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Found out my sing motor haven't seen oil for 1 thousand hours

Kaiser Jacob

Member
Joined
Feb 2, 2024
Messages
7
Location
Southern Brazil
Hey guys. I bought an bobcat e80 excavator with 10k hours. Every night in the first week of work I would read part of the 800 manual pages. So i get to this part where it says i should check swing motor oil level and I didn
 

Kaiser Jacob

Member
Joined
Feb 2, 2024
Messages
7
Location
Southern Brazil
(why can't I delete a post? anyways, continuing..)
and I didn't knew it was a thing.
I went to check it and the stick is gone. The stick tube is also gone so i had no ideia what level the oil should be. That turned out not a problem because there was no oil in it what so ever.
I called the company I bought it from and talked to their mechanic.
The guy told me there is no oil in the swing motor other then the hydraulic oil that i fill in the big tank.
Long story short, this machine never saw an swing motor oil change and I know they re-did the swing motor 1 thousand hours ago so, considering the guy who did the service filled the motor with oil, then it has less then 1000 hours of no oil work. I freaked out but the thing is.... the machine works just fine. No problem at all with the swing. In fact the swing works fast as hell. I just filled the thing to the top with oil (the top is the botton of the sitck tube, that was ripped off somehow) and i don't know how Fkd I am.
Does anyone ever serviced a no oil swing motor to give me some insights of how bad it might be?
 

skyking1

Senior Member
Joined
Nov 3, 2020
Messages
7,740
Location
washington
It's not the swing motor. He was technically right, the motor is lubed by the hydraulic oil passing through it.
What you are looking at is the swing gearbox.
Fix the dipstick situation so you don't overfill it, and then you can keep track of the leakage if any. That is the first step. Don't assume it is messed up without evidence.
Fill it to the proper level, keep running it, then drain it out and check for metal. Send a sample out for analysis if you want.
 

Kaiser Jacob

Member
Joined
Feb 2, 2024
Messages
7
Location
Southern Brazil
It's not the swing motor. He was technically right, the motor is lubed by the hydraulic oil passing through it.
What you are looking at is the swing gearbox.
Fix the dipstick situation so you don't overfill it, and then you can keep track of the leakage if any. That is the first step. Don't assume it is messed up without evidence.
Fill it to the proper level, keep running it, then drain it out and check for metal. Send a sample out for analysis if you want.
Thank you for clarification. It will be very hard to fix the stick situation since i don't have acess to the parts measurements nor new original parts.
The oil analisys is a very good idea. If i come out clean, i can rest my mind. Thanks
 

skyking1

Senior Member
Joined
Nov 3, 2020
Messages
7,740
Location
washington
you know for sure you can't get parts? If you have the serial number you can probably get the replacement stick and tube coming from somewhere.
 

Kaiser Jacob

Member
Joined
Feb 2, 2024
Messages
7
Location
Southern Brazil
you know for sure you can't get parts? If you have the serial number you can probably get the replacement stick and tube coming from somewhere.
We have very few bobcat dealers in Brazil (the market is dominated by Yanmar, Cat and komatsu. Brands like kubota doesn't even exist here). I'm trying to talk with one of them but since the E80 model is not fabricated since 2014 it's not easy task.
 

Kaiser Jacob

Member
Joined
Feb 2, 2024
Messages
7
Location
Southern Brazil
There ought to be a Parts Manual for your excavator kicking around on the internet somewhere surely.?
The mannual barely mention this section of the swing structure ("you should check the oil and fill to the stick mark" and thats it. And it's the mechanich manual not user manual). I'll keep diggin.
Edit: the mannual doesnt even mention the oil volume so I could empty the container and refill with the mentioned volume every few weeks.
 

Kaiser Jacob

Member
Joined
Feb 2, 2024
Messages
7
Location
Southern Brazil
in case someone who owns an E80 read this post, I would very much apretiate if you could measure the stick lenght and the stick neck lengh coming from the motor structure.
 
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