Bobcat 953 Wheel Motor / Hydraulic Issues - What to do?

[swampdog]

I'm looking for advice on whether to fix this 1995 Bobcat 953 skidsteer. The hydraulic system would not hold oil, which was dumping into the chain case. So I pulled the wheel motors. The right side wheel motor has a blown seal, which allows the hydraulic oil to dump into the chain case. The seal also had a piece of yellow metal jammed between the shaft and the rubber, which explains what happened to the seal.

The wheel motor has one broken brass piston inside and lots of filings and bigger pieces of brass. I also pulled the other wheel motor; it looks OK from the outside, but I have not disassembled it yet.

Can anyone tell me whether it is necessary to disassemble both wheel motors and all the pumps, hoses, valves, fittings, cylinders, tank, etc on the machine - every place that hydraulic fluid can flow. Is there any way to know, without taking everything apart, how far the brass pieces from the wheel motor may have spread?

It would cost far more than the machine is worth to hire someone (at $100 an hour plus) to take the 953 apart if that's what required. And I'm not interested in spending the time required to do this on my own.

The machine has low hours, looks good, and has lots of good parts on it. Maybe it could be sold for parts. Or, if one can find another 953, one could use this one for parts.

Any advice or thoughts?

 

[02Dmax]

I'd start by cutting the filter apart and see if any debris has made it that far. You can most likely get by with flushing the lines and hydro pump as long as nothing else has already been damaged. Alot of people would throw a new motor on and go back to work. But thats a gamble I've seen blow up their face too

 

[swampdog]

It makes sense to cut the filters apart to look for metal; the machine has three hydraulic filters. But there do not appear to be any filters between the blown wheel motor, the other wheel motor, and the pumps. If there is brass in the filters, I guess that one would know for sure that the metal has gone throughout the system. If not, there still could be brass bits in the pump, etc.

I talked to the dealer and to an independent hydraulic repair shop. Both advised that everything has to come apart if one wants to fix the machine. The dealer also said that is not cost effective on an older machine like this. Has anyone on here taken the entire hydraulic system apart on a Bobcat? How many hours are we talking to do this right?

 

[crewchief888]

rough guesstimate is 35-40 hrs of labor to do it right.

remove & reseal BOTH motor carriers
replace both drive motors
replace pumps
replace fan drive motor
drain & flush hyd tank
replace the oil cooler as well

depending on how bad the contamination is you may also have to disassmble and reseal the hyd cylinders

by that time, you'll have 2x's the $$ into the machine than it's worth...

just my $0.02


:drinkup