Cat 980B Loader

[Cat Blade 48]

I have been thinking of buying a 1976 980B Cat loader. The one I am looking at has Tooth Bucket, Forks and Balderson Quick change and appears to be in very good condition. I think it spent a lot of its years as a fork lift. Anyone out ther be able to tell me what to look out for on this machine. Thanks, Cat Blade

 

[Anonymous-0]

That's a big loader. Check it out really well as fixing anything on it will be expensive. Cat makes very good loaders though. Dave

 

[Anonymous-0]

One thing comes to mind is the pins where the machine is articulated, bushings, pins, condition there of, if worn and require rebuilding where you may need some line boring done it could be costly, but probably worth doing, I thought they were good machine. We had 2 of them and I thought they were a real animal digging into a gravel bank and loading trucks, and were very reliable, ones we had were probably a bit older than that, 20 years in service at that time and the only problem I can recall was on the back end, drive train, mechanic pulled the rear wheels and assembly off, was headed to another company at that time, never got to see that repair, used to enjoy getting a glimpse at what these mechanics did to keep our machines running, they were really good at what they did, I used to run for parts for them even after I left the company, as I lived close to a dealer at the time.

One day, with both 980's we loaded out 315 trucks 6am to 5 pm, from the bank, D8k pushing loose material to us off the top helped, 40,000 cubic yard order and those old 980s handled that and several other jobs just like it that year, I'd imagine it would be a good choice if in decent shape, especially if not being used like we were, they were impressive, especially for the age of them, nothing like the new ones as far as creature comforts, just raw machine power and black smoke !

 

[NC Wayne]

I"ve got several customers that have had these machines over the years and based on their experiences they are pretty good loaders. Based on that same experience here are a few things to be watchfull of. If possible run it hard and get it hot and see how the hydraulics act/get someone to run a pressure check on the system. These machines have Vickers vane pumps to power the hydraulics. The inside of the pump can develope a "washboard" wear pattern that will cause the system to overheat and lose pressure under hard use. Something else you can do if you can"t run it, and might want to do even if you can, is to pull the hydraulic return filter and check it for signs of wear in the system. Expect to see small pieces of packing, etc that has gotten into the system over the years when failures occured and the system didn"t get cleaned out, and you"ll probably see some minute amounts of fine metal. However watch for excessive amounts of fine metal, and be really critical of any large metal chunks you might find. The majority of the hydraulic valving is located inside the tank so any problems with it, including stuck relief valves, etc and the tank has to come off. If that happens make sure you get someone to work on it that knows what their doing. The parts are worse than any jigsaw puzzle I know of both coming out and going back in so it"s an extreemely time consuming job if you need to get into it. If that ever does happen, go ahead and reseal EVERYTHING while in the tank because you can be sure all the orings and seals will be hard. Check for wear in the trunnion the rear axel piviots on, check for waer on the trunion mounts the transmission/dropbox ride on, look for wear in all the pins on the boom and associated cylinders, check for excessive wear in the steering cylinders, check for excessive wear in the center pivot pin. Basically just check it out thoruoghly like you"d do any kind or size machine. Just remember anything you find wrong can be repaired but due to the size of the machine it"s rarely gonna be cheap to do.