Evaluating Undercarriage and Overall Condition for Purchase (Hitachi Excavator)

[Piston]

I went and looked at a Hitachi excavator. I took some photos and was hoping some of you could tell me "something" from the photos.

The excavator is a Hitachi UH083LC. It's been owned by a friend of my father's for the last 20 years or so, and hasn't had much use over the last 5-8 years. He is retired now and getting rid of his equipment.

I do trust what he says and am not overly concerned that he is trying to pull the wool over my eyes, but just thought I'd get some of your opinions on the machine. I know nothing about excavators.

He operated it for about 45 mins while I "watched", and I didn't see any leaks or major slop anywhere. He did say one of the track pads were broken which he pointed out to me, and that one track needs some grease to tighten it up. The only issue with the excavator is that when you are traveling with it, and hold both sticks all the way forward, it doesn't track perfectly straight, but always goes a little to one side, so you have to adjust a bit every once in a while to go in a straight line.

The pins for the bucket are a little loose and could be replaced. He does have an extra bucket (same size) with new teeth on it. It started right up and sounds really smooth with no unique noises. The cable to shut down the engine is broken, so you have to crawl up on top of it and shut it off from inside the engine case, not that big of a deal to fix I imagine.

He said he has replaced the sprockets and chains on the undercarraige and I won't have to worry about wearing them out anytime soon.

Unfortunately it doesn't have a thumb. I don't know how much this would be to add, but it would be nice. Here are some photos, I'd love to hear some opinions on this model if anyone has experience good or bad. He also has a D3 dozer I might take a look at just for the fun of it

 

[firemanmike69]

When you go to replace the bucket pins, look at replacing the bushings as well they will likely be worn excessively. The sprockets don't look awful but they don't look new either one track looks overly tensioned the other not tensioned enough. Broken track pads aren't a huge deal as long as the chain links aren't broken, which it looks like none of them were.

Adding a mechanical thumb would be very straight forward, literally just welds onto the stick. Adding a hydraulic thumb takes more work especially if the machine doesn't already have the additional valve segment to support it. You can get away with running a diverter valve on the bucket circuit but that adds complexity and cost

If you do end up purchasing the machine I'd recommend replacing all the fluids save for the hydraulic fluid depending on how many hours are on the machine,those final drives can be VERY costly to repair/replace

 

[Rustyiron]

Hours & price?

 

[Piston]

When you go to replace the bucket pins, look at replacing the bushings as well they will likely be worn excessively. The sprockets don't look awful but they don't look new either one track looks overly tensioned the other not tensioned enough. Broken track pads aren't a huge deal as long as the chain links aren't broken, which it looks like none of them were.

Adding a mechanical thumb would be very straight forward, literally just welds onto the stick. Adding a hydraulic thumb takes more work especially if the machine doesn't already have the additional valve segment to support it. You can get away with running a diverter valve on the bucket circuit but that adds complexity and cost

If you do end up purchasing the machine I'd recommend replacing all the fluids save for the hydraulic fluid depending on how many hours are on the machine,those final drives can be VERY costly to repair/replace

Thanks for the helpful reply. I will ask him again, but he did say that the final drives were replaced (or rebuilt?) at some point, but again I would have to ask. He told me so many things that I couldn't remember half of it. I wasn't too concerned with remembering everything because he is a friend of my father's who comes up and shares some homemade wine with him on a somewhat regular basis, so I knew I could just ask him again at any time. Should have brought a notebook or recorder though....

He spent a lot of time going over it with me, such as showing me everything to check before starting it, where to grease and which fittings should get more grease than others, talked about digging practice such as try not to dig on the final drive ends of the tracks (which I never would have thought about but makes perfect sense), and showed me things like where to put the boom/bucket for checking hydraulic fluid levels, told me to make sure I shovel the dirt out of the tracks after I use it every time (even gave me the old shovel he uses :laughing: So, he seemed to be pretty thorough and had general interest in equipment, I certainly feel more comfortable knowing that he is a friend of my father and not just some random guy.

I actually have a mechanical thumb, although it's meant for about a 24k lb machine or so, built out of 1" steel, so I don't know if it's "stout" enough for a machine this big or not, but maybe would take a chance and if I bend it up then think about buying a new one.

He did mention the same thing about the bushings though, that I may as well change them out because they are probably worn as well, I forgot about that until you mentioned it.
Thanks again for your reply. Excavators are pretty new to me.

 

[Piston]

Hours & price?

Good questions.... I don't have an answer to either one. I'm thinking around $10k or so but we hadn't gotten that far yet. Any thoughts as to what it could be worth? I know it's hard to tell by photos and my terrible descriptions...

 

[Rustyiron]

I sounds like he really took care of it and you'll find that with a small owner operator, and for the $10k "neighborhood" it would be hard to get hurt giving your relationship with him. You will love it and I didn't look up that model and don't recognize the sheet metal (old or gray market?) but I'd guess that your 24K thumb is not too far off and will be fine, esp if you use good sense. The valving & piping will cost you.

 

[Piston]

I sounds like he really took care of it and you'll find that with a small owner operator, and for the $10k "neighborhood" it would be hard to get hurt giving your relationship with him. You will love it and I didn't look up that model and don't recognize the sheet metal (old or gray market?) but I'd guess that your 24K thumb is not too far off and will be fine, esp if you use good sense. The valving & piping will cost you.

It looks like it's a 1985 from what I can see, not a gray market though. It weighs 43,000 lbs. A little more power than my little Kubota I presume...

 

[mike69440]

Thanks for the helpful reply. I will ask him again, but he did say that the final drives were replaced (or rebuilt?) at some point, but again I would have to ask. He told me so many things that I couldn't remember half of it. I wasn't too concerned with remembering everything because he is a friend of my father's who comes up and shares some homemade wine with him on a somewhat regular basis, so I knew I could just ask him again at any time. Should have brought a notebook or recorder though....

He spent a lot of time going over it with me, such as showing me everything to check before starting it, where to grease and which fittings should get more grease than others, talked about digging practice such as try not to dig on the final drive ends of the tracks (which I never would have thought about but makes perfect sense), and showed me things like where to put the boom/bucket for checking hydraulic fluid levels, told me to make sure I shovel the dirt out of the tracks after I use it every time (even gave me the old shovel he uses :laughing: So, he seemed to be pretty thorough and had general interest in equipment, I certainly feel more comfortable knowing that he is a friend of my father and not just some random guy.

I actually have a mechanical thumb, although it's meant for about a 24k lb machine or so, built out of 1" steel, so I don't know if it's "stout" enough for a machine this big or not, but maybe would take a chance and if I bend it up then think about buying a new one.

He did mention the same thing about the bushings though, that I may as well change them out because they are probably worn as well, I forgot about that until you mentioned it.
Thanks again for your reply. Excavators are pretty new to me.

I'd really get the hydraulic thumb for land clearing. I have a hydraulic thumb on my PC75UU2, and a mechanical thumb on my L39. The mechanical thumb. Well it's better than no thumb. Picture your right hand thumb in a splint. Craig List the mechanical thumb or better yet, get it welded to the old 2WD JD410.

This would be the thumb I would think you need.

HT2458 Hydraulic Universal Excavator Thumb

New 18" x 6" Heavy Duty Hydraulic Thumb for Backhoes | eBay


Get the slow drive checked out, it could be just the pressure setting or an adjustment in the pilot valves. I'd get the seals on the pilot valve checked and changed if they leak, It is not a big job. If the drive itself is bad, Uh Oh!....................................

Change bushing only if it helps without have to do any boring work. Boring get real expensive. Your not doing precision work.

 

[moriboy]

I've seen worse looking machines for more $. If it does what you need right out the gate, $10K is a good price in my opinion. As with anything, there could be a multitude of things that are failing or about to fail. The undercarriage is not horrible by any means, but it might need the track adjusters rebuilt to keep the track tight. One of the travel motors could be failing since it won't drive in a straight line, those can be very expensive to fix. The biggest fear I have of older equipment is the lack of parts.

 

[Piston]

Thanks again guys, with your help and reassurance you convinced me that I just need to buy this thing

It's not too far from my parents house, so I'm going to have it shipped there first, then do a little maintenance and get used to it at my dad's place (you know, tear up his land instead of mine) and then in the spring I'll have it trucked up to my place in NH to start the heavier work.

I'm gonna look more into what's involved with the thumb, and adding hydraulics. I don't know how much different this project would be than adding a hydraulic thumb to the 410, but that is what I originally built this thumb for, but never ended up installing it on the 410 since I never trucked that up to NH.

This is the thumb I made. It would be a little short, but it's made out of 1" steel and 3/4" steel.




Also, I already have a selector valve that I purchased for the 410 project, I think it's 15 gpm, not sure if I'd be able to use it with the excavator but I'll take a look.


Is there an adjustment for the track motor speed that could just need fine tuning?

He told me that I need to put some grease in the track adjuster on the loose track to tighten it up. Is there a rule of thumb as to how 'tight' you want to make it? He mentioned putting a 2x4 along the track and measuring the distance of sag, but I don't recall how much sag it should have.

Thanks again for your input. The thumb will be a fun project, I posted my 'build' of it here if anyways is interested....
http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/attachments/245990-thinking-about-adding-hydraulic-thumb.html