G'day from Australia. Cat 277C 2012 model.
Hate to add to an old thread but rather than start a new one, I'm hoping someone may spot this and offer some assistance. My machine only has 700 hrs, vineyard use rather than heavy daily work. Last week I was pushing up a bunch of vines to a fire pile and after working for an hour revs started to drop and I lost all forward speed. I can get a little backwards and then forwards again, but RPM's are limited and under full throttle, barley any lift in RPM, a bit of white smoke and no drive.
I walked away for a lunch hour and managed to get the machine back to the shed and the next day totally cold I got the job done, but coming back to the shed, lost forward momentum and RPM's again.
Ordered a new fuel / water separator filter which was just as well as today I'm taking a few branches to the fire pile and moving some woodchips and it died again. Worse this time, the engine actually stalled out. So on the side of the track I replaced the fuel/water filter, cleaned the bowl, drained the tank and filled with a fresh 20 liters of fuel. The unit primed and moved forwards about 20 feet, then died again. I started it after a bit and it moved forwards another 20 feet, then started running fine and I moved it about 80m at good throttle and speed up to the sheds. Then it lost forward momentum again and stalled. Now it wont start. Seems very similar to both of the previous incidents written here.