IH 3500 Backhoe - Tenerife

[lanbase]

Hello all,

I would like to introduce myself; Wouter from Tenerife, Spain.

Tenerife is a relative small Island belonging to the Canary Islands of Spain

About two years ago I bought a trillion hands IH3500 backhoe for cheap, although cheap, that is, since I live on an Island you will have to do with the junk that is available.

It has a different engine than the D239, the previous owners have mounted a Perkins 4.203. I have worked a bit on the engine side, coolant, oil, filters etc. and working on the hydraulics now ,

Its my first tractor and my first hydraulics experience. I do however work with high pressure plunger pumps and systems in the water industries for my profession, so I enjoy learning about this machine.

Rephrasing "junk'', I am over the moon with my first tractor, and don't need to make it perfect but good enough to be able to work it with joy on my plot of land which is full of rocks. maybe its not the perfect machine for the job, but hey its an improvement over hauling rocks with the old Land Cruiser.

Anyhow I posted above in the Redpower forum i while ago as well, but I think being it a European machine build in London/Doncaster (?) there was not that much response i guess. So I am trying my luck here for moral and technical support through my battles and learning curve.

Grtz Wouter

[hair bear]

Ertl made a couple of nice models, 1/64 and 1/16 if I remember.

[Jeremy Rowland]

Hi and welcome good luck with your restoration projects; I saw a similar machine in a scrap yard near Stafford a few years ago now but have no idea if its remains are still there or for that matter if the scrap yard is still there; I must get round to having a look but while we're stuck in lockdown I'm stuck in the house.

Jeremy

[lanbase]

Hi thanks,

I have made some progress the past 2 years with the machine regarding some spare parts, service manuals, inspection of transfer case, gears etc.

Gained quite some knowledge from the manuals and not easy to find dedicated IHC 3400/3500A forum threads and general hydraulics and tractor manuals.

Just after I bought it back in 2019 I have worked the machine for about half an hour to maybe one hour a day for 3 or 4 days to try everything out; loader, steering, fwd, reverse,hi lo drive, brakes, backhoe bucket dipper swing etc.

I am a novice construction equipment operator so everything is pretty much new to me, I was swinging some rocks with the backhoe and noticed a loss of power/speed in the swing, especially with the bucket full of rocks, the swing also started to make a "binding" noise when swinging with bucket full.

Since I was doing a series of test runs, I decided this was the moment to check the mechanical state of the hydraulics of this machine, starting with the filter;

I found a cut to size metallic cartridge filter in the canister, with on top of that the bypass-valve-with-screen unit pressed/forced in, If that is not bad enough I also encountered shrapnel on the bypass-valve screen. This all led to a bunch of work being done and explored on the machine.

Let me search for some pictures as they say way more than words and serve my memory for sharing and asking the right information over here.

Cheers

[lanbase]

Ha found them !

[lanbase]

And the replacement filter; WIC Ref: Baldwin PT538

As you can see the old adapted filter had a smaller inner diameter, to small to house the safety valve, I bet it leaked quite badly filtering wise. where it seated.

I got two of them, I bet I need them both to be able to clean and "flush" the whole system.

[hair bear]

As an aside, I co have an alternator for one of these. It was rescued for another project but found to be faulty. Would it would be of interest as a pattern or repair project?

[lanbase]

Thanks, but I have no use for it,

The installed Perkins 4.203 had a good functioning alternator mounted.

Thanks again, cheers