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Here we go again 140M DOWN

Nige

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Okay. Those ones don't downshift themselves to gears they can shuttle in then? In the Volvo I ran, you could shuttle in any gear, but if you were higher then say 5th (It's been a year- I don't remember for sure) it downshift down (sometimes a couple times if you were in a higher gear) and then shuttle.
Not unless you go into the transmission ECM and program the system to do so IIRC.
 

ovrszd

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I like operating the m series but the steering is where I have a problem, we may have to run 35-40 miles with all the plow gear on and the stick steering is so sensitive that you can't relax or take your eyes of the road not for one second or you could have a major collision with on coming traffic, it is 9 turns on the steering on the H series from pin to pin, its a split second on the joy stick in the M series from pin to pin and that is a major issue, these m series machines were meant to be floated to a job site not driven, you spend a 12-13 hour shift on the stick of a M series running from one road to another and you are completely wiped at the end of the day, the H series I find i'm much better at the end of the day, that is why I find the Deere grader pro so appealing you get the best of both worlds, Cat might want to look at that design, I have 60 gravel roads to maintain. thanks


Yep, that was my opinion as well. Same with the visibility. Meant to be operating at a slow speed and staring at the blade.

Randy Krieg is the only operator I know of that can run for hours at high speed (15mph or higher) with the joystick without complaining. :)
 

lantraxco

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That's dumb, with all that technology the steering should become less sensitive the faster the machine goes.... mine do that, lol.
 

20/80

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Yep, that was my opinion as well. Same with the visibility. Meant to be operating at a slow speed and staring at the blade.

Randy Krieg is the only operator I know of that can run for hours at high speed (15mph or higher) with the joystick without complaining. :)
There's just something about the Deere grader pro, the more I look t it and all its options the more I like it, I would wood love to try one for a week, Cat has the contract with our department to supply us with graders and parts for the length of the bid(4yrs) we are two years into the contract see what happens after that. thanks
 

Nige

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That's dumb, with all that technology the steering should become less sensitive the faster the machine goes.... mine do that, lol.
You're absolutely correct Don, and that brings me to a thought. There have been a large number of developments in software on the M Series because the software is so complex it's literally been upgraded on the fly. It's super-important to have the latest and greatest installed to make life easier for the operator.

To 20/80 - have you any way of finding out what Part Number of software flash files the machine currently has installed in the Implement, Power Train, & Messenger ECM's..? It's highly likely that there could be some newer software designed to fix the bugs you're commenting about .... just saying.
 

seatwarmer

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Nige

I am really thunderstuck to say that yellow iron needs the same 3 month "firmware upgrade cycle" as the itsy bitsy teeny weeny computers in a datacentre
You're absolutely correct Don, and that brings me to a thought. There have been a large number of developments in software on the M Series because the software is so complex it's literally been upgraded on the fly. It's super-important to have the latest and greatest installed to make life easier for the operator.

To 20/80 - have you any way of finding out what Part Number of software flash files the machine currently has installed in the Implement, Power Train, & Messenger ECM's..? It's highly likely that there could be some newer software designed to fix the bugs you're commenting about .... just saying.
 

Nige

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Nige

I am really thunderstuck to say that yellow iron needs the same 3 month "firmware upgrade cycle" as the itsy bitsy teeny weeny computers in a datacentre
You and me both dude. However the fact of the matter is that in the 21st Century the customer is doing the development of the machines and as such anything that crops up usually gets corrected in the form of a software upgrade. When they first came out in 2008-ish the upgrades were pretty much every 3 months, now they're out to about once a year. An upgrade ought to be free. The M Series are so electronic they'll make your head spin.
 

Mark250

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To 20/80 - have you any way of finding out what Part Number of software flash files the machine currently has installed in the Implement, Power Train, & Messenger ECM's..? It's highly likely that there could be some newer software designed to fix the bugs you're commenting about .... just saying.

The software release date and version number for each ECM is available from the display, it is under system information
monitor tree.jpg
 

ovrszd

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That's dumb, with all that technology the steering should become less sensitive the faster the machine goes.... mine do that, lol.

The last M (12M3) that I ran the steering was speed sensitive. After a few minutes I could steer it pretty well. But, as mentioned earlier, on a 2 lane paved road, running WOT in high gear, meeting oncoming traffic, you better concentrate.
 

20/80

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The last M (12M3) that I ran the steering was speed sensitive. After a few minutes I could steer it pretty well. But, as mentioned earlier, on a 2 lane paved road, running WOT in high gear, meeting oncoming traffic, you better concentrate.
I agree, it is even worst running down the road with your plow gear on, I find if you just articulate a little so the nose of your plow is toward the ditch abit when running this seems to help, keeping it in 7th also seems to help some in the twisty roads but be careful on hills running in 7th if the tach needle just touches the yellow on the tach these m series machine's will kick out off gear and you are free rolling down the hill which is very on safe, if you hit a patch of ice on the back side of the hill when the machine is into free rolling mode then its good night Irene for you, when you slow up the machine goes back into gear and you are now into a skid, this is another on safe design of the m series, the H series would never kick out of gear, a red light would come on if you were up in the Red in the tach to let you know to slow up. thanks
 

ovrszd

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I agree, it is even worst running down the road with your plow gear on, I find if you just articulate a little so the nose of your plow is toward the ditch abit when running this seems to help, keeping it in 7th also seems to help some in the twisty roads but be careful on hills running in 7th if the tach needle just touches the yellow on the tach these m series machine's will kick out off gear and you are free rolling down the hill which is very on safe, if you hit a patch of ice on the back side of the hill when the machine is into free rolling mode then its good night Irene for you, when you slow up the machine goes back into gear and you are now into a skid, this is another on safe design of the m series, the H series would never kick out of gear, a red light would come on if you were up in the Red in the tach to let you know to slow up. thanks

Wow, I didn't know that and never experienced it. That would suck and be very dangerous!!!!! Thanks for the warning!!!!
 

20/80

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Wow, I didn't know that and never experienced it. That would suck and be very dangerous!!!!! Thanks for the warning!!!!
I know our 140m does it they might have changed that in the newer m series but I don't think so, we have a lot of steep hills here in this part of the country and you will experience this from time to time on the hills if you are not careful, just when you think the engine is going to help with holding you back on a steep hill the needle hits the yellow in the tach and you are now free wheeling sure is a wake up call when this happens to a operator, don't know if anybody else had this happen to them yet, must be some sort of a safety mode to keep from over rev on the engine, but when your tach needle just comes into the yellow you are far from over rev, this is a big concern for any operator doing snow and ice control with a m series grader. thanks
 

Nige

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As far as I know there was a software update done on the machine a couple of years back for the steering but nothing after that as far as I know. thanks
The latest upgrade was only 2 weeks ago. If the last one on your machine was done a couple of years ago then there are at least 2, probably 3, upgrades that would likely need doing on it. If the local Cat dealer has a contract for these machines then shouldn't someone be asking them to come out and do the upgrades every once in a while..?

Edit: I just had a quick trawling session and found 4 upgrades listed since July 2015, so if it's 2 years since your machine was last upgraded it is well overdue IMHO. I also get the impression that an upgrade could well solve the issue of the transmission shifting to neutral during an engine overspeed event. (AFAIK then the normal way of avoiding and overspeed is to make an upshift, i.e. shifting from 7th to 8th in your case)

20/80 - does your 140M have the optional Jake Brake fitted..?
 

20/80

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The latest upgrade was only 2 weeks ago. If the last one on your machine was done a couple of years ago then there are at least 2, probably 3, upgrades that would likely need doing on it. If the local Cat dealer has a contract for these machines then shouldn't someone be asking them to come out and do the upgrades every once in a while..?

Edit: I just had a quick trawling session and found 4 upgrades listed since July 2015, so if it's 2 years since your machine was last upgraded it is well overdue IMHO. I also get the impression that an upgrade could well solve the issue of the transmission shifting to neutral during an engine overspeed event. (AFAIK then the normal way of avoiding and overspeed is to make an upshift, i.e. shifting from 7th to 8th in your case)

20/80 - does your 140M have the optional Jake Brake fitted..?
Hi Nige, we have 4 m series graders in this area alone I don't believe any upgrades have been done to any of them mine being the oldest, is Cat responsible for making sure these upgrades get done where they hold the tender right now or at least let us know there is a upgrade available? using the brake and engine sweetspot to slow you down on icy steep hills without going into a skid even with chains on is what I try to accomplish but sometimes you creep up on rpm trying to prevent a skid and this is where the machine will jump out of gear and you lose the breaking resistance of the engine, keeping upshifted you have no engine resistance, this is alright on a small hill. no I don't have a Jake, I didn't know they were available that would be really nice to have. thanks
 

Nige

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If I was working in the dealership that looks after these machines I would be telling the customers that upgrades were available, but I'm not and my suspicion is that they won't do anything until they are asked to. Be aware that the upgrades are not mandatory, simply improvements in machine systems control that can majorly benefit both the operator and/or machine reliability. It's a really surprising position for the dealer to take TBH because if they have a contract to look after the machines you would think that they'd be trying to show how customer-focused they were by doing stuff like this without waiting for the customer to ask. To upgrade 4 machines would most likely take about 4 hours in total, compared to what they are coining looking after the fleet it's nothing IMHO, and excellent PR for them.....

What escaped many people, including the factory, is that when the engines using the the graders changed from 3304/3306/3406 to the C-series a lot of inherent engine braking went with it. The rotating mass of the new engines is nothing like what the old ones had and so you can't depend on simply taking your foot off the throttle like you could on an H seires machine. It's actually interesting to compare the operator manuals for the H & M Series. For roading an H Series the manual tells you to select the same gear to descend a given gradient as the machine is capable of climbing the same gradient, for an M Series the manual tells you to select ONE GEAR LOWER than whatever gear the machine will climb the same gradient.

We saw this initially when the 16H II (with the 3196 engine) first came out. Our customers started burning brakes up like it was going out of fashion where it was never a problem with the former model equipped with a 3406. It took us a while to twig what was going on; we approached Cat about a Jake Brake installation, only to be told that no engine software was available to support the installation of a brake. So we did it anyway using the brake installation from an on-highway engine and by installing a microswitch under the throttle pedal and a latching relay, so that if the throttle pedal was touched when the brake was operating it immediately dropped out. When the 16M first came on the market a Jake Brake was optional, it took about a year for it to become part of the standard machine, and every early machine sold without one qualified for an upgrade to retrofit one. What we do to stop our operators gassing the machines too much is to limit the transmission to 6 forward speeds only - our brakes live forever .......
 

20/80

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Well guy's we lost another engine, one of our 12m2, it had a c7 in her with 2200hrs, $45,000 for the engine, don't no the full story yet but what i'm hearing so far is the warranty is up, Cat was sending messages saying that upgrades had to be done but never followed through, now I don't know if these upgrades had anything to do with the engine failure, but we did have trouble with this machine right from the start, in one of our sister shops we are having troubles with a new 140m also.
 

Fatgraderman

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Well guy's we lost another engine, one of our 12m2, it had a c7 in her with 2200hrs, $45,000 for the engine, don't no the full story yet but what i'm hearing so far is the warranty is up, Cat was sending messages saying that upgrades had to be done but never followed through, now I don't know if these upgrades had anything to do with the engine failure, but we did have trouble with this machine right from the start, in one of our sister shops we are having troubles with a new 140m also.
That seems like terrible misfortune. Blowby? “Injector codes” coming up?
 

20/80

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I don't know the full story yet but the machine shortly after we first got it start going threw injectors, Cat just replaced them as they went, our very first m series did this also, it ended up being the h pump, they had to clean the head and fuel lines also with the pump replacement, we lost that engine at 600hrs, Cat came good for that one, as a buyer you will never here about engine failures from Cat, C7 engines seem to be very prone to this, I can't imagine being a private owner and owning a m series.
 

Legdoc

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Back in the early 80's I worked at the Cat dealer and had the opportunity to see many things. Cat equipment was just about rock solid, stupid simple, tough and made to last. We started to hear about electronics on the way and ask why? Well I left to begin my next life but kept tabs on what was happening with friends. Although the electronics can do some neat functions in my opinion much of it is not needed. I would think if a manufacturer would get back to the basics they could really hit a home run.
 
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