Work has just sprung for 2 of these remote controlled belly guard jacks or T.E.D. As they are branded. I really like the idea of them but in practise they are pretty awkward when putting the guards back up. Replacing the guards on a D11R the other day and if you are only half an inch out left or right it's a proper nuisance to correct it. The previous model had wheels and you could just reef it sideways a bit to line up the bolts. TED comes with a little dozer blade for scrapping the workshop floor, a bottom roller cradle, a GET cradle which I didn't use and another attachment that could be used for removing gearboxes or the likes. The remote is a complete pain in the arse to operate because of a pretty redundant dead man style switch on it.
My first question, and I'm sure tctractors will chime in, are they of any use out in the field where the dozer is probably going to breakdown? Plus it looks like it will take up most of the work space under the machine! Am I right to assume this is also self propelled? and what powers it?
This might provide some of the answers ....... http://safetymits.com/product/tracked-elevating-device/ I'm a bit sceptical regarding the "It does not matter if your machine is inside the workshop or broken down at the bottom of the pit" comment, but without practical experience who knows..?
I am impressed that your Co' take that much care of its staff to provide something of this cost to make things easier and safer within the workshop area, I would think the market for a gizmo like this in the U.K. would be around the Zero spot, I just use chains and pull lifts (Lever Hoist) to remove-refit belly guards, a pal of mine uses a transmission jack, the chains work good for me its all a matter of what you are used to, I will admit to an amount of knack needed on the chain method but you sharp cop on to all the tricks plus I can do the task very quickly. tctractors p.s. If I had 1 of those gizmos to play with, I would use it like a creeper board.
From experience I think that the Australian mining companies take safety to the point of being anal about addressing real or perceived risks. This has resulted in a plethora of companies who manufacture tooling to address these concerns, and make a goodly load of coin while doing it. One the main protagonists is Hedweld - check out their web site ...... http://www.hedweld.com.au/ Remember it was an Australian company BHP who first came up with the idea of banning the use of sledgehammers on their mine sites because they were dangerous.
To answer a few questions. It would be useless in the field. It gets caught up on stones in and around the workshop from what I can see. It's ran by battery power and a hydraulic power pack As for the room, the smallest dozer we have is a D10t to there's plenty of room. We used to have a headweld version, but after the bloke died last year under a belly guard here in WA they collectively shít themselves and knee jerk reactions like this gizmo appeared. As for dropping with a lever block, they are allowed to be done in the field but there's a plethora of paperwork involved. I've not done it as I'm confined to the workshop which is a by of a mixed blessing....
Yair . . . I have no experience on the big stuff but on tractors up to 9g size I can confidently say the eight or ten hours spent to hinge a belly (sump) guard will be recouped many times over the life of the machine. Even if it takes much longer to engineer due to complex geometry the ability to drop a belly guard with no effort, danger or hassel is a joy for a fitter . . . I used to weld hinge lugs on both sides so they could be dropped either way. Working in timber our guards were dropped and pressure washed every service as a matter of course. I see on the dump dozer version of the 155 Komatsu have taken the hinge concept further with a built in electric winch . . . . Cheers.
Belly guards full of leaves, needles, duff, leaked oil and fuel make wonderful fire containers, and will also hide leaks for a long while until the material in them has reached full absorbancy. That little robot seems to be nothing more than a Roomba for the shop, an expensive toy. YMMV
Well where I worked in the quarry the guards on the track frames and belly pans only came off when it was the only way to reach something that was spewing coolant or oil. Not saying I approved of that, took me a few years to convince bosses to let me drop the counter weight and guard under the engine of a 980G that had coolant and oil lines buried in dirt and stone. Only reason they let me do that is the pan gasket was leaking bad. Then wouldn't you know it a couple weeks after that job was done one of the cooler lines sprung a leak! It may sound counter intuitive but when I did have to drop counter weights or belly pans I always tried to plan it so I was working alone. Last thing I need when doing something like that is someone second guessing me or jumping in to "HELP" the wrong way or at the wrong time. Still have all the limbs I was born with and never had a broken bone in 65+ years and 45 of them were spent doing this kind of work. The worst injury I have had was when I was turning in my driveway on my sidecar outfit nice and easy after working all day. Got Tee-boned by some guy in a Isuzu who was not paying attention!
Guess that would give a little more room to work than a D6C!
Kshansen, we drop the belly guards here on every service bar a 250. It's just not possible to do a lot of the inspections required with them in place. Downtime from a blown hose in the field means it is cost effective to spend the time dropping them rather than file the oil spill paperwork and have the loss of production. As for the cost, I'm told they are $36k. It's a lot of coin but compared to fluting around with lever blocks it will pay for itself. Handy for doing GET as well. The forklift would be handier but it's in demand a lot of the time
Interesting. I'd like to try one sometime. In the shop we handle belly guards with forklifts, manual jacks, and so on no problem. I actually don't like the hinged ones at all- I prefer the ones where you just jack into position and you can tweak them as needed and bolt them up. I haven't had to do anything large yet. Biggest stuff I've handled is D7 and 826 pans.
You won't get an argument from me on that! We have a few machines that get moved all around the state like excavators and dozers. These are the worse as everyone figures, "Let the next guy worry about that!" Well seems like our plant and myself in particular were often "The next guy!" Like when the 345 Cat hoe decided to blow a drive motor hose as it was in the middle of a large mud puddle. Bolt heads on guards were so rusted had to go one or two sizes smaller on sockets to get them out, then had to torch the heads off the bolts for the split flange clamps to remove the hose! Once done with our project all the guards over the drive motors were removed and all but the hose we already replaced were then replaced and all new hardware used to reinstall the guards with lots of anti-seize. I knew I was retiring in a few months and would most likely never see it again but could not in clear conscience let it leave in that condition.
slidey, did I read your post right and the cost for a jack alone is 36,000 is that dollars??
That's right. 36k Oz dollars - just over US$27K.