hayden
Veteran Member
As many (most) of you predicted, I've had my first dozer repair experience. Fortunately it wasn't a break down but rather pre-emptive repair of some worn out parts. It took longer than predicted, and more parts were worn out that I originally thought. I guess that's the definition of a dozer.
When I was checking it out before purchase I noticed that the ends of the tilt cylinder were worn and had some slop in them. One of the angle cylinder ends was suspect as well. I got a 1 year warranty, so I didn't worry about it at the time.
Once home and after using it a bit I found that both angle cylinder ends were worn at the blade end. Then when I gave it its first greasing I discovered that the remote grease hoses that lube the angle cylinder ends on the machine side were sheared off on both sides. This meant those ends had been run dry for who-knows how long. I also found that one of the throttle cables was sticking preventing the machine from coming up from idle.
My warranty covered parts and labor, but in the shop not in the field, and I didn't want to truck it back to the dealer. Instead, I got the parts for free and did the work myself.
Of course getting everything apart was much harder that expected. Some of the pins tapped right out, but others were frozen pretty hard. After lots of pounding, WD-40, and heating with a torch I got most of it apart. One nice part of the design which I suppose exists in all dozers is that the cylinder ends have press-in replacable bearings. They are like the swivels on a tractor's draw bar, but they are easily replaced. Again, some of them came out easily, but others required taking the cylinders to a shop to have them pressed out.
So, out of 6 end bearings and two grease hoses, I got all replaced except one of the bearing/hose combinations. I just couldn't get the last retaining pin out and needed to get on to other things, so I left it for another day.
When I was checking it out before purchase I noticed that the ends of the tilt cylinder were worn and had some slop in them. One of the angle cylinder ends was suspect as well. I got a 1 year warranty, so I didn't worry about it at the time.
Once home and after using it a bit I found that both angle cylinder ends were worn at the blade end. Then when I gave it its first greasing I discovered that the remote grease hoses that lube the angle cylinder ends on the machine side were sheared off on both sides. This meant those ends had been run dry for who-knows how long. I also found that one of the throttle cables was sticking preventing the machine from coming up from idle.
My warranty covered parts and labor, but in the shop not in the field, and I didn't want to truck it back to the dealer. Instead, I got the parts for free and did the work myself.
Of course getting everything apart was much harder that expected. Some of the pins tapped right out, but others were frozen pretty hard. After lots of pounding, WD-40, and heating with a torch I got most of it apart. One nice part of the design which I suppose exists in all dozers is that the cylinder ends have press-in replacable bearings. They are like the swivels on a tractor's draw bar, but they are easily replaced. Again, some of them came out easily, but others required taking the cylinders to a shop to have them pressed out.
So, out of 6 end bearings and two grease hoses, I got all replaced except one of the bearing/hose combinations. I just couldn't get the last retaining pin out and needed to get on to other things, so I left it for another day.