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Komatsu D65S with tip bucket for "free"

etd66ss

Senior Member
Joined
May 14, 2015
Messages
270
Location
Lockport NY
Have you talked to a Komatsu dealer? You're going into to these old left for dead machines like a blind man trying to drive. Try to find out at least a little bit about them and how they operate before just jumping in guessing and hoping for the best
In my experience dealers never want to talk about these old machines, they want to sell you new stuff. I should be able to find a pdf operators manual somewhere online. So far I am seeing TO10 or TO30 can be used in the trans. Komatsu TO30 = CAT TO-4 from what I can tell...

KES_07.868.1.png
 
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Welder Dave

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Oct 11, 2014
Messages
12,259
Location
Canada
I think the 30 is the viscosity but an oil meeting Cat TO-4 would be good choice and a quality oil based on your findings. See if you can find a temperature range for the different viscosities and pick the one for your climate.
 

etd66ss

Senior Member
Joined
May 14, 2015
Messages
270
Location
Lockport NY
I can't seem to find an online pdf operators manual for this machine. Anyone have a manual, can you tell me the recommended oil for the trans, and also the final drives?
 

etd66ss

Senior Member
Joined
May 14, 2015
Messages
270
Location
Lockport NY
I put in 2 gallons of TO-4 into the trans and that was enough to get the oil level up on the dipstick. The oil is very dark, not a great sign.

Put in 2.5 gallons of gear oil in each final drive and that is still not enough to reach the level plug.

I think I'm going to try to put it into gear tomorrow and see if it moves. Though, the shift lever is very stiff. Need to look into how to free that up.
 

etd66ss

Senior Member
Joined
May 14, 2015
Messages
270
Location
Lockport NY
I think if you can pull some floor plates there will be lot’s of grease fittings linking everything together.

I greased everything I could, but it did not help the shifting linkage. Turns out the bell crank on the top of the trans for the shift speed selection was really tight. Initially I could only move it back and forth what seemed like a few thousandths of an inch. So it wasn't the shaft tight in the trans cover, it was the mechanism inside. It took a LOT of prying back and forth to free it up. But first I had to scrap away soem of the hardest packed grease/dirt mixture I've ever faced.

Here's a vid: D65S-6 Shift Linkage

Here's a vid after I freed up the linkage: D65S-6 Freed up trans linkage

Of course the machine decided to blow a hyd hose for the bucket curl:

20230526_155622.jpg

Luckily I can just not sure the curl for now and can still lift the loader. Hopefully tomorrow I can get it moving.
 
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etd66ss

Senior Member
Joined
May 14, 2015
Messages
270
Location
Lockport NY
I'm having a hose made up for this machine for the bucket curl. Any idea on working pressure? 3000psi? 4000, 5000, 6000?

My default choice is 4000 psi.
 
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Welder Dave

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Joined
Oct 11, 2014
Messages
12,259
Location
Canada
I'd guess 2 wire hose and 4000 PSI rated would be fine. A lot of 2 wire hose is rated higher than 4000 PSI anyways.
 

etd66ss

Senior Member
Joined
May 14, 2015
Messages
270
Location
Lockport NY
So I was all ready to move this machine yesterday. I had used it the day prior for about 10 minutes leveling off some ground, it ran fine. The morning of the move it ran fine, throttled up ok. Hour later when I went to drive it on a lowboy, no matter how high I put the throttle, the engine would not gain RPM's. it was just stuck at idle, until finally it died and would not start again. All the linkage moved freely, decelerators were not stuck etc.

I checked:

1) No clog at fuel tank, the small strainer there is clean.
2) The fuel filter looks decent, nothing majorly wrong with it as I can tell.
3) The fuel canister only had about 1 inch of fuel in the bottom of it. The canister is not being gravity fed by the tank for some reason...

20230616_142554.jpg
20230616_132146.jpg

I notice the hose from the tank does not go directly to the fuel filter canister, it goes to some sort of manifold, or is it a PTO driven fuel pump? I'm getting fuel up to that point. I can't get my hands in there or even see where the output hose is connected.

20230616_142546.jpg

The Fuel canister is definitely lower than the tank, so to me seems like it should just be gravity fed?

20230616_145334.jpg

I guess my question is, to get this thing loaded can I just rig up a temporary fuel bypass hose from the tank to fuel filter canister to get this machine moved? Or does the fuel filter canister actually need to be pressurized?

I will say, I had to steal most of the fuel from this machine to get the Hitachi UH122 moved (after the loader "ran fine"). There is about 5 inches of fuel left in the bottom of the Komatsu tank. To me that seems like enough to gravity feed the fuel canister? However, I think the first thing I will do is steal about 30 gallons of fuel back from the Hitachi and add it back to this Komatsu to see if that makes any difference.

Hard to believe it's as simple as the fuel level? The dipstick shows about 110 Liters (30 gallons).
 

Dave Neubert

Senior Member
Joined
Jul 18, 2018
Messages
1,649
Location
Monroe NC
This model should have a float tank the fuel tank gravity feeds into the float tank and then the engine pumps it from the float tank I have seen the float tank get plugged before. with out the float tank the engine would flood with diesel when not running
 

OzDozer

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Joined
Jan 18, 2007
Messages
2,207
Location
Perth, Western Australia.
Occupation
Semi-Retired ..
The year of build is around 1976. My book (which is a U.S. book), does not show any machines before 1977 for the Komatsu D65S - and it says the first S/No is 28920 in 1977.
But the D65S was built from the early 1970's, so my book is incorrect.
The engine is a Cummins NH220. The D65S is a reliable machine, but that undercarriage is certainly in very poor shape.

All traxcavators are difficult to work on, you need to have the bucket arms raised to get any kind of decent access. Even then, access is tight.

The fuel problem is almost certainly a plugged fuel line. Run a piece of wire through the lines and blow compressed air through them to ensure decent fuel flow.
Make sure the tank outlet isn't being blocked intermittently by trash that goes directly to the tank outlet when the engine is sucking fuel, and which trash falls back when the suction ceases.
 

etd66ss

Senior Member
Joined
May 14, 2015
Messages
270
Location
Lockport NY
I was able to get it running again by manually filling up the filter canister taking care to only pour on the outside of the filter.

20230617_103652.jpg

I got the loader in the air but still could not see this "float tank". And I was not about to work on the machine with the loader in the air. The safety pin is missing.

20230617_103218.jpg

20230617_105354.jpg


Filling up the fuel filter canister by hand I think will give me enough run time to get the machine on a lowboy.
 

Welder Dave

Senior Member
Joined
Oct 11, 2014
Messages
12,259
Location
Canada
I was at an auction quite a few years ago and there was a similar Komatsu loader. It had ran perfect the day before for moving other stuff around. On auction day they couldn't get it started. They boosted it and tried a fair amount of ether and nothing worked. About an hour and half later a guy somewhat familiar said to check the shut off mechanism. It was kind of a weird system and they said they already checked it a couple times. The guy said check it again because (apparently) they can stick. They played with it turning it off and on a few times and voila it started right up. I'm sure the machine would have got a better price if they hadn't been screwing around with it for almost 2 hours. Don't know if this will help the machine in question but might be something to check.
 

etd66ss

Senior Member
Joined
May 14, 2015
Messages
270
Location
Lockport NY
I have a pdf operator's manual for a D65S-7, only page that mentions the float tank or a fuel shutoff issue is this page:

Fuel-Starvation.png


I guess I'd need a parts manual to see what the heck the float tank looks like. I won't be able to remove a belly pan in the field, would need to get the machine back to my place before I dig into that.

In any event, what I am doing when I want to run the machine is similar to what is done when the machine is run out of fuel.

This is the shutoff valve mentioned:

shutoff-valve.jpg

But not going to mess with that for now.

Issue definitely seems to be a clog in or near the float tank.
 

etd66ss

Senior Member
Joined
May 14, 2015
Messages
270
Location
Lockport NY
The operators area of this machine fills up with smoke very quickly upon startup. It's coming from a breather vent that I think is from the float tank? It doesn't look or smell like oil smoke, it actually smells like burning wood/leaves. There is another breather on the crankcase that does not puff out a lot of smoke so don't think this is blow-by.

See video: D65S-6 smoke
 
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