Anyone know about skidsteers? Is it Skid Steer or Skidsteer?

I just got myself into a bit of trouble and brought this home. 80's/90's SDK7 Toyota with a 2J diesel.

It was sold to me as "hard to start", and thats true, however after a hour of operating it today it overheated on me also, so apparently there are more problems than I thought.. The good news is I have a "service manual" and there is a bit of info on the web about these things. The bad news is, parts are pretty hard to find.

What have I gotten myself into, part 1, and How to piss off your neighbors, part 87

The plan is to use this to re-grade my driveway and clear out some of my yard (1.5ac) in prep for building a garage.



[Edited on December 26, 2017 at 6:58 PM. Reason : forgot how images work on tww]

12/26/2017 6:57:22 PM

these things get flogged. better to rent. good luck.

12/26/2017 7:07:34 PM

Yeah... you can rent one of those for like a month for around $1k...
Hopefully you didn't pay much more than it's worth in steel.

12/27/2017 1:33:20 PM

that's a bold strategy, cotton

12/27/2017 5:53:52 PM

Yeah, I would assume parts are hard to find for any brand that doesn't have a dealership (I have never in my life seen a Toyota skid steer.). I've only ever used Bobcat/John Deere/New Holland ones. Parts are not hard to come by for them.

12/28/2017 1:11:06 PM

So far, yall are turning out to be correct.

Got the proper belt and mended the alternator bracket, so hopefully the cooling issue is repaired.

Now I need to get it to fuel properly. Found a damaged ground cable, so I replaced that. Now the glow plugs work properly and the starter sounds healthy. Couldn't get it to start.

Someone has bypassed the fuel-water separator. The fuel line has a small in-line clear filter that is empty, so I am suspecting no fuel is getting to the fuel pump. Not sure if the line has a leak preventing priming, or something is wrong inside the tank. Got too dark to continue.

12/30/2017 5:32:47 PM

sounds like progress. hopefully the fuel issue is simple as well.

12/30/2017 6:05:47 PM

Oh yeah. Got it going today before the rains came.

Installed Fuel-Water separator (need to fab a permanent bracket for it, but its zip tied in now)

Issue 1: Mechanical prime pump on the filter after the low pressure pump and before the high pressure pump is damaged. Someone grabbed the shaft with pliers at one point, so now it leaks if you don't pump it in just the right way.

Issue 2: There is a "secret" bleed screw on the high pressure pump.

Once I figured out #1, I got fuel coming out of the filter bleed screw to come out with no bubbles. Then I cracked the high pressure injector lines and spun it over until fuel came out. This was able to get it choking and sneezing, but no go.

Then I pulled the air filter and examined the high pressure pump more closely, and found #2. After that, it fired off basically on the first try.


Tomorrow, I dig.

1/12/2018 9:48:54 PM

Update again.

Tried to start "tomorrow". It didnt work.

There are apparently multiple issues at play here.

I am still wondering if its a compression issue, a glow plug issue, or a fueling issue. It started fine when I bled the fuel and it was warm (60 ish).

The next day it was 30, and It would sputter and seem like only 1 cylinder was combusting. Maybe only 1 glow plug is working? Or 3/4 fuel feed lines leaked down.

Bought a compression tester yesterday. Going to figure out how to measure fuel pressure next. Also going to change the fuel filter in between the fuel pumps, and examine the housing its in. The small priming hand pump leaks badly when extended, and as of "tomorrow" pressing the pump became very difficult, yet opening the bleed screw released zero pressure.

1/20/2018 6:22:21 PM

Got it running today, Still not sure what I did. Seems to be related to warmer weather.

Took the glow plugs out. All 4 tested bad with the resistance test (ohms > 2.0). All 4 tested good (Hot as fuck) when grabbed in a jumper cable and touched to the other pole of the battery.

With all 4 plugs out, I tested compression. Got ~ 400psi across all 4 cylinders.

Noticed with nothin in the glow holes, cyl 1,2,&3 spit out a "mist" each stroke. Cyl 4 emits nothing.

Pulled cyl 4 injector and swapped with cyl 1 injector. Same behavior.

Pulled the lines and noticed the flow was similar between 4, 3, and 1.

Noticed the line connection to the injection pump at cyl 4 was a bit loose. Tightened it. Rebuilt the cyl 4 injector and installed on cyl 1.

Same behavior (mist on 1,2,3, but not on 4).

Buttoned it all back up. Cleaned up the glow plug connectors to ensure a solid connection. Tested with voltmeter and noticed they must be working - wire feeding them is getting hot.

Engine started up almost immediately after warming glow plugs for ~20 seconds. Shut it back down, went inside, cleaned up, moved cars, then went to start again to do some digging.

That time, it took ~20 sec of glow plugs, but then spun over for ~10 without catching. Waited 60 sec, hit the glow plugs again for ~30 sec, then it fired off almost perfectly.


Im really not sure what I did....

There is something called a injector leakage pipe (#14). Nothing ever comes out of this pipe (replaced rubber hose with clear vinyl).



Dug up some stones and played around for about half an hour. Temp gauge started to creep towards the hot side, so I parked it and temp gunned the hoses. Lower hose 170, Upper hose 215. Not sure what the gauge is calibrated to. Im gonna get a better fitting belt and try again tomorrow, see if it will not overheat once the belt isnt slipping.

[Edited on January 21, 2018 at 7:30 PM. Reason : image]

[Edited on January 21, 2018 at 7:30 PM. Reason : image again]

1/21/2018 7:24:53 PM

check for water in the fuel system or fuel filter.

i've seen diesels with water in the fuel filter that was freezing and blocking/restricting fuel flow to the engine, but would start fine when it was warm outside.

[Edited on January 23, 2018 at 3:23 PM. Reason : assuming it still acts up in the cold]

1/23/2018 3:21:55 PM

i'm not sure toyota ever sold a skid in the USA. It may be a grey market import. Word to the wise especially if you ever want to buy a kubota tractor do you research and make sure it's not an import.

1/23/2018 6:05:40 PM

^^Thanks for the suggestion - that actually makes a ton of sense.

I have a replacement filter, but I am waiting for my replacement priming pump to come in before replacing it.

Since the PO bypassed the stock water separator unit, I bet the filter became the collection point for water in the fuel.

1/24/2018 8:54:28 AM

Replaced the intermediate fuel filter (Spin on style) between lift pump and injection pump.
Much easier to start now, although still takes ~15s of cranking. I believe it is a glow plug circuit issue.

Once it starts and warms up, it runs excellently.

First time I ran it hard for an extended period of time, It started to overheat again so I shut it down. This was after the repair of the fanbelt. Did some googling and figured out the light that had been on in the IP indicated the Hydraulic filter (spin on style) needed to be changed. I don't know if this is in the "go/steer" circuit or the "lift/dump" circuit, but changing it made the whole digger run better.

The ground is so wet in my yard I keep getting it stuck, and this stump is too huge for me to really tackle with this thing since I only have a "smooth" bucket.

I'm gonna be on the lookout on CL for a grapple claw or a 4in1 bucket with aux hydraulics so I can grab things. I should probably buy some digging teeth for my smooth bucket also.



[Edited on February 20, 2018 at 8:42 AM. Reason : photo sizes still baffle me]

[Edited on February 20, 2018 at 8:43 AM. Reason : again]

2/20/2018 8:42:10 AM

a better bucket isn't going to make a difference on that stump, you either need a full size hoe/excavator or a stump grinder attachment for your skidsteer

2/20/2018 9:02:27 AM

Drill some holes into it and rot that thing.

2/20/2018 11:47:50 AM

^^this

2/20/2018 1:55:47 PM

one of those giant drills down the middle

2/20/2018 5:47:58 PM

stump grinding is cheap

2/20/2018 9:25:29 PM

^

(and in general, I suspect that if it flies, floats, fucks, or skid-steers...)

2/21/2018 12:35:01 AM

^ thats a pretty good saying, however your alliteration is broken

I could get the stump ground, but I'd rather dig it all out. Gonna pile a driveway on top of it. Call be stubborn, but I am going to give it some more work before calling in the grinder.

This thing can pretty easily take down 30-40 foot trees <6" in diameter, even with the smooth bucket. Im pretty impressed so far.

Now If I can learn to grade properly and get my driveway sloping like I want it, and dig down so I can lay a proper sublayer of #57 before putting C&R on top. Last owners just threw #57 on dirt without digging at all, and a really thin layer at that. Gravel portion of the drive is a good 4 inches of "bump" above the concrete.

2/21/2018 10:48:54 AM

yes, if you want to put a driveway on it, you need to get the rootball / trunk removed. You won't be doing that with a skidsteer.

2/21/2018 11:14:31 AM

i bet you can get a backhoe for the day for just a few hundred bucks, standard size can probably tackle that

2/21/2018 11:37:14 AM

Just drill and burn it out

2/23/2018 1:36:41 PM

2/24/2018 5:05:14 PM

Quote :

" Word to the wise especially if you ever want to buy a kubota tractor do you research and make sure it's not an import."

Pretty much every single small tractor (of every manufacturer) is imported.

2/26/2018 5:39:13 PM