Hi folks! Hoping you can help me with an 863, for which I've suddenly inherited care-and-feeding responsibility. Here's what I know:
This is taken from the right side of the rear of the machine, looking forward. The awkward angle is confusing, but I believe the shiny object in the top-center is the hydrostatic pump (this is a non-high-flow 863). You can barely see a drip of oil coming off the pump. The video makes it clear these drips are from the other side (the forward side) of the pump.
So that's what I walked into. And yes, this is a fairly poorly maintained machine. I aim to fix that. Today, I did the following to try to track down the leak:
- It's been leaking small amounts of hydraulic oil out of the back of the oil pan for a while, with no apparent operational issues (other than, ya know, leaking oil everywhere)
- Someone - not me, unfortunately - ran it a few days ago, just in a loop around a parking lot. This person isn't very familiar with Bobcats, or large hydraulic equipment in general, so take the following with a grain of salt: After running it for about 10 minutes, the bucket "would lower but not raise". They drove it into the shop and parked it, now saying that the bucket wouldn't *lower* either (I believe this is talking about tilt). After that, the hydraulic oil level was below the stick.
- I found there was still oil in the reservoir, so here's hoping it didn't run the pump dry and grenade it. Since it apparently drove with no major issue, I don't think it was run dry.
- We found a big oil spot on the parking lot, where we presume something failed big time.
- Here's a still from a video taken while it was still dripping, immediately after the incident (while the machine was powered down):
This is taken from the right side of the rear of the machine, looking forward. The awkward angle is confusing, but I believe the shiny object in the top-center is the hydrostatic pump (this is a non-high-flow 863). You can barely see a drip of oil coming off the pump. The video makes it clear these drips are from the other side (the forward side) of the pump.
So that's what I walked into. And yes, this is a fairly poorly maintained machine. I aim to fix that. Today, I did the following to try to track down the leak:
- Opened the rear door and raised the cab to look for anything obvious. There was a small amount of fresh hydraulic oil smeared on one of the hoses under the cab, but it looked more like spray from the main event. The right side of the rear door had clearly been soaked in it, including that side of the motor (belt, etc., visible in the image above).
- When I was around it, there was still a very slow drip coming off the pump, in the same place shown above
- Ran an inspection borescope into the machine, from both sides. I didn't see any obvious smoking guns for the leak source. I'll go back tomorrow with a better light source.
- Anything in particular to be looking for when I look at this again? Is there anything I should be suspicious of above or forward of the pump?
- If I do have to pull the pump, how much am I going to hate myself? I have the service manual, but it pretty much says "raise the cab, disconnect the hoses, and remove the pump"... which is less than helpful. If I do pull it, is it worth rebuilding it, or do I just buy a new one for $500 and throw it in?
- Right now, my worst-case plan for finding the leak is to dump more fluid in, fire it up, and see where it sprays out (Clearly I'll not stick my hand in there, I'd like to keep all my body parts). Any better ideas?
