So, I always hold my head in shame when I need to ask a question of you Gents especially when I don't feel that I have anything to really give back. Today, I have a small offering that helped me quite a bit. My D4g and I reside in coastal Ecuador and parts can be a little tough to get. I have been having huge problems with what I thought was hydraulics. Dozer with little force...thinking sensor or something as the thing likes to track to the right. I figured I needed to get a Cat tech to hook up the computer and hook up a bunch of gauges, which I may do in the future after I sell one of my kids. So turned out, after taking up the floor plate, I had a bad decel cable. Of course the cable is $500 and will need to be imported from Miami, but being up on the mountain...screw that for now. I found some great stuff that may come in handy for someone. It is a mesh tape that is water activated. It dries hard in 10 minutes and feels like a cast for a broken arm. I snipped off the straggler wires from the cable sheath, spray lube the cable, wrapped in electrical tape on to hold it together and then applied the fiber tape. The whole process took a few minutes and the dozer works like a champ.
There’s more than one way to skin a cat. Good job!
That stuff is pretty handy. I used it to repair a 2" sewer force main line at our equipment yard - still holding strong.
Nice work and you gave back to us. I appreciate it. They say necessity is the mother of invention. I just shorten that to "necessity is a mother!"
Thanks for the update. I remember your original post. Being remote like that, has its challenges.
Nice! something the barnyard mechanic in us will find many a use for. Cats don't break as often as some of the others (imho) but when they do and require cat parts to fix, they take large chunks out of a mans wallet. When we can find ways around that it makes owning Cats a little bit sweeter.
Thanks for sharing any details on tape ? Manufacturer ? Does not seem that it is available in US but some similar products
I have no need for that product, but having said that something will come up in the near future. So anyone have a brand name or some more info that would help identify a place to purchase it? I'm assuming if Centerlineshop in the mountains of Ecuador can find it I should be able to in Central New York State!
Hahaha, yeah, I am sure it comes from China...just like everything down here, but the name is SenoloFix fiberglass repair tape. It comes up on the internet, but I can't find anything yet for a purchase venue in the the U.S. Since China has a habit of reverse engineering, I imagine this stuff is available in another name.
SenoloFix is the name. I typed in the .com address which came up to a chinese porn site....hmmm, abort, abort, abort
Much thanks
I did my Parmedic clinicals at Tahoe Forest Hospital in Truckee Ca back in the late 90's. We had tons of skiing accidents and broken bones. Back then, they were using a water activated fiberglass tape, much like this stuff, so it has to be around somewhere in the States.
I'll try not to make any comments for "optional uses" for this product at those sites!
Very nice. The phrase I always used to use for that kind of repair was "what would you do if you were in Alaska." Now it will be " what would you do if you were in Ecuador."
That’s funny ****, John! Lol. Made me laugh. Enjoying an extra cup of coffee this morning, reading the HEF, with my buddies across the world. I got a big project to get started on today. Stalling, no enthusiasm today. Just not feeling it. Reading HEF, **** posting and brewing coffee.
Yes, from what I have seen here on the site I say "what would you do if you were in Africa". I remember pictures of a D8 transmission or something with a guy's sandals pulling big gears out by his toes, looked "interesting" but I am sure the dirt got moved in the end.
Yep some people would make fun of the way people do stuff in some parts of the world but "You do what you have to do!" I guy I worked with for years sent some time over in Southeast Asia back in the 1970's. He told about how some of the locals pulled the engine out of a dozer without a hoist. As I recall they built up cribbing on either side of the machine and then used wooden wedges under a beam to raise the engine little by little till it was out.
It is a showery day here in Australia so as I wait for the auto electrician to come and find out what is wrong with my tractor (2018 Case IH 105C) I happened to read kshansens comment about working with a bloke who had spent some time in Southeast Asia. Your story, KS, reminded me of this remarkable first hand account of an event again showing what can be achieved with very little else except ingenuity and hard work, in this case by the Vietnamese people. The story is by surfer-joe, right here on HEF. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did, even if you have read it before, and thanks to surfer-joe for contributing it in the first place.
The search query is "Water Activated Fiberglass Wrap." More than one brand. Looks like one of them came from the medical supply industry. Maybe that's where it all started, on the slopes around Tahoe.
So, I always hold my head in shame when I need to ask a question of you Gents especially when I don't feel that I have anything to really give back. These guys need something to do or they get bored.