Found lots of metal but said there's no problem and to run it?

I thought that was weird as well.

Sounds like some guys I've worked with over the years.

We have a 745 in the shop right now that got a new transfer gear case because a bearing spun in the housing. Our tech submitted a DSN ticket about wanting to check the trans since it's shared oil. They said not to touch it. When he put the new OTG now all of a sudden they want him to drop the trans pan to check for debris. It's full of clutch material but they told him to just kidney loop it until it passes. But then they came back later with "install new solenoids and recalibrate". We all know damn well that does ZERO to actually fix the damn trans.

The fucking thing is under warranty too, so it won't cost the customer or us a single dime. Cat is footing it.

Oh, and now he has to pull all 3 diffs because the dowel pins are backing out.

I'm going to meet that service manager next week I think.
It's not often that I go to a store in person, so I expect him to turn inside out when I walk in his office.

Please come back and share the outcome after the meet.

I didn't make it over there today, maybe tomorrow. I'm a lot calmer now, ass chewing is less likely but sarcasm and poorly veiled disdain will be prevalent.

I’m big fork lift guy but feel your attack just the same.

Hey Cat guys, I need the other side of 2 connectors and for the life of me I can't find them in SIS.

9x-3401 and 126-1767
And the pins that go into them (mates with 5p-4571 and 097-7234 respectively)

Feeling retarded today and the parts guys are all striking out.

Service manager got back to me today, by email. He did send me an oil sample report and PSR for my cat, said there are no issues, but its got a logged code for high TC temp. No issues my ass, but I don't think the high temp code is completely related, it happened 300hrs ago.
I'm having lunch with the VP of his company in a couple weeks, I'm sure his year end bonus is going to be appropriate.
I need to find a PSR from one of my other machines to check against, but it looks like intake manifold air temp is biased 50+ degrees low to me. Tried talking an operator through using a multimeter, didn't work. It wasn't a hammer so he couldn't figure it out lol

9X-3401 companion is 9X-3402. 126-1767 is 126-1768.

Do you have access to ecmreports.cat.com? I don't know if they give access to that to customers or not.

Thanks for the part numbers!

I didn't know that site existed,  and my username even let me login! Thank you! I'll pull that up on the laptop in a bit. Nothing better than digging through logs after dinner lol
Again, thanks a ton!

Ooo, I’m going to have to give that a try.

No problem. I thought they seemed familiar, but then I realized they were pins and sockets after looking at my cheat sheet. I'm surprised parts couldn't find those for you as they're part of the electrical repair kit.

That site only works if the person pulling the PSR has the auto upload enabled (and if they don't delete the PSR from the computer shortly after creating it). It comes enabled when ET is installed so it should be good to go.

That is a very cool site, it actually has a dozen or so PSRs for the machine I'm working on at the moment. It seems that they save a lot less info than the one you save to the computer, and unfortunately the lifetime data is not there for me to compare. But I can see that the dealer I was working with over there hasn't updated their ET since 2019A on any of their laptops, or they are sharing the same one.

It may be that whoever owns that computer doesn't have all parameters selected. When ET is installed there are several categories that aren't selected to be included on a PSR. If you go into settings you can select whatever categories you want to be included.

Oof.
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HTF did you manage that?

ETA we have a guy here that had one fall off one of the rails after he had it stabbed in like 80%. Hell of a time trying to get it back out cause everything was catching on other shit.  

Cat guy did it.  His chain was at an angle on his pulling fixture because of an aftermarket fire suppression system.
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The oil is from the trans landing on a drain pan.

At least you guys dont have the trash boxes on the back. All of our landfill customers do and you spend forever getting the trash out and its always nasty. The suppression can is mounted in there.

I’ve never seen a landfill package d8 that didn’t have the striker bar/box on the back. Honestly not sure how y’all haven’t knocked a hole in the trans housing with no protection for it because they damn sure would here.

We took the counterweight off.  That’s the only rear protection this one has.

Was it originally not a landfill arrangement machine and just got put into it?

As far as I know, this KPZ still says “waste handler” on it.  It’s way before my time here.  Our MLN and FMC have boxes on the back.

I wonder if someone fucked the box up enough that it was cheaper/easier to just throw a counterweight on?

That would never happen at a government job with no operator involvement with the equipment.

Damn these PER D6Ns, just had a second one derate, for high intake air temp. No shit, it's pushing brush 5 feet away from a damn fire. 257 degrees at the manifold and it goes to 15% power (idle), not a big deal pushing up hill, toss her in R and get out of it until the temp drops, but when it happens in the bottom of a bowl that's how you kill someone. Cat won't take the derate out or raise the temp limit, so I'm going to take an idea from the other problem cat and bias that MFer low. Might cause low power, but its a lot better than 15% power.

Hopefully Cat will start delivering our new D5s and I can rotate these things out of Frontline use.

10 days of vacation, here we come! That is all, carry on...

Just found out our dealership just bought out the Nevada dealership. Cashman cat will soon become Empire cat.

Evidently the son of Cashman didn’t want to take over the business.

Fun fact, the son is Jim Cashman. Better known as Jaime in the progressive commercials.

That Progressive money must be more lucrative. Interesting fun fact.

He’s got 21 acting credits in tv and film, and has written for SNL.  I’m betting he’ll do just fine.

$500,000 per commercial plus the other stuff he does. Add in a actress wife as well and they'll be fine.

Plus the money he'll inherit when his mom passes.

Could you imagine working and having Jaime as a boss. How could you take him seriously?

No shit? Damn, I didn't know he was that active beyond the commercials. Shows how much tv I watch.

On the surface, he might seem nice to work with, but in reality, he could be a total douche nozzle. Kinda how my last boss was. Super well-liked by the community, but was a total pain to work for.

Has anyone ever seen an engine display signs of low compression, but tests BETTER than factory spec? Had an old ass skid loader come in for losing prime/hard starting. Checked the transfer pump and it was barely within spec so I swapped it out. Still showing the same symptoms. Did a compression test and they all tested between 500 and 520 psi but spec is only 360 to 430 and this machine was at almost 8k hours. Changed out the old ass fuel lines, still the same. Installed some clear lines to watch for bubbles and found a (very) small leak on the filter housing. Had the injectors pop tested, all good. It would just barely make some white smoke after cranking for a bit so it didn't seem fuel related. Never bothered to check the glow plugs because it had been inside our shop the entire time. Found out they weren't working and once I got them working it would start every single time when you hit the plug switch.

Customer didn't want to get into the injection pump due to cost so I couldn't rule that out 100%. Super weird and frustrating repair.

Well I’m off early today out of victory. A little over a year ago I opened my big mouth at a customer and got us married into one of the longest drawn out transmission swaps this company had ever seen.

I initially inspected the unit and it had water in everything. Engine oil. Hydraulic oil. Drain all the oils and change the engine oil filter. The trans had the control valve knocked of somehow. So that’s why it didn’t move, everything else functioned though. We pulled the trans and in the process an overzealous crane truck driver broke the valve for the cab tilt and a couple little functions.

We swap the trans. Install it, hook everything up, pumps back in, everything but the broken valve body which had a 6 month lead time. In the mean time we had to disassemble and move the unit while being dead In the water. This was dicey as the mast was tilted back and created issues.

Truck was moved to another location and we resumed work. Finally got the valve in and everything hooked up finally. Topped off all the fluids, ie trans, both hydraulic tanks. Pull the engine oil dipstick and we’ll it’s full of water. Someone took the bucket off the exhaust and it had 25 gallons of fluid in it. Change the oil again and get it running. A few leaks here and there but otherwise it ran.

Many codes were on the dash and I had to figure them out. Being a kalmar it isn’t our brand and we don’t have much documentation on them. Somewhere someone pulled a manual for a reach stacker out of thin error and while it wasn’t for the truck in question it worked. I was able to sort it all out. Finding broken wires, a few wet plugs and such. After two days of trans wiring I was able to clear all the trans codes but it wouldn’t go into gear.

The parking brake circuit needs to see available presssure at the valve to activate and put the trans into gear. Put a gauge on it and no pressure. I immediately think the pump is bad so I crack the fitting to see if there’s flow. What I found was a wet fart of victory. She had an air bubble and after it was out she immediately built pressure.

Finally. With the brake pressure back online that transmission worked. For the first time in 4 years this Kalmar moved under its own power freeing me from a year of struggle bus.

Doby got his sock and now I’m a free elf.

That is all.

D6n with low power is finally getting some love and headway from my guys, no smoking gun yet though. Multiple harness issues and a broken ground strap under the cab, still has low power. Waiting on a pig tail connector to the trans and a speed sensor that is suspect. Intake air manifold sensors were back ordered, should be here next week. I'm sending those guys home early today paid, and they will be my on call crew through Friday since they don't have the seniority to get the holiday off. I'm not going to make them come in to work unless something breaks down.


Cat store manager called me this morning and apologized profusely for service manager shenanigans. Lunch with the company VP and regional rep last week solved a bunch of problems. Getting a deal from them as a apology on our next tractor order, considering buying another 24 D5s now. Might get some small loaders too, 920s or so, to push snow and clean up mud slides. We have a ton of IT28s that are worn out and a handful of 938Ms that are a bit too big for some places.
Back to vacation, currently watching the kids play on the beach in Monterey Bay.

Is it a di engine or does it have precombustion chambers? Pc engines NEED the glow plugs to fire up when cold. They usually have much higher compression ratios than newer engines but I guess the heat doesn’t make it into the chamber where the injector is firing.

On heui motors with hydraulic Jake's out of adjustment. Barring the motor over slow and everything is correct, crank and oil pressure holds the exhaust valves open.

Pc chambers. Old ass Perkins 2.2. Glow plugs aren't automatic like newer stuff so you'd think it wouldn't require them to start inside a 60 degree shop. Weird that factory spec is so much lower than what I measured and it would not start without hitting the glow plug switch. Customer took it as-is and I haven't heard anything back.

I haven’t seen any equipment that they are automatic on especially something not computerized. Pc engines pretty much always need at least a couple glow plugs working.

That's what I mean by automatic. No electronics other than the interlock ecm. Our shop skid steer is the same vintage and pops right off without plugs.

Began a policy of borescope inspections on all M278 engines built prior to March 2015 prior to performing any diagnostics or repairs.  They all have failing cylinder walls until the switch to cast iron liners.  I highly recommend your dealer do the same per WIS instructions on the cylinder wall inspections of M278 engines.  The documentation is there.  I've found the problem every single time i've looked for it, even without any fault codes or problems to indicate this is happening.

Book value of these cars is in the single digit thousands and the engine cost is 31K.  I'd also advise recommending this prior to any other work on the car, particularly difficult to diagnose stuff.  Chances are the car is junk anyway.  

This does not affect AMG engines, those are twin wire arc sprayed, not silitec.   It doesn't affect any other silitec engines, so far as I've seen only the M278 and you will see it as early as 60k miles and for certain by 100K.  If you have a misfire or ticking sound, drop the borescope in that cylinder.  I typically only do one cylinder because once I find the problem, there is no point in going any further.

Happy Turkey Day all!

This!  Hope everyone has their wrenches put down and their forks full of food!

Came out of a FMC d8 transmission filter.
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That's it?

No. But it was all flakes like that, no chunks.

Magnetic? Looks blued

Eta pull the screens and see which one has stuff in it

Get back to me when it collapses the suction screen and you have to pry it out.

Definitely looks like smashed up bearing material.