Steering Fault Fixed on a DL320-7 + DX225-3 Hydraulic Diagnosis

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:14]Good morning and welcome back.

[00:00:18]Well, wait till the sun picks to go and play with loading shovels.

[00:00:23]See you then.

[00:00:25]So, first job this 320, we're going to put a new steering orbital on it.

[00:00:30]Why is that? Well, this is the same shovel about 1,800 hours ago, steering locked up.

[00:00:38]But, the steering wheel will go round and round and round and round.

[00:00:42]And I came and looked at it and before I could sort of do any kind of testing, it came right.

[00:00:47]It's been fine ever since.

[00:00:49]And we've done a couple of these um steering amplifiers.

[00:00:56]These valves in here, you've got priority valve and amplifier.

[00:01:01]Um so, we changed it.

[00:01:04]Just in case. And it's never bothered me since. And then when I was here last time, when was that?

[00:01:11]About 10 days ago, it did it exactly the same up the quarry while I was here servicing.

[00:01:17]And it came right. He fetched it down and I was like, "What do you do?" Like, so I'm going to put an orbital on it cuz after that, can't be anything else, can it?

[00:01:30]It was either going to be one or the other when I did it the first time.

[00:01:33]And we've done a couple of amplifiers before and never an orbital, so I'm going to change that.

[00:01:41]Bit of a stab in the dark, but it could be the amplifier again. Don't get me wrong, but yeah.

[00:01:52]Bit of a crap job, really, to start the week off. Just putting something on and see if it works.

[00:01:59]So, as you know, I don't really like doing this, just throwing parts on till it fixes it, but this is the last part really, isn't it?

[00:02:05]So, anyway, to remove these, we've got four bolts down here.

[00:02:12]I've already taken two out cuz they're the awkward ones.

[00:02:16]And that will drop the orbital off the bottom of the steering column.

[00:02:20]So, before I remove those last two, I'm going to crack all these pipes off.

[00:02:26]So, finger tight.

[00:02:29]And then I'm not trying to hold the orbital and you know, play it on.

[00:02:37]I've got them all color-coded, all cable tied. So, we've got green, yellow, red, blue.

[00:02:43]And then that one you can't get wrong round there.

[00:02:48]That one is a 22. Why did you do that?

[00:02:52]I knew I needed a 22. And I'll just put it away.

[00:02:56]And then we've got four pipes off, two bolts in the cab to remove now, and that is it's probably going to fall off. Is there a way I can hold it in position?

[00:03:10]Pop them down and then remove that there.

[00:03:13]And we've got a block of wood just to, you know, without that going bang bang bang bang bang bang bang.

[00:03:22]Have a look.

[00:03:23]No, I haven't got any bits of wood without sawing them up, so I've used the bottle jack.

[00:03:29]There's no pressure on it like something I'm pressing in there, but I will need that to offer it back into place and hold it while I come back up into here and try and get some bolts started.

[00:03:42]That's the last one out.

[00:03:45]Beautiful.

[00:03:48]And let that down gently. I might need two hands. I don't know. I'll get me magnet.

[00:03:53]Hey Alec, you've got a front row seat.

[00:03:56]Put that down.

[00:03:59]Hey.

[00:04:02]That's it.

[00:04:03]You see?

[00:04:06]That's just a rubber doodad.

[00:04:09]Ooh, this What's that?

[00:04:15]Oh, I see. That goes in there. Oh god, this This plumbing space is insane All right, that'll be fun like. Anyway, that's it.

[00:04:29]Okay then, I've got me fitting stuff from the old one on the new one. They are loose, but I'm going to Did I tighten them? No, I didn't tighten them cuz that's still in there. Um so, we have got tank line, pressure, left and right turn.

[00:04:44]And that's a bit like a Case steering, I guess.

[00:04:46]So, on the machine, I'll show you what it does. Notice the diameter of the hole, pressure in, tank line, left and right.

[00:04:56]Pressure, tank, left, right.

[00:05:00]Yeah, smaller pipes. So, these two small pipes come down to this valve here, and that moves a spool inside of there, which then directs oil flow from the steering pump here.

[00:05:13]It goes into here, into this flow amplifier, and then we've got a higher oil flow coming through these pipes to move these rams here.

[00:05:23]So, we've got left and right turn here.

[00:05:26]And the reason why it's done that way is because if we were to try and move those rams there through a small diameter pipe like that, it would take hours.

[00:05:40]Not literally hours, but it would It'd be really slow at steering.

[00:05:44]Um so, that's how it's done. So, the pressure isn't coming from the steering pump here for the orbital. It's coming from the pilot pump, which is a gear driven pump off the back of the engine. That also does the pilot oil flow as well.

[00:06:03]I guess it's worth mentioning um when you steer yeah, you're not literally spinning something inside there to divert the oil either through that pipe or that pipe left or right. Um all you are doing is moving it left or right. But, the way it works is it goes round and round to give you that feeling of steering if that makes sense.

[00:06:31]So, nothing actually spins round and round in there as such to divert oil into here and here.

[00:06:38]If that makes sense. They're quite a complex little unit to strip down and rebuild. Um and my suspicion is when it does when it when when the steering locks out, the steering wheel doesn't go solid.

[00:06:52]It just kind of spins round and round, but there's no movement of the steering.

[00:07:00]It's a tough one to It's a tough one to explain without showing you. If I've still got the footage, I'll show you the very first time that it did it cuz um they packed it up and let me have a look at it. And I was kind of having a feel of things and looking at the pressure through the screen and things and all of a sudden it came right.

[00:07:17]So, um >> [music] >> yeah, it's the second time it's ever done it.

[00:07:21]It is a shame.

[00:07:23]It is.

[00:07:25]Right. Well, I'll pop it on.

[00:07:27]I'll put it the way I try and describe it.

[00:07:30]And then you've got circle, right? And it's always trying to find the neutral position. So, it's always trying to put the oil back through the tank. Yeah, and then when you steer, you're pushing against a spring if you want.

[00:07:46]And as you're steering it, you're constantly trying to turn it that way.

[00:07:51]And as soon as you stop steering, it wants to go back to the center. Then you steer the other way, try to steer it that way.

[00:07:59]I still don't think this is a good analogy.

[00:08:01]And then as soon as you stop steering, it goes back to the center again. It always returns to center.

[00:08:06]And what could have happened in there to cause the steering to go round and round no action is internal leakage.

[00:08:14]And it's not able to overcome that.

[00:08:21]I'm absolutely on fire this morning, aren't I?

[00:08:27]All right, you get front row seats and let me try to pop this back in. Here it is.

[00:08:48]Something like that, I think.

[00:08:55]Just do with a second pair of hands now.

[00:08:57]Hold that and wobble it while I find the holes in the cabin.

[00:09:01]I haven't got that, so I'm going to try and Oh my god, drop this in there.

[00:09:11]I don't think it's going to want to stay in there, will it?

[00:09:16]No.

[00:09:17]That isn't going to work.

[00:09:19]Mhm.

[00:09:22]And I'll put it I'm going to set it on the level.

[00:09:43]>> All right. I'll pop it in the cab. See how close that is.

[00:09:48]I'm going to have a pokey pokey, too.

[00:09:56]Another service says not found in the cab.

[00:10:02]There.

[00:10:07]I went too far.

[00:10:11]Can I move that or not?

[00:10:14]Yes.

[00:10:16]That looks good. All right, let's get some bolts in.

[00:10:19]That's gone really well. I was dreading that.

[00:10:22]I remember when I once had one of these steering columns out to replace the adjuster arm.

[00:10:28]You know, all that is the steering wheel angle and stuff like that.

[00:10:32]Uh you have to pull it all out. And uh with somebody else down there offering up the orbital, it was such a fight just to get it lined up.

[00:10:42]I don't know.

[00:10:45]That was good.

[00:10:46]All right.

[00:10:48]What I do kind of want to do is take as much as this out as I can cuz you don't want it not to disturb any of that foot pedal there.

[00:11:00]I want all that out of there, really.

[00:11:03]Should really use a Hoover.

[00:11:06]Mhm.

[00:11:07]But then it's not just a 2-minute job cuz you have to take this flare off to get this rubber out.

[00:11:12]But I'm going to do it.

[00:11:14]I am.

[00:11:15]I know I've said it in the past that it's not my job to clean out other folks's cabs when I'm doing work, but it makes sense. Let's get these pipes on first.

[00:11:25]Get these pipes on, will you?

[00:11:28]I don't want to give you false information. I'll leave this little pipe here.

[00:11:32]I reckon it'll be to your test bank over there. All those little caps there, that's where you can put a uh pressure tester testing gauges on.

[00:11:45]And this little pipe here will go around and then on on one of them somewhere.

[00:11:50]That's what it'll be.

[00:11:53]All right, final job on this shovel.

[00:11:54]I've got to replace that window catch.

[00:11:57]And look at this.

[00:11:59]The new one's turned up absolutely mangled.

[00:12:05]Great job, FedEx.

[00:12:07]You bunch of crooks.

[00:12:11]I'll give that a square up.

[00:12:14]Uh that's better.

[00:12:15]Um cab's nice as well. Right, the reason we're changing this cuz this little handle's fallen off. There's a uh air clip, not an air clip.

[00:12:26]Like a clip.

[00:12:29]It seems to disappear. I've only ever changed these in this quarry, so I don't know what they're doing like.

[00:12:34]But evidently it's not working, so I need to take it off and replace it.

[00:12:44]Flipping heck, look at that.

[00:12:47]Ah.

[00:12:51]Ain't that working?

[00:12:53]All right.

[00:12:55]What have I got wrong here?

[00:12:58]Ah, can't even fit the window catch.

[00:13:02]All right, damage in trends here. One of these little arms had popped out of the little lug here, so got it now.

[00:13:13]Beautiful. Right, I'm finished with this shovel. Although I haven't tried it yet, I'm going to grab all my gear out of here, take this mucky boiler suit off, and go and have a curry anyway, cuz I need a 420 next.

[00:13:28]All right, then.

[00:13:30]>> [snorts] >> So, we've just put an orbital unit on.

[00:13:33]What we need to do now is we need to go lock to lock.

[00:13:38]Make sure it A, works, and B, any air out of the system, so All right, out of that side.

[00:13:48]All right, it's working the right way, look. Put the pipes on right.

[00:13:53]Lock right round that way. It's going to hit the van. Nope.

[00:13:57]Good.

[00:14:03]Yeah, it feels all right to me.

[00:14:06]Okay, I'll give these boys a holler on the old [ __ ] box.

[00:14:13]All right, tell you what, Gardens, can I get that 420 down for a shovel, please?

[00:14:18]420 for a shovel. 420 for a service.

[00:14:24]That was a bit embarrassing.

[00:14:27]Got me worst on the monitor.

[00:14:33]I don't know if anybody heard me. Right.

[00:14:36]I'm going to trundle this out of the road anyway. All right, here he comes, look.

[00:14:42]Made sense to somebody.

[00:14:44]Ah, my shovel's bigger than yours, and I've got electric steering. That's good on.

[00:14:49]So, remember 10 days ago and we were out we were going to the dump. I need to do that.

[00:14:57]All right, try again.

[00:15:00]There we go. Right. Remember tell about 10 days ago I says, "Right, that's my last shovel service for 10 days." Well, that's the next one I'll do.

[00:15:12]So, I'm going to put this in the workshop, I think, cuz it's a bit blowy. It's not warm, you can tell. I've got a I've got a woolly hat back on.

[00:15:23]Got a northernly northernly wind and it's uh it's biting like it really is.

[00:15:32]Damn it, there's a case shovel in there.

[00:15:35]Forgot that was uh hmm Uh well, it's not a bad thing because I like to have my van parked at the back of the shovel anyway.

[00:15:44]Um So, I'll maybe just go I'll go back around and I'll park behind the van over there.

[00:15:53]Hmm yes, so 2,000 hour service. It's quite a big 'un.

[00:15:58]Transmission oil and filters, all the hydraulic filters, engine service, centrifugal oil cleaner, um basically everything apart from the axles today.

[00:16:10]6,000 hour service. That's the service that Ooh.

[00:16:14]That's a big 'un, mate.

[00:16:16]It is.

[00:16:18]I've got the axles to do as well.

[00:16:20]Got a 15,000 hour service to do on the shovel, which you don't get to see, but that'll be coming up shortly.

[00:16:30]At least it's a new engine, look.

[00:16:33]Shouldn't be any complications or problems.

[00:16:38]So, I'll Yeah, I'll make it brief because that's a Monday video. Monday videos are short anyway and uh I'm lacking motivation to be all sprite and chipper.

[00:16:51]So, we'll just blast through it. Bam bam bam. Okay?

[00:17:23]>> I mean look to you, right? There's been a lot of blue leaking here and it was just shock of luck with crystals, so I cleaned it all up there. O-ring that seals it. Where has it gone? Gone.

[00:17:36]Um it was split, so I replaced it with a new one. I'm just going to get me airline now and just try and blow all this out cuz it'll just end up rusting everything.

[00:17:46]Nasty stuff.

[00:17:55]>> [music] >> Finished. Great.

[00:18:08]Right, is there any more loading shovels to service this week? No.

[00:18:13]No.

[00:18:14]There'll be one coming up shortly, but it's not one that you get to see, so there'll be hopefully a couple of weeks now between you being able to see a shovel service.

[00:18:23]So, I hope you've enjoyed that and made the most of it and not fallen asleep.

[00:18:26]Right, uh the time is half past 3:00.

[00:18:29]I've got uh is that 20-tonner that had the leaky slew? Um customer forgot to tell me that the boom's dropping, so I'm right nearby. I'm just going to nip in the door, have a quick look. I I want it to be a quick look cuz um yeah, I've got stuff to do tonight, so going to have a nosey.

[00:18:49]Okay, 12 minutes later, we are here.

[00:18:52]All right, I've got it warmed up to 40°.

[00:18:55]It'll be plenty.

[00:18:56]If it's as bad as he says it is, it should be dropping from cold, but I give it a couple of minutes. I couldn't see anything obvious, so where's me white marker pen at?

[00:19:08]That one's fully closed up there, so I'll be able to see if that one's moved, and this one up here will just pop a little dot on the ram up here.

[00:19:22]We'll see if that disappears.

[00:19:28]To be honest with you, I'd prefer it if it was the dipper arm dropping.

[00:19:34]Surely he said the 20-tonner.

[00:19:39]Didn't say 27, did he? He said 20-tonner.

[00:19:50]Now, that ain't dropping like Normally when you even when there's a slow drop, you can normally tell from the cab.

[00:19:59]Oh, it does it hellish when you've got weight on it, though.

[00:20:03]How much is too much weight?

[00:20:11]Good 5 minutes, anyway.

[00:20:13]I've sent a Snapchat to my pal Connor.

[00:20:16]And uh in that time it's taken, yeah.

[00:20:22]That's disappeared.

[00:20:26]Right, put the dipper arm down. We'll take the pressure off, and we'll cap off the tank line in case it's one of these. I hope it's a lock valve. I've already got a solo 130 to reseal it.

[00:20:42]Doing rams on. Could do with that one with the digger doing it.

[00:20:47]Tell them I've not done much driving today because my phone battery is almost dead. So, to diagnose which side is leaking, we're going to cap off the this one here.

[00:20:58]Links the two.

[00:21:01]Yeah. And then this one here is the tank line. That one's the pilot line. We don't necessarily need to blank that off because what happens with the lock valves if they fail inside the leak oil out the ram through the tank line, but we need to separate them. So, if I cast me dipper arm away now and the ram still and the boom still drops, then the fault is in that one.

[00:21:26]If it stays still, then the fault is in that one.

[00:21:31]Capiche?

[00:21:34]All right, there we are. New mark on there.

[00:21:36]Uh to repeat the same test, I will send Connor another Snapchat.

[00:21:42]There we are. I've sent multiple Snapchats in actual fact.

[00:21:45]Hasn't moved.

[00:21:47]So, that fault that lock valve there is misbehaving.

[00:21:53]So, we want a lot of them. I'll grab a picture of the part number on the front of there.

[00:21:57]It's not leaking in the rams.

[00:22:00]I even got me temperature doodah out.

[00:22:02]Been kinging it at it, look.

[00:22:05]32.

[00:22:08]30.

[00:22:09]Up here, about there.

[00:22:13]25.

[00:22:15]29.

[00:22:18]You would say that ram is slightly hotter, but uh the sun's shining on it as well.

[00:22:27]Has been since I don't think it's moved since I parked it up from doing the slewing motor, so.

[00:22:33]Anyway.

[00:22:35]Right, I'll put these pipes back together. Put this boom on the floor first and I don't get a squirt of oil cuz when I take them pipes off, it'll go like oil all over us.

[00:22:48]Okay.

[00:22:49]Good. Half past four.

[00:22:52]Back on about quarter past five. Lovely.

[00:22:54]Thanks very much for watching this video. That concludes it.

[00:22:58]Um Yeah, we've got a good week ahead of us.

[00:23:02]Tomorrow, ooh, I've got a nice little ride out down South Lakes. The job site is going to be fun, though. Air conditioning, D 80 dump truck and 420 CVT-5.

[00:23:15]Not particularly looking forward to that. Wednesday, we might get up into the woods and service a couple of forestry machines. Um, and then Thursday, I've got some of these machines to service.

[00:23:32]That's all I'm telling you. Stay tuned for the weekend video.

[00:23:35]And Friday, what are we doing Friday? Don't remember. Anyway, thanks for watching this video. If you've enjoyed it, click like, subscribe if you haven't, and apparently you need a hype here as well.

[00:23:49]Come on.

[00:23:51]I serviced a shovel today. Surely that gets all the hype.

[00:23:55]You can't unhype.

[00:23:57]So, do it.

[00:23:59]Thanks for watching.

[00:24:00]Bye.