At one time they had 3 drills going on this job. This big one plus two excavator-based ones. Literally half the road slipped away due to the tremendous rain this winter, right up to the center line in some places.
This machine is the only drill left on the site. One day they took off the drilling attachment and laid it on this trailer, I don't know why, they are now back to work all day long with it.
First picture approaching as it is drilling, you can see the size of the hole if you look for the little man down in there. Second picture shows how much of the road it ate up. The drill machine is sitting on a stack of cribbing that fills the entire hole basically. When they get the piles in (concreted, not driven) they then drop treated wood in the channels facing each other and then backfill with normal material. This was begun months ago when the storms were still on but no real bad rain hit the project. Now it is nice and dry but still a little slow going being this is a busy road and only one lane to work in. Lots of other damage has been repaired in other areas as well as slides, etc.
Kind of an old school way to drill. At the shop we have an old setup like that, self contained motor and rotary drive. Pins on the upper of the crane and uses the main hoist for the kelly and the aux for tools or whatever. Certain things they work but it's a lot to move in and out of a job. That's how they started years ago, a small Bucyrus Erie and that drilling setup. It's still on my equipment list, Steve Hain drilling attachment. I looked them up, they still make them but nothing like the older one we have. I supposed every setup has its place. If you're going in with a crane anyway to set casing and drive piles I guess it makes sense. Cool pics either way, the hill west of my old house did that same thing a few years ago and they fixed it in a similar manner. Junkyard
Is that 49, 20 or a local road. I traveled both 20 and 49 many times. It looks like 20 east a bit from you. Thats a cool old Kelly setup. I used them when they were still state of the art.
That is on 49 north of the South Yuba River almost to where it begins to turn off the canyon wall and go across country. Some years ago they kind of cantilevered this section by cutting some deep slots like 10' or 20' in the roadway way down at every other guard rail post and filling the whole slot with concrete and paving over the whole contraption is what it seemed like to me. But that all ended up in the canyon so it looks like they are not messing around any more. The cores this drill is making are several feet in diameter of solid rock stacked up by the highway so I guess that will hold until the rock itself decides to slide down the side.
Looks like they are done with the drilling. They laid the motorized attachment back on the trailer. I got a look at it, it is an old 3 or 4 cylinder green Detroit. I have not seen one of those "in the wild" in a very long time.
Just curious- I thought all the old stuff isn't even grandfathered any more because of CARB in calif. Is that equipment then from out of state contractors, can they buy credit's to still run it? I see a lot of cranes coming out of Calif (for sale), not as many as semi- tractors, but what I heard was b/c of emissions that they can't run them anymore. That green detroit in the drill probably wasn't alone- that old linkbelt was likely detroit too. I bet they had fun getting that old link belt up the mountain too- they weren't any speed demon, and that 11' carrier wouldn't be fun in traffic either.
The CARB regulations are pages and pages of credits, exemptions, exceptions, etc. that it takes a lawyer to understand. Here are pictures of the same project from the company themselves. Scroll to the bottom under emergency work. https://www.jarrettfoundations.com/projects
Well they moved the crane to the other side and reattached the drill motor. Still banging away today. I opened the window to try to hear the Detroit but all I could hear was the din of rock and steel. Here are some cores they have pulled out, this rock is pretty solid, hopefully it will hold up this time.
I saw their website, great pictures of some old cranes that are well cared for and still putting in their time. No one builds a rig today that will do what those old cranes will, day after day after day. It would rattle and bang a new electronic hydro crane to pieces.
Pretty good cores. We pulled some good ones on a highway job a few weeks ago. 90" about 4-5' deep. Broke off nice. Should have taken pics! I'll snap some of our drill attachment collecting dust lol
I think with CARB a small percentage of the fleet does not have to meet the requirements, but the operating hours and miles are limited. A friend just stretched a banned 2008 lowboy tractor and converted it to a water truck. He is limited to I think 12,000 or 15,000 miles a year which he will never reach as a water truck.
Well, they really have packed it up now. They were loading the lattice boom and counterweight and other associated large parts onto semi trailers. I did not see the carrier go by my house. Pretty sure it will have gone by now. Maybe they moved it in the middle of the night, or when I was away. There are several sections of the canyon road where it would not have fit between the guard rail and the high side with a car coming the other way.
Snapped a few pics of our drilling attachment. Detroit power, I was too lazy to open it up and see what specific power plant was in there.
I saw the "Midwest Foundation" name on the rig. I had them do several drilling projects for me up in Ok. and Ks., back in the 90's.
They're still punching holes all over the four state area. I hauled their rigs for years and through dumb luck it worked out for me to come work for them. Great people and they do good work. Small world sometimes!
"Small world sometimes". I was thinking the same thing. I used them for projects near OKC, Weir city, Ks., and Oologah, Ok.
Got word the other day I needed to get our crane attachment out and ready for battle. We bid a bridge job that has some nasty rock and it will allow us to use a downhole hammer. Not exactly sure what all that means lol. Crane and attachment will be on a barge. I hope it works out and I can go babysit the green leaker while she hammers away on some rock. Hopefully paired with an old 518 Linkbelt or a 3900 Manitowoc.....
Down-the-hole hammer is like a giant air hammer on the end of the drill rod/string/bar.