I was using my 435 to break frost the last three days. The attachment was an Ingersall-Rand hydraulic hammer. The hammer was rented from my local Bobcat dealer, and has been on my machine several times. As far as I know this hammer is what Bobcat currently offers for sale. My machine has a little over 2,500 hours and I have owned it since new. This machine has had, what I consider, a lot of issues in the time I have owned it (and I have several machines to compare, hence the title). During the second day of breaking I began to notice that the hammer was sluggish to start hammering. It would have a delay in activation (from the point of control input to start of attachment function), and would start out with very low BPM and then increase in speed. This was not due to incorrect bit loading or miss alignment/side load of the tool. At first I suspected it was (and I started trying to adjust alignment to get the tool to work properly- to no avail) but shortly there after I began to notice that other functions began to exhibit the same delay. It has progressed to a delay, then very slow cycle time, and/or slow at start of cycle then gains speed during the cycle. The lever is pushed to the stops but the function just creeps and/or speeds up without any change in lever input.This is an intermittent problem and appears in all functions accept the track drive, and I have not noticed it in the blade function either. Maybe this points to the pilot control circuit? As you can imagine the machine is pretty hard to modulate, when it is unpredictable in function, especially for detail work or work around exhisting utilites. This machine has exhibited similar problems before. The last time it did the issue was only on the boom and dipper functions, and this helped me to figure out that the pattern changer was the culprit. It is located near the operator's right heal and can sometimes get bumped. If it is between positoions it will exhibit these issues in the boom and stick functions only. Push the selctor back to the desired pattern position and the problem goes away. This is not the issue now as the pattern selector was fully seated in the desired position and the machine exhibits the problem regardless of the selected pattern (I checked it in both positions). I know that this machine has had a broken spool valve before. I think it was located on the side of the main pump. I have had so many issues with this machine, and the broken spool valve was a long time ago (probably back in '06 when the machine was still under warranty), that I don't recall what the symptoms were when the valve was bad. In the back of my mind I think the curent symptoms are similar or the same. Maybe, I just am not sure.
Has anyone had these symptoms before? Does anyone have any ideas as to what is going on here? Can anyone offer advice on how to isolate the issue so that I can make repairs myself? I have had a lot of problems with my local dealer, and I don't have much confidence in their current mechanic. I don't want to take it there. The machine is currently on a job that is close to a neighboring town and there is a different dealer located there. I may take it to them but I have not heard anything but "iffy" reports about them too.
Looking for help. Thanks in advance.
Has anyone had these symptoms before? Does anyone have any ideas as to what is going on here? Can anyone offer advice on how to isolate the issue so that I can make repairs myself? I have had a lot of problems with my local dealer, and I don't have much confidence in their current mechanic. I don't want to take it there. The machine is currently on a job that is close to a neighboring town and there is a different dealer located there. I may take it to them but I have not heard anything but "iffy" reports about them too.
Looking for help. Thanks in advance.