You are absolutely correct on the swing of the backhow from Left to Right. I like to work sometimes with out having the RPM's up. However, when the RPM's are low the swing of the boom left to right is so weak I had my brother stand beside it and he actually stopped it from moving with his body weight and he is 200 lb guy. Although, I have to raise the RPM considerably high more so like 2800 rpm's to get the power I need with the backhoe.
Uh oh...it sounds like both you guys are worried about the BH swing and I can see why. Maybe I can help just a little. I've an idea - so skip to the bottom of this message if you want. Most of the in between is just rambling.
The important point is that my
M59 BH sounds like it has more swing power.
I do agree with low RPM work; I prefer it too. Theoretically for a positive displacement hydraulic system the RPM shouldn't make a difference in power...only in speed. But in the real world with manufacturing tolerances and fluid properties being variable more RPM means more power. On my
M59 the difference isn't all that great. Higher RPM just means faster motion and more opportunities to jerk the BH bucket around and make a real hash of delicate work.
I'm not sure I would want any more BH power on this tractor. It would be nice to have some more reach maybe, but as it is I sometimes wonder if the tractor is over-stressing itself. The BH can sure throw the tractor around. And if the BH has enough power to move the tractor around, how much more power can it use?
I was moving boulders around in the creek yesterday and never did take it above an idle. Since I'm backed up to the edge of the stream, a lot of the work involves tumbling piles of rocks around using the bucket curled and the swing at full extension. That loads all the BH pivots rather too much; so I'm careful with the power. If it pushed sideways with any more power my gut instinct is that something expensive would break. The swing is the least powerful BH motion, but it still has enough force to make the whole tractor creak.
Of course this is all perception. We don't have any real numbers between yours and mine, and that's what we need. Yours and mine might well be the same or close. I'm not expecting the
M59 to be an industrial strength backhoe....just sort of an in between. Have you any suggestions? I don't have a 200 pound brother handy, but am open to ideas. Are there any specs in the service manual? What does your dealer say? What pressures are you getting? We could probably compare those types of numbers fairly easily.
BTW I'm just remembering that when I first got my machine the BH made terrible screeching/moaning sounds as it swung. I don't know if that would affect the swing power or not. Might. On mine I just didn't like the sound. It sounded to me that either the fits were too tight or someone had not properly greased all of the pivots for the swing. Considering that most Japanese equipment is manufactured to excellently tight tolerances, I wondered if someone had missed some grease zerks. There are a surprising number of zerks for the swing table, pivots, and swing pistons....but they all looked to be serviced. I put in more grease anyway, but it made no difference. The screeching noise was pretty loud...right at the level where it needed to go back to the dealer, but really.....what is he going to do? I decided to give one more try to change things before returning the machine.
The thing was, I got to wondering if both Kubota and myself had been using the proper grease. The grease I forced out when I put some in looked pretty ordinary, and I knew I had used ordinary ol' wheel and chassis grease myself because I had just run out of good grease in my shop.
Upshot was I used the event for an excuse to buy a really good hand grease gun along with some cartridges of a special high pressure grease loaded with molybdenum. That's a black, rather thin grease, and oddly sticky. I've used it before for similar tight sliding friction on industrial slides and also for breaking in high performance camshafts on racing motors. It's an expensive grease - at least 3 or 4 times the cost of regular wheel & chassis grease. So I only use it on the lower BH zerks; ....I don't want that nasty sticky black grease all over the loader pivots and myself. There sure are a lot of different greases for different purposes. Here what was wanted was a grease that could get into tight spaces, stay there, and stand up to point loading. The only one I know that will do that is a fairly thin black moly grease. Had to go to several shops before I found some. A local hotrod shop had it in grease gun cartridges.
Anyway, I used the new to force out most of the old grease, and the sound went away the very first swing. Very gratifying. I don't know if the swing power changed, but it sure cured the sound.
Hope this helps, rScotty
