Hi everyone....thank you for providing such a useful forum!
I'll apologise firstly for the long post....I'm on a steep learning curve and am trying to gather a fair bit of info.
Recently I purchased a used Cat 301.5cr with 1400hrs. After looking at quite a few used mini's, this one was by far in the best condition, well looked after, tight and with no issues, in the budget I was looking for.
I'm now in a quandary about wether to keep it or not....initially I assumed since it's a Cat I wouldn't have to worry about parts availability....from the research I've since done, it seems I'd be hard pushed to find any sort of workshop manual for it and/or some parts since it's seems it was only released in Japan (I'm in Oz). From what I can see, I can get most of the undercarriage parts (even here in Oz) and the motor I know is a Mitsubishi L3e which is fairly common.
It'll be being used at my home in my spare time on a small acreage and not worked overly hard.
I'm fairly handy with mechanical things and generally repair (and enjoy repairing/servicing) all my own equipment. I've never had to deal with an excavator tho and am not sure just what parts are able to be sourced/fabricated/rebuilt or can be bought off the shelf.
I'm quite happy to have the machine out of action for a while whilst I sort a problem out, I just don't want to have something minor (or major) break that will mean the whole thing is permanently out of action.
I'm just not even sure if simple things like hydraulic cylinder seals are a common sized item available from a hydraulic store or do I need to have specific Cat part no's for these?
I don't want to move it on unless I have to because it really is a nice machine and faultless at the moment.
Just after some advice from others!
I'll apologise firstly for the long post....I'm on a steep learning curve and am trying to gather a fair bit of info.
Recently I purchased a used Cat 301.5cr with 1400hrs. After looking at quite a few used mini's, this one was by far in the best condition, well looked after, tight and with no issues, in the budget I was looking for.
I'm now in a quandary about wether to keep it or not....initially I assumed since it's a Cat I wouldn't have to worry about parts availability....from the research I've since done, it seems I'd be hard pushed to find any sort of workshop manual for it and/or some parts since it's seems it was only released in Japan (I'm in Oz). From what I can see, I can get most of the undercarriage parts (even here in Oz) and the motor I know is a Mitsubishi L3e which is fairly common.
It'll be being used at my home in my spare time on a small acreage and not worked overly hard.
I'm fairly handy with mechanical things and generally repair (and enjoy repairing/servicing) all my own equipment. I've never had to deal with an excavator tho and am not sure just what parts are able to be sourced/fabricated/rebuilt or can be bought off the shelf.
I'm quite happy to have the machine out of action for a while whilst I sort a problem out, I just don't want to have something minor (or major) break that will mean the whole thing is permanently out of action.
I'm just not even sure if simple things like hydraulic cylinder seals are a common sized item available from a hydraulic store or do I need to have specific Cat part no's for these?
I don't want to move it on unless I have to because it really is a nice machine and faultless at the moment.
Just after some advice from others!