Early 90s L553. My bucket cyl seals went bad, and we couldn’t get the nut off to get to them. Took just the cyl to a large Cat dealer in town, and they took weeks to break it free, but finally got in a replaced the seals.
I Installed the cyl on my machine, and it only went out. No matter which way I pressed the pedal, the piston only extended. Shoulda taken it back to the Cat dealer, but got busy. That was 2 years ago.
Back at it after all these years, and my first step was to reverse the hoses. After it was connected hoses backwards, my first action was to try and retract it from the full extension it had been at, and it worked! Fully retracted. I then tried to extend it, and it moved, but only an inch or so. It went that first 1-1.5 inch at normal speed, and then continued to move but verrrrry slowly. I didn’t want to mess anything up so I didn’t continue pushing it, but it was all but stopped at 2 inches of extension.
I then went to put the hoses on correctly, top to top / bottom to bottom. When I first cracked the bottom hose (top hose connected to bottom of cyl) the fluid that came out was milky. Now that they were connected correctly, I got just an inch of movement in and out. The hoses flinch under pressure when activated.
For whatever reason I started thinking there was an air lock and it needed to be bled. So I cracked the top nut, and clear fluid came out, no air or bubbles. Still not moving much, so I drove it around working the booms thinking I might work out what ever air was in there. I continued to check the dip stick, and while driving around small bubbles started showing up on the dip stick.
After all that it still was only moving an inch in either direction. I parked it and I guess I’m hoping it burps itself eventually. Any other thoughts?
I Installed the cyl on my machine, and it only went out. No matter which way I pressed the pedal, the piston only extended. Shoulda taken it back to the Cat dealer, but got busy. That was 2 years ago.
Back at it after all these years, and my first step was to reverse the hoses. After it was connected hoses backwards, my first action was to try and retract it from the full extension it had been at, and it worked! Fully retracted. I then tried to extend it, and it moved, but only an inch or so. It went that first 1-1.5 inch at normal speed, and then continued to move but verrrrry slowly. I didn’t want to mess anything up so I didn’t continue pushing it, but it was all but stopped at 2 inches of extension.
I then went to put the hoses on correctly, top to top / bottom to bottom. When I first cracked the bottom hose (top hose connected to bottom of cyl) the fluid that came out was milky. Now that they were connected correctly, I got just an inch of movement in and out. The hoses flinch under pressure when activated.
For whatever reason I started thinking there was an air lock and it needed to be bled. So I cracked the top nut, and clear fluid came out, no air or bubbles. Still not moving much, so I drove it around working the booms thinking I might work out what ever air was in there. I continued to check the dip stick, and while driving around small bubbles started showing up on the dip stick.
After all that it still was only moving an inch in either direction. I parked it and I guess I’m hoping it burps itself eventually. Any other thoughts?
