Bobcat T300 coupler removal

[willie59]

Seems I have been working on a disproportionate number of Bobcats lately. Darn little critters seem to be surrounding me like flies at a cow pile of late. Well, I've been a lot of things in my life, I guess being the cow pile is just another notch in the hammer handle eh? :tong

Here's a few for you guys that own a T300 and need to remove the coupler on the front of the loader arms. Pretty much the same system on T250 and T320. Other models, like T190/T200 and smaller wheeled Bobcats are a little different in how they attach to the loader arms.

First, place the coupler flat hovering just above some wood blocks, don't need coupler pressing on blocks, that will make it difficult to remove the attachment pins.




Remove and cap the lines of your Bobtach cylinder (if applicable), then knock out the pins that attach the bucket tilt cylinders to the coupler. Once they are loose, retract the tilt cylinders to get them out of the way.



Clean the area around grease fitting of coupler pivot with wire brush and compressed air, remove the snap ring the retains the hockey puck.




Remove the 15/16" nut on the outside of loader arm. The nut secures a long bolt through the pivot pin. Sometimes a good reverse shot with an impact gun will make nut spin completely off. If it does, use a brass drift and hammer to knock long bolt inward.



This will knock the hockey puck out giving you access to the head of the long bolt and pull the bolt out.

 

[willie59]

The procedure is slightly different if the impact gun doesn't spin nut off because the long bolt is turning. In that case, you have to remove the hockey puck to gain access to the head of the long bolt and hold it. That hockey puck can get siezed from being installed for a long period of time making it hard to get a hold of and pull out. One method that has worked well for me removing the puck is a rubber tipped air nozzle. Again, clean the area real well where puck is installed. Be very careful doing this. Wear heavy leather gloves, and I placed a heavy cloth over work area with free hand to control ejection of puck. Remove the grease fitting in puck, place rubber tip of air nozzle in grease hole, and give it a shot of air. This will usually eject the puck from the coupler. Again, be careful. Manage the ejection of the puck or it can become a projectile when it comes out of there.




Find an appropriate size drift shaft that properly fits the inside of the hole in the loader arm socket to knock out tapered pivot pin.



Your going to have to give that drift shaft a good whack with a sledge to unseat the tapered pin from its socket. Once unseated, it will eject out the hole in in the back of the coupler.



You now have the coupler disconnect from loader arms and can pull it free of machine and perform repairs. I'll probably replace pivot bushings while I've got it off and replace pins if necessary. The other repairs I have to address on this unit is the left tilt cylinder attachment. Seems the user allowed the retainer bolt for the left cylinder attachment pin to fall out, which allowed pin to work its way out resulting in pin movement and wallowing of pin boss of coupler, buggered up the pin boss pretty good.




Also did a little damage to the bushing in the tilt cylinder rod eye. I don't think it's damaged the rod eye just yet.

 

[Bobcat s330]

How many hours are on these machines when your changing these parts?

 

[willie59]

How many hours are on these machines when your changing these parts?

That really depends a lot on how the machine has been maintained. This particular machine has over 3000 hrs and I don't know the history of it. It was a trade in to local Bobcat dealer and we purchased it from them. We've had it on rent for about two months now, and when I pulled the pins for bucket tilt cylinders there was no grease on either pin. That pretty much shows how it's been cared for as of late. I haven't cleaned the coupler pivot bushings to see what kind of shape they are in. If a person keeps a grease gun after their machine, and minds the little things, like pin retainer bolts, you'll get many thousands of hours out of your components. But if one just jumps in it every morning and pays no mind to lubrication, it will be in a mechanics shop sooner than later.

 

[Part sman]

Always a good idea to double nut the pivot pin bolts and when replacing the tilt bushings, line hole in bushing with grease zerk. Those bushings are driven in any which way from the factory and over time grease will cake up in groove of tilt rod, making it impossible to take grease.

 

[willie59]

Got buggered up pin boss on your Bobcat coupler?





No worries, just cut the old pin boss off and you'll have a nice clean hole to insert a new pin boss. Purchased the new pin bosses from Bobcat. The narrow one was about 20 bucks each, the wide one with retainer bolt hole about 30 bucks.





Got them fitted up, welded them, then sprayed a little primer on them.








Actually, it was an easy repair. Not terribly time consuming. Just seems a little wierd describing any Bobcat repair using the word "easy". :tong But considering a new coupler is well over 1000 bucks, repairing one with 100 dollars worth of parts and a little labor and welding materials seems like a good deal to me.

 

[928G Boy]

Awesome thread!