Hi folks, Former member of this forum some years back and 30+ years as a heavy mechanic in a former life. Completely new to mechanical drive skidsteers. I purchased a very well abused M600 with a VF4D Wisconsin engine 7 or 8 years ago with the remnants of a rod poking through a hole in the side of the block. Until now it has been gathering dust in the back of one of my barns. I finally decided this year to attempt a resurrection. With the OE engine being beyond reasonable repair I decided to raid the pile of smoked VH4D stationary farm engines I have accumulated over the years. I found parts enough to assemble a pretty good engine and had a taper and keyway machined on the end of the crankshaft to accommodate the OE variable speed pulley assy. per a mechanical drawing I found online. Unfortunately, although the old crank was in excellent condition, the journals are a bit smaller on a VF4D than a VH. When I attempted to install the engine, I was only able to assemble the sheave after removing the L front and rear engine bolts so I could cock the engine sideways enough to relieve drive belt tension sufficiently to get the snap ring seated into the outside washer. Even then I had to pry a bit on the engine to get my slightly modified mounting holes to line up and changed to 7/16" grade 8 from the OE 1/2" mounting bolts. Other than the misery of attempting to reassemble the VSP because the belt was now a little tighter and having to rework the mount bolt holes a bit, apparently to accommodate slight (maybe 1/4" to 1/2") dimensional differences between the OE engine and the VH4D, everything seemed to go together and run with the exception that the speed lever when released went right back down to crawl. I have seen that problem addressed on this forum but have decided to leave that for later. On its maiden voyage, the sheave seals blew out giving one side of the rear of the machine a good oil soaking including the belt drive. I also noticed that there was another significant leak dripping underneath that turned out to be seeping from the front of the tilt control valve spool. It appears from mechanical drawings I found on the Bobcat website that the entire control valve assembly and mounting plate needs to be removed to get any of the valves out of the machine for service. Looks like a real pain. Can anybody confirm this since I can't find documentation on this anywhere? Anyway, there is now only the sheave leak and the tilt control valve leak between a pile of useless junk and a usable machine The Bobcat site indicates that the sheave requires a 6661441 seal kit and the tilt control valve spool requires (2) 6515313 soft lip seals one at either end of the spool. Does anyone know where either of these can be obtained? I have been shopping these part #s around on the internet and cant seem to find anything listed for them. And only 50 years old....go figure? I have O-rings that are the same size as those originally used in the sheave but would rather go with ones sold for the purpose if I can find them. Any help obtaining these seals or comments about the process will be greatly appreciated.
Melroe Bobcat M600 resurrection
- Thread starter Terry T
- Start date
flyerdan
Well-known member
- Joined
- Mar 7, 2009
- Messages
- 983
Facebook has a group that caters to the pre-hydrostatic cats, Melroe Bobcat Owners of America .
If you're already on there, it's a good group with lots of info shared on hard to find stuff.
If you're already on there, it's a good group with lots of info shared on hard to find stuff.
Thanks much for the info flyerdan, I checked out that forum and you really made my day. Lots of good stuff about these pre-hydrostatic (or is that actually pre-historic?) machines already posted there. Almost like a candy store but without the sugar.
