Hello Nick
Many thanks for your interest. I have not been able at to get it going yet because we are cleaning it up, I purchased it working, it is in very bad shape maintainence wise , very dirty and grime covered, We had to do a complete cleanup, ( two days scraping and
pressure washing!) You would be apalled at the amount of stuff we had to remove, the cabin is in bad shape lots of rust and the electrical system all shot but it worked , It Moves ( one track ( swamp /Bog wide track)a little faster than the other ) and the rams operated ok but slow , ( I hope that the celanup of the hydraulics wil l sort that out the
Hydraulic fluid was really bad white water logged/ and there was even water in the diesel, It has a ford 2713E engine and the
water pump / Bearing was shot We were able to patch that up but could not find replacement part locally.
The cooling fins on the hydraulic cooler are rusted off for the most.
The pins and holes on the booms )
bucket end) are pretty worn and We are looking as " sleeving them" with something.
We are carefully going everything over and I will certainly post some pics later ( soon I hope) .
To fill in further this is a first for me , I bought it for Developing a 26 acre farm in wetlands because I really cannot afford to go for one of the other modern machines , also because of it's simplicity compared to the modern stuff. ( actually we got 2 machines at the same time on a deal , both working but in bad shape) (the other with a perkins engine( working also)
I am based in Guyana south america , This Used to be a British colony so we have many of these old machines here from the 1960's , mostly brought in by the then government and have now found their way into private hands and the
scrapyard, ( they can be seen laid up in many farming areas rusting away, mostly stripped of the removble parts)
Most of the machines in use now are Komatsu/Caterpillar/Daewoo/Hitachi
I have a great mechanic who is capable of making anything out of nothing, ( he makes his heavy duty flat screwdrivers from old bedford
truck leaf springs! and a grinder ) ( and flat spanners from 1/4 Inch plate steel (- cuts the shape of the bolt/nut head out of a length of the metal with a
cold chisel ,( soundse nuts but that is how he has kept going in the bush all these years! with over 30 years experience in maintanence of heavy duty machines in the Jungles of Guyana. I am sure that he will keep the machines alive.
I will keep you posted on progress.
Validum
Postat: 04:54:19, 19-10-2007
