MINI EXCAVATOR TIPS PART 2

all right guys I just wanted to do a little update here on uh some upgrades I did and uh just let you guys see couple little things that we've done to it um or that I did to it just make your life a little bit easier um this is the mivia brand um va5 as same one that was in my last video um and I just wanted to go over some stuff that I I think will be helpful to you guys um first thing I did is uh this floor panel right here was originally underneath this brace and over here in this corner you can't see it but there was a tab I think it went that way yeah it went that way under this panel so to remove this um to remove this lower panel you had to take that tank um cover off and then unbolt this and actually remove this whole assembly because you can't lift this up enough to get this off so what I did was I did all that then I cut this out right here with the grinder and I cut that tab off so now all you have to do is undo this bolt here and this bolt here here and this whole panel will come off reason I did that was for a easy access so your battery is in here and a multitude of you know hydraulic hoses and such and I went through and finished putting on all my my uh guards and I went all the way down and in cuz underneath this panel it's all tight there's a lot of rub spots where it could have rubbed through so I just figured you know what let's try to be ahead of theame came here and and uh you know keep keep the chafing down um another thing I did was my I did the tailpipe extension here for the exhaust and then I wanted to make this um cover hinged so I could check the fluids and leaks for leaks and stuff like that easier um so I got these uh barrel hinges um from a buddy of mine now I originally ordered a set off Amazon and they were cheap like 10 bucks maybe and they suck they had so much slop that if I would have used it for here by the time you open the door you you would have been able to like lift this up and down probably a good inch and a half and I just I didn't want that I wanted a nice tight fit so my buddy had those laying around so that's that's what I used um and then I actually bought clasps for this I didn't like the way they look they kind of stuck out and they looked weird so all I did was I just I had to open this hole up a little bit I had to open this hole up a little bit here to catch these two bolt holes this one here and this one down here and uh cuz when I did the hinge I raised this up a little bit just so it would clear up here and down there at the bottom bom and it perfect it works perfect um but you know you still need to take out two bolts who cares it's not a big deal for me some people maybe that's a big deal but for me that wasn't a big deal so now you can see we got easy access to open this up and I've seen a lot of guys saying oh well you know how how often you know some guys are taking the Mufflers off and putting them outside of the unit and okay yeah you could do that okay I'm not against doing that that that would be nice you get your heat out from in here but as you can see I put you know extra insulation in there and uh added a uh just one cooling fan for now so far it seems to work great um hasn't overheated like I said but I've only got about I think 6 and 1/2 hours on the machine right now and um but it works um so far I've only needed the I actually haven't even had to run the fan it's been pretty cool here 50s 60s and uh I've done a little bit of digging it hasn't been too bad but the reason I wanted to make this easy was uh checking your oils and checking for leaks um you know I try to check it after every use and here's why so when I first got the machine okay I noticed a few little drip marks from from these um for the controls um on each side one there and one over here um and I just went ahead and tightened up these little Allen screws right there on each side and that fixed it and then I also notied down under here don't know if you could see the uh the suction hose which is this one right here where it goes into the bottom of the tank it's hard for me to get on camera but there was a little puddle underneath there where it looked like it was Dripping so I dried everything and I tightened up this um hose a little bit and it was kind of loose I mean not really loose but it was a little bit loose so that was like oh maybe I should check them all so I checked all of them I checked every hose they all needed a little e a little tweak but like I said I didn't have any leaks other than there I ran the machine I did some digging uh for about an hour and a half yesterday and I'm checking it now cuz you know like I said I like to check it every day and it's still um like I said it's hard to see but it's still dripping from that uh fitting there now the way these fittings work and I noticed this on uh I noticed this when I was doing my pressure test here is uh well here I'll show you this little fitting so I have it hooked up to this uh hydraulic thumb line right here and the way these work is actually you could see there's like an O-ring inside here on the thing it goes into this end right here so it doesn't matter how tight you tighten these hoses because the O-ring I mean yes it there it there is it is like a conical seat in there for the O-ring but within reason so to do a little test what I did was I tightened this uh gauge on here um to check my relief valve and I only just did it hand tight okay I I just put it on hand tight checked it no leaks and so that tells me right there no matter how tight you're tightening these fittings it's not really going to make a difference now on regular hydraulic lines um like that they use in America here they're uh they they work a little differently it's more of like an aend style where you have like a a tapered seat on one end like a wedge and then same on the inside of this and so those do need to be fairly tight to seal because it's metal on metal these are o-ring to metal so once it's snug you know it's good so since this one here is still leaking down in there and not only that but the one that's in there that's leaking is actually the feed that's the suction line for it um that just tells me that there must be either debris or maybe the O-ring has a Nick in it so I'm going to have to take that apart and drain my fluid out and see what's going on with that you know before it makes a mess in here like I said it's not leaking a lot but just enough uh another thing I wanted to talk about was the motor so this was advertised as a Briggs and Stratton um it clearly it's not doesn't say it anywhere on it this is uh you know a clone so just be aware of that you know when you're if you're buying them from an auction cuz they're just doing like a BL like they may have some models with an actual Briggs and Stratton and they just classify them all as you know 13.5 horsepower Briggs and Straton um you know for all the listings and then they'll go off of for for the model numbers obviously they're going to go off you know whichever model number it is but those like you could see mine you know it says mivia crawler excavator va15 gives you your weight in kilograms which if you convert this um I believe this is a uh oh what is it like 1.6 ton or something like that model I I I don't know or 1.5 I think so that's I have a feeling that's what these numbers all mean I don't know as far as like the VA or the HH that may have something to do with like the name of it or the other little options but the numbers uh from what I've seen at the auctions um the the the numbers the higher the number it seemed like the heavier the machine and then also the width of your um the width of your blade slash track width is wider so I noticed on the 12s they were like a 1.2 ton machine and the width on the 12s I I believe it was like a 32 or a 36 in width and this the 15s was 39 this one's a 39 and then they had a 16 there which once again was 1.6 ton and it was a little bit wider than this I want to say 42 or 43 wide and I really wanted that one it had the same control setups as mine which a lot of people will see this and oh it's got pilot controls no it okay yeah you can operate it from the pilot seat I guess you could call it that but it's not true pilot controls true pilot controls has um a a second pump or and or a second line that feeds a valve and then the valves instead of them being manual where it's like a plunger when you move the joystick it's pushing down or pulling up on a plunger inside the housing a true pilot system doesn't operate like that I mean it does but it's a separate feed so you get a little bit smoother control action out of it but um I don't know for me I didn't really it's more hoses okay more hoses more things to leak more things to check so I once that auction started getting getting a little too pricey for me I said all right I'll I'll go for the 15 model and I did pretty good on this 15 model I think 5600 or something it was which I have noticed the prices are starting to go up a little bit you know depending on what area of the country you're in um but yeah I think this was uh 5600 um and I finally won it so I'm happy with it um the only other thing I had to do was uh the the throttle here it worked but it would never go like you'd put this all the way down to idle but it it it wouldn't go to idle here because the uh the spring um was too weak that holds this back so I just've drilled a little hole hold on let me see if I can get in there I drilled a little hole right here and just put this spring I couldn't really find any good spot to hook it up to um I mean yeah I probably could have did something over there and just went straight across but I mean rubbing this is not a big deal it doesn't move very much you know it's not much and that extra spring helps you know put a little more tension on this so when you actually do go back to uh idle it actually goes all the way to idle and it's not still revving up you know crazy High um I mean you could do that if you want that's there's there's also a couple places so you you you could I don't know if you could see it in there but there's another that nut right there you could bring your you could bring your um you could bring your throttle okay so this is the this one actually here is the throttle this one here is your choke um this one's the choke and this one's the throttle and it originally I can't remember 100% where it came from but it was all like kind of convoluted it was like I think it came through this way I don't know it just it had like a harder Bend to it and I didn't like it so I I moved it to um this location instead and it seems to work a little bit smoother now um as far as the control up here and uh but yeah I just wanted to touch on that and uh you know bring up those points and you know like I said I I I finished up my um protection here you know where it rubs everywhere rubs there you know all down in here and this this was kind of a pain to get these on cuz once you start wrapping this on here it I used the half2 in um the/ in uh protector so it would fit tight and it wouldn't slide well the downside to that is you want it down in there and you put it on up here you're not you you're not going to be able to slide this in um I tried it's very hard so I had to basically take all these covers off and kind of start from where I wanted it and then end up you know where I could get to and but I got it it took me some time but I got it so now I don't have to worry about any of that um kind of stuff you know um getting chafed and rubbing through and um the pressure I I double checked the it it it dug fine I was just curious to see where the pressure was set at from the factory on this machine and it's set right at uh 20 like 25 26 100 PSI and uh so I'm happy with that that's I mean honestly I don't trust these hoses and these cylinders to hold much more than like 28 is kind of I think pushing it I would never go like three grand I know a lot of the other machines um you know like the K cotas and the name brand machines are um they're probably around 3,000 PSI 3500 um but I don't trust you know these no-name brand hoses and O-rings to hold all that pressure so I'm going to go with this setting for now everything seems to work great uh it dug good I did a little bit of digging over there um for drainage um and uh it's still dug great the tons of rocks that I had no problem um D digging up the Rocks um but yeah that's that's pretty much it I'll uh I mean maybe if if you guys want uh maybe I'll do another video on on um how to actually check your pressure and how to how to adjust it if it needs to be adjusted uh let me know just uh throw throw a comment down there and uh let me know and I'll um I'll maybe I'll throw maybe I'll do a little video on that but uh I mean there's there's already tons of videos out there on this kind of stuff um but you know let me know and uh that's it thank you

Channel: aguyandhismuttgarage

Views: 6,270

Keywords: mini excavator china excavator

Id: PuWLqFnlNnA

Length: 17min 1sec (1021 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 15 2024