I Bought an 80,000 lb Excavator for ONLY $7,500! What Could Possibly go Wrong?

[Music] a big excavator and it was cheap too why is it that these large excavators sell so cheaply at auction my name is waldo and i'm about to find out i'm here at the auction yard where i just purchased this a 1986 lieber r 942 hd for a modest sum of only 7 500 us dollars in comparison a brand new caterpillar 336 has similar specs to this machine but the cat will set you back around half a million dollars now of course this machine is a bit old and worn out the bucket has seen better days some of the glass is missing and it lacks the creature comforts of a newer machine despite that this machine supposedly runs and operates and it is capable of getting some serious work done the engine is an air-cooled deutsche 6 cylinder diesel these things are ridiculously simple reliable and easy to fix let's put it to the test and see if we can get this thing running there's a start button back here i don't think that came from the factory like this but switch the battery on and okay i mean it clicks but i think these batteries are pretty low so luckily i bought some replacements the machine uses two 12 volt batteries wired in series for a 24 volt electrical system all right i got the new batteries installed they're obviously not the right kind but hopefully they will do these are the right ones they're big heavy and probably expensive i'll charge them up when i get home and then i'll break out the battery tester so that i can see if they're any good battery on here we go [Laughter] it seems to spin over really easily eventually the auction yard employees came over and they helped me figure it out [Music] well apparently this lever back here is the fuel shutoff and that was my problem i'm looking at all the little icons in here trying to figure out what they do and i was having a little bit of a hard time figuring it out now that i know it runs i need to make sure it operates so i can drive it onto a semi-trailer for transportation [Music] [Applause] yeah it works got the bucket curl there we go nice we got the dipper that works and then this should rotate the cab all right [Applause] now i should know the engine is only at about half throttle and i'm also using the controls gingerly so that's why the machine is moving slowly all right it works backwards and forwards as well [Music] as my semi approaches this brings me to the next reason why these large excavators are so cheap to put it simply they're difficult and expensive to transport due to their size and weight for example this excavator is 11 feet wide which at least in my state of new hampshire requires a special wide load permit every time the machine is transported i estimate the weight of this machine to be about 80 000 pounds which happens to be the maximum legal weight of a semi truck once you factor in the weight of the semi itself the combination is over 120 000 pounds which once again requires an overweight permit larger excavation companies do often have large machines like this however large excavation companies also have the financial resources to purchase newer equipment so i come back to the question why are these machines so cheap because there simply aren't many people who want them for me on the other hand this machine is perfect because once i transport it to my property i'll never have to transport it again until i sell it so [Music] so [Music] well we got it home successfully and look at the size of this thing you can really see how enormous it is now the reason why i purchased a machine this large other than the fact that they are inexpensive is because i live in new hampshire the granite state and my property has a ton of really big rocks on it and this thing is going to help me move some of them now i want to get to that later on in this video but first i want to go through this thing and make sure it is in good shape before i give it a bit of a workout the first task is an oil change and i think the oil pan will be accessible once i open this hinged panel oh that is a lot of nasty crap under there all right so take a look in here we've got easy access to the oil pan we have two fuel filters right there they're wicks and then up there is the oil filter itself so this thing has five gallons of oil i have a five gallon bucket here and i wonder how much of a mess this is going to make it's loose well that's not much of a mess what's going on here is this thing so sludgy that there's no oil coming out that would be really bad there is another hex thing up here that i could put my wrench on so maybe there's like a valve in there i don't know let's find out oh there we go yeah oh my whoa what a mess that is unbelievable this is going to get heavy fast too jesus oh oh my goodness this is the messiest oil change i have ever done i am soaked in oil right now these are my hands you should see my legs holy moly yeah so it looks like this thing does have a valve in it i'm not sure how it works but i don't know let me know down in the comments if any of you know what the deal is with this thing i think i can probably use that valve next time to not make such a mess let's see this is a german excavator so i guess i use good and tight as the torque spec on that this has the potential to make such a big mess it's a really large filter and it's full of oil oh there it is oh yeah [Music] the new filter is also a wicks just like the one that came off of it and i'm very much going to refill this this filter probably takes a good half gallon of oil it's unbelievable how big it is [Music] yeah i'm just using shell rotella t4 15w40 [Music] that looks pretty good to me [Music] i don't see any leaks so it looks like we're in good shape grabbed a little oil sample here to send into the lab just out of curiosity to see what they have to say about the condition of this oil i'll tell you about the results in part 2 of this series because they won't be ready by the time this video is uploaded these deutz air-cooled engines use a fan to cool the engine by blowing air over the fins on the cylinders and the cylinder heads these fins can become dirty over time and so it's important to clean them for optimal cooling performance let's take a look and see if they're dirty on this engine there definitely is some gunk built up on the fins in certain places the oil cooler is also important for keeping the engine cool and it's very dirty i'm gonna see if i can clean these fins off with a little brush [Music] while i had the air duct cover off i found the engine model number bf6l913c each one of these numbers in letters has a meaning it's a turbocharged high-speed compact engine with 6 cylinders it's air-cooled the engine family is 913 and it also has a charge air cooler this is the high output version with 170 horsepower i also found a plate that says the engine was rebuilt in 2005. that's not surprising since the engine runs so well so this thing right here looks like it's the throttle which is broken off unfortunately i would really like to have access to the throttle so i have full power which is going to be really helpful for moving rocks so i guess we'll see if i can take this apart and fix it it might be seized which could explain why it was broken off all right so here's the broken lever this looks like it's an aluminum casting and i don't know if it's going to be easily weldable but i am going to try to tig weld it well the good news is that it looks like it is welding well so far [Music] right there i backed my foot off the pedal too much which is why the weld looks too cold [Music] i obviously could use some practice to improve my tig welding skills but look at this the results speak for themselves [Music] it works [Music] look what just showed up the air filter and one of the fuel filters that i ordered so let's do these next i always like to check these water separators to see what is in there yeah it looks like fuel but there is a lot of dirty crap in there it's definitely time to change this filter jeez yeah i'll change this other fuel filter when that comes in but it was a little bit harder to find than this one man that's a huge air filter mowing my lawn can be a little bit tedious if you'll pardon the pun i have a ton of rocks to mow around and i'm trying to decide which one to dig out with the excavator funny enough you can see my backhoe over there where it developed a hydraulic leak attempting to dig out a rock that ended up being quite a bit bigger than expected all right let's get this thing going [Applause] all right let's see if the throttle works now oh yeah it does that's excellent let it warm up as partial throttle while the machine is warming up i'm kind of thinking about trying it out on this rock right here now i have no idea how big this thing actually is there's only a little bit sticking out but i suspect it could be very large kind of like an iceberg where only the tip is above the surface but underneath the surface there could be this massive boulder but we're gonna find out let's start by prying at this rock and we'll see if it moves nope it's a big one by the way i've never operated an excavator before so bear with me as i learn they say it takes a significant amount of practice to be able to operate the controls smoothly since the rock is so large the strategy is now to dig around it and see if i can break it loose [Applause] well the excavator is able to move the rock boat i'm gonna dig the hole deeper push it back in and then bury it [Music] [Music] well this didn't work too badly huh a little bit of work with a rake smooth out this dirt remove some of these smaller rocks by hand throw down some grass seed and this is going to be back to lawn in no time well it has been a really long and hot day working on this thing and i am completely filthy however it was pretty successful because the boulder that was here is now far enough under the surface that it should no longer be an issue and i don't have anything to mow around so i'm very excited about that in the future for this machine i can definitely see myself replacing these teeth that'll be a pretty good opportunity to do some stick welding on the channel i may need to repack the hydraulic cylinder for the bucket because i think it does have an internal leak i was also thinking that this machine could use a paint job if i can find someone with a hot water pressure washer to come down here and spray all of the grease and stuff off of it a quick and easy paint job on this would make it look pretty darn good i typically give all of my vehicles and equipment names and this is certainly no exception because it is a german excavator i was thinking about giving it an old-fashioned german name something that a non-german person would think is a stereotypical german name i had a few names in mind like hans gunter wilhelm and otto and i would love to hear what you guys think about that so do leave me a comment down below and let me know which name you prefer i'd like to thank you so much for watching and we will see you in the next video [Music]

Channel: Waldo's World

Views: 6,038,256

Keywords: excavator, auction, heavy equipment, diesel, Liebherr R942HD, Deutz, DIY

Id: nHvGhclktz0

Length: 18min 28sec (1108 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 28 2022