hydraulic system, ouch

[jwallace]

If you found metal shavings in the tank it has come from a motor not a cylinder, as others have so noted a case drain returns usually direct to the tank unfiltered. so I would lean toward a track drive or a swing motor. Does the machine walk straight with out vearing to one side or the other,did it track straight before ?

 

[w2bstoned]

Well Its finally all over, She up and running:cool2:drinkup.
I Drained all the hyd tank out and the return filter was good and the suction filter was about 1/16 filled around with o rings rubber.

No metal shavings...:notworthy

I also dropped the main hose to pump and everything was good.

Thank you very much for all the help guys

 

[SterlingR]

Maybe I missed this but most excavators have a suction screen in the hydraulic tank. Pull it out and take a look at it. As mentioned I would think your leaking cylinder is suspect number one. If it came from a pump/motor/cylinder and it is cutting shavings you will find out pretty quick where it is coming from because it's life will be very short. Pull the suction screen and give us a picture of the debris.

 

[watglen]

I would get a magnet into the tank asap, either at the drain port of simply by attaching the strongest magnet i could find to the bottom/side of the tank.

Magnetic drain plugs are a good idea all around

 

[The Big Dig]

Thanks for the info. That will come in handy down the road. :drinkup

 

[ih100]

I had a problem with a Cat 320 where all of the cylinders started to creep when the levers were released, at around 800-hrs on the meter from new. We thought it was going to be a new set of cylinders (rams) but it turned out to be the spool block. When the machine had been built the spools weren't properly flushed and casting and machining swarf was sitting in the ports and spools, causing leakage. It ended up with a complete new spool assembly, and a complete oil and filter change but after that we never had any more trouble with the hydraulics. If you remove the spools from the block and use a bore-scope you'll see the debris easy if that's what the problem is. If this is the problem, I hope you're still in warranty, as it's an expensive swap.

If it is just debris in your tank, it isn't hard to remove and steam out the tank.

 

[MrKomatsu]

Do you have a filter cart? If you do you can run the oil thru the cart... I would recommend pulling a few spools out and looking at them for scratches.. If none found than you could loop the hoses and run filter cart with both hoses in tank.......

 

[Bigstevex4]

if the cyl was the problem clean the tank out good put in a flushing fillter block the fillter relief and run it for 4-5 hours change the fillter to standard one the damage has been done already. if everthing works ok Whew! if not deal with that specific issue unless you got alot of free time it would take 100 hours at min. to diasembled all componats and clean them.

 

[MrKomatsu]

Just like Bigsteve said....the damage is already done....You need to find the root cause.....remember where there is abnormal heat there is problems....shoot the system while running the filtering system....hand held heat gun......