Hi all I have been operating bobcats for the last 17 odd years and have now changed job and I'm now in a 2014 cat 272D I've only been in standed control bobcat skidsteers and geting my head round a joy sticked machine has been a bit of a misson lol but I'm getting there. My question is i have never had to fight a Machineto skid turn on the road but this cat is just a pig to turn, what would be a good tyre to help the cat skid on ashphlt and chip seal ? Any input would be very helpfull cheers.
Fighting with the cat
- Thread starter Kornfed
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Hotrod1830
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- Sep 14, 2010
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- 513
Turns on pavement is extremely hard on any tire. The best way I have found is to rock the front tires and eliminate the skid on pavement. If you have weight in the bucket, rock the rears off the ground and turn. Not sure how easy it is with joy sticks, but thats my only idea.
TriHonu
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- Apr 15, 2007
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- 487
Depending upon your situation I have two suggestions.
If you are working in a confined area, you can spread a little sand on the pavement. This will allow the tires to skid more easily.
If you have a worn out set of tires, you will find that they will turn on hard surfaces much easier than new lug tires. I have a set that are nearly slicks that I use when working on hard surfaces or on turf. A side benefit is that once a set of tires wears this far, they wear very slowly after that.
Thanks for your input guys, the cats running a half worn set of Galaxy hulks witch I was running on my s550 and never had a problem with them on any surface. Most of the time I have a milling attachment or broom on the cat and have tryed everything to get it to skid, I'm thinking king that theres to much wait in the machine becouse I can't really get it onto it's front wheels or the back wheels. Do you think a set of slicks would be Werth a try ? Since all of my work is on ashplt or chip seal.
I would rather you start telling us about the mechanical maintenance on this machine. From what you have said, it almost sounds like the engine is not up to the task of steering as it should be doing. If the maintenance has been put off for a while, I would suggest starting with fresh fuel & air filters. I would run the machine until warm, then change the oil at that time, too. It would be a very good idea to add some sort of diesel fuel additive to the fuel tank, as well. Consider GREASING that machine at every point. For your sake, I am hoping it is something very simple (maintenance related).
The cat has only just had its 1000hr service and it was serviced by the cat dealer. I grease it every morning with out fail. She still seems to have all the power it needs and it will screw round on turf just not chip seal or ashplt, The only thing that has come up on the read out screen is (669-2 unexpected left motor reverse speed detected check motor speed senor or wiring) that may have something to do with it but since im just the operator not the owner getting the work shop to sort it near on impossible.
It's probably the nature of the machine. It might be some worth having the dealer look at if there is an adjustment to the pilot controls to make it steer better. Otherwise it's possible its the learning curve going to joysticks. A lot of guys struggle to get use to them.
I used a TAKEUCHI TL-xxx for a day removing swampy clay from my back yard, it was a little tricky to get used to traveling & steering with only my left hand, but it was a lot easier then to use than the hand & foot controls are to operate on most BOBCAT machines are = for me. Being that it is not your machine, does anyone else operate that same machine? Do they have similar issues while operating it?? I only ask to see if there is a way to narrow it down further!
So today id had enuff of fighting the cat and rang the ops manager and told him im not operating it till its sorted apart from it being a headache for me I can see it doing more damage to the machine. So its now off to the cat dealer. On another note I was told that the gps in the cat sends messages to the dealer when something is up or when it needs a service is this Tru ? Yeah there is a lot to use to with joy sticks that's for shore, I till find my self trying to operate it with my feet even after two months of driving it everyday, I am more the main operator of the cat now but every body I've talked to has had the same error come up on the display and it stops dead in mind turn gerrrrrrrr.
Remote monitoring of equipment is a real thing on construction equipment. However it's normally on large equipment, I haven't seen that technology make it to skidsteers. Besides the cat skidsteer is pilot control. The system uses low pressure hydraulic pressure to control high pressure. Outside of charge pressure, the unit probably doesn't monitor this system. Main reason I said have dealer look at it as the drive system is not something the average Joe can adjust with a crescent wrench.
