B200 operation question - re seat rotation

westcliffe01 · May 16, 2009

Hi

I today demo'ed a Bobcat B200 which I intend to purchase. One of the things that I discovered during my demo was that when the vehicle is operational and one rotates the seat to operate the backhoe, part of the seat displaces the lever that controls the bucket, resulting in an uncommanded raising/lowering/rotation of the bucket. This seemed quite dangerous, so I am wondering why this is ocurring ? Wrong seat ? Or wrong bucket control lever ? Or is one supposed to shut off the machine before rotating the seat and then re-start it afterward ?

The vehicle was a 2003 B200 with about 1400 hours on it and in original condition.

capt_met · May 17, 2009

the seat should not touch anything when it turns around. occasionally i'll have my knee hit the engine kill switch when leaning to look in a hole. what part of the seat touches? does this happen with the seat adjusted forward (toward the wheel) and back (away from the wheel facing forward)?
good luck,

westcliffe01 · May 18, 2009

capt_met

The seat interfered no matter how it was shifted forwards and backwards. I got the impression that either the seat was too wide or (more likely) the operating lever was not cranked sufficiently to be out of the way. Looks like a replacement lever will be needed.

capt_met · May 19, 2009

good luck with it,

westcliffe01 · May 24, 2009

I figured it out. The loader control lever had been installed upside down. The original thread at the bottom became damaged and some yahoo decided to remove the operating ball on the end and reverse the lever. Ever since that time the seat interfered with the loader control when rotating the seat.

I cut off the damaged thread, leaving just the last few good threads. Threaded a nut half way onto the good threads that were still there. Then screwed in a 1" long piece of thread that I liberated from a bolt I had on hand. Welded the nut on both sides and called it good. It now fits like it should and you ran rotate the seat without having the loader develop a life of its own or attack passers by...