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Need help Bantam 450a excavator

bradley3054

Member
Joined
Mar 28, 2013
Messages
11
Location
Delaware
I just bought this excavator for my farm to clean ditchs and remove trees, and im having trouble figuring out the correct levers to engage the steering of the tracks can anyone help me here or have a owners manual i could buy? I read one forum on here that the one lever on the floor said it controls the track dogs well im new to excavators and i dont know what that means
 

RonG

Charter Member
Joined
Dec 2, 2003
Messages
1,833
Location
Meriden ct
Occupation
heavy equipment operator
Can you get a pic for us?Usually there will be two levers out of the floor,one for each track but that would be too easy maybe.They are not all the same,the Cat 200 series had one lever that you wobble to steer and foot pedals for direction.Try to tease us with a pic or two.Ron G
 

spitzair

Senior Member
Joined
May 4, 2007
Messages
1,009
Location
Squamish BC (Home), Slave Lake, AB (Work)
On the C450 bantam there are 5 levers to control the tracks. One will be on the right hand side of your cab to control the actual travel backwards and forwards. Then there are two steering clutch/brake levers to the left of your seat, pull up on them to disconnect / stop the respective track, ie left lever stops left track (when the house is facing the forward end of the crawler unit). The last 2 levers are on the floor on the left side of your cab. One will be a two position lever that selects high or low speed for the crawler, and the other is a 3 position lever that sets your travel dogs. If you pull it all the way up it locks travel in one direction, in the middle is unlock in both directions and down is lock in the opposite direction, I just don't remember exactly which way is which.

What the track dogs actually do is lock the tracks from turning in one direction as this machine, being a friction drive, will need you to manually set brakes so as you don't pull yourself towards your work while you dig. It's basically a big rachet and pawl mechanism in the lower unit. When you engage the travel dog in one direction the machine will not move that way but it will move the other and make a clang clang clang sound when going the other way.

Be very careful with this thing on hills as there are no other brakes that I recall so the potential for it to speed away is definitely there. Mine loved to also break the drive chains to the tracks and while they're easy to repair, it's usually at the worst time that they break. Hope this helps and like RonG says we need pictures!
 

bradley3054

Member
Joined
Mar 28, 2013
Messages
11
Location
Delaware
On the C450 bantam there are 5 levers to control the tracks. One will be on the right hand side of your cab to control the actual travel backwards and forwards. Then there are two steering clutch/brake levers to the left of your seat, pull up on them to disconnect / stop the respective track, ie left lever stops left track (when the house is facing the forward end of the crawler unit). The last 2 levers are on the floor on the left side of your cab. One will be a two position lever that selects high or low speed for the crawler, and the other is a 3 position lever that sets your travel dogs. If you pull it all the way up it locks travel in one direction, in the middle is unlock in both directions and down is lock in the opposite direction, I just don't remember exactly which way is which.

What the track dogs actually do is lock the tracks from turning in one direction as this machine, being a friction drive, will need you to manually set brakes so as you don't pull yourself towards your work while you dig. It's basically a big rachet and pawl mechanism in the lower unit. When you engage the travel dog in one direction the machine will not move that way but it will move the other and make a clang clang clang sound when going the other way.

Be very careful with this thing on hills as there are no other brakes that I recall so the potential for it to speed away is definitely there. Mine loved to also break the drive chains to the tracks and while they're easy to repair, it's usually at the worst time that they break. Hope this helps and like RonG says we need pictures!

Spitzair your awesome that helps out alot, still wondering when you say the 3 position lever locks the tracks from going one direction do you mean fwd and backwards or do you mean from turning?

Which track chain are you referring to also, the big one by the tracks or the little guy that is on the left side of the machine that drives the tracks drums.
 

bradley3054

Member
Joined
Mar 28, 2013
Messages
11
Location
Delaware
These are the only two pictures i have, i just bought it two weekends ago and im still waiting for the truck to pick it up to bring it home to me but need this info so i can load it and turn the tracks correctly with out tearing something up
 

spitzair

Senior Member
Joined
May 4, 2007
Messages
1,009
Location
Squamish BC (Home), Slave Lake, AB (Work)
That's a nice tidy looking machine you found there! Looks like it's been well taken care of! In my limited experience with them they are pretty robust little things, mine was very worn but still worked well when I sold it which I wish I never did...

When I say the 3 position lever locks it from going one way I mean it won't travel either forwards or backwards depending on which way you have the lever set, that way you can dig a trench and reposition the machine without having to constantly release and reset the dogs every time you move; the machine will still turn left or right. As for the drive chains, I mean the ones down by the tracks, the one up by the gearbox never gave me any trouble. If you're interested, I do have a video of when I took delivery of it on my youtube channel, it's here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ioe8Zle-WOk As you can hear in the video, the dogs were set in the one direction and that is the clink clink clink noise you hear as it's travelling off the lowbed. Have you operated the machine yet? If not, I'll have a look and see if I can find a picture or two of the cab and give you an idea of what all the controls do.
Cheers!
 

bradley3054

Member
Joined
Mar 28, 2013
Messages
11
Location
Delaware
That's a nice tidy looking machine you found there! Looks like it's been well taken care of! In my limited experience with them they are pretty robust little things, mine was very worn but still worked well when I sold it which I wish I never did...

When I say the 3 position lever locks it from going one way I mean it won't travel either forwards or backwards depending on which way you have the lever set, that way you can dig a trench and reposition the machine without having to constantly release and reset the dogs every time you move; the machine will still turn left or right. As for the drive chains, I mean the ones down by the tracks, the one up by the gearbox never gave me any trouble. If you're interested, I do have a video of when I took delivery of it on my youtube channel, it's here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ioe8Zle-WOk As you can hear in the video, the dogs were set in the one direction and that is the clink clink clink noise you hear as it's travelling off the lowbed. Have you operated the machine yet? If not, I'll have a look and see if I can find a picture or two of the cab and give you an idea of what all the controls do.
Cheers!

Yes i tested it all out before i got it, wow your bantam smoked alot. This one i got has no leaks and doesnt smoke.

Weres the brakes for each individual track sounds like my problem is the brake linings. If the tracks are one the ground she doesnt like to steer but if you use the ho to pick up the front and help swing as you steer the tracks shell turn then
 

spitzair

Senior Member
Joined
May 4, 2007
Messages
1,009
Location
Squamish BC (Home), Slave Lake, AB (Work)
They're down on the lower unit. If I remeber right they're on either side of the bevel gearbox. I don't remember exactly what they look like now, I was only ever down there once and that was 12 years ago now... On mine the brakes didn't work either and the only way to steer was like you're doing unless going up a hill, then it would steer on its own. The disconnect looked like a very simple dog clutch type deal from what I remember but I don't remember if the brakes were an external band or an internal shoe type...

Yes, mine was well worn, I think it only ran on 3 cylinders half the time and needed a whiff of ether to start even when the engine was hot unless it was shut down within 2 or 3 minutes, it had leaks all over but it would always run and work. I relined the swing clutches and fixed a bunch of the leaks. It pulled stumps and dug lots of holes on our property, we used it as a crane, all sorts of things!

On edit, I just remembered that there's a great picture of the lower half of a Koehring 366 at www.vannattabros.com, it's as far as I know just a newer, bigger version of the machine. http://www.vannattabros.com/20073rd/koehring10.jpg http://www.vannattabros.com/20073rd/koehring12.jpg This is very similar to what it looked like under the old 450 if my memory is correct... Hope that helps.
 
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