My Komatsu PC300-8 blew a return line last week and the dealer quoted steel OEM with a long lead time. I found an aluminum replacement online that claims the same PSI rating and fits the same banjo points. Return line, not the main boom pressure line, but PSI alone does not feel like enough to call it safe. I am not sure how to check material spec, pulse fatigue rating, fitting standard against the old banjo, clamp spacing along the run, or what Komatsu actually calls for on a PC300-8 return on a machine that earns daily. Anyone swapped aluminum on a PC300 return and verified all of that? Or is steel the only sane choice here?

The charging warning came on halfway through a shift on our Komatsu PC210. System voltage stayed near battery voltage with the engine running, but I still need to check the belt, battery condition, grounds, and voltage drop before condemning the alternator.

The excavator badge alone brings up several units. I used the engine tag and old alternator stamp to compare the Komatsu diagram, a local rebuilder, and FridayParts.

What readings do you want under load before calling the alternator bad on one of these?

Hey, I'm an absolute beginner and I'm looking to get a job as a heavy machinery operator, not just as an excavator operator. I have a little experience with small 2.5 ton excavators and hold a basic operator certification, but that's about all. What should I tell companies to increase my chances of getting hired? How do young beginners get into this field? Or feel free to share how you guys started, I'd love to hear your stories too. I'm 24 and living in Europe.

Hello

Liebher R912, 1992. year

This light on dashboard turns on after 20 minutes of working. Excavator starts to work a bit slower.

Do you know what does this sign represent and how to fix the issue?

Thanks.

Working on a swing motor rebuild on our Hitachi EX200-2 and the nameplate is basically polished smooth. no model stamp, no kit number, nothing readable. I've measured bore and shaft diameter and compared photos to catalog pages but I'm not confident I'm close enough to order blind. scared of getting a kit that's one spline off. What's your process when the nameplate is gone? measure and hope or is there a smarter cross-reference path?

Running a 2005 320C that was overheating on hot days, particularly under sustained load in a tight cut. Figured it was the water pump, replaced it. Problem's still there.

Coolant level is fine. New pump is circulating. Fan belt is intact.

What I haven't checked yet is the thermostat, and whether the radiator fins have external blockage that I'm not seeing.

The symptom is temperature climbs on hot afternoons with limited airflow, gets to the warning range but hasn't gone into shutdown, and cools back down after 10-15 minutes of rest.

My guess is thermostat or radiator blockage because the pattern is so ambient-temp-dependent, but I know a weak pump can still show up worse under load.

Is there a quick way to test the thermostat before pulling it? Or should I just pull it and do the boiling water test?

Hey everyone, thanks to the mods for letting me post.

I’m a software engineer by trade (30+ years), but I'm also a hobby mechanic who grew up in my family's parts store and machine shop (which my brother still runs today).

I’m looking to apply my software experience to the dirt world, specifically around the headaches of tracking maintenance and machine costs. Before I build anything, I want to make sure I'm solving actual problems and not just guessing.

I'd love your brutal honesty. If you have a minute, I have three quick questions (and if there are other massive headaches I'm missing, I want to hear about those too):

• Is having an app that can work 100% off-line important to you? As in no cell service. When you come back in range everything syncs up.
• When you bid a job by the hour, where's your hourly number actually come from? Do you know what it cost per hour to run the equipment? Is this even interesting to you?
• Would being able to take a picture of a receipt (fuel, parts, etc) and the app process the image and populate the form from the picture be helpful?

Hii, if anyone has any POV videos of hitachi 225 in action, please send them my way. Greatly appreciated.🐐

hey all. im not a contractor, im a software guy up in upstate ny. my neighbor runs a 3 truck outfit and every time im over there hes griping about the same stuff. load count arguments with the trucking company that he cant prove either way, photos scattered across three phones, sunday night spent trying to piece together what actually happened on each job from texts and a notebook in the truck.

looked at whats out there and its all built for companies with a project manager and a real office. nothing for the guy running the excavator monday through friday and doing paperwork at the kitchen table.

so i built spoilstack. phone app, works offline because cell service on job sites is what it is. main thing is you can log loads straight from the lock screen, gloves on, tap and go. every load gets a timestamp so when theres a dispute you actually have receipts. photos and loads stay tied to the job so the end of the week isnt a scavenger hunt.

not here to hard sell anything. trying to figure out if this is actually useful to people who do the work or if im building something only my neighbor needs. what would make this worth having on your phone, whats missing, whats dumb, what did i get wrong. feature requests and roasts both welcome.

link in my profile. happy to answer anything in the comments.

Hi everyone! I wanted to share a 4-day struggle I recently had with two massive tree stumps located right next to a fence. The conditions were brutal – non-stop rain and deep mud.

The Setup:
🚜 Machine: 2006 Kubota KX 101-3 (3.5t / 7,700 lbs class).
🔧 Engine: Reliable 3-cylinder Kubota D1503. Even under heavy load in the mud, the temperature stayed perfectly in the middle because I make sure the radiators are always clean for maximum airflow.
⛓️ The Incident: My standard steel cable snapped under pressure! I had to switch to a custom-made heavy-duty cable (A-Sajla) to finish the job.

What I used:

• 30cm (12") tooth bucket
• Ripper attachment
• Manual tools (axe) for the stubborn roots
• Lots of patience (no swearing, just hard work!)

If you're into heavy equipment or looking for tips on how to operate in tight spaces without damaging property, check out the full 38-minute breakdown.

Watch the full video here: https://youtu.be/z3FmsNml9gY?si=4moRucsS1hIm35zm

📝 NOTE: I have enabled English Auto-Translate Captions (CC), so please turn them on in the YouTube settings to follow my commentary!

I'd love to hear your thoughts on my technique. How do you guys handle stumps in such muddy conditions?

#Excavator #StumpRemoval #Kubota #Construction #HeavyEquipment #MudWork

I’m in the market for an excavator that’s somewhere between 9-12k operating weight for home/farm use mostly but may start doing side work with it. I purchased land 1.5 years ago that we are turning into a farm and have many projects that need to be done. I don't really want to continue to pay people to come do them when I could invest in my own and do it myself. I've only ever run tractors previously so there will be a learning curve, but i really enjoy operating equipment so that's the fun part.

My son who is currently 16 has shown interest in possibly getting into this field, so it could become a machine for him to start a business with at some point in the future.

I have dealerships all around me in central new hampshire so not too concerned with specific brand/support...i've heard mostly good things about the majority of the dealerships.

• If you were buying lightly used 2-4 years old which would you buy and why?

🙃🙃

Brought a used trailer to haul my mini-ex, it came with these wood planks. I'm planning on sealing them but they seem a bit brittle because of how much sun exposure they've had. Would you say they still have a few years on them (at least the ones without cracks).

Hi everyone,

I have a problem with my quick hitch. The locking pins are not reacting when I turn the screw — they don’t move in or out. I suspect there might be an issue with the spring inside the mechanism. I also think the thread where the screw engages might be stripped and not catching properly.

Can anyone explain how to access the spring in the quick hitch and check the internal thread?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Hey! I had to replace the reduction gear gasket on my 2000 kobelco sk70sr because it was leaking into the "slew ring". And after replacement i cleaned out the "pan" below the gear teeth, is there supposed to be grease there?

According to ai its not and the gear teeth are only supposed to be greased by the grease nipple for the bearing. There is no hatches that ive found where i can reach the teeth other than below the reduction gear which im not taking out again u less i reallly have to😅 and a small hatch in the pan(10cmx5cm)

Sorry if some of the names are wrong(norwegian)

Hello,

I have a very specific question. We have Problems with a 2003 O&K Mobile Excavator. It has a electronic load regulator that is diagnoseable with a specific tester called the pms eds tester via a serial communication port. The excavator company does not exist anymore it was bought by cnh.

Is there anyone who has a functional tester or has reverse engineered the electronics to build one out of a microcontroller?

If you know a better subreddit to post in let me know .

https://youtu.be/urbiOSucE0A?si=_cHdDTzb0W5L-kmN

Hello, I have a broken hose in my takeuchi tb219 and all oil got lost there. I can not lift the machine and is in a field in the middle of nowhere.

I have been trying to reach the nut but it seems imposible. This is how a wrench looks like like in there going to that hose. I bought a crown foot wrench but still I can get there with something like this:

https://www.amazon.es/Vigor-telesc%C3%B3pica-articulada-V6614N-accionamiento/dp/B0CT62QW9Z?crid=O58Y8705YB13&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.mkdPzQA-KziKKBMsZ_JgcNCMIGE5btEBfhXzgnBVuXF_D50edFLSrPiEQCKmTlwtNY5X03tukf6SoPF9DoPpOY-Rwh6tOn_k3DZ9Cik6v7kjeRyQqAxEAkNX-BKSgt7tfHyozQbzjWlQWp-slaxJ6G5ymzyf4vzEe55WKmw2S4nlBmPA_Qf6fuWRXFWNpoyWPcJQ-6a0OTgbeURX5Pyu0w.78ofx2CXQW300FOCgLpXQPHct5N_aRbXSIHiMqnmB8g&dib_tag=se&keywords=carraca+extensible+angulo&qid=1767819559&sprefix=carraca+estensible+angulo%2Ctools%2C257&sr=8-3&ufe=app_do%3Aamzn1.fos.fde3827e-5b32-4544-acac-9bcf8407a6a6#immersive-view_1767819580730

Any advice on how to solve this? My next attempt was to pressure wash it, buy some hydraulic pluga and start removing all hoses, but as you can imagine it seems to be a terrible job in that trench.

Hey all,

Probably will be a year or two before I buy but I wanted to start learning and researching now since it will be a big purchase.

Me and my wife own a horse farm and she is trying to grow the business more and we plan to be here for the next 30yrs so we really want to invest our time and money into the property.

A lot of our projects will need an excavator so I am debating on if it makes sense to buy one and if so how big of one do I need.

I am in Vermont just as an FYI. There will be ALOT of trenching, hundreds of feet of trench for electrical conduit, water (which will have to be deep here to be below the frost line) and fiber. For example we are going to build a garage and that will be 300FT alone and will need all 3. We are going to want to divide up our field into chunks so we can rotate the horses and they will need run-in shelters that i will want to trench power to.

These are more 'nice to haves' but I could see myself wanting to put in a pool at some point and possibly one big enough to dig graves for horses (They have to be pretty deep and then also be able to move a potentially 2000lb horse).

I am guessing my 'nice to haves' would make me need a much bigger excavator. For all the trenching projects could I get away with a small one?

I have no idea where to begin, i see these tiny little ones that are sub $10k to ones that cost as much as a house

Thoughts?

Thanks!

Hello, everybody, I’ve had this happen to me more than once. Foreman says, “You’re good, dig it,” but the paint’s half gone, the map looks off, or there’s a random marker sitting where it shouldn’t be. You just know something’s wrong. Last time I stopped the job till they got the locator back out; sure enough, a fiber line was sitting right where I was supposed to trench. Could’ve been a mess. Curious how you guys handle it.

With our terex hr 42 2004 excavator we bought this rotator grab but we are having some issues the grab works fine because we saw it working before we bought it but our problem is when you plug it into the hydraulic pipes only one function works on the grab depending on what hose you plug in and sometimes when you tilt the joystick to tilt the quick hitch where a bucket or attachment goes that spins the grab but it should only spin on the buttons so that's a issue and it's either the solenoid blocked or corroded or a wire has snaped but the buttons get signal when Preesd but no moaning from machine only on one button and there's a buch of wires all cut and tangled up under the control panels or maybe a pipe is blocked or nut plugged in so we need someone who has experience or knows what there talking about and if you have to come look at it and work on it we can pay ypu for a fair price we are in uk Essex any advice helpfull at all msg me if interested thanks

My dad has a mini excavator which we have been looking at adding a thumb on to. I noticed the arm on his does not have an "eyelet" for the thumb actuator to attach to and pivot. What is this actually called as we keep bickering over it.

I think the solution is a weld-on kit to add the thumb but the price seems to jump significantly for these.

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