Brandon and Emery had been looking for a mini excavator after they successfully rebuilt their bobcat, and stumbled upon this 1997 Scat Trak 530 mini excavator on craigslist.org. The owner of the excavator did not know the make or model of the machine as it had been vandalized and he bought it at an equipment auction. He also said that the motor ran fine, but the hydraulics were slow or did not work at all. He had tinkered with it, but did not have the time to really figure out what was wrong with it. Brandon and Emery decided that the machine fit their parameters for a project and purchased the excavator in June of 2009.

Since the machine had limited hydraulic function, the seller had to use his Cat 416 backhoe with a set of fork to pick up the excavator and lower it onto Brandon and Emery's equipment trailer. Once back in the yard the excavator sat on the trailer for a couple of weeks until it could be unloaded, because they had no way to unload it. After a week of diagnosis, the excavator was carefully walked off the trailer and onto the ground where the real work could begin. Brandon spent two weeks doing research online and locating a repair manual. He was able to locate one on Ebay and was able to understand how the machines hydraulic system worked. He also bought a pressure gauge to see what the hydraulic system was reading in comparison to the specifications in the repair manual. The settings on the machine were off and were set to the factory specs. Emery and Brandon hoped that this would fix the problem, but it did not and they continued to scratch their heads.

During the fourth of July weekend they decided to tear the machines hydraulic control block down and see what was causing the hydraulic functions not to work. They tore the block down and found out that there was a check valve that was in backwards and this prevented the flow of hydraulic fluid to the functions on the machine. The Brothers had figured out that the machine was taken apart before and made the conclusion that the machine broke down and that the person that tried to fix it only made it worse. Once the check valve was installed in its proper orientation the machine was put back together and Emery and Brandon kept their fingers crossed. After much hard work and investigation the machine was fired up and all the functions worked.

After the machine could move under its own power, Brandon and Emery started to focus on the maintenance of the machine. The bottom idler rollers on both sides of the machine were frozen and did not allow the machine to move smoothly. The excavator was put up on blocks and the tracks were removed. All the idler rollers were removed and greased to allow them to spin freely, and the fixed top guide roller was replaced because it was stuck for so long that the track wore deep groves into it.

Since the machine had been taken apart and vandalized, the machine was missing the floor pan and foot pedals for the aux hydraulics and offset boom swing functions. The machine was also missing the entire instrument panel and safety switches. Brandon fabricated a new floor plan and foot pedals utilizing pictures from similar machines that he saw on the internet. He also designed new linkages from the pedals to the hydraulic valves to make sure that they worked the way that they were supposed to.

Once the mechanical functions were all set, Brandon set out to get the instrumentation working on the machine. Since Scat Trak is no longer around and parts are extremely hard to find Brandon decided to build an instrument cluster from scratch. He was able to use the shop manual from the machine and a volt ohm meter to determine the outputs of the existing sending units for coolant temperature, coolant, and oil. After doing some research Brandon found out that an instrument panel form a 1996 Isuzu Rodeo would read the outputs from the sending units. He bought a used instrument cluster on Ebay and selectively cut it apart to get the parts that he needed. He designed the new cluster based off pictures that he saw on the internet of similar machines and the raw cutout where the old cluster once was. New switches were installed to control the ignition cutoff, work lights, and two-speed travel.

Future project will include constructing a cab and adding a heater for cold weather use in the spring or fall. Stay Tuned...