foss
Member
Hey guys, Steve (Foss) here. I have a very puzzling issue with a Cat 225LC excavator that my son bought recently. While operating the machine a couple weeks ago, I noticed that it seemed down on power a bit and was making a "squawking" noise as if it was low on hydraulic fluid. However, the fluid was not low when I checked it. So we thought maybe the filter was blocked not allowing enough fluid through so we pulled the filters out and were shocked to find debris laying in the bottom of the filter cavity. The debris contained pieces of an external snap ring and what appeared to be pieces of a seal and maybe pieces of some type of sealing ring, as you would expect to come from a cylinder . So, the search began to find out where the debris came from. So, we pulled the two main pumps and are having them rebuilt ( since there was some damage/wear to them) but found that there are no snap rings in the pumps. Next we pulled the two hydraulic drive motors and found them to be in great shape (and finding that the only snap rings in them were internal and couldn't have been the source, besides they were fine). The valves in the hydraulic system have no snap rings that we know of, and if they did surely they wouldn't be as large as the one the pieces came from(2 1/2"dia. approx.). The final drives aren't part of the hydraulic system so the debris couldn't have come from there. About the only thing we haven't checked are the brakes, which are located between the drive motors and the final drive units. Also the swing motor appears to be the same motor as the drive/travel motors, which, as I said, don't have external snap rings in them. I would appreciate any input anyone might have that might shed light on where this stuff came from. The bill for the pump rebuild is about $5,000, and I hate to put them back in a system that we aren't sure about. Thanks for any help. Steve
