Yes, they are that loose.
And i plan to make her even more loose. Lots of iron junk and cars to bite into and dead lift.
Tree limbs to trim. I need to fix the hill in my backyard. Where i park my vehicles i need cut into the bank and build a retaining wall so it looks nicer.
Some daisies the pull in the front yard. It has a 3rd spool, so i might rent or borrow a rake and destroy the top 3 inches of eveywhere in the other backyard. that hasn't been mowed in 15 years.
Typical chores around the house. Nothing special.
The fluid is beautiful and the filters are clean, and there's only a teaspoon of paste on each case magnet plug. And this machine dug my basement before i parked it. So i have alot of faith in the driveline. 2 of 4 planetaries have dry crusty ooze, but it's been sitting so long, it's hard to tell if it's a slow or fast leak. They're clocked too wrong to check.
It's had a rough life. back in the 1970s dad got it from someone who was into only iron clean up. Shortly after the engine went bad, and he mocked in this 1969 mopar 381LA. As far as i can tell, it's onto it's 3rd timing gear and chain, and it had a fresh set installed back in 1980 when the mopar was swapped. Last month is it's 3rd.
The splines on the machine side are stripped where the hydraulic pump mounts. The old pump was removed, and the input shaft had a stubb welded to it and splined with the wonder wheel all freehand. It never broke, but at the same time a rag was forgotten in the suction line during reassembly. That poor pump was never right. Couldn't make 1000psi near redline, and pumped as slow as a garden hose. Chasing the filters didn't help. Somewhere else in history the lift arm middle support that goes across has been broken more then once, and some 3/4" 3x3 angle iron added since, and looks like that broke once. Years ago it broke a rear spindle, Upon the surprise disassembly, we noticed half of the crack was fresh iron and other was black and rusty. So it's had an oopsie for years before that happened on that day. Which surprised us, as i was just rolling on flat ground in a straight line. You can't tell from the photo, but the bucket top corners are curved downward and hunched looking, because of the clamshell being misused and abused. It has a proportional valve, unlike most skidsteers brush buckets, as one side can close at a time if something taller is holding up the other 1/2 of the clamps. Eliminates the possibilty of tweaking the bucket
This Drott 4in1 is setup both cylinders are kept same pressure/flow, and it's a heavy bucket, but i'm sure trimming tree branches raised hell with it that's only visible after thousands of hard clam bites.
So, i'm mocking a radiator to fit the chassis, raising it, and adding a hydraulic pump right off the crank. I plan to pin it in addition to the woodruff key. If race boys can pump air, i'm going to pump oil. I was going to aim for 35GPM @ 2000RPM. That should get me where i need for turning all the pumps and still roll around in gear.
I'm redoing all the gauges, and adding temp sensors, and making sure everything works under a hard load. I don't plan to be bashful, given that this poor machine has already done.
