I've discovered part of the problem why many low hr bobcat controls (traditional hand and foot) seem jumpy at times even when all the linkage is tight above the drive pump area.
1)the damper shocks on the steering levers are secured to the same metal plate the fuse box is secured to. The tabs that come off of this metal plate that anchor the shocks tend to move back and forth a good bit when you work the levers. Not helpful. The metal plate needs to be thicker.
2)the ball and socket joints that bobcat uses are not that good of quality to begin with and wear rather quickly. Even a slight bit of wear from these joints, combined with the flexing of the anchor tabs, contribute to quite a bit of unwanted jerkiness in the steering levers.
Bobcat has offered a solution to this by making a kit that doubles up your damper shocks for each drive lever. But, you have to change out the rod that the levers pivot on (can remember the stupid name of it...has the two grease fittings). So it gets expensive...unnecessarily, imo.
So fooling around today with the extra shocks I've come up with a quick solution that worked well.
On the top of the chain case compartment there are two loops that I guess are used to wire tie the wire loom that snakes through close by. I used those as my anchor bases for the extra shocks. Screwed a couple nuts on the threaded rod ends and simply band clamped the loops and the rod ends together. Changed the geometry a bit, but it was effective in damping the steering to eliminate the unwanted jerkiness, and wasn't that costly and labor intensive as it would have been to change out that pivot rod.
1)the damper shocks on the steering levers are secured to the same metal plate the fuse box is secured to. The tabs that come off of this metal plate that anchor the shocks tend to move back and forth a good bit when you work the levers. Not helpful. The metal plate needs to be thicker.
2)the ball and socket joints that bobcat uses are not that good of quality to begin with and wear rather quickly. Even a slight bit of wear from these joints, combined with the flexing of the anchor tabs, contribute to quite a bit of unwanted jerkiness in the steering levers.
Bobcat has offered a solution to this by making a kit that doubles up your damper shocks for each drive lever. But, you have to change out the rod that the levers pivot on (can remember the stupid name of it...has the two grease fittings). So it gets expensive...unnecessarily, imo.
So fooling around today with the extra shocks I've come up with a quick solution that worked well.
On the top of the chain case compartment there are two loops that I guess are used to wire tie the wire loom that snakes through close by. I used those as my anchor bases for the extra shocks. Screwed a couple nuts on the threaded rod ends and simply band clamped the loops and the rod ends together. Changed the geometry a bit, but it was effective in damping the steering to eliminate the unwanted jerkiness, and wasn't that costly and labor intensive as it would have been to change out that pivot rod.