Are you checking your FEL and BH mounting hardware?

[dickfoster]

After seeing a few threads about mounting bolts coming loose and blaming the dealer I thought I'd chime in and remind/point out there is a service interval for retorquing mounting hardware. It is in the operators manuals. look close. It can be hard to find. I highlight the manuals for my customers. Interval is usually every 10 to 20 hours for the first 100 hours. Then every 100 hours or so after that. I suggest not using loctite. The bolts are not coming loose,they are stretching. I do many first 50 hour services. I always find a few mounting bolts loose. The units that come to me for follow up service I've found that after the 2nd or 3rd service/retorquing, the bolts have stretched to there max and are not coming loose. Basically,check the hardware as specified. Check more often if your a heavy use owner.

I check mine. Haven't found any loader bolts loose but at about 10 hours or less I found the BH bolts not tight and one nut even fell off but that was as installed not from use because even four of the six bolts that hold the seat on were only finger tight. I think the distributor slapped the backhoe on quick like but never got back around to torquing them down because none of them were marked as were the FEL bolts. Kinda hard to imagine a nut with a 600 ft lb torque spec just falling off after 10 hours of tractor run time.

 

[mike69440]

I check mine. Haven't found any loader bolts loose but at about 10 hours or less I found the BH bolts not tight and one nut even fell off but that was as installed not from use because even four of the six bolts that hold the seat on were only finger tight. I think the distributor slapped the backhoe on quick like but never got back around to torquing them down because none of them were marked as were the FEL bolts. Kinda hard to imagine a nut with a 600 ft lb torque spec just falling off after 10 hours of tractor run time.

Of my loader bolts I found loose, 85% of them were the hard to reach fasteners. Kind of leads me to believe that they were never tight from the start, although all fasteners were marked with a Sharpie marker with a vertical line.

 

[dickfoster]

Of my loader bolts I found loose, 85% of them were the hard to reach fasteners. Kind of leads me to believe that they were never tight from the start, although all fasteners were marked with a Sharpie marker with a vertical line.

The two seat bolts that were tight were easy to get to while the nuts on the four others that were only finger tight were a little harder to reach so that could well be.
I know the distributor put my machine together because I drove it at the distributor before the dealer ever saw it. I think they even put it together just so I could see and drive it. The dealer didn't have a 1538 with a hoe on the lot nor did they have a gear for me to test drive so the distributor took care of it. I'm glad too because I liked driving the shuttle better than the HST. Funny thing they had to change the tires from R1s to R4s and all the lug nuts had the marks but none of the backhoe bolts were marked. I'm just guessing that the marks are made by whoever does a final torque check.

 

[mike69440]

The Mitsubishi Shuttle Is the reason I chose my Max28. It does well for loader work now I have the upsized curl cylinders and moves faster and climbs hills better than an HST.

I drive into a pile of gravel in 1st gear low 2wd at 1500 rpm or less with 750 lbs. on the hitch for CW, wiggle and bury the bucket deep into the pile, while not touching the clutch, letting the rears spin just a bit. Then just shift into Hi range reverse while taking a more than bucket full for loosened up material out of the pile, and on my way to dump and spread. I moved and spread 34 tons of gravel in 4 hours to a spot that I could not maneuver my bigger L39. Quick, simple, no HST whine.

 

[Rdr202]

I noticed on my tractor and backhoe all the bolts were marked with a black line indicating they had been torqued but the front end loader bolts were not all marked. I've torqued them and I guess someone just missed it. Amazing how fast some of these bolts loosen up. Also have had two clevis pins fall out because the retainer pin fell out. Just did the 50 hour service on fluids and filters now I'm going over all the bolts.

 

[dickfoster]

I noticed on my tractor and backhoe all the bolts were marked with a black line indicating they had been torqued but the front end loader bolts were not all marked. I've torqued them and I guess someone just missed it. Amazing how fast some of these bolts loosen up. Also have had two clevis pins fall out because the retainer pin fell out. Just did the 50 hour service on fluids and filters now I'm going over all the bolts.

Just the opposite of mine. LOL.
Mine was delivered with two retainer pins for the BH thumb missing altogether. No biggie but it was another indication that something wasn't checked by someone somewhere.