I think thats about 407 inch-feet of pound-torques in imperialisms) Hardox to weld on to the grader blade which is badly rolled under and making grading almost impossible... I'll probably use some of that to put a new edge on the bucket too.
Thats about all so far
Still, its all fixable... I think the harder stuff I will leave until next winter and I can put it in the shed and work on it when I won't need it.
![[486]](https://data.irate4x4.com/avatars/m/0/94.jpg?1700178133){kind=avatar}
