Loose teeth?

Hello all,

I have a bucket on a 130 sized excavator. Teeth are Esco ultralok spade or flat teeth
bucket has 2200 hrs on it, uve owned since new

Teeth are in good shape. Not even close to worn out, barely worn at all really. Bucket has never seen rock or cement. Rarely sees sand.

But the retainers have started working themselves out and the teeth fall off. So, new retainers. Easy. The retainers do show a decent amount of wear compared to new, so that's fine.
The Dealer says my teeth are really loose on the shank. WTF does that mean? Yeah, there is lots of wiggle there, but isn't that normal? The shanks have never touched dirt, teeth are in good shape.

I can understand replacing teeth because the cutting edge is shot, but replacing them because they are loose on the shank? How can that happen?

The 160 I bought has 1400 hours on it and it has the Esco Ultralok teeth. I am changing out the existing teeth, which are currently tight, for the U30F spade tooth. Considering how expensive they are, they should not be sloppy. I will be interested to see how this works out. I do like the way the retainer works, pretty smooth. As to why they would be loose, the only thing I can think of is that the teeth or the shanks are out of spec somehow. Maybe using a caliper check the shanks and the inside of your existing teeth and compare with new?

watglen said:

The Dealer says my teeth are really loose on the shank. WTF does that mean?

Click to expand...

Ask the dealer if he can supply you with a profile for the adapters. Even though they never touch dirt they will wear a bit due to the movement of the teeth and this wear is cumulative. You will probably find that the adopters need building up but before you do that you need a profile to show you where and how much to build them up.

I have Esco Ultralok U20 chisel teeth on my E80 excavator. Once this past summer one of the teeth just came off in the midst of digging. Couldn't find it in the muck & such, so ordered a new one & another as a spare. They came in about a week later. I installed one of the new ones & moved on.

About 2 weeks later on the same project I'm moving some dirt around & lo & behold my lost tooth came to the surface. So I cleaned it up & re-installed it. Now I have 2 spares!!

But I've noticed that when I install new teeth even on a new adapter, & lock them, they are just a little loose. I think the idea is that the dirt soon packs in around them to really tighten them up. Other than my one instance of "temporarily" loosing one, I love those teeth & the ability to easily change them.

Essco had published on paper a matrix on building up the shanks including what welding rods to use. Another thing to look for is wear on top of the shank but behind the tooth. It wears down so the tooth is exposed to material falling from the bucket hence damaged pins. Welding a bar (grouser bar would be good) across the shank stops this.