Cat mini excavator bucket repairs

[wil440]

Got to repair 3 buckets off of a Cat 300.09 mini excavator, this has Strickland buckets on it, Strickland manufacture buckets and other stuff here in the UK, not the greatest I'm afraid.

The mini ex hasn't done many hours at all but is out of warranty time wise and the rubbish buckets aren't warrantied anyway

The bucket "ears" are maybe a 1/4" with NO bosses at all so the wearing surface on the buckets are a 1/4" wide, pin is about 1" (25mm i'd say)

The wear in the ears was huge at least a 1/16th on the wide ditching bucket with ears bent because pins have come out because the dumb landscapers don't bother with the retaining roll pins as a hole has to be lined up (way too busy to bother with that)

 

So I made a pile of bosses and new pins on my lathe (don't know how I got by without a lathe) put a good step on the bosses and then cut the holes in the ears  much bigger, come to set it all up to tack weld and the tipping link was twisted, managed to untwist it with a lot of heat.

All welded in pins fitted and a straight stud welded inbeween the 2 bosses with a hole in the end, tomorrow I'm going to make 2 flags for the pins with holes in them so they are retained by the stud with a spring pin 

 

 

Don't know why 2 turned out upside down, not this way on my laptop 

And yes the bucket is sat on a beer barrel

 

 

Edited April 30, 2022 by wil440
rotate last 2 pics 180°

[Max Tune]

Nice job....

[wil440]

thanks

 

2 more to do tomorrow although forecast is rain and i'm working outside so might be Monday

 

I have another set of bushes to make and one set to machine the shoulder so that might be the inside job for tomorrow wife won't be impressed though as it's a holiday weekend here... May Day Bank Holiday

[Doubletrouble]

 Before you installed the bosses it looks pretty weak even to the untrained eye. The way you did it makes much more sense. Guess the company don't care how long they last. Good job security for you though I suppose.

[wil440]

3 hours ago, Doubletrouble said:

 Before you installed the bosses it looks pretty weak even to the untrained eye. The way you did it makes much more sense. Guess the company don't care how long they last. Good job security for you though I suppose.

Yes the actual surface area on the bucket ears was nowhere near wide enough, it's actually done just shy of 200hrs believe it or not, The pins where flat faced with no taper at all.... landscaper hole digging guys aren't ever going to get those pins in without the pins  becoming rivets, there was a boss one side but it was may be a 1/16th bigger than the pin and was just for a spring pin to retain the pin, landscaper clowns couldn't be bothered to align the holes so never put the retainer in so pins come out one side and ears get bent but hey they still keep working.... THEN "this POS I can't put the other bucket on ! "

The secret is to NEVER put a bucket on any excavator with the bucket on the ground, this is the dumbass way and if you are lucky you end up with a hour or so of up,down,up,down,back, forward.

The way to do it on your own easy is a smaller than the pin bar in the tipping link and pick the bucket off of the ground, then use stick in/out and bucket crowd/tip to align the stick pin, once it's aligned it will slide in with hands, then move the stick until the smaller bar will come out of the tipping link, then use the stick in/out and bucket crowd/tip to get the tipping link aligned and that pin will slide in with hands, it really is that easy and works on all sizes of excavators but try telling hole diggers that.

I've put buckets on a 100ton excavator on my own using a 3" dummy pin this way.

 

Finished the ditching bucket, made 4 more bosses for the 2nd bucket and cut the holes in the ears on this one today.

Tomorrow  (May Day Holiday) I'll mock it all up weld in the bosses on the 2nd bucket, then line hone to fit as welding pulls the bosses a little, I could make the bosses a little bigger but the pull is not over the whole boss so easier to hone afterwards, long bolt with a slot in it and a coarse emery slipped in and wound around the bolt and I have a dog cheap flap wheel, when it wears out put another peice in and carry on,  sad as I am I cut the slot in that bolt over 30 years ago 

The 2nd bucket has teeth mounting hardware missing so 3 out of 4 teeth are one bolt only, the bolts are taper head and maybe 12mm or so, I haven't got the correct bolts so I'll make 3 out of normal bolts and cut the taper on the lathe, they won't be hard bolts as it's a tiny machine so made will be fine, I'll use 10.9 cat bolts as the stock so strong enough

Hopefully get the 3rd bucket well on it's way tomorrow too.

It won't be a good earner because the landscaper hole digging guys work for my son, I do all of his repairs and he's got some equipment now but he also has some stupid people working for him ah well.

Me thinks the next on the list of " I need" is a milling  machine

 

Here's a pic of the pin retainer side, only problem with this now I've done this one is the other buckets have to be the same as in the pin retaining stud and the bosses need to be the same distance apart or the pins won't fit.... no pressure 

 

BTW the snot is grease which will p~~s off the hole digging guys as they have an aversion to grease so not going to paint the buckets where if been heating and welding just going to cover them in grease 

 

 

Edited May 1, 2022 by wil440

[Max Tune]

Cat must be buying buckets off of eBay....

 

Pretty sad to see such a company sell a product like that.

[wil440]

17 minutes ago, Max Tune said:

Cat must be buying buckets off of eBay....

 

Pretty sad to see such a company sell a product like that.

To be fair to Cat my guess is this machine was sold without buckets as I too cannot see Cat selling such rubbish and Cat wouldn't sell a bucket with Strickland on the plate, if I'm wrong Cat deserve all they get because 1/4" as a bucket bearing surface is stupid, now it's 1 1/4" or so   so ought to last better