New swing pins and bushings?

I had new pins made and put spring tension bushings in the swing post with Loctite 660 to repair a slightly loose fit. It's on a Cat 5G2150 backhoe. Swing seems tight and just playing in some black dirt seems to work good. Haven't done any serious digging yet. The minor problem I noticed is that the boom lock pin won't go all the way through both ears to hold the boom up. It will hold it up but only uses the top ear. I rarely use it but it comes in handy sometimes like if you blew a hose and wanted to drive the machine back to the shop to fix it or the engine wouldn't start and you wanted to tow it. Is it possible the new pins and bushings are a little tighter fit than original? The boom cylinder is fully retracted before it hits the steel blocks on the boom. One of these blocks has the ears for the boom pin. It needs to move about 1/8" more for the pin to go all the way through. I would think if it was sloppier the pin would go in no problem? Maybe just need to put a few hours on it or wondering if the boom up and down pivot pins/bushings could be worn a little? It seems if they were loose would also make it easy to put the boom lock pin in. Anyone have any thoughts or suggestions?

Would it be possible to grind the 1/8 off the block between the ears ? Or would that weaken it ?

The problem is the boom doesn't come up against the swing tower. I thought about just grinding out the ears and/or the block on the swing tower so the pin will go in. Here's a pic. that shows the pin on the swing tower. The ears on the boom go on either side when the boom is up. I don't think it would affect strength much. I'm going to be digging some sand shortly so will see if anything moves a bit. So close but so far. It looks like the boom may have twisted slightly (from the worn bottom swing pin) because the block on the right side (when looking from the seat) of the boom that hits the block on the swing tower is mushroomed on the inside toward the middle of the boom and the left side (between the ears) shows contact on the inside as well but not mushroomed at all. Hope that makes sense.

https://avspare.com/spare/caterpillar/5g2465/

https://avspare.com/caterpillar/sebp1246/sebp12460506/

Any wear on the boom cylinder- pins and bushing that may prevent full travel in the boom up position ?

Maybe. The barrel end in the boom has no way to grease but the rod on the swing tower gets greased regularly. Actually there are bushings in the swing tower with grease fittings on ether side of the rod eye. I'll use it some and investigate further. I'll try lifting the hoe bucket with my skid steer to see if the holes will line up. That might indicate the pin and/or bushing on the barrel end is worn. Maybe I could block the boom and take that pin out to inspect. Taking the boom cylinder out would be a major PIA though.

Just to update. I went out today and did some investigating. There is play in the boom cylinder rod end on the swing tower. I slid the pin out 1/2 way on either side and the ends that turn in the bushing have a little wear. Not a lot but enough there is a lip on the pin at the edge of the bushing. The bushings also appear to have a little wear. It also appears the bushing in the rod end has some wear/movement even though it doesn't turn as the bolt for the pin goes through the middle. The pins and bushings on the boom also have a little wear. I think it's a combination of everything that doesn't allow the pin to go through both ears in transport position. I figure for the amount I use the machine, I'm not going to worry about it too much. I turned the pin 180 deg's and it got slightly closer but still no go. Less than 1/8" play between 5 pressure points I can life with. I put a high lift jack on the bucket and it didn't take much to lift it up so the pin slid in effortlessly.

Thanks for the update Dave !
You know that boom not latching is going to bother you until you fix it. LOL !!!

Hoping to wait till spring and then look at the other pins and bushings and fix them in stages. It's so close but so far. Will see what it's like after doing some digging with it. I'm curious how the split tension bushings are going to work. Might be a good alternative for the other bushings. Don't have to freeze them to install and don't normally require grease.

After almost a year I have an update. It was finally dry enough where I had some time to use the backhoe. I'm digging a pond to hold and catch run off from the shop roof to use for watering the oval track. I dug about 100 yds. of clay and needed to haul it away to continue. Not wanting to have to constantly look back and raise the backhoe boom while using the loader I thought even if I can get the pin in the first ear it would hold it up. I was pleasantly surprised that after digging for a few hours the pin now goes in easily. Must have been my lucky day.

Welder Dave said:

after digging for a few hours the pin now goes in easily.

Click to expand...

It just needed a good breaking in.

The spring tension bushing are working great so far. Some of the other pins and bushing are a little sloppy but everything's working.