Junkyard
Senior Member
If you want to get serious and mean I'll DONATE my time to explain how they screwed the pooch. I've won two lawsuits pro se plus did 99% of my divorce that way. Learned myself a lot I did!!
If this was a large company that buys millions of dollars worth of parts, equipment, and service..........they would be rebuilding this on them.......no questions asked.
Yes, I admit that I made my share of mistakes on my machine, but there's something just not right about this. Why should I ,after paying for the first rebuild at Ziegler caterpillar, expecting to have an engine with new parts and dependable ready for work,have to pay again for the same rebuild? To me it's like having a new engine put in an older car at a major dealership, having it fail, taking it back to the dealership and they will not fix the problem without payment first. Just not right!I had some spare time tonight so I read through most of the 47 pages. Wow. It's so easy to get yourself upside down on an old machine like this.
It's easy to point fingers after the fact, but I think the owner of the machine deserves a lot of blame here, but the dealer didn't do much better. This is a classic example of multiple people throwing parts (very, very expensive parts) at a problem and never actually fixing the problems. As a fixer of machines, perhaps my view is jaded, but this is how I see it:
Seems very likely that the radiator blockage and overheating is what actually killed the original engine. The oil pressure loss was just a final nail in the coffin.
So the OP throws a totally different engine at the machine and mixes and matches the parts. This creates a new issue with low oil pressure to the bottom end. The jetting oil at the rocker arms absolutely could have killed the motor. The oil takes the path of least resistance. If a passage is wide open, all the oil goes there instead of where it is needed.
Now the Cat dealer has to sort out an antique machine with several simultaneous problems that has been hacked together by an amateur. They fixed the oiling issue but missed the original issue just like the owner did.
It sure does seem like someone (especially a trained Cat mechanic) should have figured out the stupid thing was overheating. Burned up valves and pistons. What's that got to do with oil pressure? How do they explain that once they tested the injection pump? It has classic overheating issues. Burned up 6 and starting to burn 5. Is it a coincidence that those are furthest from the water pump?
The OP screwed up, and he knows that. So he did a sensible thing and paid the experts to make it right. The dealer screwed up, but they don't want to admit it.
I would absolutely hire a lawyer. How could they send the machine out without checking the water temp?
Yes, I admit that I made my share of mistakes on my machine, but there's something just not right about this. Why should I ,after paying for the first rebuild at Ziegler caterpillar, expecting to have an engine with new parts and dependable ready for work,have to pay again for the same rebuild? To me it's like having a new engine put in an older car at a major dealership, having it fail, taking it back to the dealership and they will not fix the problem without payment first. Just not right!
Haven't signed anything or sent money. My lawyer said that it will come down to me proving negligence on their part,my expert mechanic witness against theirs letting an arbitrator decide.Yes. You are right. I hope you have not signed anything regarding giving them the machine or any money.
Haven't signed anything or sent money. My lawyer said that it will come down to me proving negligence on their part,my expert mechanic witness against theirs letting an arbitrator decide.