Cat track loader purchase

Then because someone asked for a cab picture. My machine is not electric throttle. Still on the good old cable.


Motor picture.



These pictures are all "before", after i took them i washed the machine down under the belly pans with my pressure washer. Sprayed all the oily spots with citriclean to get as much off as i could. Jeeze do those reman drive motors and pumps SHINE under there now that they're all cleaned up!

Belly pan fires are fairly common ways these machines leave the working world behind, I took the pans off my 40 year old Allis to remove a full 30 gallon drum of 'stuff' from around my engine and trans not including the sticks and leaves hanging above the solid fill.

Look careful in the dirt you clean out of those belly pans, you can often find tools and other things like the holdowns some one was in too much a hurry to bother putting back on! Once they are clean and kept that way you will find it much easier to locate and repair leaks,

ippielb said:

There's side to side play the bucket arms, could get shimmed, the hydraulic rams as well. Maybe just those rubber rings you bolt on around the pins between the bucket and the arm would be enough to help control it.

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I think you've got the right idea. My dad and I bought an older loader and it had the same play in the same area. We bought some of the rubber cord rings like you mentioned. It fixed all the slop and they've held up really well under regular lube intervals.

That is an impressive machine! Looks like it's in great shape for the money you paid. Sounds like you've got some nice projects to tackle as well. Thanks for updates and pictures.

kshansen said:

Look careful in the dirt you clean out of those belly pans, you can often find tools and other things like the holdowns some one was in too much a hurry to bother putting back on! Once they are clean and kept that way you will find it much easier to locate and repair leaks,

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+1, took th belly pan off of a D6C I ran. Looked like the pics in previous posts. Couple wheel borrow loads of shmag. Found 2-3 wrenches in the dirt.

CheerS Stew

The cab interior looks good. A few hose leaks here or there , the whole machine looks over all good. The u/c looks to be good as well. The engine is one of the best around as well. I'd like to try it out If you weren't 2500 miles away.

lowbed driver said:

+1, took th belly pan off of a D6C I ran. Looked like the pics in previous posts. Couple wheel borrow loads of shmag. Found 2-3 wrenches in the dirt.

CheerS Stew

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I like that word, shmag, lowbed driver, can I use it?

I like the attitude change from the beginning of my thread when I was just interested in the machine.

The interior is in good shape, but you wouldn't have known before I spent 4 hours cleaning vacuuming and wiping down everything and armour all coating everything.

When I went to look at the cat at the dealership I showed up after hours and the salesman I was communicating with had already went home. So I got to talk to a serviceman. He was very honest and blunt about it, like everyone else said, this machine is BIG but I knew what I was getting myself into and what I would be satisfied with. The second thing he said was this motor in the 973 is one of the best motors CAT made, and was the first motor he rebuilt when he was in school. The serviceman was in his mid 50's, he said it had been around 30 years? I never thought the motor would have been around that long. Mechanical injection is what I wanted from the beginning and minimal electronics.

So far I have found a handful of extra bolts and one 7/16 wrench, oh and a quarter lol. I haven't had time to sift through the belly pans but I will most definitely do that I like freebies. When the ground dries around the machine I'm going to move it tomorrow and bring it up by my shop and out of the pasture and I'll get more pictures of how well this thing has actually cleaned up underneath.

Boone, where did you find those rubber bolt on o-rings? Only place I've seen them is on a case loader but I absolutely hate the local case/Volvo dealership.

Some few jobs I have to do are dig some nasty deep holes and push some old wooden grain bins into the hole, and burn them. Same with an old house. Have a few massive rocks bigger then a large dining table that I'm either going to move or just burry deeper. Then word is getting out I have this machine and I might be spreading dirt from fresh dug basements.

I'm going to try my best to figure out which hoses are actually leaking and which ones are just sweating or need to be snugged back up. That pivot shaft seal is driving me nuts just knowing its leaking.

ippielb said:

Boone, where did you find those rubber bolt on o-rings? Only place I've seen them is on a case loader but I absolutely hate the local case/Volvo dealership.

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Picked them up at the Komatsu dealership (Tractor and Equipment). They were a bit pricey but worth the money. We used them at the loader arm pivot and the top of what they call the bellcrank where the bucket curl cylinder attaches.

Here's a link to the parts breakdown. It's part no 8, 11, and 14. There are a few different sizes that might fit yours if Cat doesn't have them.

http://komatsupartsbook.com/#?k=!0!43!6110!186!187

ippielb said:

I like the attitude change from the beginning of my thread when I was just interested in the machine.

The interior is in good shape, but you wouldn't have known before I spent 4 hours cleaning vacuuming and wiping down everything and armour all coating everything.

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I've never understood how some operators can run a machine with cab filled with trash! I always wondered how their house looked at home? Hated working in the cabs some of the equipment in the quarry, would rather crawl under the truck than work on the heater in the cab, or seat never sure what was in the bags on the floor or under the seat!!!

most of the time so called operators don't care as it isn't there machine. I went through this with so called operators in my trucking business. theres driver and then there operators, from my experience operators are hard to come by. the rest is a dime a dozen.

BCOWANWHEELS said:

most of the time so called operators don't care as it isn't there machine. I went through this with so called operators in my trucking business. theres driver and then there operators, from my experience operators are hard to come by. the rest is a dime a dozen.

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Some of the problem where I worked too many bosses did not seem to care, too much effort to see to it that equipment was taken care of and kept clean. Hey it's a truck/loader in a stone quarry it's going to get dirty!

Then there were the few operators who kept the cabs so clean I hated to have to climb in the cab as I might get something dirty. But I woul remove coveralls if I thought they might have dirt on them before I got in those cabs.

easy to clean out a cab, open both doors,take a water hose or 5 gal bucket of water and wash it out. nothing to hurt in there. I learned to look at the vehicle the person wanting a job drove up in, didn't have to be new of course but the way it was kept up did matter as my equipment was going to be treated even worse I figured. also the way the person kept themselves said a bunch.

BCOWANWHEELS said:

easy to clean out a cab, open both doors,take a water hose or 5 gal bucket of water and wash it out. nothing to hurt in there.

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That would work in the older equipment, but this newer equipment with hundreds of wires switches and relays and cloth seats kind of make that not a good option!

Absolutely correct. Far too many electronic doohickeys in cabs these days to go in there with the fire hose. If the cab is basically dry inside a good stiff brush and a vacuum cleaner would get the bulk of the dust out pretty easily. It would also have the advantage of being aboe to get into tight corners,

Couple hoses on the left drive motor have rubbed together. I am wanting to replace the hoses or repair them. If I take the hoses off will it drain the entire system or is there valves that would keep the fluid from draining out?

The left drive motor, there's two main feed hoses the upper has rubbed on a hose that goes from the front outside of the left drive motor to a 3 way T just infront of the right drive motor, which goes to the same fitting on the right drive motor. And then there's third hose that goes from the drive motor end up to the pumps which I think is te one that is actually doing the leaking.

So far the main hose is 550 bucks.

So i figured out which hose is leaking but cannot for the life of me figure out which hose it is on the CAT parts website looking through the pictures.

I see what looks like 122-6882 on the hose, but when i search for it, nothing comes up.

Look for an aluminium tag wrapped around the hose. This will have the assembly part number on it. If your hose doesn't have one, look for the tag on one of its neighbours. You can then search for this number and it may lead you to the correct section of the parts breakdown.

Is it the one coming from the left hand side of the cross? If so, it's 156-8146. (I think)