Just thought I post up some pics of what I've been up to. Sorry about the sideways pics, I tried rotating them in windows, but it didn't stick.
more pics Little foggy our high rise project units at a school little rt action setting trusses
few more Right by the tree, but with a view Tag team Sign Work Boom way down over there
Just a few more I'm not as close to those power lines as it looks, but I don't like even being that close, I'd prefer the lines in the next county (I'm within a booms swing of them, but I never got within 20') There was no other access. Water tank swap out. One of the few times a year I use two lines Me and Al tandem setting a few top out columns The very top columns had 1" caps welded on them, and big tall horizontals for x bracing. I stood the column with the rt. Al placed the horizontal tie in with the 70 ton.
That's some nice work, your where I'd like to be in five years. For now I spend the biggest part of my time swinging a hammer. I really like your equipment.
Very nice pictures. I was doing this the other day: https://www.machinerymoverschicago.com/blog/Craning-and-Moving-CNC-Stone-Saw/
Nice pics crane op. Looks like your business is pretty close to what we do. Looks like you have some nice old groves. The first crane I ran day after day was a tms200a. Basically a tms250 with 6x6. I could tape an ink pen to the hook and sign my name with that old girl.😄 I loved that thing. To this day the smoothest crane I've ever been in.
Nice! Keep them coming
Thanks guys here's some older pics Light poles at a ballfield Roller coaster maintenance
more pics This was a great spot to set up in. . Back up the hill, stop and hope the brakes hold Start it up on jacks and hope it doesn't start sliding down the pavement. Boom down over each rear corner/ teter tottering to get enough blocks under the front. We were adding rocks to the retaining wall below and to the side of me on the cliff, then trees and mulch.
Nice work!:thumbsup Over the years I've kicked around getting into the crane business, your projects are inspirational.
70 ton setting gang panels this winter Always fun if the wind is blowing RT in the hole. We let it down in there with the winch truck, then winched it back out when done I could have driven it out, I could catch the winch truck with the throttle. I was concerned that if a driveline broke, I'd have been in real trouble.
Nice little truss job Golf course irrigation pump. We transfered the 20,000lb pump skid back over the hill there 1/2 mile from the 18 wheeler. Tandem ford to haul it down through the creek. Was able to drive over there, got stuck going back through the creek with the crane. Rear outrigger boxes hung up. Earlier on at our condo building Those first few trusses were fun over top of the big oak. tms 250 with all of it 80' main,26' jib, 20'pull out stinger
Tradesman- I don't know about wanting to be in my shoes- there's days I wish I only had 1 crane, and I just ran it myself. I find myself less and less able to run crane, and spend more time on the phone. Knepptune- Sounds our businesses are similar- Except neither one of us know what we're doing next. Its always something different. I don't know how many calls we get "we've tried everything else, maybe you need to come look at this", or "We've got no idea how to do this- think you can?" We're like the method of last resort. Also I'll agree, few rigs are as smooth as a old Grove. Its funny though- I have two tms250's, and I love to run the white colored one, I hate my yellow one. The guy who runs the yellow one is the opposite- he doesn't like the white one. I don't know what I'll do when he retires- I suppose shove someone else in it. I'm not letting them run the little white one. Ichudov-You're really getting the hang of that old grove, its a ball of fun isn't it? CM1995- I look at your dirt projects and sometimes think- I could get a backhoe and a excavator, maybe one of those track loaders you guys are always bragging about, its just pushing around dirt. It's all at your feet, not 100' away. Not flying stuff over houses, cars, and trees. Not worrying about punching through a parking lot, or someone misquoting a weight by 100%. And lordy my insurance bill. But what you do isn't just pushing dirt around. Its bidding, blueprints, general contractors looking to use you as their banker. Grade, slope, underground utilities,locates. Deliveries, schedules, truckers, demo boxes. Rain, mud, wash outs, do we quit at this site, load it all up, and then come back. I get to show up on a site-and it makes no difference to me how long it takes- I'm getting paid from the time I leave the shop, till I get back. The truck is late- oh well. Your parts aren't fitting right? oh that's too bad. I don't have a bid $ or deadline to meet. A customer of mine, just got a new owner who was a bean counter. The old owner had been in their business for years, new owner knows nothing except $. We were talking about it in the shop, how one of the worst things is when the boss doesn't really know what he's doing. The employee's know, the customers find out, and it seldom works out. On the other hand - what we do isn't really brain surgery, we pick stuff up and put it down, in the same way that dirt work- is just pushing dirt around. The difficult things are getting there, setting up, rigging, truck placement,etc. The easy part is the picking up and putting down (just like painting- its all prep work) Anyone can learn it, it just takes time. (Brain surgery isn't probably really brain surgery either, its just cutting people open and sewing them back up, doctors do it all the time) This however- is the bad side of all my old cranes-and probably the least fun part- repair Boom disassembly for my 70 ton Piston seal repair last winter Boom disassembly for my 25 ton- we just got to do this one twice in four days- I folded a backer onto a oring the first time around. Full day an 1/2 to tear it all back apart and put it back together again, I did squeeze in a job (secretly hoping the leak was just residue in the boom, it wasn't) We're finishing putting it back in tomorrow- hope I got it right this time.
Crane operator you hit the nail on the head.:yup This morning we tore into the 321 to replace a shredded fan belt, not too bad other than being cramped. 3 hours of work and $200 later we're back in business. But not so fast. The site is soaked and we spent the day turning and drying dirt. Made the call to pile it up, seal the piles and leave early at 3 as rain was coming. As you stated making the call to cut bait or line is always a difficult one. Fortunately the storm went just south of the site and it's supposed to be hot and sunny tomorrow, we'll see. The projects I do are blow and go retail (mostly) with a tight time schedule. It pays OK but you're always under the gun at a contract price which makes the call more difficult. The reason I'm interested in crane hire is I think our market is somewhat underserved and I'm always looking for another way to make money. I can't imagine the insurance cost and for now it's just curiosity for me. Keep the pics and explanation coming.
I'll have to figure out how to post pics. I enjoy seeing others jobs. Cm1995 The crane game is fun. It's amazing how sometimes you want to strangle the guy who's paying a couple hundred an hour for you to take a nap. Most of the time that sounds pretty appealing but sometimes you want to kindly explain just how bad they are at their job.
resist the urge!
I've only threatened to leave one jobsite. Told the idiot Up on the trusses he was leaving or I was. They sent him home. He had me as mad as I've ever been. Crane op Did you pay any attention to the RB auction in Houston. Couple AT's looked like they sold pretty cheap. Had a gmk5115 you'd look good in. Lol
They sent him down my way Knepp. The lame ass nail bender decided to pull a string across the truss peaks so he make sure it was all strait before nailing it down . Got to swing them all in sideways .
Well I'm happy he's down there. I was ready to drag him off the trusses and give him a good working over. Lol
LOL Knepp ! It was one of those " sleeper jobs " where they had to wake the crane operator up after taking half hour to set a truss & read the directions .
We call the window the carpenter glass. Made to stand up, poke your head through and yell insults at them
Yes I did see the Houston auction. Incredibly cheap for all terrains cranes. The bigger rt's and truck cranes weren't as bad, small rt prices weren't pretty either. 2008 115 ton gmk $295,000 2006 115 liebherr $310,000 2002 x 2 170 ton liebherr's $250,000 & 275,000 2006 165 gmk $365,000 2003 & 2002 240ton gmk $320.000 & $340,000 The gmk 240's are usually listed between $600- 800,000 that 2008 gmk should also be 7-800,000 And the 2006 165 should be there in price too. Some banker is crying this morning, or a investment group (they own some of the big players in the crane game) They've probably somehow got uncle sam backing the notes, small business improvement loans etc. So rejoice everyone, we all probably lost a couple million yesterday. Too many large cranes sitting around with the oil slowdown, and no buyers. This year, I could have justified the 170-240 ton crane. I turned down enough work in my regular area for one, that I could have made the payments. Honestly though, I don't have the manpower or the trucks and trailers, or the $ to afford them and the crane. The 115 ton, and maybe the 165 would be the top end of what I could handle. Nobody had a extra $300,000 laying around for me did they? Maybe a extra thick mattress?
Just curious if anyone else saw the 2- 2012 1400a national boom trucks that sold for $54,000. . They were listed as in the free trade zone, for export only. Would these have been built with non epa spec motors is the reason for being unable to re import? Had International carrier's and looked like pretty nice cranes. For that price I think you could have left the trucks in the free trade zone, unmounted the cranes and reimported just the uppers. There's probably a ton of paperwork involved. I know there's a new 2013 terex t560 floating around terex's plant that's listed as for sale export only. Could they even sell it to someone in the us? I'm not going to get smog checked.
Knepptune, Try going to this link: HeavyEquipmentForums Lots of information there just don't feel it is that complicated, like anything else it takes way more time and words to explain something than to actually do it!
Sent you a pm kshansen Me and dad were talking about those boom trucks this morning. I didn't realize they were export only trucks. Good time to buy cranes. Just kind of scary to look at the value of the cranes we have.
Few pictures before I retired assisting setting beams for the new I70 river bridge in E. St Louis. Tom
Aint that the truth Impact !
Was it TD that wanted to mount a loudspeaker on the end of his boom a while back? Seems that would be a nice way to inform them of their transgressions.
I like the guys that ask you to pick the truss back up and move one end over 2". I tell them I can't. My rotator motor isn't working.
I have to jump in and defend my people, you have to admit there's tradesmen and there's guys just working at it for a job. I have guys I set trusses for make me look like some kind of wizard, and some that through their lack skill make me look like its my first day on the job. Sometimes I just stop mid cycle and wait for them to get thier **** together. But the good ones and by that I mean the real tradesmen that are real students of thier trade are a pleasure to work for and with. Don't forget God could have chosen anyone to raise his son but he picked a Carpenter :notworthy
That's just because cranes with air conditioned cabs hadn't been invented yet! GDRVVF!
Gdrvvf ??
Grinnin', duckin', and runnin, very very FAST, lol :tong
Driving some 16" x 100 ft. piles with the 40 ton American on a barge.
Aha. Air conditioning for cranes. I posted before, what happens when a pig sweating hillbilly stares at a tractor supply lp generator for too long, then troops off to walmart. I can't tell you guys what a difference this has made. The Lp generators are so nice- no cans of gas to go bad, no guys standing on the deck pouring fuel everywhere, or hauling gas around in the back of pickups. I should have done this a long time ago. I put this setup on 5 cranes this summer. Generators ran between $250-350 (all on clearance-no one wants lp ones?). Window units $115. I had looked at semi APU units (liked the diesel-didn't like the $3,000 cost). Looked at factory type hydraulic drive, they're also big $$$ (one's I've run heat the oil too much). Not a lot of other options. I no longer dread the 98-100+ days as much. A little cool air on the back of your neck makes a world of difference. Tank of fuel (20gal) lasts at least 3 days. Those are 3750-4000 watt units. I tried the next size down (3250peak) and when the compressor kicked on it would kill the motor. A/C units are the smallest that wally world sells, manual control. Just leave it on high- open and shut windows and doors to suit.
Tugger- love the pile driving. One job I've never done. I did spend some time watching them drive piles with a hydraulic terex rt one time, looked like a disaster waiting to happen.
Couple jobs from this week. Quarry work. Said to bring the smallest crane we have. I told the wife I was taking the 35- quarry guys are never right on what stuff weighs. I don't see how they sell rock and load/mix concrete all the time (by weight), but seem to have no concept of what anything else weighs. Steel stand for screen. Millwright says "only weighs 6,000lbs-calculated the iron myself". I'm thinking, if that stand only weighs 6,000, I'll eat my hardhat, without ketchup. Sure enough stand weighs 11,500 Yes, I know I don't need all that rigging and spreader bar- but I will in a little bit. Finding the angle with the stand, helps to set the screen, this is where the spreader bar comes in. I'm to lazy to switch, I just put it on at the start, then didn't have to switch it all after the first lift. Probably could have gotten by with my 8' roundups off the bottom of the bar, but I hate scuffing up nylons on all that steel, and I had the chart so just left my 12' steels on
Chopper had a light going off. They decided to haul the chopper to their tools, not their tools to the chopper (was about 1 1/2 hrs away from home) Loaded on my lowboy buddies trailer. 1 1/2 hrs there,set up, 5 minutes to lift, tear down, 1 1/2 hrs back to local airport, set up, 5 minutes unload, tear down. 5 1/2 hrs. total. Weight 4,600lbs. Took the little yellow crane- I hate running it, but it gets down the road a little faster than the white one, and this job was mostly driving Also had a couple deer greet me that morning at the shop. They looked ready to load up and go with me.
That was a good job Craneoperator,lots of soft mud to stab the piles in first otherwise we would have looked silly trying to drive 100 footers thru a hole in the float with only 70 ft of boom on the crane.I haven't seen a lot of pile driving with hydraulic cranes we only use a conventional.Wheather was good that day to 95 deg.F and no wind on the water.We aren't used to that here
Gotta love quarry work. I was just at one the beginning of the week. Those guys are usually pretty close on weight. It's just about as boring as it can get. 1-2 lifts per hour is just boring. I dc who you are.
Also proud to report the crane got back together the second time- holding and no leaks. Book says to remove boom completely from crane, then disassemble. Shop area is pretty flat right here, we use a combination of driving the crane and holding/ driving with the forklift to push and pull for disassembly and reinstalling. I like that better b/c the crane carrier gives you a anchor for the bottom section. Thought they might dump this off at my shop- they must have missed the turn. Got rid of one of my two army truck, motor donor's. Sold it to a kid with dreams of a mud runner- threw in a bad 3208t, he thinks he's using it to power it. Don't remember where we talked about it on here, but just a 5 month report: love the 8.3 cummins (stolen from the above army truck) instead of the 3208's in my two 25 ton's. Just a little more fuel usage (+5%?). Gained at least 2 gears on most hills, way more torque with similar hp #'s. I'll have to take a couple pictures of the install.
On the pile driving- I was across the river and at least a 1/4 mile away from the hydro. They were using one of those hydraulic vibrating hammers, I thought my crane was going to vibrate to pieces, I can't imagine what it was like in his seat. I think that's one of the jobs that a hydro teleboom crane will never work like a lattice. It had to be slamming him/ side to side and up and down. Those old american's though- just soak it up and ask for more. Do you chain the american to the barge? I have a hard enough time placing things, can't imagine the crane riding the waves. Have worked with guys from the gulf, working on drill rigs. They say 5'-10' waves are a adventure, loading from boats to the rig and back.
Get into your afc screw and grind your fuel plate flat on those 8.3's and they'll walk up the hills in overdrive. Lol it'll also roast the single disc clutch. And once you put a dual disc clutch in it'll twist the driveshaft in two. Lol don't ask how I know this stuff. We had one that we put dump truck rears under. It also had an overdrive transmission. That old girl would get out of bed and roll down the road. Topped out at 67mph and you didn't have to downshift on hardly any hills. Really was kind of a fun crane to drive. She did like the diesel fuel tho.
I like the window A/C unit crane operator , did the same thing on my old Cat 215 this summer, 61 degree air and all I had to do was top off the gas tank every 4 hours or so Had a small gas generator already so I strapped that to the toolbox lid opposite the cab, plugged the power cord in and was good to go. Made a couple of mounts to hold the unit in the back window of the cab, I bet I still had more visibility then a new E series Cat
No knepptune, I don't think we're going to mess with the pumps. The thought crossed my mind to see how far I could push the 8.3, but really I'm happy with where they're at, and I think the engine life will be much more if I don't crank them up. I was curious about your tms 300. When they went to big cam 350, did they put in a larger radiator? I'm trying to decide on my repower if I'll get a custom larger radiator, or just recore the old one. I also have contemplated a big cam III, in 350hp, I've found one and don't know if that would be easier/better than converting my 444 to high flow, and dealing with stc, instead of ntc. Love the little window unit, moving dirt, it sure improves the day having a little cool air.
I really don't know on that crane op. I don't really have a basis for comparison on the radiator size on that 300. Just from memory I don't feel like it looks oversized or anything. I can tell you that the whole system holds about 10 gallons of coolant.
thanks for sharing all the pictures....looks like you get a wide variety of locations. From easy parking lots to sidehills full of timber. Good work!
Of course its a holiday weekend-travel restriction on here in missouri, my wife loves that b/c then I can't work, instead I'm on here writing about work. Anyways a few more pictures from this week. 110' radius, 1600 lbs, a/c unit. Don't think that hard hat is doing him much good in his hand. Holding up some more units at a school. They were re -roofing, hold up each unit while they do the curbs View traveling down my shop hill. Anyone upset about me driving and taking a picture should realize I'm moving about 2mph here, I couldn't avoid anyone if I tried. I come around the corner, hit the hazards- come to almost a dead stop, snick it into 3rd and use the brakes all the way down, to keep from over-revving the engine. Horizon is level. Just left of the bottom jib mount you can see the elec poles where the road comes up the other side. Downhill not quite 1/2 a mile to the shop driveway.
My 25 doing some floor joists. These guys are a good crew, and I think they probably could do these with their skytrack, its just a lot simpler with the crane for a couple hours, versus them fighting all day with the forklift. I've got 2 little steel spreaders, I put on the end of my hook spreaders, hanging from the spreader bar. You can get about 5 floor joists on them. These we just did 3 at a time. This way the floor joists set on the steel bar, they fold up on each other if you use a cable through them. It makes it nicer setting them down in groups if they're all level. One of the things I really like about my 25's is all the jack you have, in a compact package. You can see this jobsite is a little crooked, but I've still got a little daylight on the drivers rears.
Last few things on Friday. Loaded Rt up, it was headed for the shop. Blew one hose on the job (fixed it there and finished) was leaking from another spot when we got back to the shop. I've fixed more hoses on this crane since we got in January, than I have on all my other cranes- combined. And its the newest crane I have. It turned out to be a leaking plug when we got back to the shop- good for my mechanic, I was thinking about just replacing all the hoses on the whole crane, he doesn't like that idea at all. Last job for the week, Lp tank. I've set several for this guy over the last couple years, he's never got a clue what they will weigh. He told the office 12,000lbs. Office got the dimensions from him of the tank (6'x30'), and I guessed 18,000, it ended up being 22,000 (also was 6'x40', not 6x30). This is where a truck crane vs a boom truck really shines, the day before I was setting trusses at 85', but it can offload and set a 22,000 lp tank. I've actually set a 30,000lbs tank for this guy with my 25 (had my hands full), he was way off on tank size that time to. We did his 53,000lbs one with the 70 ton. Great planning, to put the tank right next to the power line pole :Banghead
Man I do not envy you having to set up on those hills. I've grown to strongly dislike spending an hour throwing cribbing before we can even start working.
Few more pictures. This has been our little high rise, I really can't believe we're going to get the steel all with my 70 ton, we've had to do some iron from both sides of the building. It's 10 floors, with a pool and bar on the 10th floor. I had my hands full with the 4 big horizontal beams under the pool. The vertical columns on the outside wall are pretty think flanges also.
My poor and hungry (P&H for you who haven't heard that one). We've had this crane a couple years now. The above job has been a great job for it. It has 126' of main boom (4-section, remote power pin), with a 60' jib (swing around and pull out). From the top side of the above building, we need all the boom, jib and offset, to fill in the inner iron. Its a 1987- t 650, weighs about 93,000- 10' wide carrier, 14.00r20 main rubber. It came with a boom dolly, I decided to get rid of that and add the tag axles. There's one on the rear, and a pusher in front of the tandems. I could really scale with only 1 of the 2 tags, if I could get the weight exactly where I wanted it. But I added both because I wasn't sure I could get my weight equalization right with only the rear tag, or only the pusher in front of the tandems. This way I only need to get around 10,000lbs on each tag. The tags are both air suspension, rear tandem is walking beam, front steers are spring. It actually rides and drives much better with the tags, than it ever did with the dolly. It's way easier to get around corners too. I actually could only leave my shop driveway and head one direction with the dolly, if I went the other way, the road cambered too much, and I'd spin out. It actually rides better than my 3' axle 25 ton's do. Almost forgot- that's right- DETROIT DIESEL -6v92 - If only I could post sound pictures.
work pic
Oh my, I get claustrophobic just looking at that mess. Busy site.
I almost had to hold on to the desk when that one popped up on screen, not too good with heights and that last picture got to me! I'd have to think twice about which of those cables were mine! One of those jobs when you don't want someone walking up and start trying to ask you questions at the wrong time
workpics work pics
work pics each c'wgt slab = 40,000# lifting 450,000# @ 250 ft radius manitowoc is 2,000 ton capacity
Got to go to the muddy school site yesterday (saturday) and set the a/c units. Had my rt hauled the 75 miles down there- about a two hour trip with truck and trailer. It would have taken 3 to 3 1/2hrs in my 35 (I've driven there before). It was kind of nice just to crawl in the truck and get delivered over there. Site was dried up pretty well, but still extremely spongey (is that even a word? I know its a soil condition). I left some ruts, and spread out some cribbing, I was pushing pretty hard and didn't want to sink away. Ended up being fine. Its hard to see in the pictures, but I had out my aluminum double mats, with wood on top. With them I end up with a 4'x3' square, with 3- 4"x8"x30" oak on top. The worst spot pushed down probably 2-3", and I was getting the christmas tree look from the box on the dash. One unit I just set on the roof, they carried it back the last 15' by hand. Also that's a flag (on the far side of the school) standing straight out right under my boom cylinder, I could set a unit, then just try to slow myself down as the wind pushed me back to the stack on the ground- good times.
Just speaking out of curiosity here but I can't imagine being able to haul an RT around and being competitive. Granted we don't have the hills you do So getting into jobsites and set up usually isn't a huge issue for us. And that may be the difference. Just seems like it'd be a fair amount of trouble to call a truck for each job with that crane. We did have one job where we had had to drag our tms200 (which had 6x6) to every set up spot with a d6 dozer. But I don't know that an rt would have done any better. I guess my question is what keeps you running that rt vs trading it for another truck crane?
I purchased my rt in jan. Really didn't know how it was going to work out, but I've actually used it more than I thought we would. It only goes out right now, if I look at the site and say the only way we're getting in there is my rt. I charge my hourly rate on the jobsite, plus the trucking charge. That school job in the pictures, there were 2 soft holes I walked through with it, I would have buried my 35 truck crane. The trucking on that job was probably only $2-300 more than my travel charge would have been. I've taken it to two jobs when I didn't have anything else available, and ate the delivery. I then usually try to just have it taken to the next site, rather than back to the shop (saving me a haul). The crane is really because of terrain, the first two jobs it went on in the first month I owned it, were jobs I could not have done without it. And then jobs kept appearing, and I would find a way to get it done with the rt. As far as the competitive aspect, I haven't had someone else come up and say "I'll drive my truck crane right in there". If I can't get one in there, usually no one else is going to. I'm trying to get a truck and lowboy, or a truck and a pinning gooseneck and axle set up bought/built. That will ease up the bind that the separate trucking gets me in right now. I can't get excited about buying one. I've looked at used double drop detach, and 20,000 doesn't buy much. They're all beat to pieces. That and I need a heavy spec truck. The detach and 4 chains interests me a little more than building my pin system, but I think the pin system would be better long term. I'd get rid of +10,000lbs gross, and wouldn't belly out, both things that are difficulties in my situation. Will it work for setting a a/c unit from a parking lot? no not near like my truck cranes, but you could do it in a pinch. I like it more for the project where they need it off and on for a week, or week and a half. I just bring it down there, and use it when they need it till they're done, then haul it home.
That makes sense. There definitely is no comparison when it comes to maneuverability. We just don't turn down many jobs due to the site not being accessible. Back when we owned a couple rt cranes we kicked around the idea of a truck and lowboy. Local guy has a tri axle truck and tri axle trailer that he charges a straight rate of $80 an hour. At that price it didn't seem worth it to have one.
Typically my shop to a jobsite is $300. $600 round trip. I really don't think I'll save $ having my own. Its more that if the phone rings right now, I can't say yes or no, until I do a bunch of calling and get someone to call back. If its just one or two picks, the delivery and return doubles the cost. Saturday we drove 2hrs, he sat on site for me for 2-3hrs, then 2 hrs home. He's paying his driver for 8hrs. Probably be $1200. But he's buying $300 worth of permits (two states). I'm hoping to get set up truck and dolly trailer for under $25,000. I've paid close to $20,000 this year having it hauled. I do plan on selling my smaller international truck (8100, with only a 330hp m-11, super 10), so that should recoup some of my cost in buying a bigger truck.
Brilliant work
Gave up on one this week. Transplanting some trees on a golf course. I measured and calculated out the root ball, kind of put my rusty old eye ball scale, on the tree and everything, and I came up with 30-40,000lbs tops. I really thought 30-35,000 would load it. Bob and I worked back and forth, pulling, lifting, swinging on it, and both ended up with +/-36,000lbs EACH. He was setting a lot closer in the truck crane, and I saw the front start to get light. I was in the rt, and Jim told me he saw a little daylight on the back jacks. So we both were getting all we could. We see-sawed back and forth a little trying to rock/ break it loose, and just couldn't get anywhere. Time for plan b. Decided the tap root was holding us, so brought out the old winch truck to drag/cut the bottom of the ball loose. We put a cable around the bottom of the ball, attached one end to the winch truck, and attached the other end to a semi tractor trailer (that we were planning on putting the tree on). Just drug the winch truck. Plan c Dozer, dug a hole on the other side. D6 pushing and lifting on one side of the root ball, with both cranes lifting all we could, and the winch truck pulling. Slid the tree, roots, and ball about 8', inside the hole. Free now but not off the ground. We stood around, decided we needed to dig a trench, up out of the hole, to push the tree closer to the truck crane , move the rt, and then try to load it. That was when I pulled the plug. All my talk in another thread about not being afraid to say no. Here we are, with both cranes pushing chart, a winch truck pulling, and a dozer pushing. I decided to quit before we ended up in a disaster. I could just see the dozer backing off too fast, or the root ball disengrating, or any one of a hundred things, and we'd have a tree laying on its side,with it and the dozer, buried under both cranes. ointhead We would have all had to climb in the winch truck to get home. A larger crane outfit is looking at bringing in their 210ton crane (there are 3 total trees to move), if the course decides that they want to spend that much $, or they'll cut them down. I still can't believe we didn't get it loaded. It actually makes more sense just to get the bigger crane, because even if we had moved the cranes closer, we wouldn't have had room to unload where they wanted to put the trees, nor could the trailer have handled it. I think it must be between 70-80,000lbs, the dirt just has so much rock in it, is the only way I can be off in my calculations. Either way, we went, we saw, and were conquered. Sometimes you're the windshield, sometimes you're the bug.
Nice easy one today, setting trusses on a duplex. Brought the 35 because we put a safe room in the far corner (it would be the far corner, not the close one). About 4,000lbs, set on a 16" thick concrete pad. Steel walls and roof. Racing the rain- 3 trusses to go!
Have a friend that ran a crane for a while, can't recall how big but his main thing was setting modular homes. He HATED anything to do with trees. Climbers can't guess weight worth a shrit! They think you can take a 36" dbh, 100' tall oak in one pick. Ex
Smart decision Crane Op ! Get out while the gettin is good .:yup They are asking you to do a job that aint natural . Dig out a grown tree that size & replant it somewhere else ? Nope ...... Aint gonna do it . Might hack it off & pile it up somewhere with a dozer & K/G blade . Local golf coarse transplanted a bunch of cedar trees when they were landscaping . Now that's just asking for trouble . Bad luck follows if ya go planting a cedar tree ! Go with the " gut feeling " and don't be shy about sayin No to stupid money . Plenty of people that need crane service on real jobs .
Crane op you know why the framers didn't put liners under some of those headers in the safe room pic? Just curious. We always slapped the liners in before we stood the wall up.
There is no problem transplanting big trees, it happens more than you'd think. I think its awesome myself that we can take a grown tree like that and move it... This is just a reason for crane operator to buy a bigger crane Look up Big John tree spades, those guys move a lot of big tree's, its fun to watch them work.
Imagine Crane OP is thinking the same thing . You guy's do know the best time to plant trees ?
CM1995, Are you referring to the spot like where the arrow points in this out-take? Took me a bit to figure out that was what you were referring to if I am right. I was told those were called "Jamb-studs". And it does seem odd that they are not installed. When I built our house with help from a friend and an uncle who were both old time carpenters all walls were constructed with the bottom wall plates running the full length of the wall and only after wall was up and fully nailed in place were the sections in the door ways cut out. Some were even left in place until sheet rock work was done. More for trying to get other things done first than any structural reason. But leaving them in place and having all studs in place help keep things lined up and sturdy while handling the sections of wall.
We always called them cripples. I didn't even realize they were missing. I like trees, I like cranes, I hate anything that involves cranes and trees together.
Jack stud? Carpenter probably heard the whistle before he got them cut, or saw those "Budweiser clouds", LOL
Knepptune...I feel the same way! Trees and cranes are dangerous!
CM1995 - on the studs missing. I would guess that the stud gets removed, and a decorative fir/pine post 6x6 or 8x8, gets installed in its place. They wanted the header in place when the roof went on, but didn't want the finish post in place, exposed to the weather/ workers (nailbenders ), while they're framing out. Lodge/rustic look. They'll probably put it in after the roof is on, and when they're finishing out the interior. On the tree spade. They wouldn't have had a chance to spade this tree. The ground is all rock/clay interlocked, extremely hard. They tried originally to dry bore (navigator type machine with no water) under the tree for pipes/ undersupport for rigging attachment. They couldn't get the bore through it was so hard. We gave up on that for rigging, and just taper dug them (excavator, hand picks, and jackhammer), trying to save the root ball. Just in case anyone is curious. We rigged the tree/ ball by installing a 3/4" cable, below the ball in about a 9' circle, doubled and cable clamped. Then I put another cable on top of the root ball, also about 9'- 10 diameter, both cable loops smaller than the root ball. We then installed 8 grade 70 chains, from the lower cable, at a angle to the upper, then back down to the lower cable, interlocked. 8 points chain connected on top, 16 points on the bottom cable. Bob and I each had a spreader bar, with snatch blocks, rolling 20' 3/4" cables. Those 3/4" cables, shackled right in where the upper 8 chains tied into the upper cable. We then chained our outer shackles to each other, so my rigging and his rigging couldn't each slide around to only one side of the tree. There's also a wire fence/ cage around the ball. There's really no manual on how to get ahold of something like that, and what we came up with, actually worked really well, it was picking very even. The snatch blocks, with the spreader bar really helped even out the load, and kept the chains from wanting to slide. Of course I was figuring on about 30,000 lbs, so I don't know if the other crane guys will want a whole different setup, considering its about double that. We actually never overloaded the rigging, I figured each crane had rigging for 40,000 lbs, which was more than either of us had chart for, I don't like skimping on rigging. Probably the weakest point was the wrapped 3/4" cables top and bottom, but we were actually hooked into it about every two feet, and the pull was even, and the chains were actually carrying most of the weight. I don't have a engineer's stamp to put on it, but I wasn't worried about rigging, as much as I was concerned the root ball would split/ fall apart, causing the tree to tip itself within the rigging, and us not being able to stop it. I thought of tying the spreader bars into the trunk, but that makes it really difficult to move up and down, and adjust to each other. I do quite a bit of tree work, both transplanting, and cutting down. I like to do all the tree jobs myself if I can, rather than sending my other guys. I like to work with guys I know cutting down, and I always have them cut smaller than I think I can handle. I try to estimate weight of the trunk sections, based on the higher smaller stuff we started with. They all weigh different, depending on tree type and time of year. I cut my crane chart in about half. If I'm good for 3k I want a 1,500lb chunk, I don't care how many cuts they have to make. The dangerous part is whatever they cut off, its yours. You either have it, or it has you.
Brought this home yesterday, my new rt puller. Now I'm just trailer hunting or building (probably both, I'll buy a trailer to use until I get mine built). 1998 western star, 12.7 detroit 60 series (475 hp). 13sp. (new w/clutch), jakes, only 12kfront, 40,000 rears (looking for front cutoff). It's not exactly what I wanted, but close enough. I think if we change the front end we'll be in good shape. I'm not sure all the chrome will fit in with my old equipment, but it sure does shine. I had actually driven away after looking at it, deciding it wasn't heavy enough spec. The guy called me when we were 10 miles away, "what will you give me?" I made the mistake of naming a number, and he came close enough. I wrote a check for $13,000. I was actually just tired of looking for exactly right, and figured this has a lot of what we wanted, and we'll change the rest. You have to start somewhere.
Looks good, that'll run with the big dogs if you need it to. :thumbsup
I was impressed with your " basket weave " rigging on the tree job ! Damn good effort Crane Op !
We have a freight liner we use for counterweights and hauling lifts. Has a series 60 with 500hp. 40k rears and 12k front. Dang thing feels like a sports car after driving a crane. I'm not sure on the transmission or rear ends. I do know that with 85k it still will outrun any crane I've ever driven. It's only the second semi I've ever driven so I don't have much basis for comparison. The first semi I ever drove was when I was taking my cdl test.
Been whittling on the list of things to fix on the western star. I think its going to be okay. Been setting glass for a skylight at a school (its all on the other side of that brick wall). 136' main, dead stick and jib in the 35 ton. Vacuum lifter. All in the blind by radio. Boom up, hold the load 3'. Swing left 2'. Boom down, hold the load, 2". Seriously. 100' away from myself and they want 2" boom down . With 500lbs total, glass, lifter, and ball(i'd just bump the winch cable down- they'd say stop on the radio ). Oh well, it went well. I did all I could reach, they're finishing tomorrow with a 210 ton. Actually the kid signaling on the radio did a great job. I coached him a little when we started, told him I didn't care what the direction was, just as long as it came with a distance and he would count me down (cable down 10', then 8-5-4-3-2-1-stop). I much prefer that over the guys that just say "boom down" and get off the radio. You don't know if its 2' or 50', or if they just fell off the roof.
For you track loader lover's, there is one in that first picture of the last post, if you squint real hard. They're loading fill for the landscaping on the back side.
Sometimes when they ask for 2" simply revving the engine gets it there. Amazes me how that works. Lol
A C model still earning it's keep. I love my track loader, it's going to the shop for new bushings in the bucket pins in the near future other than that 5K + hours and still moving dirt.
CM1995- I know we kind of complain about parts prices on our cranes, I'm always kind of relieved that I don't face the pin/ bushing damage that excavators, loaders, and dozers go through. Undercarriage wear is something else we don't face. Unless you do something really stupid, the crane itself will last "forever".
Job's coming up. Looking at picking these up and moving them. The train engine probably under 30,000. I'm guessing the old shovel at 30-40,000. It still has gas in it. I really think with not too much work, we could get it running and drive it on a trailer- if nothing is broken deep inside. As I was looking at it, a old guy came up, and was talking about what a piece of junk it was, I said it sure looked to me like it would beat a shovel.
Couple more pics of the trailer
Looks good man. There's to sides to everything. The oil prices are nice for everyone but oilfield companies. I went back and looked at the results from the RB auctions. I know North Carolina is a little drive from you but it looked like there were some good buys on trailers there. Hopefully your new trailer looks better in person once you see it.
Meant to say hopefully the trailer looks EVEN better in person. Not looks better in person.
Yea, I love when the guy on the radio asks if you can pick it up 2" and move the far end of the beam over 2" then sit it back down. When I answer nope, the rotater switch is out, they beleve me.
Well I thought as I'd get older I'd get smarter, but now it just seems I'm in more of a hurry. New trailer is in Ft. Worth. Finished a job tuesday at 2:30pm.- no job for me on wed. so I decide I can hop in the new western star, bobtail to texas, hook onto the trailer and bring it home. Run home, look for ancient logbook, and paperwork to pick up trailer. Go back through the last two weeks, to fill in the logbook. Waste a 1/2hr rounding everything up. Go to back truck out of shop, sliding the brakes, losing air. Fix airline- old owner rather than fixing a blown airline, wrapped duct tape and zip ties on it. We washed the underside of the truck, weakening the tape's hold. Jack around with fittings, and make up a air line, finally hit the road at 5:00. Too stubborn to give up and wait for another day, I head out. Traffic in Ft. worth at 2:30am wasn't bad. Shut off light in motel at 3:00am. Ritchie Bros is right across the road. 5th truck in line, but yard doesn't open till 8:00 Walked around and took some pics. Nice silver liebherr that would match impacts. Get into the yard at 8:00 and hook up to trailer. Try to back under trailer, too low. Dump bags, back frame rails under trailer, raise bags. Throw blocks under nose of the trailer, dump bags. Try to back under trailer, trailer tries to roll away into the tankers sitting behind it. Throw blocks behind trailer. Shove trailer over blocks, and off of front blocks. Redo everything, only now hooking up trailer brakes, to hold trailer in place while I back under. Didn't hurt anything or anyone, and now hooked up. Fill out paperwork, load up chains I'd bought, and load up some rigging I bought also, and head out, 11:00.
Traffic in Ft. worth/dallas at 11:00 is bad. I felt like such a hick from the sticks lost in the big city with a big new trailer, a big new truck, and no idea where to go with it. I'm sure people were telling me, but I couldn't hear them. Hour and a half or so, I'm finally out of dallas, and find a truck stop to get over and check things out. First side of axle hubs are fine, but the middle one on the other side is pretty warm, actually you could say hot. I pull the little rubber plug, and it starts sending out smoke signals like a panicked indian. Like I said, it was warm. Still has full oil level, but something's wrong. I go in the truck stop, take a leak, think about the warm bearings, dreaming they're cooling down, and that I don't have 500 miles to home. Climb back in the truck, drive the next 10 miles, thinking I've got to do something, or I'm going to smoke a axle. Pull over at the next stop. Thank goodness I stole a 8' 4x4 (sorry ritchie bros, take it out of your buyer fees). Drive over the 4x4, chain up the offending axle. Discover that's the axle on the leveling valve, much to my luck. Spend the next 30 miles, pulling over every 5 miles, and messing with the valve, and finally get it where the bad one's off the ground, and I'm not going to blow the bags off the other two axles. Home by 9:00. Decide I'd never make a over the road driver. Looks nicer in my yard than theirs.
Wish I'd have known you were having trouble and going more or less by me, I could have given you a hand! I've backed a lowboy farther than most have pulled them forward, had them custom built and built them from scratch myself. If I can ever help with anything lowboy or hauling related let me know. I've moved some monster stuff and some very odd stuff as well. Looks like a nice rig. Junkyard
Thanks, junkyard. It really wasn't anything too serious, just a pain. I'm just glad I went down there myself, if I'd have hired it done, I doubt anyone would have checked axles. I'd have got a phone call that my new/used trailer had at best a ruined axle, worst case a tire blowout/ fire/burndown. I will say this though- when I turned south off I-40 onto 69 in oklahoma bobtailing, I did mutter some choice words on the quality of highway work by your fine road department.
I've been on some trips like that. Took me 4 days to get a 50 ton Grove out of Colorado once! Argh...
At least you didn't take that 50 ton through missouri and destroy our fine roads with it
Got to set the Bay City shovel Friday morning. 31,000lbs. One of the museum guys said 1930's. I think with some new brake bands, a couple new cables and a grease gun, a guy could go to work. They got the engine to turn over, but I don't know why they didn't pump out the old gas.:Banghead
That Bay City looks like it would be fun to play with in the back yard! Wife might not appreciate it though!
I had to smile and chuckle a bit reading about your adventure hooking up in the Ritchie Yard. I've had a similar adventure. My tractor has Hendricksen spring suspension so I did my lifting with blocks and a bottle jack . At least mine was out in BFE where no one could see me . My excuse is I'm a weekend trucker with my '87 Ford LTL9000 and a 25 ton Phelan lowboy for my old construction equipment hobby. Different subject: There's a little restored Bay City like the one you lifted about 75 miles from me that the family is letting rust away I'd like to bring home.
been there done that .last year when to south dakota buy way of dallas tx bobtailing with 20,000pd front axle camel back suspension mack .Took over a week three tires,two fenders,step. exhaust pipe and about 10 years of life but oh what fun it is. p.s. guess we are to dumb to quit and do something else
You know I couldn't help myself on that old bay city. I kept walking around and around it, looking at what would need to be done, to get it running again. I think after our sun solar flare hits, and destroys everything electronic, I can make my living digging with it. They're actually going to paint it to look like a character from Thomas the Tank children's books. It reminded me more of the Mike mulligan and his steam shovel book. I couldn't hardly stand to read that book to the kids when they were little, because at the end (spoiler alert) they dismantle the steam shovel mary ann, and make her a furnace. A children's book to make a grown man cry. A little work from the last of the week: A nice little truss job down by the lake, I crawled back as far as I could so I wouldn't have to swing jib. The vaults run front to back clear over the back deck, 70' away or so. Had to take the yellow 25 (which I don't like running as well as my white one), the white one's on jacks right now with a bunch of metal shavings in a 1 yr old, reman, 3rd member. We're going to do a little steering control work while its down. Saturday morning-Finishing up the school playground, had two of these roofs to set. Needed the 35 ton, this one was 95' away.
clintm, that had to be quite a ride. Bobtailing with a spring mack that far would be a adventure. At least your gearing probably kept you slow enough to tame the ride? I will say this about the Western Star, it seems really well built. My international, that's a little shorter wheelbase (but still air ride), shakes and rattles everywhere you go. That western star is solid and quiet. You can see my international setting beside the new trailer. I pulled it up for the wet kit, I had to hook it up to the trailer, just seeing what the trailer worked like, and I don't have my wet kit mounted yet on the western star (like a kid with a new toy). The trailer has its own hydraulic tank, but no pony motor. I think we'll pull that tank, and just have tanks on the trucks. We're also looking for a heavy front axle for the western star, I'm having a little trouble finding one with the right frame spacing. I found one, but its wedge brake, and I think finding the right spider might be a pain, and that old is probably worn out. I've found a newer one from a fire truck, but the axle spacing is wrong. Its got a big enough flat spot to drill new holes for the ubolts at my spacing, but haven't ever drilled a front axle like that. I know it doesn't have very many miles. Anyone ever drilled a front axle for new ubolts? The fun really doesn't ever end.
Is that 25t missing the cw on those last posts. Weight issue in your state? Also most off your pictures the cribbing makes me cringe. Not cause it looks unsafe in anyway. It does however look like a fair amount of work. And I don't enjoy particularly enjoy that kind of work. I've considered hooking outrigger controls up on the frame so you don't have to hop in and out the crane when your trying to walk a crane up onto 3ft of cribbing. That's one really nice feature on the 110t. Set it up without getting into the cab once.
That grove was offered both ways, with or without ctw (different chart). My old boss (in iowa) bought one brand new, without ctw, then bought the ctw a year later with a new chart from grove. This one has never had it, no brackets even for mounting it (there is a small plate under the winches, 24x24x4" approx). It really could use counterweight, you don't notice it too much on main, but if you get jib on, over the side it really rides up. I've been keeping my eyes out for a used one, I had one found up in wisconsin, but he would never give me a $ amount, and I wasn't driving that far without knowing a price. As far as the throwing wood, Ozark mountains have been a learning curve for me. I've set some crane's up in some pretty crooked places, and that's why the first thing I look at in a crane is outrigger span. Second thing is outrigger length/stroke of jack. Also frame ridgidity. Those grove AT's (at700's) like impact used to have, look great for getting around in rough conditions, but the jacks being at each end of the carrier is a no- go for crooked conditions. That's where the 25's I have really shine, they've got a narrow footprint, and long jacks, and a stiff frame. On my 35, the jacks are shorter, but the span is small (for its chart) and the frame is also stiff. It's more boom heavy- you will have to swing over the rear and scope out some, to bring a front jack way up. My 70 ton doesn't have very long jacks, but the frame is so stiff, plus single stage outrigger beams, its not hard to work forward and back to raise it (it also has outside controls ). The one I most wish had outside controls, is my rt. It has some frame flex, the jacks start out higher off the ground, a 4' wider span, the highest cab to climb into, and I take it to the worst spots. The only thing nice on it, is no crane sticking outside the jacks, being so short lengthwise compared to a truck crane. 4 wheel steering and drive is great. Double stage outrigger beams, and too much frame flex, kill you for setting up in a crooked spot. Hence my dislike for many boom trucks. One of the latest crane magazines showed a new elliot or altec custom built for a tree outfit with extra long jacks. I've also seen terex's like yours outfitted with taller jacks (from a rt maybe?). I ran a 85 ton AT (gmk4070) down here and the active suspension is also a game changer for setting up, its just a lot of moving parts (very $). And I do ride around with a forest of wood with me. And I've got more at the shop when I run out.
Well how much is a cw worth to you? Got a tms250a at the shop that's really beyond any help. It runs and operates fine. The swing bearing is shot and it's ugly as sin. Robbed the boom cylinder and jib last week. Might make you a heck of a deal on the whole crane. If there's any parts you need for one of yours let me know. And I see what that part looks like on that crane.
Another funny one on slopes. The bay city unload pictured above had a little slope to it, the truck driver borrowed some blocks to chock the truck. He was worried about his brakes holding. We had to raise the boom up on the trailer, and while we were doing that, he started unchaining it. I caught him before he loosened the up hill chains, explaining that if the crane decided to walk off, all we could do, until we were hooked up, is watch it go click click click, off the back of the trailer. He got kind of a white look on his face. We also chained the house to the under carriage, keeping it from swinging. I left the uphill chains on until I had it picked up, then swung the crane forward to take off those chains. It can also get interesting unloading on slopes, things that load fine on flat ground, load and unload odd on a slope. When unloading, I'll often leave a chain on (maybe loose) until I have it, I also won't release tanks on a trailer until they have chains on it.
Knepptune- sent you a pm, thanks.
Tearing down a neon sign, had just enough boom with dead stick out. I put it out thinking for sure I'd be 5' short, have to take it in, put on jib, then put it back out. Got lucky. Different business going in, old sign down, new sign going up in a few weeks.
Sunday morning work. They tried to lift this tank on Saturday, and shucked their hydraulic pump that runs their jacks. I set a different pump up there for them. They build the tank sides and lower bowl 1/2 on those little green stands. They got up about 5' when their pump quit. The electric over hydraulic pump is in that steel lifting cage. I stopped on the way out and took this picture, they were up about 12' in the time it took me to tear down. They will bring in a bigger crane to set the inner bottom bowl and the roof.
Also got to a truck parts man this week. Picked up a heavy front axle and a headache rack for the western star. His yard has a little bit of everything scattered around. Came up with a pretty nice headache rack, just oxidized a little. Got a wet kit and tank to mount. Replacing the bent rear frame attachment with some c channel. I also put a flat plate on the rear, for where the detach support arm pushes down. Also doing bearings and seals on the new trailer. The hot axle on my trip home was set too tight. The bearing on the opposite side was too loose, it had actually worn a bad area in the outer race. We're going to do all the bearings and seals, that way I'll know what I have.
I know nothing of operating a crane, just working on the one I have. Looking at your lifts, how do you determine how much boom angle, boom length can be used for a particular weight? The load chart I have for the Galion 150 shows distance from center line (of the pedestal) and weight, but nothing about boom length and angle. So if I'm extended out the full length, capacity of the crane (60 ft) and angled up to the max (about 70 degrees).....according to the load chart, I can lift far more than I would be comfortable with ....21,000. Is this correct? I'm not an operator nor will ever operate the crane beyond short or light lifts for myself......as I'm not licensed nor experienced.....what am I reading into this? There is a load chart on post #39...... HeavyEquipmentForums .
Actually assuming the three section boom, about 19,000 with the outriggers down as with everything extended you can't get inside an 18' radius. See the line on the chart between 19,000 and 21,875? That's your "All out and all up" cutoff. I think, lol.
Bob, on your crane it doesn't matter how much boom you have out. The capacity won't change based on boom length. Boom angle doesn't matter either. The only thing that matters is radius from center of rotation, to center of gravity of the load. Most of your down cab rt's and carry deck cranes are rated like that. If yours is a 3 section power boom, and you didn't put all the boom out, so you could get within 10' radius, you could pick 30,000. You'd have to have enough parts of line in your load block. All the old galions, and broderson carry decks that I've been around, have no problem doing charted capacities. If you hurt one, or get light(tippy), you're waaayyy over chart. All you need to know to run your crane right up to chart is a exact weight of the object being lifted, and the radius. If you run with the outriggers up-the load chart is actually only 75% of capacity (25% safety margin built in). Outriggers down will be 85% of capacity (15% safety margin). The manufacturers do this to keep you from going over capacity. Bigger cranes use charts like this: View attachment TMS300LP-Capacities.pdf If you have marks on the boom for boom length, and a boom angle indicator, and a scale (so you know weight of the object being lifted) you're golden. If its just a standard house truss job, I may not go look at it before hand. If its something close to capacity or odd, I'll go look at it before hand. Most of the time I'll just eyeball for height, and step off for distance. If its close to capacity, I'll stretch a tape measure. I look at probably 1/2 the jobs before we'll send out a crane. I ran through some example lifts for evans (who's learning in africa, and doesn't have a scale). It gives you kind of a idea how I will plan a lift, but its primarily a tutorial for him, to run without a scale and stay somewhat safe. You can see them here: (post #51) HeavyEquipmentForums
The line lantraxco is referring to in the chart isn't the all out and up cutoff (sorry lantraxco- good guess though). Capacities above that line are based on the structural strength of the crane. Below the line is based on the stability of the crane. To be basic about it, if you're above the line (inside 16' radius), and go over full capacity, the crane breaks. If you're below the line (over 16' radius), and go over full capacity the crane tips. The manufacture tells you this, because otherwise operators think they can pick until it tips, but inside of 16' radius, you're crane won't tip, it will break first. Both events are bad/ not recommended.
Thank you Crane Operator. I do have a scale (30,000 Lb limit, not calibrated , but mechanical vs. electronic)....angle indicator (took off boom while rebuilding, but will place back on).....though I haven't marked the boom for length. Easy way to do this? Paint on some stripes? . Picture of scale...was testing new cable.
Oh.....my old crane has no leveling system.....all seat of the pants. I have a precision bubble level accurate to 1/4 degree.....worth mounting or overkill? What surface should I use as a datum to zero the machine. ? (Not sure what's straight at that accuracy). Awesome tutorial!
opcorn
Any bubble level around 2-3" diameter will work for level. The thing to have level is the turntable bearing. I usually level the crane with a 2'-4' level going two directions on the bearing, then mount a bubble level in the cab, using adjusting bolts to have the bubble match the bearing . I'll take a picture of one tomorrow. Something like this will work. I would probably look for something a little more durable, but you get the idea. http://www.ebay.com/itm/171557837991?_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT My rt bubble is actually only 1" diameter, but I don't like it, its too small. I just have some reflective tape and 3"vinyl number stickers, on the sides or bottom of a couple of the crane booms to indicate boom length. I'll mount it side or bottom, depending on what you can see from the cab. Make sure when you mount your boom angle indicator, your crane is level, and the boom is level, when setting at zero. You can check it with a degree indicator. Honestly, I would mount the boom angle indicator, and a bubble in the cab, but you don't have to put boom length on the boom (most cranes like yours aren't marked). If you need to know your capacity, it will be easier to get out and measure your radius, than to look at your boom length, then compare it to the range diagram chart. Then figure out from your angle, where your at for radius, and then come up with your radius capacity number. It's easy to be off in the small range diagram picture, and if your really pushing chart, you'll want to be sure. You've got a lot of places in the chart where you're losing 4,000lbs of chart in a 2' change of radius. 2' isn't hard to be off using boom length, angle, and transposing to that small picture (from the seat). If you pop out and stretch a tape measure, you won't be off 2'. From 16' to 22' of radius, you go from almost 22,000lbs of chart, to less than 14,000. That's almost 1/2 your chart disappearing (in 6' of radius). And you can't see the difference between 18' of radius and 20' from the seat, but there's 3,100lbs difference in chart. Which is a big change relative to capacity, ie dropping from 19,000 to 15,800. Losing 3,000 lbs of chart isn't a big deal in a 140 ton crane if your going from 105,000lbs to 102,000lbs of chart, but you'd really notice it in yours unloading something off a semi. Boom length is only really important when your capacity changes by boom length, which your crane doesn't, but if you want to put it on, go for it, more info never hurts. On repetitive lifts, you will use your boom angle indicator, keeping your boom length the same. Ex. the truss pile is at 45deg. the first truss on the house is at 30 deg, and your coming up about 2 deg per truss as you come toward you across the house. That info makes it easier to come back to the same place on repetitive lifts. If marking boom length. Boom length is measured from the center of the heel pins (bottom pivot pins) out. Not from the bottom of the boom.
Was talking about bubble levels I love this style. These were military surplus, are real sturdy, and I mount them with fine threaded bolts, with adjustment nuts. I can't stand this style, with the two vials, a lot of old link belts have them, this one came with my P&H. I installed the above style, because I can get closer without looking, than what I can by looking at a double vial style. I'm sure they work for some people, just not for me.
Finished up this house, its the one I set floor joists on a couple weeks ago. First truss with the hips on them. Gives the guys a good place to start. Break time, got about 1/4 of them up Boy I don't want to swing jib, I think I can reach that far one. Last truss. Arrived on site at 8:00, broke down and gone at 1:00. Break time but no lunch. They had 3 guys, one on the ground hooking up, two on the walls. These guys all hand drive, no nail guns.
That's exactly the one I have! I'll use some 4-40 screws, adjustment nuts.....and mount on a plate. I'll post a picture after mounting. Thanks again!
Jamb nuts great idea, mine in the plastic box on each side are hard to level because the box is slightly deformed. I have been trying to level with the small springs that come with it but the outside is too low and won't stay level. A Jamb nut would be the answer. Thanks I'll be doing that in the morning
Is the fact they hand drive all nails the reason for the couple of weeks gap between floor joists and roof trusses?:tong Just giving them a hard time. Nice work!:thumbsup
I'm sure they were somewhere else, maybe waiting on roof trusses. There's some long lead times right now, by me, from the truss builders. They will use guns on other things, I think he just doesn't like to drag a hose when they are setting trusses/walking walls. It's nice to see some guys can still swing a hammer, and toenail, its becoming a lost art. I also think its much faster with the guys who you fly it up and "bam, bam--bam bam" four nails and on to the next truss. But I don't think its as easy to move wood up to a layout line, like you can with a hammer driving 16's.
One of my guys got to set this premade "treehouse" beam structure on top of a stairway. I went and looked at it, it was 12' wide, probably 15-18' long, post and beam construction, with insulated premade panels, and tongue and groove beadboard under the roof. That osb really adds up. Framer said 3,000lbs. I and the general contractor guessed between 5and 7k. Al said he was over 10,000lbs, of which 1,500 was block, rigging and spreader bars. Good thing I sent the 35 ton crane. This is a 16,000 sq ft vacation home. They supposedly tore down a 4,000 sq ft home that was previously on this lot. The roof panels to the left of the "treehouse" stair way top, were also the premade insulated panels. The interior of that part is all big beams, with tongue and groove bead board in the vaulted ceiling, under the panels.
Also got to do a little manbasket work this week. The first is with my tms 300, about 100' over there, working on a video board. This next one is in a roundabout intersection, Christmas tree installed on the flag pole. Had to have a lane closure, and it was 80'-85' radius, 95' up. I much prefer running the tms 300, to my RT. The Rt booms down to fast, its hard with manbasket at that kind of radius. And honestly, I haven't run it enough, that I feel I'm really smooth with it. The rt is really fast, great for cycle work, just not as precise, it seems like its hard to find that spot where its just creeping in boom down. You're either not moving at all, or that thing is gone. I've thought of ditching the 4 way joystick, in favor of the individual, two way controls. I've run the individuals in a 870, and prefered them. It's easier to match boom and winch speeds, with individuals.
There has to be some kind of setting to slow the boom down on that rt. The one we had barely moved at idle and to do anything with any speed the engine had to be running at about 1500rpm. Even at high idle it wouldn't boom down very fast. I'll agree that those early dual axis controls don't have much "feel" to them. Our 110 has dual axis controls and it has way more feel to the controls then that rt700 did. The little I ran that crane I decided it wasn't a finesse crane. Just didn't feel like I could give someone 1/2" at a 100' radius like the old groves. I will say the newer groves with the single axis controls have a lot more feel. I didn't know if that was due solely to the controller or if it was something else in the crane.
since i normally see your booms sticking hundred feet in the air figured i show you what it be like to be 165 feet in the air was invited to make some extra cash running a 180 Genie boom lift Dudes hands was white as a ghost griping the rail didnt even get to floor 17 only went to 14 lol
Looks real simple but what a PIA
Yeah, you think "I'll just go mount those levels in the box a little bit this afternoon". Three hours later and all you've done is put in three bolts and frustrated yourself
Knepptune, I imagine its a pressure relief/ pilot pressure setting, from the pilot controls to the main valve. When I have less irons in the fire (like that will happen ), I plan to look into it.
Rental mechanic, I prefer sitting in the seat looking up, to being in the basket looking down. But great pictures. Also, I don't think I'd be real thrilled about 165' up on rubber with no leveling jacks.
Rentalmechanic: There ain't enough money in the world to get me half that high, even if I WAS high Now if you were holding my little girl hostage on the rooftop I'd be coming up fill tilt boogie with one hand gripping the rail and the other full, but that's about the only way... Respect.
Ha! Booms no come with leveling jacks. Although I had set up on two trolly lines nice and flat and it was a very nice at 7 am on a sunday morning enjoying yourcrane pics!
Needed to do a little welding on the back of the trailer. I did the upper portions, but some of it was underneath. I'm lazy, own a crane, and decided a little elevation would make it a little easier. Used the winch truck as a jack stand. Getting close to a maiden voyage. Need to get my oversize signs, flags, some taller blocks for the gooseneck, set the pressure relief on the wet kit. It fits! Wasn't sure. Scaled the truck and trailer empty yesterday. Truck is 17,840, truck and trailer 35,660lbs. Should be around 100-102,000lbs gross. Evidently its a australia only truck, it wants to be upside down. I tried reloading it a couple times:beatsme
Loaded this up this morning, then back to its new location. Engine was 26,000lbs, tender about 9,000. They tied it down good, I'm not sure where you would get a new one. The rails were setting downhill, so I made sure they put some rocks on the rails to keep the tender from rolling away.
:thumbsup :drinkup Thats good thinking!
Sure is tied down good if it stayed on upside down.... LOL. Its always nice to have big toys to help with the repair stuff. Junkyard
Little truss job from friday afternoon. Knepptune jinxed me- mud and slope. This was the jack on the slope, the jack in front of it was on the back filled mud, both of them on the lifting side . I built out plywood sheets and 2x6's under my pads to hold the front one. Oh- trees in the way too. These guys have some steel stands they mount on the wall, then we put 1/2 a bunk of sheeting up there. Saves some packing.
Sunday morning, loading rocks. Biggest one was 16,500lbs. They were going inside the building behind the crane, for one of the displays. Winch truck worked great for roading them around the building, had to pull in one of the mirrors to get in the door on the other side. Set a conex monday, 40' empty, going to be storage for a welding shop Set some wood beams out on a ridge by the lake this afternoon, after some quarry work this morning. It was a picture perfect day.
These guys have some steel stands they mount on the wall, then we put 1/2 a bunk of sheeting up there. Saves some packing. View attachment 160683 [/QUOTE] Those stands look great, would save a lot of work. and would likely cut right on the pile no working on your knees
Maiden trip for the Western Star and detach trailer. I was worried, but everything worked. Had to set trusses at this house, and no way were we climbing a truck crane up off the street. 90-95' radius. Used all the cribbing we had. The front left jack is extended maybe 2". I think I could stand under the right rear beam. I was also worried about where one of the other cranes was this morning. I've had my 35 in this hole, but it's really a tight fit. This is a little mechanical hole between a older,a less old, and a newer building at the hospital. Steam pipe, generators, chiller units, curbs,transformers, and a right angle alley to back into. There's also a steam and electrical overhead tray up on the 2nd floor, that crosses the middle of the alley. We were replacing 2 of the large coils in the chillers. One of them didn't go in, they shipped the wrong one. I took this picture from the top of the trailer. The overhead steam/electrical tray is straight off the corner of the brick building, by the gate, running over the truck and trailer to the building on the left. You have to back the trailer in far enough that 1/2 the load is past the steam tray.
Some more pictures of the little out of level spot we had the rt in the other day. In order to get that much cribbing under one corner, you need to telescope out a bunch of boom over the opposite jack, then teeter-totter the crane to pick the back jack up. They don't show you that in the crane manuals. You have to do the same thing to remove your cribbing when tearing down.
Hard to tell from the pictures, but it ends up being a christmas tree. About 60' tall, has flashing rotating lights, that move with the music being played from the speakers inside it. Looks pretty neat at night. A/C unit change out. Took this after our maiden voyage. Just before we ended up doing a little more work on the trailer: HeavyEquipmentForums
How are you liking your truck/trailer combo so far? Or is the anger at the trailer still to fresh to have an opinion? If your getting those kind of setup spots I can see the rt being necessary. I'm kinda surprised you have to run the boom out over the opposite corner to get that up there. I kinda thought on those RT's, that they were easier to just three leg up there and be done. But the rt700 we had, we only owned it for a very short time and never did any jobs with it. Is it mostly a balance issue. I can't see that frame being very flexible. It is a grove after all. .
Truck/ trailer combo: Truck seems to run great. Valve cover gaskets and new grommets for the valve cover bolts have tamed down the oil leaks. Got the engine brakes working (hold really well too). The trailer is actually pretty easy to hook up and unhook. I had planned on building a pinning trailer, but I don't think I could pin and unpin as quickly as this loads and unloads. Still learning to keep my truck straight to the trailer, when I drop, it makes it easier to hook back up. As far as the issues with the trailer-its a used trailer. I didn't want to spend $60-80 grand for a new trailer. Most used trailers that age (mines a '96) , they want $28-35,000 used. This 1996 talbert brought 16,000 at auction by me, and it had serious problems (and it wasn't long enough or a triple axle): https://www.purplewave.com/auction/160915/item/K5736 So I guess I could have had that mess instead of mine. I gave 17,500, spent a $1,000 doing bearings and seals. The shaft I'm now replacing is only $100. And a day and 1/2 tear down. I'm still under $20,000. Rubber's pretty good, brakes have got some shoes left. I still think I did okay. It could use a paint job, and a set of spring brake cans (no spring brakes right now, only has parking brakes until the air bleeds away). I think it will make it much easier to use the crane for more sites, if I don't have to call someone else in to haul it, for a 4 hour job. It is 102,000lbs, 10' wide, with a 51' long trailer, so its not exactly fun driving around, but I'm happy. RT : It doesn't have much outrigger power, you can't just three legged it. I need to check that relief setting (jacks). It works like it is though, and I've been too busy to mess with it. That said, the rig is almost balanced, not boom heavy, or counterweight heavy, so you really have to swing and tip it, to jack up very high. I've only got 16 wood blocks on it though, and I've been in some pretty crooked spots and not needed any extra wood, its got quite a bit of stroke on the jacks. The hydraulics seem kind of strange on that rig. Some things-like boom up and down are really fast. Rear steering works great, front steering from the wheel is weak. Jacks are weak. Swing is slow (acts like gearbox drag, or spring pack). Telescope and winches are great. When I write it all out like that- it looks like a bad section in the pump, but I know the steering has it's own pump, not sure how everything else is separated out. Winter projects.
Back at the video board today, its turning into my retirement plan. I've got very little complaints about that site, its flat, and its a big open parking lot for jib and dead stick. Maybe a crane with 140' of live power boom and 110' radius capacity for manbasket work? Then I wouldn't need all that parking lot to put crane together. (see, I can always find something to complain about, the best operators look for the easy way to do something, we're all lazy ) Thought I'd show these I-beam clamps I got a while back: They're good for 9,000 lbs capacity at any angle of pull. They will go over a I beam with a 11-12" wide top flange. I bought them used off ebay, we've used them a bunch on our 10 story building. Its nice not to worry if the steel choker is going to slip. They are a little heavy, but if you leave them hang, and just loosen the bolt and pop the pin, you can let the crane take the weight. We still steel choker a lot of the iron, but these work great for the bigger beams. Also for dropping stuff down a stairwell/elevator shaft, where it might hit something and loosen a choker.
I get to set in this spot twice a year. Put jib on in the open area in front of the crane, drive ahead making a hard right onto the railroad tracks, then back down the tracks. Once in there I put dead stick out, then reach 115' over the corner. The trees are a little in the way, and they get worse each year.
Little diesel switcher engine. Has a 4-71 detroit. 26,000lbs.
We were going to transfer these standing seam roof crates, to a smaller trailer in a different lot. Instead we backed the semi through the timber, then set two bundles on one roof, then the other two in front of the other building. Crates were around 3-4,000lbs
A little winch truck and rt action. Unfortunately its at the yard. There's two flow valves at the but end of section two, and they've been leaking a little. You've got to swing jib to get it out of the way, then work through the porthole. The winch truck is just our work platform, makes it nicer than standing on a ladder. Steel building with the 35. I'm probably taking the rt down for the rest of the job, I'll be moving a lot back and forth in the parking lot, it would be easier to move and take up less room.
Finished this up on the lowboy today. It had just regular brake cans, and the valve that would close off the air in the brake lines when you parked it, for parking brakes. Which is great until the air slowly bleeds off, then when you try to hook up to it two days later, you get to play chase the trailer. We added a set of spring brakes to the rear axle, and a new valve to control it. I think just cans on one axle should hold the trailer. Old style New set up
I've got a couple of trailers I want to put spring brakes on at least one axle for the same reason. One is a tandem dovetail lowboy, the other is a tri-axle folding neck lowboy. Do you know a part number for the new valve you had to install for this? Or is it just called a spring brake valve?
It appears this is the valve he is using One Midland Style FF2 Full Function Trailer Valve 28601 Valve unsure if there are different part numbers for diff crack pressures on this valve its been awhile since i messed with one can be got from midland or haldex unsure if anyone else makes the FF2 valve yet (this valve runs the spring brakes and the service brakes
Thank you. I don't have any trailers new enough to have come with spring brakes to look at one of them... In fact, these two lowboys are the newest trailers I have. Both are 1981 models. Tandem is a Holden 35 ton and Tri axle is a Phelan 50 ton.
I'll dig out the ticket tomorrow, I just told my supplier (fleet pride) what I was doing and asked them what I needed. They supplied the valve, I had the brakes sitting on the shelf.
AV28600 FF2 full function valve 3/4" res. $131 Valve installed directly onto tank- has ports for both spring and service brakes like walkerv pointed out.
Hot tubs! Hot tubs! got your hot tubs right here! Tradesman isn't the only one setting them. He no more than posted his pictures and I got the call to replace this one this week. I actually set this one originally a couple months ago. It's got something wrong with it, so they sent a new one. Technically its a swim spa 7' x 14'. About 3,500lbs Had to back up about a mile down the gravel road to get into the yard, there was no where else to turn around. Put the old girl in direct and tried to stay between the ditches. Hazards on, and hope none of the three neighbors wanted out.
That looks like a pretty good reach too some pictures from the last couple days I was 11 hours for 15 pics on the timber frames one of the framers said it's a 10 million dollar house. The picture of the valley was a set of trusses this morning the one of the sky is just because it looked purdy
The swim spa looks the same as the one I was too afraid to set this summer and had a friend set for me, does it have engineered hitch points or are you just not hooked up yet? Ps. Sorry for putting my pictures on your thread , wasn't thinking. I'm finally getting some jobs worth taking pictures of so I enjoy sharing. I really enjoy seeing everyone else's work as well.
No engineered pick points, I just basket 2- 20' x4" nylons under it, the cables with hooks on the spreader bar just make it easy to hook up. I think it was 75' or so radius. I don't mind the pictures here either- I also like seeing other jobs.
You guys definitely have way better scenery then me. I spend to much time in towns. Not much worth taking pictures of inside the loops in those big cities. And I'll stand by that statement.
I'm 100% farm boy, I've never wanted to be anywhere else. Makes me think of our last twp election in which I was a candidate for my third term, I was a little disenchanted with the whole deal and kinda adopted a "don't give a **** attitude " when a urban transplant was complaining to me about her husband stepping in horse manure, and asking me what I was going to do about it. I rather abruptly said Ive had **** on my boots almost every day of my life and it's never done me any harm , she gave me a disgusted look and said " I'm no farmer" I politly smiled at her and said hum thats too bad for you, I think I lost a couple votes right there. This has nothing to do with your post just fondly reminiscing
I needed your carpenter glass a couple days ago , but not to stick my head out of but to keep me in, no details but if I could have reached most of the crew I would have tried to beat some common sense into them. And this is from me I'm usually content to watch the fools wasting time and making me money but sometimes there isn't enough money to make stupid ok
If it was easy our wives would be crane operators.
And do you want to know a really sad part of this some one is trusting these fools to make their dreams come true. I spend most of my time managing the building of custom homes and sometimes it's all I can handle. On any given day I could screw something up that can not be fixed and will effect the quality of the home forever
you can use the Johnson bar to brake the trailer when you hook up. (trailer brake hand valve) It is there for this purpose.
Nice
Yup, but with a lowboy sometimes you just don't have enough stretch in the air lines, especially with a detach.
Good one Impact ! Aint that the truth .
I am so far behind times on these issues . Drop some 7" X 9" short rail tie ends under the wheels of the low boy & hook up like ya own it .
I guess in addition to hooking up, sometimes I leave the trailer on a incline, sometimes quite a bit of a incline. I would hate to come back and see the trailer in a different location than where I left it.
Sounds like you just have no sense of humor crane op. Who wouldn't like a little game of where is my trailor. You do have a crane to haul it back out of. whatever holler it ends up in.
We've got some holler's that the 500' of cable on the winch wouldn't begin to reach to. Oh yes, the glamour, the high class events, and picture worthy things that construction entails: I always rig the bottom, then ratchet strap around the middle, around the rigging. I pulled one out of a blind spot in a building back in Iowa, they just rigged the bottom, it flipped out of the rigging probably 60' up and exploded when it hit the ground. It was full. They brought in a portable power washer guy to try to clean up the mess.
Classy! I can honestly say I never lifted one of those.
I have, but we had a couple with an added on base and a steel arch with a picking ring at the top, made to fly. Always tried to fly the pipelayer with his pants down, never quite managed it!
Mission impossible this week. 35,000lb, generator. Up a steep gravel driveway, with a 4' hump in it. Down a 10' wide lane, with a curve, stone bank, and trees. Can't trim any trees- not even that 6' cedar Opens up to a 38' x 38' opening, for transformer, new generator and crane, and truck delivering generator. Truck driver will back right up in there for you (says contractor, I'm thinking no over the road driver is getting up there), this is what he shows up with
Transfer generator to the old international and the rollback trailer. Its got pretty good ground clearance and turns pretty short. Drug it up the hill this far with the forklift pulling on the rear. Had to have that much generator hanging off the rear in order to pick it off the trailer in the hole. Generator ahead would have helped backing up. Hung up on the hump, and too steep, so put the forklift on the side, to get up the last until the trailer was in the flat. Got the rt backed in there before the trailer.
It was a little crowded, but everything fit. For the weight, I really wanted the 70 ton to have a little more chart. I just couldn't come up with the room for it. I must have measured for 2-3 hours on the site, trying to figure out what to bring for equipment to set it. There just wasn't much room for everything. It all ended up working great.
Fiberglass structure, covering some above ground pipes at a sewer lift station. 1,700 lbs
Manbasket work with the rt Took it so we wouldn't have to do jib or deadstick down in the trees. Buddy has had his peterbilt stuck for 2 weeks now, I finally got over there today to give it a little tug. He doesn't use it much, it was just parked with the front end in a little bit of a low spot, he came out and it had the front axle beam setting on the ground. It's 3406 is kind of heavy. He wanted to thread some straps between the hood and bumper, I talked him into unbolting the bumper, I could just see us destroying the hood otherwise. Got by just throwing down the wheel chocks and putting my foot on the brake. Didn't chain up the chocks like I usually do.
Little shop project. rto 9513- Driver came back from a job- said "it won't shift" I fired it up in the shop- he had left the upper throttle opened up a little so it wouldn't idle back down all the way. His hearing isn't the best, and I think he tried to make the range shifts and drove it around a little while, with it not shifting.:Banghead Dropped trans., it had popped a snap ring off, and had a bearing chewed some, and the syncro/ sliding clutch has some pretty rounded off teeth. I found a used trans for $800, we popped it apart and are going to make one out of two with a few new parts thrown in. The table is from a old boat dock fabrication shop. The holes in it were used for jigs, welding frames. It's kind of handy for disassembly.
Thanks for the great pictures crane op. Not much from me this week, just a set of trusses in a subdivision and one of our own jobs, a 60 x 150 cattle barn, we build the walls on the ground and I crane them up, then a 144 ft. Beam line. No pictures on our own jobs I'm too busy to even think of pictures.
Not a great night last night. Broke into my shop- Stole ford pickup, loaded lincoln 3 phase mig welder, 2 toolboxes and most of the good tools out of the other toolboxes on the truck, then smashed the gate when leaving. Used my forklift to load the tool boxes and welder. Took about 300 gallons of fuel too, so they had to have a way to move the fuel. Used my truck and a chain to bust the padlocked door. They did shut off the forklift and closed the doors when they left. They didn't vandalize anything either. I don't think the cops will be any help- mostly my fault- I don't have camera's up. As far as securing the building, if they can get the equipment running, they could just bust down the overhead doors, I don't want them to destroy the whole building getting in.
Dang man. Day after thanksgiving too. Is your shop out in the country fairly isolated? Sad as it is, it seems that if you have a business and some assets you will be robbed. Someone got us about 7-8 years ago. Hope those SOB's get caught.
Sorry to hear that, really sucks when some SOB's steal what you worked hard to build up. I don't have all that much worth stealing in my shop, but if I had to replace it, it would break me, can't afford insurance. Because my shop is leased and about five minutes from my house I do have a Simplisafe alarm, which you can now add cameras to, set up on silent. These alarm systems are inexpensive and monitoring starts at $15 a month. I have door switches and motion sensors, when one is tripped I get a text, an email, and a call from the monitoring station asking if I want police dispatched (you do need to get the permit from the local PD so they know your alarm company might call) I chose to silence the siren because I want the bastids caught, not scared off. The alarm base station has a cell SIM card in it, and batteries supposedly good for eight hours if power is lost (you also get a text message if power is lost or restored) so the thieves can cut power and phone lines, the alarm still works. All the switches and sensors are wireless too, no need to string wires all over the place. Haven't had any break ins, but I have tripped it myself, forgetting to punch in the code, and sometimes when the wind blows one of the motion sensors will trip must be something in there moving with the wind, so I know it's working. Not 100% security but I feel better knowing it's there. My keypad is on a wall at the back of a shelf with a box in front of it, it's wireless also, I didn't want it obvious, again I want anyone breaking in caught, not scared off. YMMV.
Thanks guys. Shop is kind of isolated, can't see it from the road unless your really looking. They took their time once they were there. I'll look into the simplisafe alarm. I've heard game camera's may help, but usually they just steal those too. The stuff is insured, but with a 5,000 deductable. I don't want a claim on my insurance either. We had a expensive claim 4-5 years ago, the adjuster said we were lucky the ins. company didn't just drop us. If I get dropped, no more crane work. It's probably 10k+ worth of tools, and the truck, if I had to buy all new. It wasn't new when I bought it, but I hate to buy it twice. They didn't take all the tools, they kind of picked the good stuff/ pawn shopable. I did have a few old tools from one of my grandpa's. They don't sell those on amazon either. I'd like to post up a cash reward, but if they get too big a price on their head, they may come back and really damage some expensive equipment. That's the worst thing, no one could stop them if they're mad, and just torch the whole thing. Alarm or no alarm.
That's a bad deal crane op on the break in & theft . File police report . Might not hurt to put a word out to local pawn shops & watch craigslist . Chances are good you have seen the crooks in the daylight or one of there minions while they drop in & eyeball a place . They will eyeball in the day & shop after dark . It's frustrating as more than likely someone you know is involved in it or has a buddy with sticky fingers .
Argh. Sorry for the bad luck.
That's sucks, we lost about 7,000 worth of tools out of our job trailer a few years ago. First I git robbed by thieves then raped by the insurance company. We just have to keep our heads down and keep doing what we do, somebody has to feed the rest.
I'm sorry to hear about your loss Crane Op. I'd like to help if I can....as I'm a hobbyist, been rebuilding my crane for almost 4 years, and have received a lot of help along the way. Bob [email protected]
Thanks, everyone for your kind responses.. It's really hard to feel very secure. Tomorrow is another day, so I guess I'll strap my boots on and head back to work. It's really hard to make a list of what all was in your toolbox and on your shelves when its gone.
crane op I feel for you on your loss!!! I had my shop broke into had the guys on camera there taking my stuff. I KNEW THE GUY SINCE HE WAS A BORN!!!! went to the local scrap yard told the owner some of the things I was looking for & the guy that would have brought it in.. yep sure enough on camera again. called the local police dept, officer showed up told him the story & my stuff there showed him the video, HIS EXACT WORDS TO ME " I cant go arrest him because its not proof enough!!!" I was in shock.. they did go get him before I got done with service calls that day.. I told them where he lived worked & where his mom lived & provided them his cell number!!! (he worked for a friend of mine) the guy got off without so much as a slap on the wrist. cause he turned in a family member for selling drugs.. I got most of my stuff back cause of the friends that I have around here. but Im still out 200' of heavy welding lead a customers radiator out of a cat 375, a shop door & I just figured out last week my dads old set of snap on square point sockets I had put up in a cabinet... when it was all said & done the officer came by & told me it was nice working with me & he didn't know how I got so much info on where my stuff was!!! I looked at him & told him I just wish they would do their job & I was busy trying to make a living!!! its really sad this is what we have to deal with everyday!!!! sorry for the rant but I invested in a really nice guard dog
It was a great day today for the good guys. I've just finished unloading most of my tools back in my shop. I just wrote the whole story out, then deleted it, I'm so paranoid right now. Internet is a amazing/ scary thing. I kept bugging the cops, and all the places where stolen stuff gets taken or sold (online and off), and we got a arrest this afternoon. They lived about a mile from my shop (I didn't know them). Had priors, thefts and drugs. I'm still missing a ford flatbed, with a fuel tank and 12v pump, and 3-400 gal of fuel, truck is probably hidden in the woods somewhere. Don't know yet how they transported the extra fuel, or where it went. Got back 95% of my tools, and I'm hitting the pawnshops tomorrow with a lot shorter list. Tomorrow. Need to bask in a little happiness today. (I know- they're probably going to be right back out- let me have a little joy today ) Also simplisafe is on the way- thanks lantraxco- I think it will do just what I need.
Right on! :thumbsup
Awesome!
Good news indeed! Maybe the cops can sweat them a bit and find the truck.
Well the robbers have all been through the drill before, they won't say a word and want their lawyers. (probably paid for by taxpayers). I've probably got back all I'm getting back. The truck was a 1992 ford f-450/ superduty, regular cab. Flatbed, fuel tank, 460 gas, 5 speed, 2wd. No rust, 140,000 miles or so, new tires. Aside from horrible fuel milage, I loved the truck. Pull gooseneck, haul manbasket/ spreader bars. 4.11 rears and walked hills pretty good. Had the driveline parking brake, and that sucker held. My other pickup is a 2001 dodge cummins, extended cab, flatbed. 6-speed, 4 wheel drive. Great milage, poor truck. Pulls like a train, but eats tires (have rebuilt the front end) , parking brake never works (rebuilt everything, just won't hold with trailer). Always seals somewhere leaking. I think the truck will eventually fall apart around the motor. Truck shopping now- 1995-2001 diesels, cost more than some 2008's. Ford 6.0-6.4-6.7, most guys are telling me to avoid, unless I spend 3-5k deleting egr etc. I really like my cummins, but my dodge is no great truck. Found a 2003 dodge regular cab 4 wheel drive with a flatbed its $11,000, with 200,000 miles on it. None of the new engine bays look particularly mechanic friendly either. I'm thinking old square body ford with a 7.3 if I can find one, gasser again if I can't. Older dodge's are around, I may try that route. I really just want my old truck back.
The newer Diesels can be a bucket of snakes. Injectors can run $500 ea. Horrid mileage, etc I have a 2001 F-350, 56K miles, gonna keep it. If you could find a cream puff Dodge, swap engines would be a good deal.
Thats great you got your tools back!! :drinkup All the pre-emmisions trucks are going up in value quickly, kind of wish I would have got several new trucks then and left them in a shed somewhere with no miles on them now, probably would pay me back 2 or 3x over by now selling them. Who'd have guessed worn out work trucks would be worth more than the new ones? :beatsme
DANG.. something THAT BIG and they cant find it..?? Might be time to hit the woods and go "hunting".. look for the duelys going off the road..?? I hate a thief.!! I feel you pain on the tool replacement.. Sorry you had to go thu it..
Christmas comes early! It shouldn't feel like christmas when you're just getting your own stuff back, but it kind of does when its been stolen. Someone has started talking and the detective called last night, asked if I had a extra key for my truck. It was hidden back in the woods behind a abandoned house. Less than 2 miles from my shop. I had to step over a used needle and syringe to get in the seat (I looked pretty close before sitting down).
Crane Operator, That's good news, nice looking older Ford too!
SEE.. I knew I could find it.. LOL.. only took me 12hrs.. GREAT NEWS on the return, congrats!!
Congrats on getting your truck and tools back!:drinkup
Outstanding news! Congrats Crane Op.....good things happen to good people.
crane op ,that was good news you recovered your truck back.probably these guys had forgotten their needles and syringes somewhere and wanted them badly ,so they decided to borrow your truck without asking you....with the intention of bringing it back but needles and syringes made them forget.:drinkup cheer up ''smooth operator " in just 12hrs that was great.
Glad you got your stuff back crane op. I'd have a few beers to celebrate. I may have a few to celebrate for you. :drinkup
Skid loader on a building for a demo job. It was a heavy little sucker- almost 10,000lbs Pulled the smokestacks off a tourist boat, it needs to go under a bridge upstream for its 3 year hull inspection, stacks are too tall. Truss job, the rt gives a bunch more room on a crowded jobsite. These went on the apt building left of the crane.
Tree removal in a city park. They are big old cottonwoods, needed 150' boom to get the manbasket up there to cut the tops out before falling them. There's a round hole in the top/center of the tank. Diffuser blade, under a pipe. Rigging dropped down 50' on each side of the pipe to the floor of the tank, attached to the disc/blade, raised it to the top of the tank and attached. 50' of rigging, lifted 50' up means you need a little tip height.
Cell tower upgrade Removed the old antenna arms. They just tied off, and climbed out on the arms to rig them for removal Lifted up new platform. There was a small lightning rod (6') sticking up from the top of the tower, they removed it for me to swing the new platform over the top of the pole.
Just so no one thinks its all pulling levers Hydraulic and electrical swivel from rt 700 4.10 rear cutoff. Stealing the diffs for the Western Star. Western Star housing said 3.73, but a spin of the wheel, while counting driveshaft came up with 3.42. The 4.10 should start 102,000lbs a little better on a hill than the 3.42 Cracked exhaust manifold. Also on the Western Star. Detroit 60 series. Used manifold that was crack checked, and new gaskets will fix it. Radiator, also from the Western Star. Bottom tank gasket would leak when the temperature was just right. Didn't want to let it get real bad, so out it came. New gasket kit, did both the bottom and top while we had it out. If you see a theme here, your right, the Western Star is getting a little work to get it shipshape. We just got it in August, and we're still finding out whats wrong, hopefully a little time and parts and we'll have it to just new problems, with the old problems all fixed. I've never owned a Western Star, so far it seems to be a pretty good truck, the previous owners just let things get away from them. I overheard my wife talking to my youngest daughter the other day. Wife's van is showing its age, and she was explaining how we shop for vehicles: "Some people get to own vehicles for the first half of the vehicles life, we are not those people..."
Do those apartment buildings have a fire truss in them, the apartments I do have a truss that is 5/8" drywall, truss 5/8" drywall, truss,5/8" drywall, I think the last one I did was 40 ft. wide and weighed 4500# with rigging in. they make a nice day I'm usually about 8 1/2 hours on them. Those are some nice jobs, is that a municipal water tank I love doing Gov. work you are sure to get paid no-one is usually in a hurry and I find once you have them for a client, unless you use them wrong its a long term relationship.I do all the backhoe work for the local twp. including the water department for the past 25 years. I have to bid every couple years but its such easy work on the hoe ( shut off at least 1/2 the time ) I charge $ 15 an hour less than to any-one else, so not likely going to loose it any time soon. And because of my long standing relationship with them I don't have to bid the crane work.
I overheard my wife talking to my youngest daughter the other day. Wife's van is showing its age, and she was explaining how we shop for vehicles: "Some people get to own vehicles for the first half of the vehicles life, we are not those people..." That's very practical of her And even better she is passing her wisdom on to another generation. " YOU GO GIRL "
The apartments get firewalls. This is a amish crew. The apartment was actually 50' deep, with a wall in the middle. The trusses were in half- 25' each way. I laid them down in bundles on the walls. They will come back and stand them up by hand, then line them with the sheetrock. I actually think its faster to set them one at a time with the crane, b/c if it takes 3 hrs to lay them down, you can set them one at a time in 5-6hrs. If you lay them down, it takes another day to stand them all. If you set one at a time, with another hour or two of bracing, you can start sheeting, but I'll do whatever they want. The tank work is for a contractor. He has his portion bid, so the crane time comes from him, not the city. Not much sitting around. But he is a good customer, and the guys like it because its prevailing wage- more $ for them.
Is that dodge flatbed in the pic yours? It looks familiar, did I sell you a counterweight several months ago....? Junkyard
I don't know that its really my wife's choice on the vehicles. She did mention that it would be nice if the next vehicle wasn't quite so used . I just can't see spending $10-15,000 for a used car, van, or suv, and in 2-3 years its worth 3-5,000. Let alone what new vehicles cost. I almost look at vehicles as disposable. Her current ride is a 2001 AWD astro. Great people mover. I bought it 4-5 years ago with 100,000 miles on it. Gave $2,000 for it (it had a couple idiot lights on). Today it has 190,000 miles on it, no rust, everything works. I've bought some tires and brakes, but nothing else really, and its still probably worth $2,000. (Still has a couple idiot lights on- I tell her if its got oil pressure- and its not hot - drive it until it makes clunking noises, or until it won't go) We joke around "always drive junk, everyone else drives like they are afraid you might hit them, and you're not worried about anyone hitting you." I'm not really that bad- I want something safe for her, and my oldest girl is driving too. She's got a 1995 ford f-150 2wd, no rust, A/c works, a little clear coat peel and some dents. Dirt simple, easy to fix, I think she could roll it and step out of it and be fine. It doesn't have crash avoidance, back up camera's and alarms, or side impact bags. Or skid control. But I know if someone smacks her with a prius, she's got a lot better chance of walking away. I think my daughters crash avoidance should be between her ears. My boy will be driving on his own next month- I think he's getting his mom's old wheels, and she's getting something new. Newer.... I guess maybe less used
I'm with you on youngsters learning to drive... give them a hunk of Detroit iron with some heft to it, manual steering, manual brakes, manual gearbox... they'll quickly learn not to follow close or overcook corners when they try to muscle it around, and it won't accelerate or corner like a rice rocket which hopefully will slow them down a bit until they get old enough to think more clearly. I learned to drive in a '52 half ton dodge, flathead six, three speed with fluid drive, manual steering and say a prayer brakes...
crane operator, have you had to start using the OSHA certified man baskets yet? The ones with test weights etc?
Junkyard- I did send a guy to Claremore Ok to pick up a weight this summer. I was supposed to get another one, but my phone took a swim shortly after I picked up the first one, and I didn't have a phone #. It's a small world isn't it. Impact: OSHA regs says - man baskets designed and built by a competent person. I can declare myself competent, but if it ever goes to court, I'm not a structural engineer. Its mostly a sales gimmick to say OSHA certified, OSHA won't certify anything. The manufacturer can say it is built to comply with osha regulations, but you can do that yourself also. It says right in the regulations what the baskets must have. Handrail, tie off points, openings, door design, rigging type, etc. One of my baskets is home-built. One is a factory built. I think the home built is a better basket. Neither has built in test weights. They are marked for capacity and weight. I have a set of small steel plates, that I use as test plates, and I do the whole test pick, with weights, to farthest radius, hold for 5 minute thing. The plates I have are actually old drive over grates, you can handle them by hand pretty easy, and I just put them on the floor of the basket, do my test pick, then flop them out. I think its crazy what some places charge when they are selling manbaskets. That price isn't for steel, it's for liability insurance. The new regulations also allow bosun's chairs. The 10 year ago regulations had them forbidden, but now they are allowed again if there is 'no safer way' to get there. I always wondered how to get a man between guy cables on a downspout off a grain leg, without a bosun chair. A manbasket won't fit. I don't really care for manbasket work. Most of it is cell phone tower work in my area, and I don't have enough reach for them anyway (200'). So that doesn't break my heart. For a lot of other projects, I usually recommend they rent a 135' manlift, but they won't do the radius that a crane can, so I do end up doing some basket work, but I do as little of it as I can. If I see a safer way to get there (OSHA regs ) that's what I recommend.
I'm with ya. I have three man baskets, all shop built w/o any engineered drawings.
You guys mean to say we can't do it like we did "back in the day"? You know take the top out of a 55 gallon drum and cut a couple holes for the hooks in the side?
Your famous Crane Op. I saw the picture you posted of your basket doing tree work, it's on an arborist sight in the crane work thread. The title is "these guys are styling" I think you've impressed them. We'll find out soon what you've done wrong, there are several resident crane experts on the sight
Tradesman- now all I'll hear about is how we're doing it wrong- here's some fuel for the fire from last week. A good oak tree, just too close to the house for the old lady that lived there. She wanted it down, so down it came.
Rear cut off, we're putting the 4:10 in the western star Need to unwire the hydraulic swivel. The barrel has a small wear lip, it needs honed. Making $ Job for the next day: 53' finished beams- 2500lbs. The amish boys were going to set them by hand, and if anyone could, they could, but I think the general contractor wanted the crane.
If I die in my sleep tonight, and someone buys a grove rt700b with a dismantled hydraulic and electrical swivel, here's the wiring diagram I made for it: It's at the house if anyone needs it, I didn't dare leave it at the shop, if I get broken into again, I didn't want them to steal my diagram
Up Up Over Down I was up on the hill, fixing the antifreeze leak on the other crane in the cul-de-sac. Had to swap cranes so I got to take pictures of one of my operators setting the last beam. I'd rather be running the crane than fixing.
And also- Merry Christmas everyone......
Crane op I check yesterday no comments all the resident experts must be on holidays. Merry Christmas to all my HEF. Advisers
Those are some big beams to set by hand. I don't think i'd make it on that crew.
That's a good sized oak....I just pulled one down next to a busy main road a coupla weeks back. Heaviest lift went 5000kg.
if you really want to get an ulcer, all you have to do is work with the amish. very stubborn and they feel that none of the rules apply to them when they do anything. constantly in a rush with no concern for safety at all. as crane operators, we are still responsible is there is an injury or accident.
I actually have a couple amish crews that I work with quite often. We get along pretty well, but I don't get pushed around too easily. Their lifestyle wouldn't be a easy way to live, it's their choice, but it still wouldn't be easy. That said, I probably feel more sympathy for any framing crew that has to bid against them to get work. They pay no workman's comp, they don't believe in insurance. That's a immediate 10-20% advantage right off the top. You can't compete with that.
Some guys even get to work Christmas day. Got the call at 4:30 this afternoon, plane on its belly on the runway. Everyone was fine in the plane. Picked up off runway, loaded on trailer, offloaded in hangar. I hate picking them up because its all aluminum, and its not designed to be picked up. Granted it will probably never fly again, I just don't like squashing the aluminum. There's just no good way to do it.
Dark and rainy, at least it wasn't cold- 63 degrees here today.
Looks like the pilot kept it strait on the belly landing . That's great no one was hurt ! Take the Grove TMS 250 ? Nice work crane op !
Gear fail or pilot screwed up?
Took the little 250 grove, planes are pretty light. He did have a lot of fuel still on (I asked), told Jim (co-worker) not to light up a smoke I'm not sure what happened, I didn't question the pilot. He was there and didn't seem too shook up. I think the plane actually made a slow spin on the runway, while sliding on its belly, ending up pointed the other way. A airport guy said he either didn't put the gear down, or it didn't go down all the way, and the light came on. All the gear was fully up, and the doors closed under the plane. I would think if it was only partly down with the light on, it wouldn't have landed as nice on its belly, and they would have spun/flipped on the ground. Cloudy with some rain moving in, no wind, but Christmas day, with his wife and kids with him. I'm betting he just messed up, I know a pilot who calls it "going to the barn": horses at the end of the day. You get so keyed in to going home, you can forget things. Airport guy said he was part of a group/club that owns the plane together, so he probably doesn't fly every day. God was watching out for them, they all walked away.
Gear up then as you say, and the mill was still turning since the prop tips are all nicely curled back. Damn shame, but we all make mistakes. She'll fly again, the insurance will cover it and the club will probably be one member less, it's all good. Some fresh skin, new prop, complete engine overhaul with everything checked for true and magnafluxed, etc. test flight and sign off. "Any landing you can walk away from..." Kinda cool to see if rigged and on the hook like that.
Got to pick up the airplane again today. NTSB boys were down to take a gander, said they would spend a hour playing with it and then write a report. The mechanic that last signed off on the plane was there too, he acted like he was about to have kittens all over the hangar floor. We picked it up and set it on jacks, so they can hit the button a couple times and see if the gear goes up and down. On the ride back picture. Our big airport is built at the end of 6 miles of curves, hills and bridges. You've got to crawl down the hills, because the approaches to the bridges have settled so much, the bumps would bounce you off the roof of the cab at any more than 30mph. They cut a pile of rock to make a couple sections. Got to set a HVAC unit this afternoon. 25 ton- jib- 1,500 at 80'-85' or so.
Fun and games today. Rocks from out of a building. 6' wide under 7' tall door way. Some fancy rocks that sound like metal when you hit them,(called them resonance stone) , shipped here all the way from China. Have been in a building here for 10 years or so, and the group that owns them is switching buildings. Manager said when they originally set the upright rock they had 4 guys sitting on the back of the forklift to hold it down. The bases are hand carved teak or someother exotic wood, supposed to be 900 years old, and cracked. Said the stones were dug out of caves in China over 1,000years ago:beatsme Got them all out of the building and the outside ones loaded, but need a different plan for installing in the new building. The Genie won't fit in there without removing the door frames and glass. I think we'll be modifying my warehouse forklift with a riggers mast. My machinery moving buddy has a 8,500lb forklift, but it won't go in the door either. The big upright rock just sets in the carved stand, I'd say its all of 3-4 thousand pounds. Its stand is carved to fit the rock.
Big old kettle is also from China, looks to me like it was cast in one piece from bronze. No handy rigging diagrams or engineered pick points today.
Nice work on the odd shaped rocks & kettle Crane OP ! Sure looks like a rigging challenge on those items . Hang on ..... That kettle looks familiar ? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzBIGv9atPo Your Kung Fu is good Crane OP :notworthy
Also a good job on the plane rigging, I've seen some that make me cringe, both as a pilot and a operator! As in, if it wasn't totaled before, it was after they drug it off the field and loaded it with a wrecker. As for the plane you picked, that prop will look great at someone's hangar wall.
Hang on ..... That kettle looks familiar Your Kung Fu is good Crane OP :notworthy [/QUOTE] So your saying crane op didn't need the telahandler he could have moved it by hand. Then he would had to come to my place to cool off in the snow:beatsme He can't of been from Ontario or he would have known to have warm boots
The rocks look like a nail biter,nice job.Last airplane I did was a rush job off the barge,it was a Beaver that punctured a float on landing.They had a nice spreader hook setup that fit the aircraft.We lifted him up they used sika flex and tin to patch it as we held it.We dropped him back in ,and he took off as soon as the hook was clear and headed to their hanger for proper repairs.Lucker we were in the neighbor hood with the barge.
This wasn't you was it crane operator :drinkup https://www.instagram.com/p/BOsC7oDjAcw/?taken-by=osha_is_this_ok&hl=en or this one, guess he got it fine without a basket? https://www.instagram.com/p/BOlUa0kDR8o/?taken-by=osha_is_this_ok&hl=en
I've been accused of some wild stuff, even done some things that I wouldn't recommend, but neither of those are me. Yes grasshopper, I use crane to move pot, not arms.
Got a little truss job in on Saturday, made the most of the year.
Spent my afternoon doing this. I'd way rather run crane than work on cranes, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. I did continuity check each wire back to the plug, and referenced my list I made on dismantling. Lets hope when I put it back in the crane tomorrow that everything works the way it should. I did wimp out on the seal install. We've been pretty busy so I sent the swivel to my area hydraulic shop. We were hoping to leave the wiring alone, just kit it, but it needed a hone on the barrel. I unwired it and rewired it, the hydraulic company didn't want anything to do with that. The last one they unwired, he goofed up on 4 wires and they told me it took forever to figure it out. I figured this way if it leaks when it goes back in , I have someone else to complain about as we're taking it back out. There's 44 separate numbered wires. 5 wires use the same number (numbered the same, do different things), two wire sets do the same function, (ground wire and main power). I think....
I've been out running crane the last couple days, but two of my guys finished putting the swivel in my rt this morning. Not good news, I've got a throttle running wide open, and hydraulic pressure in the case drain of the upper winches.:Banghead My mechanic said his colored zip ties fell off a couple of the hoses on the bottom, and he thinks he's got the hoses on right, and that the hydraulic shop messed up in the can.:beatsme I'm betting we've got some hoses hooked up wrong, but that's tomorrow's battle. In other adventures, we did this the other day. 40' deep pit. 4'x4' opening. 12" pipe, flanged elbows. Had to drop through the opening vertical, spin 1/2 way down, behind the other guide pipes, then rotate to horizontal and attach to a vertical and horizontal pipe, under the concrete lid. Used two lines (both winches), couple 20' cable chokers as extensions so I didn't have to drop the ball through the opening, and it really went pretty well. Not a lot of room and went real slow, but its in! Concrete pump house 12-14' pipe The spacious access hole, had to work around their dead man recovery winch too. Top looking down, it went in between the scaffold and the pipes vertical, then we had to spin to horizontal behind that upright guide pipe, I rigged it all on the top, then dropped it through the hole and spun it in the open air before dropping it on the flanges, then they climbed the ladders and bolted it up.
I should probably add a little note on the above job. We actually went over there with two of us. One of my operators and me. I had him run the crane, and I did the rigging and signaling. Sometimes on some sketchy stuff, I'd rather run the crane myself, but I knew this one was going to be tough to rig and signal. My operator came up on the lid before we set the pipe (we had done some other things first). When I showed him the pipe, and where it attached in the hole, he shook his head, and said "there's no way that's going to fit". He got in the cab and I got to work. I actually kind of pre rigged it on the ground, then duct taped the loose strap to the pipe, so when we went from vertical to horizontal inside the tank, the rigging wouldn't slip, there was no way to change the rigging once I dropped through the lid. I actually ended up with one winch line on each side of the two vertical existing roller guides, and you can see they drug on the edge of the lid. I love it when a plan comes together (apologies to the A-team).
On multiport swivels it is not physically possible to reroute oil from it's original path, the port to port circuit will always remain the same except for leakage past the seals. I'm with you, if it ain't working right, there's at least a couple hoses mixed up.
The rt635c we rebuilt the swivel on did that exact same thing crane op. I hit the key and she went to high idle in seconds. And yep the colored zip ties fell off. The other guy was sure he had them right but that's what it was.
I just read all 18 pages of this thread . Crane Op , you are top notch !
Thanks kevin37b- you wouldn't be nearly as impressed if you had been around our shop this week-oh my- have we been having fun. My mechanic and I have been going round and round with our rt grove and the swivel. In between other crane work, and bad weather, we would stand by that crane- him swearing the hoses are right, and there's a problem in the swivel. Me swearing back, that the way it acted- there had to be hoses crossed. Both of us swearing at the crane.:Banghead Turns out we were both right, and both wrong. After finally getting a better hydraulic schematic, I sat down last night and traced out all functions- supply and returns-, matching them up to numbers in the swivel. We had been taking lines off and using air to try to trace down our issues, using my incomplete book. I figured out, that two lines/ functions were hooked up to the wrong ports, but the fittings in the bottom of the swivel, made it impossible to switch those two lines, because they were different size hoses/fittings. (there's 5 different sizes) One was a constant supply, one was a return to tank. Turns out when the hydraulic shop redid the swivel, they removed all the fittings on the bottom of the barrel- then reinstalled the fittings with new seals. They still had the picture, they took, to reinstall the fittings, and they had installed two fittings swapped. Some of the lines use the same threads in the swivel, but adapt to larger or smaller lines. My mechanic thought the fittings had never been out, and had hooked up those two hoses to the only fittings they could go to. I only figured it out from the schematic, and comparing what was happening upstairs, to what was happening downstairs, and realizing two lines had to switch, in order for it to work right. But I couldn't see how that could be, because they were different sizes. Then I called the hydraulic shop for the fourth time, and finally got the info on the bottom fittings, and the picture. We probably would have figured it out much quicker if the reversed lines had been the same size. The throttle wide open was a separate issue- the supply and return were reversed. The swivel on this particular crane is a 16 port, and is fed from no less than 3 separate pumps. The transmission pumps a constant atf line upstairs, to run the throttle/ swing brake. There's a power steering sized pump on the gear drive of the 5.9 cummins, sending constant both upstairs and downstairs for the hydraulic park brake, front steering, brake booster, swing, rear axle oscillation. The third pump (the largest) is able to manually disengage (for road travel), it runs all the outriggers, rear steer, boom, telescope and winches. The hydraulic brake system also runs through there- master cylinder is upstairs, one line for front, one for rear. So it's five different sizes of hoses, with three fluid types (atf, hydraulic, dot 5 brake fluid), all traveling through there. And 44 different wires in the electrical. I have a parts and service manual, but it didn't clearly show the whole hydraulic system, a mechanic buddy got a better one in pdf format from grove. I don't think that I would have figured it without the full schematic. It's running now, testing all done, and ready to head for a job tomorrow.
Made it to our job this morning. It was a little foggy/ rainy. Had a street / lane closure, really wanted to take the rt so I wouldn't have to block as much street, also was worried about sinking in on the far side of the sidewalk in the grass. Yes- there's plywood under the back of the crane, that's to soak up the leaking oil. , We test ran it at the shop, but evidently not long enough. It appears I've caused another issue when fixing the swivel. In having the hoses hooked up wrong, on their initial start up- full pressure was going to case drain upstairs. It built pressure in the winch gear case. It appears it reseated the o-rings in the brake pack of the rear winch. It wouldn't reseal on its own, and was leaking back through one of the drums. I stopped it up with a rag long enough to get the job done (changed the steady leak to a drip). We pulled apart the brake, back at the shop, O- rings were crusty/ stiff, one was really chewed up. I'm headed for o-rings in the morning, I think we'll do the orings, on both winches brake packs, while we're at it.
Muddy site today. Transfered from over the road trucker to my truck and trailer at a gas station 1/4 mile away. Over the road guys don't seem to like it when you drag their trucks around in the mud. Went to the site. RT drove right in. Had to back in off a narrow dirt road, made that, but was stuck on the slime on top. Used the RT to drag the truck and trailer into place, then set the electrical pad.
More pictures- just playing around. Dropped trailer with the over the road trucker in the background Setting units in the rain the other day Had a nice wide corner to drop trailer by the jobsite, this is as we were loading up to leave. Yes, the old International has a bent bumper - no, I didn't do it on this job as I was dragging it around.
Tree job today. Big old sycamore, had two big main branches right from the ground. Was solid all the way up, even had water running out of some of it. Most of it was 75-95' away.
Looks fun. Was that dead stick, jib, and stinger. How similar is the dead section procedure on that p&h to your 300. Customer has a 28t p&h with a dead stick and he always swings his jib then pulls his dead stick out with a gradall. Don't think that's the right procedure but it's his crane.
I did the tree with main boom+dead section=127'. 100' live main + 27' dead stick, 4 section boom. The dead stick in the P&H is a remote power pin, kind of similar to the old grove remote power pin ( mid 80's tms 760 style). In the one manbasket picture you can see two hydraulic cylinders sticking out of the side of the boom. Those do the locking of the booms together (wrench pin-jack on a grove). There's another cylinder clear at the end, beyond those cylinders, that sets vertically. It does the vertical pin in the bottom of the boom. It has a spring that pops it back up. You install it all by idiot lights in the cab and switches. I still read through the list in the book and do it step by step, so I don't mess it up. It's not a real intuitive system, I think you could do it out of order really easily, and bend the cylinders on the side of the boom. One side cylinder was bent when I purchased the crane. It's faster than putting dead stick in my 300, but only because the grove telescopes so slow, especially cold, that and you don't have to get in and out of the cab.
Dismantling a old grove winch. I needed to see how it was put together, because we blew the seals on the front winch on the rt, when the hydraulic shop reassembled the swivel wrong. Lots of pieces, but I think we can change the seals in the one on the crane, without removing it from the crane. The book says to remove it from the crane, and I think the rear winch would need to, because the counterweight would be in the way. Looks like the front one we can do in the crane. There are two oil seals on the motor side of the winches, one on each side of the big bearing in the first picture. One of those two is the one blown in my winch on the rt.
Playground rock. Rock and rigging was around 4,300- 65' radius. Center of gravity was off center because of the way the rock was built, so we added a come-a-long, and few extra shackles on the other side to make it pick halfway level. Extra shackles went on the closer pocket to the crane, I took the picture before we had them in.
Trees again Friday. Big old oak and a dead elm. The big oak filled a roll off container, of the trunks they couldn't chip. Bottom pieces were 4' across, think I was showing about 4,000 on the scale with the biggest piece. It was the trees on the other side of the house. The tree in the front yard didn't come down, I had to pick the cut off branches over it to lay them down in the street. I was around 80-85' to the trunks. There's no access to the back yard, power lines, fences and a busy street. There was 25-30' or so from the outer tip branches to the power lines, but that's a big line.
Thats pretty cool crane op ! How do you know how big of a tree section you can handle at once?
Oh-- that's the fun part of trees. You don't know what it weighs until they cut it off,and if it weighs more than you can handle, you're along for the ride. Trees are one of the most dangerous jobs with a crane. That said, you kind of learn about what a piece will weigh, just by looking. I try to leave myself a pretty good cushion on my capacity also. If I think a chunk of main trunk will go 2,000lbs, I'm wanting 3,500-4,000lbs of capacity. You have to have some wiggle room to deal with shock load from them cutting it off. I try to put just enough pressure on a limb to lift it, but not too much that it goes shooting up when they cut it, because that shock loads you too, when it springs back. You always err on the side of cutting too small of pieces, the new tree guys always want you to take 1/2 the tree (time is $). I will make the call from the cab on how much tree to cut, the guys I work with a lot, know and understand that, its a big trust thing when they're up in the tree with a saw and buzzing through a 4' oak. They don't want it in their teeth either.
That's interesting. Is it usual for the guys to go up in the man basket? Around here, if the access is tight they climb the tree and take it down branch by branch. This was on my property a while ago. You may have to zoom in to see the dude on his way to the top.
The last picture in post 268 shows the tree trimmer in the tree. We do whatever is quickest. I sometimes have them go up in the basket in really dead trees that aren't safe to climb, or to just get a place cleared out to get started. The crane really helps when the tree has to be removed, and there's no access for their skid loader or any other equipment. They can just rig me on the tree and I bring the pieces out of the backyard etc. The tree trunk (oak) in that series, the first 40' of trunk was probably 12,000lbs of wood. It would take a lot of time to cut that all down to pieces you could carry out of the backyard by hand.
Nice work Crane Operator ! That work can be tricky & risky in many ways . This is probably a regional thing , we have so many tree service companies in my area I generally just advise customer to call them on a tree close to a home , power line , etc . They send out couple trucks with chipper & 3 or 4 men . 20 something year old climber runs up the tree & takes it down piece at a time while the ground crew carts it off similar as in Cmark's post . Wish I was 20 something again
Hollow core precast concrete this week. The biggest piece was supposed to be only 7,000lbs, They showed up with a full slab for the one patio- 7' wide 30' long. I knew there was no way it was only 7,000- it was 21,500lbs. I had to only run out 100' boom, and squeak it over the iron with short rigging. I set the rest with 127' boom. It was a little late when we quit monday .
Set some precast culverts for the county. Down a little blacktop road and under the railroad tracks. No where to turn the truck around to get out, so I just picked up the trailer and pointed it the other direction before loading. And just so everyone knows I'm not perfect- I was a little hard on the western star bumper in the yard. There's some old rims laying on the ground by the tree where we turn to back down by the shop, I felt it hit and knew what it was right away. I pushed the bumper back with the forklift and welded it back up, you really can't see it with the oversize load signs- and it makes the guys feel better when I mess things up sometimes. I keep telling myself that, but a new bumper is probably headed my way.
"Flying tree", nice picture and good job too.
Chimney cap, and a crusher. Chimney cap was under 3,000. The crusher was 22,000lbs. Glad I don't have a de-rated boom truck . Just teasing tradesman.
ha ha ! I've done a chimney cap like that at 2000 lbs but I'm afraid i'd be passing the crusher cone on to some-one else. I have done a disassembled crusher cone, I think the largest pick was around 6000 lbs. I see your in the yellow on that box culvert, next time don't be afraid to ask for help, maybe before I get my derate done
Honestly didn't notice the pat bar showing in the picture- they were 16-17,000 lbs box culverts, they over dug on my side of the road way too far. I think I was actually good for another 8'-10' radius with that weight (it will do 38' or so with 16k). It seems like that rt hits yellow really early. There are times when the truck crane really shines- I did the chimney cap and the crusher back to back today, it's nice not to have to go back to the shop for a bigger crane. I've done 30,000 before with the small truck crane, but 25,000 is really about all you want. With 30,000 you need to be right beside it. In rental- no one pays for more crane than they need, and I try not to send more than they need. A Grove I used to run had the LED light bar- add on- on the top of the cab. A fellow operator- after running it one day - dismantling a cement plant: "yellow- h$((- that light bar looked like a christmas tree, when they cut the last leg out".
I had a fuel tank to move last year, one of those newer above ground double walled concrete ones. Due to a screwup, when I arrived, we found it had been filled with fuel, gasoline no less. Point being, 28,000 lbs for a 30 ton boom truck of course meant some very careful positioning, as my radius was so small.
Well that really was not your fault Crane Op . Ok, who left the old truck rims by the tree ? Nice work ! We have a lot of narrow roads like on the box culvert job . 75 % of the job is getting in and getting out . Actual lift might take half hour . But that's part of it .
The Rt was really slick for that culvert job. No big long hood sticking out there to reach over top of, to get the culverts off the trucks. First two pics are a deck / addition, the last two were a truss job- knepptune loves it when I get to throw a lot of wood down. The first two pics job, the drivers side jacks both had that much wood under them. and - Yes, the front left tire is still touching in the third picture, but I was close to level.
More precast. We were blocked in by a pump truck so I wanted to set all I could from one side- I got boomed down pretty close. The hollow core's went about 7,000lbs, the big end patio was 22,500lbs again.
The truck drivers hate this site, every one of them looks at that corner and says they can't make it. We explain how every other driver has, and watch them all struggle. We did unhook and spin a few trailers for their company drivers, the contract truckers just suffered. Was really pretty last night as the sun was going down.
And I did get to spend the afternoon looking right into the sun. How can this happen that often? The ironworkers have also been beside me- they've got all their stick out on their 30 ton rt. Every time he moves that crane, the whole house does a little walk around, either the frame flexes a lot, or his turntable bearing is shot.
Are all the floors precast panels? Do they hook together somehow or do they just sit side by side? Always enjoy the pics! I dont work around cranes, just dirt stuff, but find all the crane stuff fascinating. Lot of knowledge and planning behind the scenes that I never really thought about before!
Those are some great pictures, putting that much weight up that high would take some getting used to. My arse was puckering up just looking at the pictures. Great work, you've got some skills.
Looks good man. Seems like you have a fair amount of work for that 70t. And I'm just happy you get to throw all that lumber. Gotta be good for your heart to get a decent workout when you set up. If that terex rt is a 30t then it's just the frame flexing. A boom truck almost feels more stable then those terex cranes. It took some getting used when we got ours. It's got a good chart and the 94' main is nice but it sure ain't no grove.
1965IHdiesel- All the floors are precast, walls are concrete block. The panels are solid on the outside patio's and walkways, the inside floors are hollow. The panels just sit tight together, then are grouted in the joints. They will come back and pour a skim coat for a smooth floor. Thanks tradesman- the lifting high with big weight is like anything else- the more you do it- the more you get used to it. That said, I wish my 70 ton had another 10,000 lbs of counterweight on it, you can feel it over the side when getting some radius with 7,000. I think the furthest out piece was 70' away. Knepptune- the 70 ton is hit and miss- it seems like lately I need two 70 tons (actually one 70 ton and a 100-150 ton- but I can't swing one-$ ) and none of the little cranes. In a month it could be setting still- and just little crane work. I will enjoy it while it's busy. I will admit to learning something yesterday. If you look in the picture of the ironworker's terex, you can see he has stowed his front windshield, on the other side of the upper, in a couple steel brackets. I always wondered what those steel brackets were for, on a terex upper, now I know. The precast guys are out of tennessee, they own their own 70 ton and 90 ton cranes. They set some of this building with their 90 ton, but hired me to set some of it, because their crane is tied up elsewhere. 5 years ago, I actually ran their 90 ton for a building project they had here in town. They were short a operator- and we weren't very busy. My tms300 was my biggest crane at the time, so its not like I was going to get the work either way. I've worked on two buildings for them with my 70 ton, since I've had it. Their 90 ton is a link belt-(2008 or so) and has a good chart, 141 main and 20,000 or so of counterweight. It's biggest problem is the regen system (cat c15 I think) doesn't work right. I struggled with it 5 years ago- I asked about it now- and it still has the same problems. Won't go into regen, and if it does, you can't work the crane or it cycles out of regen mode. Can't cycle it manually at the start or end of the day. It seemed like it would always call for a cycle at 10am, just when you were getting going, then you had to stop for 30 minutes while it would regen. That, and if it's hot, you had to run a garden hose on the hyd oil cooler to keep the oil cool. It was a real smooth operating crane- I just wouldn't own that one because of the regen issues. I think the slightly older ones with detroit 60 series are much less trouble.
Crane op, I honestly saved the pic of that 30t because of that. I've always wondered what the flip those brackets were for. Locally company had one of those 8690's. They had a horrible time with it. One of their foremen told me that crane was useless if it had rained within the last day or so. Seemed their was something in the boom that reacted badly to any moisture. He said on a humid day you couldn't scope the boom in or out. They only owned it for a year or so. Seems like the 70t link-belts are the most common 70t crane you see, and the guys that have those love them. I have heard multiple horror stories about the boom scope system on their 90t's tho.
Got to set tower sections for a new amusement ride today. Tower ends up being 200' tall, I won't be able to set any more than the bottom two sections I set today. Probably bring in a 210 or 300 ton crane. Bottom section was 40' tall 10'x10' square, 25,000 lbs, the next section up was only 15,000. Bottom section welded on to base plates, with gusset attachments. Took a while for them to weld them out enough to stack the next section.
Top section, and placing interior air pipes. We were standing around before unloading the bottom section, I joked that we would probably have to roll it. Sure enough, the installer comes over two minutes later and says we have to roll it to install the ride track. I had one of the guys bring out the ball, to hang on the aux. winch so I could roll it in the air, so we didn't scratch the paint all up in the rocks.
Looks like an interesting job for sure. That down in branson?
catfixer- yes- right on 76 hwy., by one of the gokart tracks. Supposed to end up being the tallest thing in town, aside from cell towers.
Jaw crusher today. They removed this somewhere out in Oklahoma, the rest of it I think they're sending out next week. Then we'll have to come back and set it in the frames. 55,000 lbs. I got lucky, the ears on the top of the jaw were really wide, I only had 2 shackles with me that would fit it (1 3/8" or 1 1/2"), one of the mechanics had two the same size in his truck. If he hadn't had them, I would've had to double up some 1/2" steel chokers, or endless round slings and shove them through the hole. It would have kinked them pretty sharp, but I would have done it to offload it.
Couple more beams on the house addition. Love my long jacks and only 20' outrigger span. A 24' outrigger span would be tough in a spot like this (I was kind of looking at boom trucks again, then I go to a site like this and am thankful for my old 250's) .
So, lot's of vert travel in those outriggers? That's handy for sure. My boom truck would have had no problem setting up there either, just saying. But I need to make sure I have all the pads I can fit crammed under the pads before starting to jack it up. On the really steep slopes I sometimes have to take two bites at it, letting the tires down on blocks, then sucking the outriggers up, stacking even more dunnage up, then the second time finally get it level. A pain but it has got the job done, a couple times a year I need to do that. Nice looking post and beam structure. Where does your dog ride in that narrow cab? You do take a dog on your jobs, don't you?! One huge reason I bought the Mack/National was that it has power windows, handy for letting the dog do his thing at cyclists and joggers as we drive by. My dog livens up the work day a lot, I take him on about 75% or more of my jobs, my steady customers complain if I don't!
Love that long stroke! That's the problem with modern cranes, the stroke is pretty terrible, even with the rough terrain cranes. Benefit of the all terrains though is you can get level with the suspension first, making it easy to block up. It's not often now that I need to wobble up a big stack of blocks!
Are those super singles on your crane? I've always wondered what the pros and cons are of them.
natman-- The jack stroke on the tms 200-250's is great, one advantage of the old grove carriers, over a boom truck, is you get a way stiffer chassis. I've never put blocks under the tires to get another bite on jacking up. You can simply use a back jack, to raise the front, and go back and forth. In a real steep spot, or with my heavier boomed 300, I sometimes have to swing over the other side and teeter totter to raise it up. But that's in a spot steep enough, that it slides down the hill a little when coming off the tires, not on one like this. This job site isn't really unusual in my area, for level. I've been in much worse. Most boom trucks have too much frame flex, or droop if you have two-stage outrigger beams, to walk back and forth from front to rear jacks. You're fortunate in your national natman, to have the single stage beams, if you go up to the 33 or 40 ton's they have the two stage beams, and a wider span. Those are the boom trucks I usually have to look at (30-40 ton), to get the chart I need to replace one of my truck cranes. The big advantage with the newer truck cranes is the long main power boom, sometimes its a battle to have enough room to swing jib. Kiwi-- I've run liebherr and grove/krupp all terrains, the hydraulic suspension on those is very nice. You can just tip the carrier to level, crib up, and then jack up. It's too bad they are so expensive to buy, and maintain, I can't justify a 50 ton AT in my area, and get the rates I would need to make it pay, I wouldn't be competitive. I will agree on the short jacks on most rough terrains. They aren't terrible, because they are usually compact, but some have such big tires, and such short jacks, that the pads barely touch the ground in a level spot, let alone if its crooked. I ran a terex 50 ton rt for a little while, it had a carrier like a 70 ton, and only a 105' main boom, it was a good picking crane with that heavy undercarriage, but it had really short jacks. Tradesman- those aren't technically super singles on the rear- The "over the road truckers" super singles are 445/50r22.5. Those are simply 385's, like a floater steer tire, just smaller than a 425 floater steer tire. That crane is actually 385's steer and drive both, it just has a different offset on the rear rims. Having singles on the rear instead of duals makes it a little lighter on the rear, and you have 4 less tires to buy, but they are more expensive tires. Floaters are terrible in the mud. A set of duals will bite in, the floats just slide around on top. Don't ever put super singles on a truck you go offroad with a lot, they will get stuck in a heartbeat. I'm blessed with lots of rock where I live, so not much mud, or snow, so they do okay. If it is muddy, I'll take my other 25 ton which has 11r22.5 duals on it. The 385's were on the crane when I bought it, and I will probably switch it to 11r or 12r duals when I need new drives.
Pictures from today. Tandem picking with a different company. Inside the building, so limited boom up. I had around 28,000. Not boom truck work . I brought the tms 250- was supposed to bring the 300, but the transmission decided it didn't want to go into high range this morning. It's about a hour away, and was only supposed to be 25,000lbs. I had all I really wanted, but I was still in chart. We actually picked it twice, once off the blocks and onto skates. Then we rolled it in front of the door. Picked it off the roller frames, and backed a trailer under it. His old tms 300 fits right in with my cranes.
I don't think you'll ever beat an old grove when it comes to heavy picks up close. Does that tms300 have a Detroit in it as well. On the jack stroke discussion, man I hate blocking up under the wheels to get another bite. Haven't done it but a time or two. Hated it everytime.
I had a job last year, inside a new CAT service center, setting a big parts washer machine. The thing was 15K lbs or so, and I could do it radius wise but couldn't get the needed boom angle/tip height without cutting a hole in the roof. I told the big bosses this before we tried it, they really wanted to use me as I had done a lot of work on the entire project (I had them fooled in other words). It was real close, if the roof had been about 10' higher......, as it was they got a 70 ton unit 2 days later at more then triple my rate to finally do it at the required low boom angle. He was over $1000.00 and I would have been $287.00, I was nearby and he had a fair bit of travel. I didn't charge them anything for the attempt, they had given me so much work already I felt generous. Interesting about the 2 part outriggers, didn't know that, now I'll quit lusting after them! I like my 20' span singles just fine, especially since hanging the 1400 lb counterweight on the rear of the National, it's got a good solid feel now, most of the time anyway.
Got to set the rock today, that we removed a couple weeks ago. We would have had to remove the door frames to get the larger forklift inside, so they decided to put it under their awning/entry area. They didn't want me to remove the door frames. I had to put two different chain hoists on it, to get it to hang straight to go in the base. Also went and set the 35 up for some ride maintanence tomorrow. I've got a different project in the morning, and I've set up in this spot every year. We went and set it up so one of the other guys doesn't have to do it himself, it's not a easy spot to get into. Last picture -- Anyone see anything wrong? I had the guys put block in the 35 for me one afternoon, for job I was headed to the next morning, where I didn't have room to put it in, and I came back and spotted this. The becket wedge is installed backwards. My newest operator hasn't used this type of becket (crosby terminator style), I showed him a couple months ago on one of the 25 that has this style, but I guess we need a little more training.
Got to move a statue today. About 2,000lbs of bronze, we stood him up in the museum about a year ago, they are now moving him elsewhere. It's poured pan deck with I beams above, so I had them remove some sheetrock to get to the I-beams. Then we set some beam clamps and chain falls, choked around him on 2 sides, and pivoted him down onto a 8' homebuilt skid. We put a pallet jack on each side, and rolled him down a inclined circular ramp inside the museum. I told the guy on the front pallet jack that if the statue started to get away from us, to just set the skid down as a brake. We rolled him down the ramp, and out the door, then used the crane to load him in a truck. I did strap him to the skid so he wouldn't roll off during the ride down the ramp. No rigging diagram either .
Wow that's a nice piece of art. You must be the go to guy when somebody has a head scratcher. Looks like your getting your money's worth out that becket, I was lucky enough to get a quick reeve boom head and block with the Elliott,I don't miss setting the becket at all, the last time I pulled one apart, when the dead end came out of the becket it swatted me on the chin I almost threw up it hurt so bad and my chin swelled up like half a golf ball.
The becket was all smacked up like that when I got it. I never use a hammer on a becket, I had a old timer "teach" that out of me. I would actually rather reeve without becket, I find it just as easy. With the right cable, once you get it trained, you can just give it a little whip and it's seated.
It is a nice bronze, they originally wanted to try to stand it by hand, I said if I was involved we were building a wood gantry, or exposing the beams in the ceiling. No way was I taking a chance just doing it by hand. It balanced pretty good between the two chain falls, it helps having the right equipment.
Missed that one- it was a cummins (probably a 220 or 240), and was much nicer to work next to in the building, they don't know how lucky they were I didn't bring the 6-71.
Double Detroit action on a saturday. Double wide trailer house, onto a poured foundation. I was a little short of setting the far side, I had the kitchen end, over 24,000. I barely touched it down on the plate, and we slid it the last bit with a pickup. Al had around 15,000 with the 35 ton. Front side was easy. Could have really used a 150 ton crane, but this worked. Yes- I had them straighten out the last pictures shackles, mobile home guys aren't the best riggers.... for those not familiar with that part- they fold part of the roof down to get them under height, we stand it up before setting the house.
Just some pictures from this week. First picture job didn't happen, cars all in the way. They thought I could just maybe do it on rubber... It's a HVAC unit on a 9 story building, I told them I'd need a little more room. Man basket work, they didn't leave the scaffold up for the painter. We actually did the other three sides of the cupola from the other side of the building, then moved around this side for the last side, all in the blind by radio, I had one of my guys on the roof signalling me so they could concentrate on painting. This was my test lift. Had all I wanted on this job. 2,400 lbs at 110'. In this configuration (100' main, 60' jib, no dead stick), I was good for 3,100, but I don't think it would actually do that. I had 2,800 on the old unit coming off the building, and the front/nose outrigger was up 6" and the front drivers side was just barely floating, so I was close.
Had one of my guys come with me to this job, it was going to be close to bellying out when backing in off the road, coming around the corner, and I wanted to have another set of eyes when backing in. The front drivers side outrigger jack cleared by about 2". It's a irrigation pump at a golf course.
Auction time-------- Picked these up in springfield, online auction, its a pretty nice manbasket with test weight built in , and a clamshell in pretty good shape. I've got a local treatment plant that has a concrete box they are getting sediment build up in, and they can't shut off the inflow to that box. I think the clam might be able to clean it out, but I may have to add teeth. I'm not really sure its going to work, but I didn't give much for the clamshell. I don't own a friction rig with free fall, but I think the weight of the clam should dig. Dropping it in the water, would slow down any speed help from a free fall anyways.
Where to start, you had an interesting week - in one of the pictures of you setting the house your crane looks way out of level, but in the other pictures it looks level, from seeing your work I'm sure it is level. must be good to know we're here to look after you. - well at least the riggers we're hitting 500, two of the four shackle are correct - that looks like a quite a house , Very Nice! - I'm guessing thats a pump house for a golf coarse and your setting a pump in it. - are those plastic shakes on the roof of the pump house, they are on the roof of a timber frame house I worked on last year, nice product and should outlast any-one that put them on. - The last time I was to my crane shop they had a 28 ton boom truck there that belonged to a roofing company that had a small clam shell, it was plumbed with a hydraulic cylinder. It occurred to me that for an occasional use the hoses could be connected to the remotes on a skid steer or tractor.
Talking about this picture and the 70 ton? Looks like its headed downhill? I think its deceptive because the crane isn't setting square to the house, the rear tandem also oscillates a long ways, and the deck line isn't true (fuel tank area interrupts it), you can see the counterweight on the upper compared to the roof line of the house, gives you a better idea of straight. That whole yard slopes downhill, you can see the cribbing on the bottom side of the 35 stacked up. Nice to know you've got your eye on me though... I think the roof at the golf course is actually the concrete tiles made to look like shakes, similar life to the plastic, unless you shatter one, much heavier though. I've also seen the clamshell roofers boxes, they make a roofers package for some boom trucks with a extra reel for opening the box above a dumpster for trash.
Unit on the nine story yesterday. Full main (126') and full jib (60') = 186' total boom- 2,200lb unit. They had the parking blocked off this time. It takes 155' of open area from the front bumper of the crane to the tip of the stinger to put together the 60' jib and the power pin telescoping section, so you need a little room. Offset jib would have helped reach it, I probably wouldn't have needed the stinger in the jib, but its easier to slide out stinger than do offset, so we just put out the stinger in the jib.
We've been pulling a 20' gooseneck behind my 1 ton dodge, as a support trailer for my 70 ton crane. The trailer has some storage boxes and a area to store our wood dunnage on it. Plus a rack for a spreader bar. It's kind of a pain to be hooking and unhooking trailer all the time, and it is a little unhandy on jobsites. I went and looked at this the other day, its a 2000 f-450, 7.3, auto, with 250k miles, but it runs pretty good. It needs some tires and a little tls, but its not all rusted out or anything. I think the little mechanics crane would be nice to put offset in the jib with, to keep you from setting the tip on the ground, or where it's too crooked you can't get the tip on the ground (have to do that to install offset jib). The tommy lift tailgate would be nice to take a tire to the tire shop, or other things. We could put the big rigging box on it and make some racks for wood, and its got a couple aluminum boxes on it already. It would probably be similar to mileage to my 5.9 dodge, much better than my 460 gas in my old ford super duty. We also need to haul 50 ton block, and quite often some larger rigging, or a manbasket, but I think we could get most of that on this truck, and not have to drag that gooseneck trailer everywhere. I do however own the gooseneck .
Tipped down a old concrete plant silo this morning. Used their forklift to tail it over. Then got a emergency call, late this afternoon. Seems our windy storm the other night was a little hard on this sign. The top cabinet was actually broken loose from the pole, and the pole had failed also. Fun times.
I'm guessing that concrete silo wasn't empty? How much did it weigh? You weren't worried about the lifting brackets at the top giving way?
Old concrete silo was 8,000, I had the bottom auger taken off. I could see all that was left in it, was a little stuck to the walls. It was still stuck at the bottom where the legs were welded down, that can be difficult to get totally cut free. Actually the sign removal was much more ugly, everything was broken loose and spinning around in a 15 mph wind. We got the crane hooked on, and a rope tied to a truck, then tried to stabilize things enough to get it down without dumping anything on the hotel that was directly under the sign. It was a little rodeo for a while.
Little rt action. Metal stud trusses on a 4 story, this is the same building I was setting precast on with my 70 ton. About a hour after I left, the operator called me and it was puking oil out the bottom. I was talking to myself about that crane the whole way out there, and how it loses a hose it seems every job it goes to (not actually every job, it just seems like it). Turns out we just had a loose fitting from our swivel rebuild, and it took out the o ring in the fitting. Easy fix.
Glamour shot I was driving into the yard the other day, and these three were sitting there with the sun shining on them so nice, I couldn't help but take a picture. Sure they don't make any $ like this- but they all looked like runners in the blocks ready for a job. (never mind all the projects I have, in and out of the shop, let me have my little happy moment )
That 635 we sealed the swivel did the same thing crane op. It's worse when it happens on a customers machine. Those cranes do look sharp.
Whenever I see another hoisting engineer working when I'm traveling out of my area, on vacation (what's that?) or whatever, it's always fun to go over to them, make eye contact, wait for a down time, and then tell them there's a big pool of hydraulic oil under their rig. Ha ha, always gets a laugh, as it tells them I too am in the business! I should mention I IMMEDIATELY let them know I am kidding, so I don't get my butt kicked.....
I used to do the same when I'd pull in the yard and see the trucks lined up. Then I'd think to myself **** I gotta find some work! Usually it was in from one job, re-gear and go again. Always made me proud to see what I had worked to accumulate.
I only have the one 30 ton, and I can't see it when I drive up, but that's because I keep it in a purpose built solar powered, radiant floor heated, insulated building, that sits on property I own in town. No utility bill and property tax is about $400.00 a year. It's all paid for. I constantly struggle with the need to have an employee/employees and more and larger cranes, but in the meantime things are going pretty good and I hate to rock the boat! Seeing what you can do with the bigger cranes really gets me thinking...... I need to find a few hundred K somewhere and add to my fleet I guess. My buddy in AZ I sold my last Manitex to has a pic like crane operator's, all three machines lined up, looking sharp, for sure something to be proud of.
My equipment sits inside as well but I know the feeling you are talking about. Our old shop was a pole building with 12'-0" sidewalls built in the 70's and was starting to get kinda tough, the crane wouldn't go in the 10 ft doors , so I rented a neighbors shed. About 5 years ago I tore down half the old shop and build our new building. My dad, 82 and in failing health was so pleased with the new shop often I would come home through the day and he would be sitting outside the office on an old dirty chair just looking at his new cathedral with a satisfied look on his face, that and the fact that my equipment was inside made it all worth the price. My dad died last September 15, I worked my whole life with him, hardly a day went by without talking about work with him. Hours before he lost conciseness the last words we spoke were, what I was doing at work that day. I had made my mind up that his funeral would be in his cathedral. It was one of the greatest things I ever done , much of the community came out to help us see dad off. So ya I know that feeling of satisfaction.
Equipment under roof cover is better than money in the bank Good story Tradesman !
Had a little stormy weather here the last couple days, and windy, had to pull a tree off a house this morning. Unfortunately it was laying on the other side of the house, and on the neighbors house. 25 ton, jib on, I almost went back to the shop for the 35, but the yard was to soft for anything bigger. The tree was laying on the white colored house to the right, punched through the roof about 1/2 way up it, we already had that off when I pulled out the camera. I went on the tree side of the house and rigged, and told the tree guys how big to cut. Had one of their guys relay hand signals around and between the houses. Had one of my operators running the crane. Base of the tree was about centered on the deck/picnic table area of the brown house. 3' diameter base- 70-80' tall oak.
Also pulled this out of the shop monday. Fresh coat of paint. Should have probably sandblasted, but we chipped off most of the rust, and this should last a while. Plus then we didn't have to unwire/plumbing, and cover wheels, etc, and we could still use the trailer while we were working on it. I've been just wire wheel and scuffing the old paint, then using rustoleum rusty metal primer, and then rustoleum safety red paint. Just using weenie rollers and brush, its not a car like finish, its just a trailer . Looks good going down the road, I did my roll back trailer 3 or so years ago, and it looks pretty good yet.
Hope someone is going to make good use out of that tree for firewood. Won't make up for the damage to the houses but at least keep someone warm next winter! Between all the wind/storm damage and now wild fires in parts of the country there are many people having some bad luck.
Crane op that's a fine looking float, love the aluminum rims and the dropped platform, I'm a little concerned about your drive tires though, won't be able to drive through much snow, maybe should carry chains.
Ha Ha- no snow here, you keep it all up there. If it snows here, you wouldn't have a chance of getting out of my hill, chains or no chains. I don't even own a set for any of the cranes. If I need chains, I need to stay home. Actually - the picture is kind of deceiving, that truck has pretty good tires on it. They're a matched set except for one, I'd like to find a better used one to match the other drives. They're not a deep lug tire though- and the rock in the yard makes them look full. I plan on going to a set of float tires up front when I install my bigger steer axle. Will help with weight. I do have some on one of the 25's though that are going to need replaced. I think I may go with a full set on it, and put what's on it on my old ford winch truck, its tires have some age cracks on them.
Most of the big stuff in the main trunk was rotten. It had a couple solid areas further up, but none of it will be firewood. That particular tree service is big into grinding, and then selling the mulch. Get paid to take it down, then get to sell it again. Whatever won't go through their small chipper they pull with their bucket truck, they load up in their short sided dump truck with their skidloader, and it goes back to their yard for the big tub grinder.
Now that I look closer at the last picture I do see the dark areas in there. Once the ground starts to dry up a bit here I have a few trees to cut down lucky none near the house, one close to electric wires but have plans to run cable around it and encourage it to fall away from wires!
I only chained up three times this winter (so far) made bearable because the "meter" was running, and it was obvious to everyone that the chains made the difference between getting to the job site or not, it wasn't a precaution but an absolute necessity. Must be nice Crane Op! There's a guy over by Jackson Hole Wy. who runs a small crane operation like mine, who has a AWD Peterbuilt for his National, he swears by it. I didn't have the heart to tell him that all it needed was a seated/heated cab. Another big user of Rustoleum rusty metal primer here, except when possible I just use two coats of it and no finish, I kind of like the look. I have never tried a finish Rustoleum paint over that primer, I'll keep it in mind. A previous home I built had a lot of pipe handrail outside, and the finish paint would flake off every 5 years or so, but the red primer primer underneath still looked great, that's why my current house has all outside metal with JUST the primer and no finish! I didn't use Rustoleum for the finish coat, should have.
Front tandem steer axle repair. These bushings in the center pivot were gone on my 70 ton. When you would go through a dip or steep spot on a jobsite, it would steel on steel. The suspension is actually a old reyco spring trailer suspension, they just put steer axles under it instead of trailer axles. The center piece is just a threaded pipe, with rubber bushings on each side held in by the big washers and nuts. We're probably repairing a few more suspension bushings, then getting a alignment done. There's a old truck shop in springfield that does my alignments, not everyone wants to align a twin steer with 38,000 on them.
Few jobs from this week, sign company built this video board in their shop, 12' 3" wide at the wide end of its v- shape. Their door was only 12' wide, but we measured out that there was a sweet spot about 2' in on the v, where it should go through, there was even $ changing hands on whether we could get it through without tearing it back apart (which I guess is a big job- unwiring and dismantling). It fit, they did damage two of the small led's, which I guess is easier to replace than the labor to tear it all apart. Went and set it with my 35 ton. Was about 8,000lbs. Put in the 3 part because it was a tight fit, swing over and push the cable tv lines, drop down on the "flag" portion of the pole, then slide- swing it up onto the main upright. Not much room to work.
Truss job and a Hvac job. Truss job was just some 4 ply beams, and joists, one of my guys did it, I took him over before hand because I knew it was steep, but doable. I feel more comfortable sending them on the difficult ones if I show them the job before, and talk it through. I sent a second man to help him get set up, its easier when you teter totter if there's a second man to throw blocks for you on the other side. Hvac unit was 1800lbs- 100' radius or so. Some of them were on the high roof, then there were a couple more on the lower roof to the left. There was a light pole and a big fence in the way for putting in jib, so I set up further out in the parking lot, installed jib, and backed in with jib on. Then drove back out to pull jib back off.
Put the smokestacks back on the tour boat. They aren't that heavy, it just makes a big difference on radius, on how deep the water is. This is downstream from the big dam on table rock lake, and water level fluctuates depending on whether they are generating power or not.
Man, I take my hat off to guys that can do mechanical work like that, I break out into a cold sweat just looking at the pictures. I cross my fingers that the tires all make the same noise when I hit them with the bar, because it's such a pain to put air in the inner duels
A customer bare rented this machine for a job, I'm going to do the bigger stuff, he just needs this to load out trucks. The thing that always gets me on these rental rigs, is the becket on the cable. The mechanics at the rental houses don't know cranes, and sometimes the customers don't either. The cables get messed up, the mechanics put on new cable, and they never install the becket correctly. This one the cable is routed backwards through the becket, then live line and dead end clamped together. Every thing they could have installed wrong, they did. Burns my ***. Rant over.
At least they didn't put a saddle on a dead "horse" (thanks to your rants, I've learned the correct use of a Becket & its wedge) PS ...Is it wrong to use a rope clamp with a correctly threaded Becket ?
One to add to the list, the end of the wire rope isn't seized
You never clamp the live side of the line to your dead portion, the becket is taking that strain, you don't want to clamp it because then it can't move. The cable rotates under load so it is constantly turning as you load and unload it (even rotation resistant cable- it just turns both ways because of how the cable is wrapped- whole different subject). The second becket in the accepted methods (first image) looks like the live side is clamped, but it's not, that's just a special style clamp that doesn't clamp down on the live line. Second image shows that style better and explains it.
That is probably the least bothersome thing to me about that installation. The becket will hold the cable from unraveling, as well as his incorrect cable clamps. All your doing with the seizing is keeping the cable together. I actually don't seize my cables with the wire wrapping method. The wire wrapping method is fine if you have a quick reeve boom head- and never take off the becket, or are installing it in a lattice boom that's going to sit on some site for months and never reeve cable. Some beckets are so tight you can't get a seized cable through them. We are constantly swapping from block to ball and back in the rental game, and the wire type seizing will not stay on while running cable through the block sheeves. I've seen guys weld the ends, but I don't like that because I think it heats it too much and makes the wire brittle. I actually braze my cable ends. I think it is a little softer (which helps the cable to still move), you're able to reeve through block and boom head and becket with it. It doesn't work as well with the more ridgid rotation resistant cables ( like a 19x7),it works well with the multipart capable rotation resistant cables (like a 8x25), and standard cable (like 6x37). The danger with brazing is internal damage to the cable from not allowing the wraps to rotate independently of each other. I have seen it start to bunch up the cable a little on the other side of the becket- usually about 2' up, but if that starts to get bad, you can always cut it off and redo it. Keep a eye on everything. The big danger with installing the cable through the becket backwards is that it puts a terrible angle on the cable as it starts into the becket on the load line side, it will actually cut/ severely bend/crack the cable there. The danger with the clamps on both sides is two fold. You can keep the cable from rotating how it needs to, damaging the cable. The second is that you can actually have the becket wedge come loose in the becket, then you're relying only on the clamps. Actually early beckets never even had the clamps on the back side, the wedge actually holds it all (your dead end inside the winch is only a wedge becket- no clamps). The clamp is there so if the cable slacks, the wedge can't come loose and have the cable slide around it.
My rope is non rotating , my last rope was brazed but this new rope is anealled. My understanding is it is important to have a good job of one or the other to hold the iner layer from turning independently from the outer layer.
Someday I'll tell the story of my fight with the safety man about proper becket installation. We were both a little angry by the time we agreed my way was right. His insistence on having at least 3 clamps and having the load line clamped to the dead end was a little frustrating. Most safety consultants really don't know that much about cranes. But you can't tell them that. I don't know how many times I've fixed that issue on customers cranes. I've explained it and showed people till I'm blue in the face. Anymore I just fix it and move on.
I had to say something about snow- and this is a current picture outside. Supposed to get 1-2 inches-it was 70deg here this week.
I'm speechless!! I guess you're just lucky, there'll be no flies buzzing around your head today.
From about 12:00 until 2:00
More trees coming down for you. Really enjoy all your posts here, never ran a crane but like them.
So you ended up fixing the cable on the rental crane? Send a bill to the rental?
Ive found the terminator beckets are the best ,they take away any argument and they come apart nicely when your reeving lots.
I like them too, but they are awfully expensive. I have a operator who I've caught twice with a terminator installed wrong , I think he's got it figured out now (he hadn't seen that style before). I've never seen him have problems with any other style. I usually tell the operator- its not my crane, not my problem, but I would feel awful if something happened and I hadn't said something.
I took this picture on a walk today. That is Lake Huron in the background and that is ice piled up on shore this poor little tree looks ready for spring
I've been using the "special" cable clamps, must be a term for them? That look like a conventional one but they don't actually clamp down on the live cable. As I like to go down the road with my ATB weight not jerking on the switch, the last thing I do when tearing down is winch up until the ATB stops me, then I hit the defeat switch and come up another few inches, just enough to have slack in the chain from the weight to the switch. To secure the hook and ball I have a hand winch and strap on the front, that way when I set up I don't have to climb back out of the cab to unhook it after reeling out some slack, I loosen it first thing, before putting the outriggers out. The only problem with this setup, is if someone hooks me up and I don't see them do it, then I winch up into the ATB, I tear my winch strap off. No big deal, just 2" load binder strap, I carry spares. Since going to this way of securing the ball, EVERYONE now wants to hook me up, before, when I NEEDED them to do it, to save me a trip out of the cab and back, they NEVER did it! This leaves the dead end of my wire rope inside the cast iron weight ATB, so I mouse (now there's a term....) the end first using heavy black tape used by well drillers for securing the wires to the drop pipe, then I go over the tape with good old aircraft safety wire, which is stainless. That holds up real well, and looks good also. It took me a while to figure out why I kept going through ATB switches, like a dummy I was going down the road with that weight working on the switch, nobody told me, I had to figure it out myself. of a well,
My god Tradesman ! How far north did you walk ? That lone tree & background looks like it could be the North Pole .
Don't worry I'm not Santa. That poor little tree is right at the shoreline of Lake Huron ( one of the Great Lakes ) I live between Lake Huron and Georgian Bay. That is frozen slush I walked on it right out to the water, I thought it made a cool picture. You can tell that its been slow on the crane just a few sets of trusses in the last three weeks. I'm down to taking pictures of sad little trees.
"piggyback" clamps, or double saddle. Also our snow is now all gone- 45deg and sunshine .
That was a cool picture Tradesman ! That's pick axe & tire chain country for sure . If didn't no better I'd guess Yukon Cornelius himself hiked up there in the cold frozen tundra to take the photo & share it with us . http://christmas-specials.wikia.com/wiki/Yukon_Cornelius Keep up the good work bro !
Grove rt 58 on a auction friday- becket installers strike again
Yeah Crane Operator , I don't get to hung up over cable / wire clip on a rope . That looks like a Crosby clip on the end of the becket . My Grove manuals don't even show a clip on the end , just the becket & wedge socket . Yet post a pic on HEF & people get all excited over it ? That crane don't have the pull power to even come close to snapping the cable .
Busy week so far. Got a call late sunday night, the precast boys from nashville had their 90 ton break down on them, 1/2 way between springfield and poplar bluff (which is basically in the middle of nowhere in southern missouri). Something with the def or something, I know the cat man spent both days I was setting precast working on it, and they didn't have a solution yet. Fortunately for them- the 6v92 has no such newfangled gadgetry epa $%&^ on it, and it fired right up and went to work. Monday I was 7- 6:30 and got out of the cab three times to take a leak, other than that I was hammer down all day. The Detroit was thirsty the next morning and needed 80 gallons, but we got some work done. They kept me monday and tuesday. On tuesday I had one solid panel I couldn't get close enough to to set, I had the rt on the site for the truss guys, so we made a tandem pick with it. And yes that is white stuff flying through the air in that one picture. It snowed all afternoon- and none of it was in the forcast.
Little heat unit- just a long ways away, it was on the other side of the shake shingled roof (picture is of the ductwork, the heat unit went after). Down at a resort with the 70 ton, no room and even with caution tape up- people are stupid and just walk around it. Next pictures are of a little treehouse thing I put up on some poles at amusement area. It slid down on the two 4x4's on the stand, and I had to sit on the other side of a little ticket building they have built already. I have one more treehouse that's bigger, to do for them next week.
Amusement ride tear down. It's going to a different park. It was a water raft ride, so it has a continuous trough around the top side. They didn't want to tear it all apart in the air, so we took it down in some bigger pieces. This one was a little bit fun to rig, and you don't have a chance to set it down and re-rig if its not right- its all 70' in the air. Once it comes off the saddles, it's yours. The trough made us put beams on the bottom as well as the top so we could pick it by the bottom pipe supports. I welded saddles on the bottom spreader beam to capture the pipes, then we used some come-a- longs to fix them for balance after we had them tensioned. I rubber padded them, and then chained the bottom beam to the pipes so the beams couldn't slide. No engineered pick points . One of my operators came over to me after the first one was on the ground "that picked better than I thought it would ". The two main horseshoe pieces weighed around 20,000lbs.
Very nice work Crane OP ! The curved section of the water ride sure looked like a rigging challenge , you guys handled it with grace .
Thanks td- I woke up this morning about 4:00 thinking about those two pieces, and after laying in bed for a while, that's the best I could come up with, with what I had for available rigging/ bars , and considering they wanted it down at about 10:00 this morning. I'm sure 10 different people could come up with 10 different ways to rig it, but this worked. The customer actually wanted to lay the whole horseshoe down in one piece, and if I had two 150 ton cranes, I might have tried something like that. I decided with what I had for equipment, I didn't feel comfortable trying the whole thing, but I would do it in two pieces. It all has to come apart anyway, he would just rather unbolt it on the ground, instead of in the air.
Hay! You bent the ridge on that tree house.
Who knows? some carpenter built it - he might think that's straight . If you think thats goofy, look at the treehouse to the left and behind that one- it's got boards running every which way in it. That one isn't even being built by regular carpenters, they're amish carpenters. I have a hard enough time building something straight, let alone make something deliberately to look crooked.
Rest of the ride today- didn't quite get finished- I'll have to finish up in the morning with the big center pole. The arms that hold the trough that we took down the day before were also kind of fun to rig. Also took down some big pieces of track.
Also got to do some sewer boxes the other day. It wasn't so bad getting them in the ground, it's just the front one was a long ways up on the trailer ( I will admit to kind of skipping/sliding it along the trailer until I could get it picked up ). 4 pieces total, 2 bottoms, 2 tops- 12-13,000lbs each piece. Tank company sends their bar and rigging that they use with their tail unload trucks.
Crane op. You live in a busy area, lots going on "good on ya!" Looks like you've built a good and diverse client base and I know that doesn't happen by accident. Things pretty well dry up here in February, March and part of April. Here is a picture that my son sent me of one of his jobs, he said the crane operator looked real hard at the slings just held on by tension before he lifted over the house.
Are those slings just draped over the sides?? That's crazy!!!! When we lifted catch basins and such we put a chain all the way around. Then lifted it by attaching to that chain.
I'll answer for crane op from the above post looks like he's working this morning. There's notches in the corner of the tank that the wire ropes bite into, it looks a little precarious but I've never seen one slip. Just the same I'm sure there's big pucker factor when you have to put them over a house. I would want the slings in perfect condition and way over sized with those terrible sling angles but the lower the sling angle the better they would bite.
Ok Ours didn't have notches. I still don't think I'd lift it over a house that way.
We do it the same way here, notches for the cables to seat in, and like Trademan said, the funky angle at least keeps them seated better. I've never had to lift one over a house, but wouldn't have a problem with it. In for a dime, in for a dollar! When I have a choice, I usually swing a load over the least expensive thing, can't hurt, just yesterday i had a choice of swinging a pre fab steel staircase (1700 lbs.) over cars in a parking lot, nice cars, or swing the other (longer) direction and keep the load over the contractors older dump truck. My tag line guy objected as it made his walk a bit tougher, but I explained why and he went along. That's a joke I guess. Dragging chain rigging out from under is the reason they don't bottom rig them. Some concrete have those cast in nubs that stick out to rig too, I like those the best.
We didn't run the chain around the bottom. We ran it around the catch basin. Then a chain hooked on that chain to pick it up. I liked using the special hooks they had but, couldn't justify $600 for two hooks. They said those where so expensive due to liability not cost to manufacture them. I get the way you guys do it. When he said slings I thought they where nylon straps.
Different precast outfits use different styles. Some are cable setups in the grooves like in the pictures. Road culverts are usually the teacups style, cables with swaged ends- dropped through a hole in the concrete, then steel "teacups" that insert over them on the inside. I've also used the circle c- hook style that are so expensive to buy, here the precast company sends those with the boxes to unload with. I think they prefer the cast in grooves- its cheaper than the imbeds, just a notch in their forms. I have had a box have the concrete crack out where the notch was- the cable slid/popped up 3" and stopped, it just flaked off the outside surface of the box, but it wasn't fun. Did get the big pipe down today- the bottom half was grouted in, we had to push on it with a telehandler to bust it loose. They're going to load the ride up in open top conexes, then its going to a boat to South America, to be reassembled. The ride guys said they hope to have it up and running by early June. I think customs may throw a monkey wrench in those plans- but that's not my problem. If you look carefully in the first picture- you can see one of the two spud wrenches sticking down through the bolt holes. I had them put those in there, after the bolts were out, before we picked it. That way if the pipe is way too heavy, you can set it back down and regroup. If you just pull all the bolts out, and then try to pick it up, it can slide. You still might not be able to pick it up, just because you got it to slide, and then you're in a lot of trouble 40' off the ground, because you can't set it back down, and you can't pick it up. The spuds are tapered, so you can lift it, see if you can handle it, then fly it right off. I try to do things like that when demoing stuff up in the air, when weights are unknown. It's really nice to have a way out if you need it.
You get some interesting crane jobs craneop.
Very smart Crane Op....the tricks you guys use for safety, ways out if things go kiddywampgus.... I rebuilt my crane for fun, but the inspiration was my grandfather (owner/operator of a Grove 18 ton, local 150). He always used safety 1st, paycheck 2nd while working. I give you guts a ton of credit.....every time I see your picks, I think "what if something goes wrong?". Having an out is what keeps you safe. My grandfather used to say "common sense isn't learned.....and those who don't have it, you need to identify in this line of work....so they don't kill you".
They'll slip, I was setting a tank behind a brand new house, didn't even have the siding on yet, got stretched out directly off the back of my truck with the knuckle boom about 30' and the tank hit the ground, the beam and boom jumped up(same style beam that's in your picture Tradesman, the back to back "C" channel with the cables pinned in the center) and the beam went right through the sheathing on the back of the house. All I could think was "there goes my job", the builder was also the owner, said "don't worry about it, i've got extra plywood, I'll just change it out", thank god!
Had to unload the rest of a new amusement ride yesterday- I know, I don't like sunday work either, but the truckers wanted to get rolling, so I went along with the flow... Tower sections were under 12,000, the motor section had all the weight out beyond the beams, it had a really goofy center of gravity- and why would they bother to put pick points or eyes on it? We still had a chain comealong in the truck from the amusement ride we tore down, so I added a extra leg to level it out. Tower ends up being 200' tall. A 210 ton is scheduled for next monday to stand it up.
Crane Op... If you're speaking about the eyes & lift points on the BLUE part... I fear you give the engineers too much credit for thinking of you. Looks to me they're just extra mounting spots. Mount the gear box input shaft horizontal or vertical. The arm seems to be a reaction arm to counter the torque of the gearcase. What kind of ride is it ?
I was hoping for welded on pick points on the whole assembly so it would be balanced for installation- it's going 200' up and the guys mounting it will be hanging on the poles up there. It wouldn't have been hard while they are making it. I have guys all the time want to pick by the eye bolts in the motor- those are just for lifting the motor, not the whole assembly, and I'd hate to damage the gearcase- I think it came from germany (with a +/- 6 week lead time). We simply rigged all the iron and adjusted until we had it close. . I give engineers very little credit- only when somethings really neat. It's some kind of tower/ drop/ air shoot them up and down thing. Something I feel no need to ride anymore.
Should I be worried if I show up on a jobsite, and one of the workers points at me, looks at the new guy and says "he's crazy". I've done a lot of oddball stuff for them, but I never really thought crazy was involved . This job went good, its a good quarry outfit, I offloaded the jaw a while back. they got the frame in. Tandem picking a crusher frame with a end loader, they had dropped it a little far from where I needed to set to put the jaw in. Rather than set the crane up twice and skip it along, I decided it would be easier to just let him take 1/2 with the loader. Then we put in the jaw.
Little bit up in the air with a 25- and then later through a tree. The tree location is very concerned that they have no tree damage, but they are constantly changing stuff and we have to go through the trees to get there. Also a neat old trailer- no other options with it but to side load? and a truss job for later next week.
From today with my 35 ton. The steel beams go on the backside of the house making the deck. They tried to set them with a telehandler from the back side, but it was too steep to work. I set up on the front side and set them in the blind. I brought along one of my guys to run the radio, we were probably 10' at the most and some places 4' off the house- that had the windows already installed. I was around 90' from the far one. Had 45' post and the house was probably 35' tall on the ridge on the top side.
Those jaw crusher pictures made me feel like I was back at work, spent 45 years playing around in the quarry up the road form me! First job was actually helping to assemble parts of the plant. And more than once helped move crushers with two front end loaders, one going forwards and the other one driving backwards. One of those jobs you sometimes don't want the wrong boss to be trying to "help" direct. We often said that with all the dangerous things there are in a stone quarry the most dangerous was a boss "helping"! I think if you do some research on accidents in quarries there is a high percentage that are either management or supervisors as a contributing factor. As for the "crazy" comment. Sometimes people who don't really understand things think anything that they don't know about is crazy. Unless you are doing things like having a front end loader putting down pressure on the counter weight of your crane while making the lift to keep from flipping over! Yea seen things like that back in the day!
What the house looks like- with all the iron for the decks in place. Three of them are actually under the overhang of the house 2'. They just put some 2x6's between them all, to hold them in place- its supposed to be pretty windy here today. Glad to bring up the memories of the quarry kshansen- I like working with those guys, they've usually got their stuff together, and are willing to do whatever I need to get the job done.
Put the rest of the new ride up yesterday and today. Working with a 5210 grove, he's got 197' main and 46' or so of jib out when he set the top piece. There's a bunch more light bars and a motor section to go up yet, but I'm done there for now, I just had to tail the tower sections, and move them from where we stored them on site.
More from the same job
Couple more- were were close to having enough boom and jib on setting the top piece. We had to use a spreader bar on the last one, it had handrail on the top and that's the only way I could see to clear it as we were standing it up.
Also got to set the second little treehouse while we were there. It was just under 10,000 lbs. And set a goofy looking ridge beam/sign. If you thought the last one was crooked tradesman, it's got nothing on this one.
So my 70 ton crane has absolutely no storage on it. Not a rigging box, tool box, place for the hammer,crescent wrench, extra becket and wire's for the A2B, nothing. No place for water jug, lunch box or tag line. I stash the stuff in the upper and lower, and we haul the rigging with our extra wood and spreader bar on a gooseneck trailer that the rigger drives. We made some spots on the deck to tie down our minimum wood and mats, and now I'd like to add a box. I found a tunnel style box, built really heavy, from a straight truck. I had done some measuring, and decided to install it on the tag axle, and mount my oversize load sign to the back of the box, side doors, plenty of room for our misc. items and some rigging and shackles. Well- we built some risers for it, and because of how the tag axle raises up, it's way too high. It looks wrong, its too high and mounted too far back and sticks out like a sore thumb. Monday morning the welds are getting cut, and I'm figuring out something else. I think I'm going to move some air tanks around and cut the box in 1/2. Then I can mount that 1/2 in front of the fender, and have the top lid even with the deck, and a side door.
Looks fine to me right there, I would extend it out so it goes full width both sides to give you even more room for stuff.
Feeder at the quarry (one of my other operators sent me the picture- I was doing the unit), and a big makeup air unit for a 4 story motel. Feeder was around 10k, the air unit was just over 4k. 25 ton to set the feeder, I used the 70 ton at the unit (it was quite a ways away).
Setting some steel truss beams. 8,900lbs. each. 13' tall, 50' long. Had to unload them together off the semi (picked up , drove truck out from underneath)- he had fun getting in there also. That's a big powerline above the fence on the other side of the alley, and I had to stay as far as I could from them (I'm probably 20-25' from them in the first picture, but I couldn't lay the trusses down individually side by side). Wanted to lay the trusses down separate, but I had no where else to go with them. Really limited room to work on this jobsite.
Iron on the same building with the 70ton. Loaded a condo roof with shingles with my 35 ton.
Finished up the last of the beams (I think) with the 25 yesterday afternoon. We've been in and out of this house job 4 times, its a real steep hill out of there in the housing development- 1st gear the whole way.
Also just brought this home this afternoon, I posted looking at it earlier, and finally bought it. Ford f-450, 7.3 auto. Little crane (4,000lbs lift) and a tommy lift tailgate. Hoping to use it as a mechanic truck/ support truck. We pull a gooseneck trailer right now with my 70 ton truck with wood, rigging, and block and spreader bar. Going to try to combine all that into this truck, to save pulling a trailer everywhere. Has 256k miles on it, was a propane company truck. The small crane should help to put offset in my jib when I need to, we scaled out what the jib weighs mounted, when doing offset, and this should pick that. We'll probably remove some of the sideboards, and add a rack for spreader bar, block, and a fuel tank. Maybe one bigger box for the large cables. I would like to leave enough open space at the rear to load a manbasket, my pallet forks, or a tire for a roadside tire replacement.
The Ford f-450 will sure make a nice addition to the fleet crane op ! The auto crane & lift gate will get used for all sorts of tasks . Nice find !
Thanks for the great pics. Time to treat and repaint the upper surface of the 70 ton main boom next time its sitting for a day, probably already on your list.
Those are some great pictures. That's some nice clean looking carpentry, looks well thought out and tidy. I can be found standing on the top of a step ladder quite often as well, just hope you withhold the name and addresses to protect the innocent. I bet there's a big header over that window under the deck because that's quite a point load on it. Always love your pictures, I've just been doing simple truss jobs on square buildings lately, nothing picture worthy.
Finished up the steel second story addition today (sunday). Sunday work always messes up my week- I never can remember which day I'm on for the week after. The excavators are showing up tomorrow to pull a old manhole and grease trap for a further extension into where the crane is set up.
I've been waiting to see this again since you posted the pictures of your crooked tree house, on the other side is crooked windows and door. Pretty kool.
Cool shed- that would be a ba$^%$ to build.
This one was a little crowded. House service line that the power company wouldn't drop. Water tower, tree and chain link fence. Couldn't set outside the fence, they only have a 15' easement and it's someones lawn on each side. The building was just off the drivers corner of the front bumper, right beside the brick, white roofed, building, (on the other side of the crane in the picture). I removed the old 911 repeater shed, and replaced it with a precast concrete box. New box was just under 5k. I had to reach over the powerline to get the new building off the delivery semi truck, swing over the dead tree, then scope back in to swing between the cab and the water tower, then set it down right beside the front bumper. The power company covered the coated line, I was probably 20' over top of it, but I still don't like reaching over top of power lines, I wouldn't have done it with bare (uncoated)lines, even with the power company approval.
Loading up conexes (11 total), the customer loaded and tied everything down in them, we just put them on the chassis. This was the ride we took down a couple weeks ago. It's all headed to Columbia, South America. Customer wanted my 70 ton, I told him we could do it quicker and safer with 2 cranes, then you don't have to worry about them being loaded uneven. These were open top containers, and I didn't want to try to drag 40' of rigging down each side of the box, standard conexes you can just walk across the top and rig them. Heaviest one was 47,000 box and materials. They were headed to Kansas City, to the railroad, to east coast port to boat, South american port, then truck ride to new home. It was really nice- we had plenty of room to work in the parking lot.
Also got my new A2B cable installed on the rt. Came out right on the $ with the radius when we were done. (Wife's van shucked its alternator in the middle of the project- priority problem ) Also the easter bunny isn't bringing me eggs- I got a new (to me) MAC toolbox! When we got robbed last fall- the thieves messed up a couple drawers on my daily black box ( a home depot husky- held up great for 15 years), now every time I open the old box, and the drawers are messed up, I get mad again about being robbed. Found this one on craigslist- I could have bought a new craftsman or harbor freight box, for what I gave for this used mac one, but I'm hoping this one will be around a lot longer.
How are you possibly going to get that heavy tool box off the truck...? lol
Stop don't unload that box, run over to my house and I'll help you!
Yeah sure- I bet you'd even let me visit it once in a while wouldn't you? If you look at what's on the back of the truck- you'll know how my day went today. On the way to Springfield last week, I felt a vibration in the crane. I stopped and checked it out on the way, and found a worn hangar bearing. I went ahead and made it to the jobsite, we set the steel, then I had the hangar bearing replaced, and checked out the driveline. They said it had a slight bend, that they straightened? New hangar bearing, installed, and then my guys found a flat tire, when they put in the driveline. I sent two of the guys up there today, to change the tire, new tube and flap. I met them after looking at two jobs, and was going to bring the crane home. I got started home, and the vibration was worse than before. Out of gear or throttle and the vibration would go away, but as soon as I would put some power to it the vibration was bad, so I knew it was driveline and not a tire. No where to get off the road with it, so I limped it to my exit, pulled on the side of the road and gave it another once over. I thought maybe the next piece of driveline maybe was bent also, but we found a little 80/90 by the rear. I climbed under the back tandems, and the input bearing on the rear 3rd member is gone. I limped it another 3 miles to a parking lot I knew of by a gas station and sale barn. I'm not going to find a tow truck that want's 97k very bad, so I pulled axles, and dropped driveline to the rear member, locked the power divider in, and limped it home. It's always something I don't know what brand rear ends they are- its a 10' carrier (60,000lbs rears), and I don't think they are rockwell's. I'm thinking clark or something. Kind of nice with the full floating axles, you can pull the axles and put the cap back on. Hopefully we can find parts for the third member, I'm planning to get it up on jacks tomorrow and get it pulled.
If you're lucky it's just bearings and a seal, parts house items..... I've never been that lucky, but I hear it happens!
Sure No Problem!
Or it's like my old 65K double reduction rears and they get to use the word obsolete.... Hopefully bearings and seals. Axle cap looks Clark-ish to me. Fingers crossed.... Junkyard
No tags on the axle that I can find yet, just some #s on the casting. Some of the crane is us/sae (engine trans / detroit eaton) but the hydro is metric (hoses and seals) , air system 1/2 and 1/2. Front suspension is Reyco. The crane was actually built in Japan, with some things shipped from here (early outsourcing). I'm hoping the rears were from here.
Metric bolts in rear housing. Gear shop is looking for gear set- 6.43 ratio. Numbers only on casting, no manufacturer. NSK bearings, japan, my bearing guy is calling monday for confirmation that he can get them. No numbers on pinion seal, he can get a standard wheel seal type seal that I think will work. The ring gear has one bad chip in it, pinion is good. Case is good. The chip in the ring is probably 1" long, only 1/4" deep, middle of the tooth. If the ring is unobtainium, its getting new bearings and shoved back together.
Find a good machine shop, I've seen these type of gears welded up with modified stainless (Like Eutectic 680) and recut, you have to really hunt to see the repair. YMMV, not too many guys left out there that will do it.
I asked about welding it, gear shop said no- due to the heat treating process. I may have found a used gear set from a rockwell, I was wondering how far off the dimensions were, and maybe machining something available to fit my carrier? Would I still be into issues with heat treatment? I do know a good machine shop, I'll look into that on monday- thanks.
Good luck on your parts hunt. The 110 had a bad carrier bearing and grove says it's 20 days out. Ended up having a weld shop fix the bracket. Apparently metric drivetrain parts are hard to get your hands one. It sure can be frustrating.
Gear set so far unobtainium. Will have to build a adaptor to mount a oil seal because it is not available either, I think I can get a adaptor made to fit a standard oil seal. I think we're going to have to live with the chip in the ring gear. Speedy sleeve on the pinion to yoke adaptor to take care of the damage on it where the oil seal rides. Both good machine shops by me won't weld it, and didn't recommend it. I'm afraid if I stainless weld it, and it breaks off, it will take out a bunch more teeth, with that piece walking around. I thought about brazing, the piece: if/when it breaks off wouldn't do as much damage. It would ruin the heat treatment of that tooth.
If you want post up the seal numbers and hopefully dimensions, I have access to some of the asian suppliers... no promises of course.
I think it is a isuzu heavy axle. I'm coming up with a possible part # of 1-41210-274-0 for the ring and pinion set and a seal # of 1-09625-030-0. I've got a part breakdown in my terex book that gave me factory part #' and they seem to corespond to the isuzu system. There is no number at all on the seal, nothing. I'll get the dimensions tomorrow. My wife got some info from a Hamilton engine sales company in portland out in your neck of the woods. My nearest isuzu guy is not interested in helping. The lady from hamilton thought the seal would be 30-90 days min. maybe more. No luck with availability on the gear set.
This is the pdf I got from hamilton. The oil seal is #100, the gear set (#60) in this drawing has a different # than mine in my part book (last 4 digits only), I'm thinking that's because of a different ratio, maybe a whole different size differential. My breakdown drawing in my P&H book is a mirror image of this one and I have the same part # for the oil seal as this one has.
This is the drawing and the part #'s from my P&H (terex) book, and their part #'s. So far they haven't given me any info on availability.
Hamilton has always been gold for me over the years, haven't done much with them lately though. The seal should be 80x143x10x17, looks like an NOK AH7443-E0 two piece seal. Looking to see what's out there now. The number you have carries the notation 7X45 which is maybe pinion and ring tooth count? looks like your ring is in fact 45 teeth? The note on the right on the drawing from Hamilton suggests 6X37 a slightly different ratio. 21 spline on the pinion shaft?
7x45 is my pinion and tooth count. I will get a seal dimension this morning. The drawing from hamilton is for a different ratio, and my ratio and part # did not come up in their system as a available part. The pinion seal in it currently is not a two piece seal, but the pinion to yoke adaptor is not factory, they have adapted it to a wing style yoke to get standard u-joints, I had to do the same to the front driveshaft. Thanks.
Oy.... mods on mods, lovely, lol
I'd have that ring magnafluxed while it's out, just to sleep better at night.
That and spend some time with a die grinder to blend in the chipped out area to try to eliminate any stress risers.
Seal is 3.38" ID, 5.62" OD, 1.12" tall (steel), 1.14" tall at the rubber, 24 spline on pinion. I guess I see no reason to magnaflux the ring- there isn't a replacement available, I would just put in a new one if I could find one. I do plan to die grind the tooth a little, to smooth things out. Pics of seal that I'm probably just building a adaptor for. And the new style pinion input, that's been adapted for wing style u-joints, instead of the factory 4 bolt flat flange. Thanks guys, its amazing that this stuff is so much fun, and they pay us too.
I do get to run crane occasionally too- when I can keep them running. Manbasket work on some light poles we installed a year ago- there's some defect in them and 5-6 of them are not working already. Sounds like more work in the future. And another statue. Bronze indian. They used epoxy to the concrete and bolts sticking out the bottom of the statue. If he needs moved again, we're moving concrete and all.
I have found shipping very reasonable from England and Germany for small parts but I don't know how it would be from the Eastern Bloc, for something heavier.
Or two used complete Eaton , Rockwell , Meritor rears.......
Or just a single drive because it seems the rear rear is the only one with trouble. However a quick search seemed to indicate the heavier American ones are not available in the 6.43 ratio. But I am imagining these things are 65k and 10' wide which would make the used selection pretty limited, maybe Crane Op can clarify.
I've found a used whole old truck crane for about $7,500, its rears may be too light, and I have no idea on condition of the axles., Don't know the ratio, (probably low) but its from 1977, so they would need a whole rebuild. They aren't direct drive like mine- they are planetaries, which is most of what you see used. At least with the whole crane I would get rims (my rims are also unique), and a set of steer axles, which are also japanese (suspension isn't). And the axles are from 1977, even if they are rockwell, they may not have parts available. I'm getting my truck parts man to price new, which may scare me to death. But if I have to buy the old crane for 7,500, spend another 5,000 getting it home, another 5-7,000 revamping and installing, 25,000 for new axles isn't that far away. Yes, it is 10' wide probably 60,000 lb housings. I have searched the big salvage yards for used, but none around. I could live without the exact ratio I have now, but I would like to be close. I don't think single drive will work either- its how I got home, but one little dip and a wheel in gravel and you've got 97,000lbs stuck, or spinning, and that's a good way to destroy axle shafts that are also unavailable.
I meant you could find a single drive of the same ratio and just replace the one that is broken because as a rear rear, it is the same as a single drive right? Another crazy idea I had is to remove the interaxle differential from the front rear if that is even possible and somehow weld it so that it only drives on the front unless you throw the lock in so it is not loading that chipped tooth except once in a great while. This idea probably won't work for one reason or another. And require you to butcher the good axle. I did not like the idea of just throwing it back together, die grinder or not. That chip is just so big and wide and right in the middle that I fear the pinion gear will be taking a big dive into it every time it comes around.
I don't like the idea of throwing it back together either- long term. But its going back together today, I need it next week. I don't think you could find a different rear- rear with a close enough ratio to run them together. If I get axles, I'm replacing them both. I'm possibly sourcing a new ring and pinion through New Zealand. I think its already saturday morning there, so I'll probably wait till Sunday night to call him.
Right now it is 10am Saturday. And I've already been onsite for 3 hours and yet to install a single piece of structural steel.
Some of the older west coast off highway logging trucks used heavy wide axles, might be a source for used. http://hdtransaxle.com/ These guys are in that area and it looks like they deal with a lot of heavy axles. It may be tough to find a axle with comparable gearing, is there room in the drive line to add an aux trans or something to let you run a deeper gear?
Adelman's is another place I would ask around about differential parts & axils . Stores in Chicago & Canton Ohio . http://www.adelmans.com/differentials http://www.adelmans.com/cutoffs
I tried adleman's- he says he hasn't had any in several years. I figured west coast logging would be another likely source if I want to change out axles, so I'll check hdtransaxle out. I would love to switch to sae/ usa rockwell meritor etc, but don't really want the downtime to change everything over. I've got plenty of length in the driveline to add a aux- I just have a huge outrigger box in the way. That and linkage is a little different than in a road tractor, because of the cab placement, but I could use airshift. I don't have any problems that time and money can't solve, but my lack of money and time causes me problems . Thanks for the help guys- in other news, I came up with a factory pinion seal, and it fits the housing perfectly, but it won't go onto the non oem yoke. I have 2 choices, make a adaptor to fit a seal (right size for the yoke), to the housing. Or turn the yoke down to fit my seal (that fits the housing), that I only have 2 of, and probably can't get more (P&H old stock that I came up with). I think if I have to do machine work anyways, I'm making a adaptor for a seal I can get, and that way if I get a ring and pinion set in a month (or whenever) I can re seal it with locally sourced parts. Oh and kiwi------ that's the best way to make $$$.
It is, but the view kinda sucks though
Crane Op , be interesting to see what it would cost to have a new gear set made ? Might ask around & e-mail pictures to some gear companies just to find out ? http://www.rushgears.com/gear-types/spiral-bevel
thank's td- I had seen their site, $1000 minimum set up charge, so $2000 min set up, for ring and pinion, and they say industrial use only, so I'm assuming not transportation. Still working on the new zealand angle, and am hopeful that I can source one there. Quarry work, cone crusher, moved in from up north of Kansas City. A little closer than I like to the power lines, but I was always 15'. Crusher itself was 35,000, the frame was 23,000. Also stood a couple conveyors on undercarriages, used their excavator to handle the bottom end.
I would say you are industrial use, you are in the crane industry. Not transportation, you are not a trucking company. Close enough. They are just trying to cover liability. I would try my best to get the genuine article from Latvia or NZ or wherever rather than have one made. You know that the genuine part was the result of mass production and mass real world testing by the manufacturer. A custom part might have one small defect that the engineer didn't think of that causes the whole thing to fail again in some unexpected way. But if they are a custom gear shop, the chances of that actually happening should be low, since they should know what they are doing.
My thinking is making gears aint anything new . With smaller shops gaining access to CNC machines . What used to be a dealer item is now something a small shop can crank out as needed . http://www.mooregear.com/contact.html Moore Gear is in Hermann , Mo . Wonder if member DMiller knows anything about them ? Some shop could build that gear set ? Just a matter of finding them . Good luck on the search & repair Crane OP .
I would give Coast Power train a call here in BC Canada they do rear end for off highway logging trucks. Ph 1-604-517-1100 fax 1-604-520-6003 Larry McNutt may be the man that would know. With the exchange on the dollar your saving 35% [email protected] hope this helps.
And 3 D printers are making inroads big time. Hard to believe, but I just read a article about how Boeing and Airbus are PRINTING complex parts, lighter, stronger, and with much less setup time (and less material waste)then "old fashioned" CNC working with a solid billet. Still pricey but dropping fast technology, it's even getting down to the homebuilt airplane crowd. This new tech could give new life to older machines, the guys who rebuild antique planes for instance. Old cranes too.
What about a places like this these repairs gear teeth. http://ersgearbox.com/gearsrepair/ http://www.uwp.ca/gear-repair-maintenance.html http://www.metalsurgery.com/gear_repair/
Markforged.com The company video is worth a watch, amazing what they are already doing.
Looks like that ERS one in Houston is not reputable.
Where are you based? My wife is from Van Buren.
Sorry, I missed that lumberjack- I live in the tourist trap south of springfield. Real pretty country, but lately it won't stop raining. 70 ton got shoved back together, haven't got a ring gear ordered yet, guy in New Zealand has one, by part #, but I want to send out measurements before I order from him. 4-6" rain here yesterday, and we've been real wet, flooded road near the shop, and about everywhere else low lying. Back at the crowded jobsite last week. Oh= and we need to pour in the little access hole in the wall, while your swinging steel. No need to worry about the counterweight hitting the concrete pump, I can't swing that way because of the power lines .
Oh - also they dug in some of the new footers and rebar stubs.
Poor 16 year old neighbor girl just got this VW as a birthday present from a aunt- 5 days in the yard! She actually isn't even 16 yet, her birthday is in a month or two, so she never even got to drive it yet. They want to rebuild the car for sentimental reasons, so brought us in to lift the tree off the car while they cut it away. The next one was just some units with the 35, a little crooked, had to tetertotter to get set up.
Spent all day today (sunday ) setting beam clamps and chain falls. Setting a Nascar car above/ inside a stairwell. Finally got it where they wanted it on the third time up. The stairwell is a open atrium above the car another 60' straight up. Stairs running down under one side of the car. Did the front end with the little warehouse forklift. Front windshield ended up about a inch off the header (just room to install trim).
more pics
Lot of truck for not much load, but its the only thing I can get my little forklift on and off of. I tried to fill the propane tank on the forklift before we left, but it didn't want to fill, so we just went. One of my guys left it idling while we were moving our gang/rigging boxes into the building, I told him to shut the forklift off when we weren't moving it, because I didn't think it had much fuel left. We installed the car in the building, (8- 5pm wasn't easy) then went outside, loaded the gang boxes and were backed up to the trailer to go home, and the forklift ran out of fuel. I winched it on, then fueled the tank when I got back to the shop. It took propane fine once the tank was empty. Guardian angels.
A lot of the time when I work for the Mennonites they are working all around me, big generator running, a guy on a man lift with the engine roaring, a skid steer moving dirt and quite often a zoom boom putting material on the roof reaching under my boom. It makes it hard to hear my own rig sometimes.
Holy crap I guess that's the fine art of drifting a load. That's amazing work, my hats off to you and your crew.
Good lord that's some impressive rigging moving that car.
Impressive alright. Does that belong to a driver / team owner or a die hard fan?
Car is in a sponsor's building. Set some steel today for a pool building at a resort. Took the rt to get up in the set up spot, main beams were too large for the ironworker's boom truck. Table Rock Dam is less than a mile from my house, they are currently releasing 64,000 cfs. If you look close in the pictures, you can see water splashing over the top of the spillway gates. The wind was hard out of the west, toward the dam, and waves are splashing water over the top of the gates because the lake level above is so high. Flood pool max capacity is 931 feet. Today hit almost 935, which will run over the top of the gates. Typical level is around 915.
Dad bragging moment. My oldest daughter is a senior in high school. A week ago we got invited up to Jefferson City, she got selected as one of the top 100 scholars in Missouri. Looks like she's also going to be going to 4 years at Missouri U in columbia, with a full scholarship (room, board, and book allowance even). She'll need it- she wants to be a doctor, and that's a lot of school. This past weekend wasn't her best though- Sunday morning I had to work, and she and her brother took her pickup to church. On the way home, a old man with a trailer pulled out in front of her, she hit his trailer. Thank goodness for old steel trucks, she and her brother are fine. A couple hours sunday night with the crane outrigger as a press, and some tweaking with the forklift and a chain, and she drove it to school today. If she drove one of those new plastic creations, it would have taken a roll back to leave the site.
Not quite good as new- but close enough.
New piece of equipment in the inventory. Its a pro lift hvac cart, for rolling units across a flat roof. A customer of mine has one of these, and a couple years ago, brought it to a job. We didn't end up using it, because I could reach the HVAC unit with the crane, but I had a job come up that had units 140- 160' away on a flat roof. I've got a homemade scaffold and come a long contraption, but its only good for about 5-800lbs, these were going to be 1,400lbs. I called that customer, asked him how he liked his, and he gave it a glowing recommendation. He said after his last $10,000 crane bill for a 210ton crane, he was doing something different, and bought one. I decided to take a chance and ordered one. After this job, I would also recommend it, although it's a little pricey. It was $5,000 delivered to me, I think I would be a lot happier at around $2,500, but I think you're paying for a lot of liability insurance, not equipment. Its rated at 1,500lbs. battery powered, and works really slick. There's a flat z plate you screw on each side of the unit, then pick the unit up with the end frames. The top bar is adjustable for the height of the unit, the screw jack lifts it by the bottom z plate. We set 12 units on empty curbs in around 2-3 hours, and moved the crane once because of a parapet wall. The only worry is if you had a weak roof, you may want to put plywood down. I put plywood down just where we landed the units too switch them to the cart, but I think you could do it without on a good roof. The job I took the pictures on, one of the lead guys told me "I've been dreading putting these units up for a month, we've had to carry and drag too many units on pipes, carts, etc. This was easy." I'm still trying to figure out how to bill for it, I'm thinking a set rate of around $250-300 for the cart, plus the crane charge. I've got to send a extra man with it, in a pickup. If a guy had a boom truck with a deck, you could haul it pretty easy, I hauled it upright in a old manbasket in the back of a pickup. I did make a couple flat strap picking eyes for the top of them (red brackets)- why they make something to use on a roof, with no picking eyes on it, is beyond me. http://pro-lift.com/
Boy, that really makes me nervous thinking about rolling that thing all over a flat roof looking for the weak spot. At least when you use the crane only, you are only testing one spot and it is presumably a spot already designed for the unit.
Don't be such a pessimist Birken (I'm a little concerned about roof liability also). Remember the roofs are all designed with a snow load factor. In fact, the weight of the unit is spread over 4 wheels, mostly on the two big wide ones, it's not much more than 4 big old boys standing around, and no one thinks twice about that.
$300 seems way too low. Especially if yous sending an extra guy and truck. I know the theory is if they know you have it they will use you more but the guy, truck, and pro-lift cost you way more than $300 plus now you have another piece of equipment to store
Who's too lazy to put in jib? I am, I am, I am......
Congrats on your daughter's accomplishments. I'm in the same boat, oldest daughter graduates this year and most likely will go to TU. I feel your pains and share your sentiments Junkyard
Condo Project. I don't know why they laid these down- some of my contractors like to do that, but these trusses are like 65', and there's a I beam 2' tall in the middle. I had the rt there for 9 1/2 hours, just to lay them down. I have crews that I work with that could have set them in less time than that. (with a few more carpenters) These guys now are just getting started. They were flying them 3 or 4 at a time when I was there. I guess they spent a lot of time sorting according to my operator, very few commons in the building. The rt is really nice on projects like this, it has enough chart and line pull, to move bundles of trusses around and flip them ( the next truss you need is always on the bottom of the stack). It can also fly 3-4 at a time on the roof together (which my 25's won't do at a radius like this job). It takes up less room on the jobsite, 360 chart, and moves around the site a little faster (compared to my tms 300). It's worth it to haul it in for a job like this, but you can't really justify it for a house truss job.
Just a note- the new HVAC cart went to it's second job today (in its first week), worked fine. It will probably set in the shop for 6 months now and never move.
Always makes me scratch my head when you spend 12 hrs laying trusses down on a roof. Kinda surprised to see those buildings are all steel construction. You don't hardly see that around here.
I like that HVAC cart, as an HVAC guy it's always a bit nerve racking when you have to replace a unit and you know it's a ways in from the roof edge or there is a reason that the boom truck can't get that close to the building. One of our wholesalers bought a couple boom trucks so we use them and they do offer what they call a moon buggy to move units across a roof but I don't believe it has any lifting devices built in, basically just a cart with big tires. A couple hundred bucks extra for use of the lifting cart seem about right, we only pay 200$ for most lifts now but double that would be fine if kept us from needing a larger crane.
For those of you hoping to see my rigging of the car in a stairwell in real life- you're going to have to settle for my pictures of it. The powers-that-be didn't like how it looked- we brought it back to the floor yesterday.
The "condo" project is actually a resort- hence nightly rental. I think the fire codes might be different for that verses monthly rentals or apartments- hence the steel and pan deck. This building actually burned a couple months ago. It wasn't open yet, but they were all closed in, finishing interiors. Roof fire, burned all the wood in the structure. No cause that I have heard, would guess wiring or hvac troubles. Fire started up top, and burned all the wood in the structure, up and down the siding. A new general contractor came in, they gutted the building back down to steel, and are now putting a roof on for the second time. I'm suprised they didn't tear it to the ground, it was burnt all up and down the siding, and a real mess. If it was me writing checks, I would feel like I paid for a new building, that's what I want, not something that burnt and was rebuilt. I'm sure the insurance companies and their lawyers are all fighting it out.
Didn't like the concrete chimney cap, so we removed it and replaced with 2 stone slabs. The old concrete cap was 3,200. The stone slabs were 3,200 and 3,800lbs.
3 units at a camp nearby. I actually set up once, and was too close to the overhang of the one building, my jib (stowed) wouldn't clear it. Had to drive ahead 6' and give it another go.
They built some new storage buildings, out of conexes. Saves them having to pour concrete and build a building. Plus I don't think they need a permit, because its not a permanent structure. They dropped them down at the bottom of the hill, we had to load them up individually and set them on gravel pads. Weighed 12,500lbs, 40' conexes. Hvac unit at a resturant with the 25. Some full boom, jib and stinger work with the rt.
All loaded up and ready for another job. I had to buy some more orange flags, the one project we've been and out of a couple times, I have to get kind of close to the trees as I'm leaving, I've broke 2 flags coming out of there. I need to start putting them on after I get through the entrance.
Graduation is tomorrow night, I've gotten the word all week long from my wife- "you are not working late friday!" Congrats to your daughter too.
What I spent my Saturday doing: New cell tower top. Old head comes off, new one went up in pieces. They will do the antenna after I'm gone. 150' tower- I'm running 188' boom.
Left the shop at 7, got back at 4:30, tough moving things 2" - 180' away from yourself. Also- the tower guys must have each had a bottle with them, or iron bladders. They went up at 9:00 when I got there, we left the site at 3:30 and they were still up there working....
Yeah, and they also don't make that much money! My hat is off to those guys, they sure earn their pay. I had some cell guys in the man basket at 146' once, and was told to swing west 4", which I can do, and did, in the National with it's control system. In my earlier Manitex, besides not being able to reach that high, it would have been "OK, but I may go past and have to come back, hang on." Great pics!
What's the reason they don't assemble on a the ground and lift in one piece?
This is a new style stand, the old ones you were able to do that way, but some engineer redesigned the platforms, so now it's piece by piece. The tower boys were not happy campers with the new style stand. I bet it took them almost 2 hours to get the new style collar (that attaches to the pole) , installed and level and tight. The man that designed the new platforms, for sure has never been hanging on a pole trying to install it. The old ones you could pop off the old one (like we did this one), have the new one built on the ground, and fly it on. 2-3 hours and you were out of there. These are a all day deal.
They call that progress. Not bad though if your making payments on a crane. Still make a long day though.
Good grief- its only tuesday and I feel like I've done a weeks worth of work already. Set the 70 ton up monday morning, at the big steel building, they're going to put the roof trusses up on the penthouse and finish out the pool. Put in 60' of jib, offset and full main boom, I think my operator can reach it all, we may have to move the crane once to reach the last of it. Then I hopped in the 25, went and flew some windows and big doors to the other side of a house, its got a nasty driveway. We set steel for the backside porch/deck, then trusses, this should be the last trip out there.
While I was out setting the windows and doors, got the call that they were ready to reinstall the race car. New platform, but couldn't get the forklift out on the floor on this side of the stairway, its only pan deck below and not rated for my forklift. So we went back to the shop, got some jacks and blocks and skates, and installed it "egyptian" style. Got done about 8 monday night.
Tuesday morning got to set 3 mausoleums at a local cemetary, I've been waiting for it to dry up to set these. They set up on a flat ridge, (doesn't drain) and its been raining here a lot, but there's more rain in the forcast so we set them this morning. Used my 25 ton, they're about 12-12,500lbs, granite. I was suppose to take the 35 to set a couple units after, but it's got air compressor issues (I think its the unloader valves hanging up), no air- no brakes. I instead went out and finished some trusses up with the rt. The wind was whistling right along about 20 this afternoon, with some heavier gusts, but we got them up.
A view from the top of the condo building. I went up to rig their scissor lift, to set it down one floor. English isn't their first language, and I don't mind with trusses on the ground to the roof, but picking the lift in the blind and dropping it down a floor, I wanted it rigged right. I took some pictures while I was up there. Had to move around to the other side to set the last truss, couldn't quite reach it from the other side.
Nice view from that side.
Wind was really moving when I set the last truss on the other side. Had my cable doing that nice sway- side to side on the back of the boom, rocking the whole crane. The two middle pictures are taken one after the other, without moving the crane. Second picture is far left of the sway, third is about middle of the sway. I suppose if I had that new fangled synthetic, it wouldn't have enough weight to rock the crane?
Busy yet again today. Grease trap first thing at a new steakhouse. 21,000, basically a concrete box and lid. Excavator was a little hard on their new concrete block wall when they dug the pit. They weren't real happy with me either when I made them backfill a hole where the right rear outrigger is, so I could be close enough to set it. When I explained it was fill in the hole or no grease trap set, they came around to my way of thinking.
Got to go clear to the other side of the county to set some concrete culverts for the road and bridge dept. It's a two hour drive with the lowboy from my shop, curvy twisty steep drive, probably only 30 40 miles. Culverts are under 20k. They usually get them delivered, then I load there little trucks, so they can back each culvert up to the crane to set them.
Dropped the trailer about 2 miles from the job (only place to turn around). Roaded the rt down there, then turned the truck and trailer around empty, and loaded up and 2 hours back home. Took some branches out of the trees when I set them. We use the dozer in the creek to shove the boxes tight together.
Little just in case purchase. 6v92 for my 70 ton, out of a fire truck. I don't really need it, but they are getting kind of hard to find, and this one is a running motor, that if I have issues in mine, I can just swap out. It had a allison behind it, I'll probably try to find someone that wants that. Also - I saw a little oil inside a drum on the trailer, when I stopped on the way out to the rt job. I took the 80/90 with me today for coming home, I filled it, and it splattered most of it out on the way home. So tomorrow it comes apart.
We were in a rush on the race car move the first time. I went to harbor freight on saturday, and picked up a set of tire dollies so we could roll the car around. I always regret every purchase I make at harbor freight, but at 3:00 saturday afternoon (for a sunday job), my options were limited. We left the car on the dollies inbetween the second and third installation, and I think they rolled the car in circles for a while in the building. When we went to install the third time, the bolts on the casters had stripped out, and the casters wouldn't turn with weight on them, they would flex in the base and hit the v where the tire hits. They also hit on the carry handle with weight on them. We welded the studs of the casters to the plate to finish the install, and I took them back to harbor freight. Someone was going to get hurt with them, and we were only moving a car with no engine. I found a guy with some USA made ones, and bought them to replace them ( for the next time I set a race car in a building- or move this one again )
Before I had my boom truck I saw I guy set off a columbarium in a cemetery, there wasn't any hitching points so he slung under the granite and set it down on sheets of ice, pulled the slings and waited for the ice to melt. That process wouldn't work too well around hear in the winter, but it sure worked slick on a sunny summer day.
I've actually stopped at a gas station on the way to a job, and bought four bags of ice to do what you're describing. Didn't know until the last minute about the job, no time to freeze blocks. The bags didn't work to bad either, they actually melt faster. I will usually just freeze blocks at home in the freezer before I go if I need them, some of the granite structures don't come with any lifting points, then we use ice.
Had a little truss job saturday morning. Arrived and found out it was my daughters spanish teacher and her husband building a garage for their house. He's a math teacher. Neither one are carpenters. I set the first couple trusses (they had a uncle helping who is a framer) and it looked like they had a pile of movement in the back wall. I hopped out of the cab for a look, and discovered all the bracing was installed with one nail in the top, and one in the bottom. I borrowed a hammer, and a handful of nails and locked the bracing up a little better. Glad no one had a camera- tradesman would never let me forget it.
This is from a job we did last spring. Conexes, airplanes and a water tank, all installed in a amusement building here in town. Not much room to work.
crane op. said: I borrowed a hammer, and a handful of nails and locked the bracing up a little better. Glad no one had a camera- tradesman would never let me forget it.
Me and my big mouth. Had to use the old dynamic duo this morning. 25 ton and the winch truck, Jim brought out the 1 ton dodge flatbed pickup too. Where we installed the chiller tower, the 18 wheeler delivery truck had no chance of making the 2 corners to get in there. Offloaded the top of the tower onto the winch truck (5,200lbs) and set the base (2,100lbs) on the dodge. One corner getting in to the jobsite is a switchback, both the 25 and the winch truck needed a back up and another shot to turn the corner, it's that tight, it was also downhill at about a 18% grade, so 1st gear only, and it was a little tough getting the 25 to back up the hill 1/2 way around the corner, but we made it. I didn't have the pine tree in the way when leaving, so that made getting back out a little easier.
Also got to go weigh a big wooden boat this morning. It's inside in a display, I took two of my wireless scales and blocked one side of the boat, and used two forklifts and rigging to pick up the other side. The engineer's wanted a accurate weight to design a stand for it. I got a weight of the one side of the boat, and told them to double it, I hope one side of the boat isn't way heavier than the other with cabinets or something, but I think we can get close with what I gave them. They should have just asked me- I guessed 20,000lbs, and the scales came out at 16,000, so I didn't feel too bad. I always find it helps to guess weights on things before I pick them up, every time I think you improve your eye for what stuff is going to weigh, and I still get suprised sometimes by what things weigh.
Becket gremlin's strike again, this one's on a auction up in south Dakota. I know the owner before the current owner/seller. He's got a nice terminator becket, and it's installed right, he just didn't put the clamp in, instead installed the clamp on the cable, not using the hole for it on the becket. I looked at the crane probably 6-7 years ago, the tires on the dolly were shot then. They drove it from here in southern missouri to South Dakota 6-7 years ago, and it's still got the same tires on the dolly, and they're still shot. I have no idea how they lasted to South Dakota.
You know....if a man didn't know a darn thing about a becket common sense pretty much tells you how to assemble one. Take a step back, think about the forces involved and how it's supposed to work. Then again common sense ain't so common. I heard a long time ago, common sense isn't a gift, it's a punishment because you have to deal with all the people that don't have it! Not long ago we had a crane inspected. Inspector told me becket was wrong. I politely disagreed and showed him the chart for reference as to how that particular one was supposed to be. He said I don't care I want it my way. I smiled, changed it. After he stuck the sticker on and left I put it back right. I don't get it. I bet those old 10.00's have another 7 years in them that's just a wear indicator so you know you haven't curbed all the sidewall off!
I really don't think those tires look any different than the last time I saw them. I was looking at buying it back then, and had decided that it wouldn't leave the yard it was on, until it had new rubber. Shows what I know, they actually had 5 years more life in them. You may be right that they've got 7 more, but I'd still not take it down the road with what's on it. I don't think I need to worry about it anyway- it sold today for $48,400, which isn't bad for a 60 ton with 125' main boom (not live power- it's remote power-pin). When it sold back then (found the old listing-10/25/2012) it brought $86,900. That's actually a pretty good crane for under 50k. It would be woefully under powered, (6-71T with 90,000lbs) and the 10' wide carrier isn't real handy, but 60 ton is 60 ton. Nothing picks like a old grove-or is as smooth. It wouldn't be a great everyday crane- but I bet it did some work moving drilling rigs up there if he was in oil territory. Be a great 2nd crane for a one man outfit looking to grow. At under 50k, it wouldn't take much work to pay for it. Hours haven't changed at all since then - remember never trust a hour meter. Miles have only gone up 140 miles- so you know its not working either. https://www.purplewave.com/auction/170523A/item/K3889 https://www.purplewave.com/auction/121025/item/F4578
Not too bad. I used to work for a company that had several older groves, 80 ton on 4 axle carriers. Simple and solid old machines. Cummins up and down. You could operate by your *** 90% of the time because you were well within the structural area of the chart. It might rock up off an outrigger but there was little worry of the boom folding like a pop can!
That jimmy may not be able to pull the crane fast enough to build any heat in the tires. Looks like a decent crane. Like you say tho, 10 wide and those old groves were heavy girls. Decent amount of boom on board. 125' main with 58' Swingaway? There was one of those for sale in Cincinnati awhile ago. That one had the Cummins. That same company had a Tms250b for sale that had a 5.9 Cummins according to the ad. Seemed like that would be a little doggy. I always wondered if it was just a typo and it actually had the 8.3.
Yes on the 125' remote power pin boom and swingaway with tele jib. Old boss in iowa had a tms250 with a 5.9, it was a little doggy. I guess at one time grove had a "factory" repower kit for the 5.9 for the 250's.
I've heard people talking about a kit to put 5.9's in their rt's but never heard of one for the truck cranes. I guess the 5.9 wouldn't have been that far from a 6v53 power wise.
Tree job from this past week- it was mostly laying on the house, root ball had rotted out. Kind of tight for the bucket truck and the crane, but we made it work, they did have a nice view from their back yard.
This was another tree job, they had already laid this tree down, it was just surrounded by buildings and fence and power lines, so there was no way to remove the big stuff. Had just enough room for the 35 ton, about 22' between the fence and the building. Most of the tree was 70-75' over there, the main big trunk piece was right around 5,000lbs, I had to kind of skip it closer to me to pick it up. He had a pretty good load in his single axle topkick, he was taking it to a sawmill, said it was a pecan tree. They will probably use the wood to make camp furniture, (the tree was in a summer camp). We've had a lot of wind and rain here this spring and it's taken down quite a few trees in our area.
This is for khansen- so he doesn't forget what work looks like. I left the shop at 2:00, had to set a breaker on top of the jaw crusher we set a couple weeks ago. They were crushing from the other crusher, and everything was running when I showed up. I had to set in the middle of all the action, and had a cloud of limestone surrounding me so I could barely see. When the layer of dust got the top window about covered, so I couldn't see, it started to rain, smearing all the dust around, and making the deck of the crane like finely ground snot. It was finally raining a good full downpour, when I had to tear down to head home, good times....
Got a job in on Friday, had 10 new units to set and 4 old units to set down for demo. Left the shop at 6:30,on jobsite at 8:00, they informed me that they quit at 11:30 on holiday weekend, plus I had travel restriction starting at 12:00 (no oversize/weight loads on holiday weekends), so we had the hustle on. 3 setups and tear downs, used my new little cart for 6 of the new units, they were way across the roof- you can see them setting it on the far left in the first picture. We got done by 11:00 and didn't even have to sneak back home after travel restriction started.
We had a wedding of a nephew on saturday, so were out of town, one of my guys sent me this picture. We had 5 inches of rain in a short amount of time saturday night, and it was kind of hard on the shop road again. The water comes across the road and eats away the back side, this was all fixed about 2 years ago when the same thing happened. Unfortunately a couple people drowned on another crossing that same night, car got swept away. People think they can drive through anything and last time my road flooded, someone got swept out in the pasture- if they had been in the creek bed they would have drown too.
Heck just this friday I stopped at quarry to donate some used motoroil to the shop heating fund and a small pile of scrap metal to the scrap dumpster. I did stop in the front office to chat with the ladies there! The boss an a few guys were out working on one of the crushers so I stayed clear of that!
Why bridle the logs? Granted my perspective is different with a smaller knuckle boom and being a tree guy, but I usually prefer a single choker when possible. If we are making a larger vertical pick we'll use two chokers set 180* apart.
The logs were laying flat on the ground where they dropped the tree and they were going to be laying flat in the truck. Start out flat and keep them flat that way, its always hard to stack them nice in the truck when they're hanging from a single choker/ i.e. set the but down and then flop them over, with the crane I'm 100' away from the log with the boom head, so you don't have near the control when laying down the log that you do with the knuckle boom. In the other tree job with the bucket truck, I'm just single choking them, because we were dropping it with the bucket truck. Then I'll just set the butt in the truck and flop it over.
We will ~balance pick logs from the ground with a single choker if it's benefitical. Certainly nothing wrong with it, just curious.
No problem, in the blind, with guys who aren't used to rigging things, rarely work with a crane, its easier for me to just send them two chokers and know I have it, then I don't have to worry about them rigging it correctly.
Ah, two more differences... I run my crane by remote almost exclusively (rarely blind), and everyone has headsets for open communication.
More roofing materials at the condo building. Pallets of shingles with the pallet fork.
Building for a new attraction in town. This is the goofiest roof, and the installers don't check any measurements, just going off the plans. I've been at this site 3 days now. 1/2 of it was already up with a forklift, and I've helped them dismantle 3/4 of the welded pieces, because they were all in the wrong place. I'm hoping to get the last of the big stuff up tomorrow. I shouldn't care that's its been installed wrong, but its frustrating, to spend all day and not get anything done.
They welded up the columns with the "wings" on them, nobody double checked the orientation, so they mostly came back down. It's a crowded site with the road and cable lines, and they are a pain to stand up and lay down.
Do the plans say "insert tab A into slot B"?
hvy 1ton, That is suppose to be tab "A" into slot "A"! Have you never bought any of that assemble it yourself furniture? "B" are the bolts!
I hear ya man! I was setting trusses on a 40 x 80 shed this morning for home owners and man it was slow first two trusses were 3/4 of an hour. It was eating me up, then I thought " beautiful day out I'm making good money doing next to nothing" and it's Saturday I have nothing else to do. So I just leaned back in my seat turned the radio on and enjoyed the day. Before I had the boom in the cradle the owner jump up on the deck and handed me a handful of cash and thanked me for all my patience. I think they call that a win win.
Neither one of you probably ever assembled a barbie house on christmas morning correctly, have you? Speaking of plans- had to install a new dining room light, I cut open the box pull out the parts, and start putting the light together. Wife stomps in (she's already on edge because I'm doing a house project- I never do house projects), digs out the instructions and wants to know why I'm not following them. I'm thinking " YOU didn't come with any instruction booklet or a parts list" but I kept my mouth shut. Instead the project went south, due to my 16 year old son. I started in the room by myself, shut the old light fixture off, unwired and removed it. My son was in the other room, where I laid the unwired, old light fixture. He asked what I was doing, I told him, and went back to work. He- two minutes later- walked into the room, and flipped the light switch up and down. Multiple times in a split moment. I proceed to loose my normal calm demeanor "WHAT are you doing, I turned the light off so I could unwire it- You saw me bring the old light into the other room, and ASKED what I was doing. Now I've got a set of bare wires hanging from the ceiling, no idea whether they are hot or not now. WHART IN BLUE BLAZES WAS YOU THINKING BOY....." Wife proceeds to tee up on me "you didn't shut the breaker off? Why didn't you shut the breaker off? it says in the instructions to shut the breaker off. It's not his fault you didn't follow the directions. Don't be mad at him, you were cutting corners"....etc, etc. Down to the shop- find a working tester- determine which breaker is controlling the dining room lights- of course its the last breaker, so I get to also reset every clock in the house. The whole time grumbling to myself that if everyone would stay out of the room I'm working in, I would have been done by now. Have I told you guys how much my wife likes me doing projects around the house?
I also finished up that building this morning, that's right- sunday morning. This every weekend working is getting old, but it makes the banker happy. They've got a bunch of little iron to weld in yet, but they're done with me. I'll go pick the crane up tomorrow morning when there's no traffic.
Crane Op ... That's a crazy roof line. Looks like the two lower roofs will direct the rain into the center. Must have a huge rain water system planned... or a hydro electric plant some where.
Sounds like some of my home improvement....spent half the day putting knobs and pulls on the kitchen cabinets. Still have bathroom and laundry room. It's funny to watch somebody that doesn't read a tape measure very often try to subtract or take half of a fraction......good thing she marked in pencil
Me and my wife do not work together on home projects. Either she does it or I do it. Putting IKEA furniture together dang near caused a divorce before we even got married.
Anytime I have to assemle anything that comes "flat in a box", it either gets moved to the shop or everyone leaves the property....... Two years ago it was the granddaughters doll house.......that sucker took a 30 pack over 2 late nights... Ed
I despise the holidays for that reason. With two boys under 8 years old we get lots of stuff "some assembly required" and the mrs seems to wait until Xmas eve to spring that on me......
Dining room light fixture looks great Crane Op ! I did a couple of ceiling fans over the weekend . First thing is gorilla tape over the switch covers so when the rug rats come in the room & try flip on the juice while the old man is stripping the new wire connections Then the wife comes in with the instructions while I'm working ........... At this point I remind her that Women got liberated back in the early 1970's . Now that we are all equal I can continue the installation or she could take over & I will move on to another project . She stomped out of the room & I finished the fan install . LOL!
Trusses the last two days. One is a indoor pool building. The other one's just a house. And for those of us in the know- yes- the sun was right in my eyes both days.
This is the house job, First two were two ply girder's way on the back side where I couldn't see them.
Of course there wasn't much room to set up in, or put jib in, but we got it done. These are the framers that like to put they're plywood up on the walls.
Dump truck driver that wasn't having the best day. He was unloading rock at the steel job I was on all weekend. Unloading on a sidehill with those big trucks isn't very fun. Driver was ok. Last two pictures are from a car dealership that had some cars get washed down the creek with a flash flood last week. We had 5 inches in about a hour, it flooded several resturants on this creek, and washed out my road. They had to take a backhoe down the creek to drag these two cars back up. One I think was a suburban, the other a dodge truck. Wasn't much left of either.
This little mountain coaster ride is on the same creek, the trees being washed down the creek hit it pretty hard and took down the bases and all. I don't think they're footers were nearly deep, or big enough for being in the creek bed. But I'm not the engineer. They at least could have dug down to rock and anchored to that.
ALL the water from that whole roof will end up in the lowest tier, funneled to the center of the building. They better have some big gutters, or everyone standing in there in a rain, is going to get soaked. Engineers and architects . I'm sure it looks great on paper...
Why did the dump truck go over? It's on level blacktop.
You know that is almost what the company engineer told my brother back when he worked at the quarry in 1967! I believe my brother was somewhat complaining about all the shoveling he had to do under parts of the then new portable plant at the then new quarry. When the engineer took him to task for what he said brother was told that it was a "spillage free plant". Brother then said "Why am I doing so much shoveling?" Engineer replied, "Well it worked on paper!" Fifty years later and a second "new plant" and there are still piles of stone all over the place, at least now they have two or three skid-steers to do some of the work!
Pictures are kind of goofy when you're trying to see slope. You can see the hotel in the background, and a foundation in the other picture, and that gives you a little idea of the slope. It's actually not flat at all. It's steep enough, that you go to the lower lot and turn around to come back out of there. You'd have a tough time loaded, to get started, where he's sitting at, its that steep. It helps to see how steep it is, if you turn your monitor until the hotel is level .
Those dump trailers can be tricky. We had one that fell over out in the quarry when being tested after being hooked to a truck. Ground was solid bed rock and flat as you could see by eye. This trailer I believe was a little rusty on the inside and the crusher run might have been a bit on the damp side and probably a little off center. Seems like around here the majority of the trailers I see these days are those with the built in conveyor systems to dump load. A bit better for use when paving as less chance of taking down overhead wires while dumping in to paver!
I don't think that's a truck trailer combo
Right down on the creek this week. Was beautiful, fixing a old crossing with new culverts. They made me a little pad for me to set the crane on. We transfered the sections from the trailers to the counties little trucks to get down to the site.
Spent a little $ today, bought 2 loads of rock for the side driveway, all the rain this spring washed a lot of the old away. Also bought some tires for a few pieces of equipment. 2- 385 floats for a 25 ton, a couple drives for the western star, and 8 drives for the winch truck. I buy regrooves from a carcass tire buyer. He picks out pretty good ones for me, and the old winch truck doesn't see enough miles to buy new tires, but the old ones are really weatherchecked. But when I need it, it usually gets loaded up, and I don't want a blowout. I can buy the regrooves under $90/ tire. We see so much shot rock and rebar etc on jobsites that we ruin more tires than we wear out. I haven't had good luck recently with recaps, and I have had pretty good luck with these regrooves.
I was looking at the second picture, now that I went back and see the front one I see it is not a trailer. Does look kind of long what with the three lift axles between the cab and the drivers. Around here seems like I only see one lift axle in that area.
Missouri is real tight on axle weights, we see a lot of lift axles here. 2 and 3 lift axles is not unusual.
big fingers didn't mean to post but now I have to say something. That's some beautiful country you live in. does it open up into farm land much, or is it all hills and valleys? we have a lot of country like that in my area as well, but I live in farm country, not giant fields, the biggest are pretty much 50 to 70 acres interrupted by maple bush or cedar swamps
Most everything close is hills, valleys, trees and rocks. Not much dirt. If you get a hour away the country opens up, but even then its just pasture for cow/calf, no row crop. The ground isn't good enough to support row crop. Most places its only a couple inches of soil, if that, then rock. Offloaded some equipment this morning. Truck was 3 hours late. Customer had his own chain rigging. They couldn't decide before I went what it weighed. They were saying 15-20,000, and its about a hour + from my shop. I chickened out and took the 35 thinking if it was 25,000 I might wish I had the 35 instead of the 25. When it finally showed up, I knew I could have taken the 25.
Been having a little trouble with the Western Star. Delivered the RT to the culvert job, and it missed/died a couple times. No fun at all. Made it there and unloaded the crane, and limped the truck back to the shop. We pulled the fuel filters, both pretty dark, and the secondary had a little slime/algae in the bottom of the filter. New filters and some algae killer. Tried again Saturday morning to go get the crane, Barely made it 2 miles down the road and it was dying, sputtering again. Would idle fine. Found a spot and got turned around. Coasted the 1/2 mile down my hill to the shop (left it in gear so I had air brakes and power steering). I went to a job this morning and had Jim drain the tanks and start pulling fuel lines. This one is the fuel line between secondary and fuel pump. Air pressure and a little soapy water and Houston, we've got our problem. It was bubbling all over behind the fitting, hose was just breaking down, and I think we were sucking air. I had him go ahead and pull all the fuel lines from the tanks on. I'm just going to replace them all, I think they're original (trucks a 98). I had that little thought Thursday after it was dying on the way to my job- "Dan- Everything you own is a big piece of sh#%". Western Star wasn't running right. The rear winch of the RT gave up the main seal on the winch drum, like the front one did after our swivel repair struggles. I've also taken the steering box out of the white 25 ton, I was tired of herding it down the road, it was getting a little squirrelly at high speed. We had already repaired the front winch on the rt, so we just swapped which winch we were using- its coming back to the shop tomorrow so we'll tear into the rear winch then. The Western Star appears to be the fuel lines, we'll get them on tomorrow. The 25's steering box is on its way to texas, there's a shop there that reman's the old Ross steering boxes, its supposed to be back to me around Friday or next Monday. As one of my guys says--- "If it was all easy, little kids and old women would be doing it......"
I know those feelings all too well. A major contributing factor to me going to work for somebody else. Too much for me with all the kids and whatnot. I'm always a phone call away if you need weekend help! I know my crane signals and I'm pretty sure I can handle moving the RT ;-)
Thanks junkyard- some days are just like that........... The Western Star going down on Sat- I just view that as God telling me "You've worked every weekend since about February- time for you to take this one off". After I coasted down the hill (just glad to make it back, and not calling the wrecker), I unhooked the trailer, parked the truck in the shop, pulled the doors down, and figured it was Monday's problem.
For those of you who have been following close- I've got some issues with my 70 ton- namely a set of rear axles made by isuzu, that parts are very difficult to get for. I came across these on ebay- Clark planetaries, but they're a 10.21 ratio. Also no power divider- so I'm assuming you get 2 driving all the time? http://www.ebay.com/itm/Link-Belt-8...861509?hash=item3ae6c65805:g:Cc0AAOSww9xZDUbe I'm a 6.37 ratio now, I know this 10.21 is way too low, but is clark stuff still available? Would it be worth changing ring and pinion's? I've had no luck getting my truck parts guys to find me new axles, meritor says to just call the oem (terex has never given me a parts availablity for my old one, that I called about months ago). I don't see me dropping $4,000 on these axles, but I'm thinking something like this might be what I end up doing. I, somehow, am more comfortable jacking around and welding mounts on a old axle set, than if I bought new stuff. At least with something like this, I'd get rims brakes and all, I wouldn't get that with new axles. I came close to buying a whole old lattice crane a while back, just for the axles, then I would have steers too ( the steers are goofy stuff also).........
I have been into that style and vintage rear end before. It's been about 15 years ago. At that time parts weren't impossible to get but I recall them being expensive. If the seller would pull the covers off the hubs that would be helpful to get an idea of what the planetaries themselves look like. We never had issues with the ring and pinion it was always the hubs. But they ran parts way too long. Also, ours did have a power divider and it shelled in spectacular fashion one time. What about a set of old school Mack or Rockwell 80k rears? I think the Mack stuff is still fairly easy to find. It would be a more expensive route but a salvage truck with Sisu rears would ensure parts availability for quite some time. I know a heavy haul outfit running over a dozen trucks with them that I can get all the feedback you'd need. *** Edit, width might be an issue.....:-/ ***
Yes- I do need wide track, I'm 10' wide. I would need to check the width on the clarks, link belt has some 11' carriers also- but I think those are just the 218's and up. I am running 14.00r20 rubber.
There are also some Poor and Helpless (P&H) that run them. I've seen them 10 and 11 wide. The old 75 ton was 11', trouble there is getting back into potentially obsolete guts.
Did a little forest back country work with the 25 ton. Climbed a little mountain through the trees to set this little broadband tower. 120' tall.
Did these two jobs yesterday with the 35 ton. Had almost all the wood on the ground on both jobs. First one was a HVAC unit- 100' away, 1,400lbs. Jib and dead section. You can see the box truck behind the crane in one picture to see the slope. Second job was a 17,000 lb concrete grease trap. All the wood on a steeper spot than the first job, and put in block. Was done with both jobs by 12:00, but I was one tired puppy, the humidity has really cranked up in the last couple days and it was warm.
Second job- grease trap.
I had the guys at the shop pull apart the back winch on the RT, yesterday, to reseal. The winch has been into before, or was cracked at the factory, the bottom flange had a chipped off section of the casting flange that holds the large o-ring seal in place. Its the main side plate that holds the hydraulic motors. You could see the marks where the o-ring had been riding on the broken cast piece, I think they cracked it when originally installing it, or sometime when its been worked on before. It doesn't hold any pressure, just a oil flow, so it wasn't leaking. Fortunately, I have a parts winch I picked up at a sale a few years ago. We swapped end plates. Grove doesn't use this style of winch any more, and I'd hate to think what they would have wanted for one.
I would hold on to that broken part, never tell when you might need to get creative in fixing it! I could maybe see getting it very clean and using some good epoxy to build that area up, maybe even dill some small holes to tap a couple roll-pins into to reinforce the epoxy as it appears it only really has to hold the oring in place while assembling.
I'm not super familar with the part, but it looks to me like its just got to seal up for oil retention. If so, that lip could be easily bazed back and remachined. I'm assuming its cast iron, just looking at the break.
Oh yes, nothing gets thrown away at our shop, I should fix it now, while I've got it out, and still can find the pieces. I actually think I can braze or epoxy the pieces back in and the part would still hold the oil in/ support the oring. I just couldn't see doing that with a parts winch around, I've got to justify buying it somehow.
I'm rained out this morning until 9:00, so time to post some pictures from yesterday. Hot tub and swim spa, both on the back side of a house with steep access. Closest crane access is 100' away, and with a 4,000 lb swim spa, I don't have anything with that kind of capacity. Rental forklift to the rescue. It was a little sketchy breaking over down the hill. The dirt guy tried to level it out with some rock, but you can't pack much with a 953, I ended up pushing myself out each time with the boom in the steep uphill stretch. Nothing parties like a rental. Also set a generator on the back side of the house. The dirt working guy was really nervous about me going over the edge, he's from up in flatter country by springfield.
When I crested over the hill with the last box, I got a little grabby on the brakes, the whole forklift slid about 15' before it flattened out, I got in a hurry because it was the last trip down.
Got to set some trusses yesterday with the 25 ton.
Steel stud trusses today with the rt. I've got to look into it's swing brake, it seems like the solenoid on the brake is acting up, making it drag when you start to swing. It's always something
Went to a track today to put up a new press box/announcers booth. We were supposed to put this up back in march, but it was way too muddy. I got the rt up in there today, but I drove about 4' too far, and the front tire started to sink out of sight. I backed up real quick, and set it from back a little further. I was worried about my front left corner sinking away, so I double matted it.
Got the rebuilt steering box installed in the white/ red 25, and went for a little test run this afternoon. Drives and steers much better now. It was at the point where I didn't want anyone else driving it because it wandered around so bad. Then I thought "if I don't want anyone else driving it, what the world am I doing still driving it around myself?" Pulled the box and it went to Texas to get rebuilt. I had it back in just over a week. Some outfit down there specializes in just rebuilding steering boxes, about $1,000 with shipping. It's mounted right behind that headlight, not quite like mounting it on the side of a frame rail in a conventional truck. The headlight plate comes out and we snaked a strap in there and used the engine puller to support it when removing and reinstalling.
The last one of those I changed I held it in place and cussed at the guy starting the bolts. Your strategy sounds better.
I'm trying to work smarter, not harder. But my stupid side somehow makes its way out, now and again. New winch cable on the red and white 25 today. It used to be you could save the old spool from new cable, and wind your next old cable on them. Spools now are plywood and junk, so I repurposed a 55 gal drum to spool up the old cable on. We were short a man when spooling the new cable up. I usually like one guy to control the new spool, one guy to hammer the cable tight on the drum, and one operator to run the winch. 3 men. I decided to leave out the least important- the operator . Strung up a line to run the lever, while I was seating the line on the winch with a hammer, and had jim control the cable spool. Try that with your joysticks. I suppose if I had radio remote- inter locked with my bluetooth- to my phone .
At least you heeded the warning and weren't within 10' of high voltage lines. That's a particular type of ingenuity that political correctness and good sense keeps me from naming . But hey a win is a win!
Shepard steering box, had to change a few of them over the years on the DM and R model Macks at the quarry! Seems like everyone was mounted different or had a different input shaft so it was hard to keep a spare on the shelf. I'd say 90% of the problems we had with them was leaking input shaft seals. Managed to fix many of them with various means over the years, spry welding and regrinding seal area and speedi-sleeves on some. Best version of those boxes had an added piece that slipped over the input shaft and had a grease fitting in it. As long as someone kept up on giving it a shot of grease now and then it would keep the dirt and water away from the real seal.
First video post! Just so everyone can remember what a 6-71 sounds like........
Had to set a unit this morning at the hospital, more Saturday work. Didn't take long though, so that was nice.
Pics from yesterday too. Unit at a strip mall, and then the roof and furniture on a houseboat. The houseboat was 90' long, they were guessing 80,000lbs.
Lovely music from that 6-71. Got a pair of them on my boat. Rick
I stuck a 3-53 Detroit with a 5 speed Allison in an International pickup back in the '70's, and it made that same sweet sound. It easily got 22-24 MPG and pulled like a Chevy 350 that got 12. Back then the local ready mix plant was using Detroit's in their mixers, and one time I was pulling a hill into a construction site, and the concrete guys were freaking out thinking the mud was showing up early and they weren't ready, when they saw me come around the corner they couldn't believe it. The thing was a blast to drive around with the windows rolled down (manual window cranks and no AC, of course), nowadays driving my Prius back and forth from the crane yard just ain't the same ha ha.
Yes sir. You are not alone. Last week with one of our 265's...i'm the short guy...and we still rigged in in 90 minutes
Looks good basspro- the leveling suspension really helps out in a crooked spot for setting up. How do you get by with no fenders? The trailer in the picture to the right of the crane. Some people shouldn't be allowed to dream up their own house projects. This site is over a hour and a half from me in the middle of nowhere. They want to place these conexes on the steel rails, on the blocks. I think they want to weld them in place and then make them into a house. I wouldn't want to live in a 40' x 50' steel box, with dividers every 8'. plus I can't imagine the hassle of insulating, wiring, installing windows, cutting in doors. Seems to me to be more work than its worth. I don't know yet how I'm moving them. You have to cross a creek that has a pretty steep crossing to get there, and I don't see getting the rt within 5 miles of there on a lowboy.
I'm such a cheap ba$%^d. The t handle on the oil dipstick on the cummins broke. Yep- I just drilled a small hole in the plastic remnant that has the oring, and ran a screw into it. Still works, and I don't have to hassle with ordering three of them to get the right one.
Manbasket work. The roof on the other side of these condo's has eave trough and downspout issues. Spent the morning at 90' in the blind on three different buildings. There is no access to the other side of the buildings, just trees and the lake and a hillside. I just left jib and dead stick out, and left my training wheels out (outrigger beams), to move down the row of buildings. I only do that in a nice flat area, you don't want to do it on a hillside because it would tip pretty easy with jib and dead stick still out.
In other news, the swivel that we rebuilt in december in the rt, decided it wanted to start leaking from the very bottom seal again. I swear that crane takes up more of my time repairing, than anything else I own. It came out thursday morning, and went to the shop that afternoon. They got it sealed up friday, I made them pressure check it, and it was still leaking after their first attempt friday morning, they got it on the second try. I can't get it back until wednesday, so I think we'll try to put it back together then. It's a whole bunch of hydro in a little spot, so its fun to rehook up.
I was tootling along in the 25 friday morning and I came across a blown out tire on the road. Thinking it couldn't be one of my guys, because he had a longer job than mine and I was sure I'd beat him home. No such luck, it was the other 25. After changing the tire, we went back up the road to get the big pieces off the highway, I first found the hammer, a old estwing, then right where the blow out happened, the crowbar. I think the front drive tire flipped the crowbar up, then it blew out the back drive running over it. Expensive crowbar for me. But my day wasn't as bad as the guys with the manlift. They got a little close to a new retaining wall, and sunk it in 3' or so, axles and all. I'm sure the double wrecker's weren't cheap.
Karma's a bitch. Remember how you where running down " nail benders" I think maybe the set a trap for you.
Karma is a bitch. Remember how you were running down "nail benders" I think maybe they set a trap for you.
Oh-- its done nothing but raise the esteem that I hold for my wood butchering brethren...... But did you have to tell me twice?
Poor iPhone skills !!
Oh- its been warm here, I've got the a/c's mounted up, but I've mostly been in the shop lately, just some little jobs here and there. Rt is back together, have only shop run, it really needs to go on a job to make sure we've got it. Western star isn't fixed yet, ecm is headed to get checked out tomorrow. One of the 8.3 in my 25 has developed a miss, I think its a injector. And I've been playing around with tires. I am not a fast tire changer, but it seems like in the time it takes me to load them up, haul them to the tire shop, then go back and get them after they're mounted, I can just as well change them myself. I've also decided I'm done with caps on the last crane that has any on it. New caps are running me 250, I can buy new chinese drives for under $300, hankook or similar (better tire) for $360/ tire. (drives) It seems like the carcasses that I get anymore from the retreaders arent any good, and they don't hold up. The two "new" drives I just mounted on the western star are actually regrooves.
Irrigation pump at a golf course.
Three units at a new store
Big old thunderhead, hot afternoons sometimes make these showers pop up. This is from the gate by the shop as I was locking up tonight.
I can say a lot about tires, but the main thing is when you air them back up, make sure you use a clip on chuck and have the tire caged or located so that if it decides to let go it will not kill anybody.
Crane Op, that thunder head blew up real nice. Looks like it only anviled out once in the middle.
Went and set up the rt with jib on this morning, think I have the detroit in my western star sorted out, but I already had someone else scheduled to haul it, so I didn't cancel and just had him haul it. I need to test out the detroit a little before I'm comfortable loading it up. After setting the rt up and turning a operator loose to set trusses, I was set to take out the 35 for some manbasket work, went for a little walkaround before leaving. Yep, hot weather seems to have taken out a tube on a steer. Pull out the ratchet and change tube and tire (I'm not sure where the leak was, I just wanted to get to the job). Ended up being a hour late. Not quite nascar tire change, but then nascar isn't what it used to be either. I try to keep a spare tire around for everything I have, but I don't have spare rims for everything. I think I would still rather do dayton's with 20" and a tube, than budd's with lo pro tires.
After fixing the transmission in the parking lot this morning. I'm not on the road, its in a abandoned kmart parking lot. Its hard to shift, steer and hold the phone.
I can't remember the last time that I saw anyone roll a tire into their cage at a truck tire shop. They all have a cage at their shop, I just never see anyone use it. That and when you're on the side of the road, there's not a lot of cages around. I'm not saying cages are a bad deal, its just I never see many guys actually using them. Just out of curiosity, what's the "approved" cage for big crane AT tires, or loader tires on like a 988 etc. ? I haven't seen a cage that will handle them. I don't think even one of my 14.00r20's will fit in a regular cage.
They are almost done with the 70 ton crane on the big building we've been working on, on and off, for a couple years now. They're getting some siding on, and have almost all of the roof on. It's been a slow/ long job, but I think it will look ok when they're done.
What I was trying to say is if you have no cage, then use a long clip on hose and stand well clear of the blast zone. Some people like to slide them under the truck or keep them bolted to the hub so that the wheel can't go flying. It only takes a few dollars in parts to keep your body out of the way. A long time friend of mine was killed dead changing a regular truck tire out on the interstate one day when it let go on him. He was a good tire man but he must have not taken precautions that time.
I do the clip on thing, and have a place in the shop I can roll them between a wall and a heavy bench, and I stay out of the blast zone. On the road I will mount them before finishing airing them up. Sorry for the loss of your friend, a lot of people don't understand the forces involved, unless they've been around a blowout. I don't like messing around with tires when they're hot from traveling either, I like things cool.
Agree the stand off option is about all one can use on those big tires. Several years ago a county or town highway department had a smaller loader, one a bit smaller than a 966D that had a tire with a slow leak. They had to air it up every couple of days. Operator was being safe and using a stand off and was, according to all reports, standing behind machine and about six feet from the tire. As it was getting up to pressure the thread split down the middle and the only thing that hit the operator was the air blast, no tire chunks or wheel parts. Still that was enough to kill the guy!
I've just seen so many guys lean right over the tire while airing it up with one of those $2 air chuck things. Trouble is you can air up a tire that way hundreds of times with no events. But it just takes that one time. Tire industry association says something like a tire that has been run with low air more than a few miles needs to be dismounted, inspected inside, then reinflated in a cage or safe manner treating it like it is a bomb. Might be a little overkill but I treat every tire like that seeing as how you never really know what the casing has been through. It is amazing to me that tires last at all with thousands of miles of dirt road at high speed with potholes and cobbles as big as your fist just banging away day after day.
My sometime employee Frank lost his father when a big tire blew at the tire shop he was employed at. It happened when Frank and his 3 brothers and 1 sister were all little kids, and it didn't kill his father outright but put him in a coma for....around 20 years, he finally checked out 2 years ago. You can imagine the strain this put on all of them including his mother, so yes, be careful around those big tires.
There was two young men killed near here on Monday when a big flotation tire on a manure spreader blew up on them. I don't know if a cage would have saved them, because the blast of air is what threw them. http://www.heraldmailmedia.com/news...cial&utm_source=email&utm_campaign=user-share
I recently read a report about a lowboy operator at a mine site, here, who had a flat tyre on his unladen trailer. He pulled into the onsite tyre store and selected a replacement from several that had been repaired. The tyre in question had been a slow leaker and subsequently cleared as being OK. The driver placed the tyre in a cage, checked pressure and fitted it to the trailer. He then reached in beside it to lower the jack, as the tyre settled on the ground, it exploded, killing him instantly. The coroner recommended that repaired tyres be inflated to 120% ,in a cage, and left there for 20 minutes. He also recommended a longer handled jacking system to keep the operator further away from tyres. All of these stories are sad to read, but if we can pick up a tip from each of them, it may just save a life sometime.
My old Dodge pickup had splits on it, one place would lay the tire & rim on the floor and lower the hoist over it..... Ed
Boat day. Boat company has a dealer show every year at a big hotel/convention center here in town. 17 semi loads of boats. Had the first 11 loads off between 7:30 and 10:30. Had to wait till afternoon for the last 6 loads. We'll load them back up again friday.
Staples store is leaving town. Harbor Freight tools is taking their place. I think when the building was built you could drive all the way around it, now its grown up with trees and has washed out areas by the gutters, so no access for the sign guys to change the sign out. We removed the old letters and painted the wall where they were. The big ones weren't bad, the little one around the backside was a little more reach.
Trusses today. 80' long, about 100' away. I have no idea how the delivery guy made the corners in here when he brought in the trusses.
In other news, one of my little window unit AC systems for the upper doesn't cool, sent one of the guys to walmart, $100 later a whole new A/c system. I bought extended warranty on the other one, but you have to go through corporate, can't exchange at the store BLAH, BLAh, blah.... That's why I usually don't even buy the extended warranty.
Loaded boats back up friday. One of the truckers had this unique cut down peterbilt. I guess they cut this just to haul a regular load from a factory. It's got a unique hitch trailer set up too. The driver said the cab and sleeper were both pretty crowded. Running on 19.5 rubber also- trying to stay under height I think.
For those carpenters out there- the center 12' of these trusses get taken out after they're installed, making a continuous vault. They put in the little truss piece to hold them together while getting hauled and installing. I'm just glad I don't have to remove all those steel plates, the head framer thinks hes going to just cut them out with a sawsall, I don't think that will be any picnic.
We did a set of trusses like that last summer,only it was the whole bottom chord that had to cut out and before we had everything straightened and fastened the owner drove in. To say the least she was a very emotional girl and was instantly very upset " what happened my beautiful cathedral ceiling " I told her the building department wouldn't allow it. Then started getting angry so I told her the truth before she turned on me.
They aren't bad to take apart the truss company purposely uses an undersized gusset, usually all you have to do is cut the brace an give the piece left in the gusset a twist and the barbs will break loose of the bottom cord . ( I SAID USUALY if it starts doing too much damage plan B is a pry bar and break the gusset loose )
That hitch setup is pretty common on truck/trailer car haulers. It's probably b/c it's on 19.5's but it really doesn't look like it has a car hauler front axle.
A little cell phone work on a water tower, used the rt because of lack of room in the tower area. I had some truck troubles again, but my buddy bailed me out and got it to the site. We had to install jib up in another parking lot, then back down the hill and around the tower to reach it. I was right in the sun for some of it, but they didn't take long. The last picture shows a little block we made to install jib on the rt. They've got a goofy spring bracket that stops you from retracting all the way, and they never work right, someone has to stand and hold it while you're retracting all the way, and I don't like that. We built a little square block that holds the stop down all the way. We put the block in when we're installing/removing jib. I built a little stow bracket for it also, and mounted it to the jib stow bracket.
Man you sure get some very interesting work.
Well I've broken down and joined the new age of cranes, less is more, or something like that. I spent Friday and Saturday limping this home from Illinois, I'm the proud owner of a boom truck now. 1990, National 1295. 95' main, 44 of jib (which I'm probably just going to dismount and store at the shop). Mack with a 350hp, 9 speed mack trans, top loader mack rears. No A2B, no scale, no rotation indicators, no pilot or electric controls, all levers. Good: like the mack cab, roomy and good visibility, (except its a hot ba$^erd). Camelback rear suspension and its really stable cornering. Good rubber all the way around. Mack engine seems to have good torque (no jakes-yet). Steering is tight and straight. Tight transmission. Old boss had one of these National uppers on a volvo, and they seemed pretty good- he had a ton of hours on his. Only 20' outrigger span (nice), front jack for 360 deg chart. Bad: Governor must be going out on the injection pump. Got worse the further I got toward home. Fine at idle or wide open, anything else and the motor is constantly hunting/surging. Something in the governor is my theory, but I was really glad to make it home. Seems like a ton of heat in the cab, maybe that's all mack's, but I'm going to check heater hoses/ install shut offs, and seal up around the shifter boot to start. This thing won't turn. They've got 425 tires up front, and the turn stops way out, but there's only a finger width between the tire and the steering arm, may have to go to 315's, and crank the stops in. I had to make a 5 point turn into hardee's for lunch. No turn signals, no wipers, no lights. Clutch needs adjusted (hope there's some left to adjust), probably a coat of paint on everything, the controls are all backwards, so we'll move some cable controls. Bunch more little things. Little rust on the flatbed side rails, double frame and cab look good. The ugly: More pictures to follow, right now I've had about all of that little puppy on the hood that I want...... (and shouldn't he be gold- I'm all mack)
Thanks, Hank. It seems like its always something different, we joke that we're everyone's method of last resort. If they can't think of a way to do it with a forklift, excavator, or manlift, we get a call....
One driver I knew borrowed a wrench from me, turned the bulldog around to face the cab... said he didn't mind driving a Mack, but was dammed if he'd stare at a dog's behind all day... something to think about. Seems like a real solid rig, congrats.
Now that's funny
I've been saving this because I knew eventually you'd come over to the dark side.
I knew this was coming, the whole way back I was muttering to myself in the cab........
It's like anything if it's the right tool for the job use it. Hope it works out for you.
Looks like a great truck crane, strong, simple and likely will be a great money maker with easy maintenance.
Congrats man. I know I was pretty impressed with the 1295 i spent to day in. Smooth operating boom truck. Seemed like it had a pretty good chart from what I remember. Your gonna enjoy the 350 hp and 95' boom.
Gold dog is for a Maxi-Torque engine, silver for a Maxi-Cruise. The 350 is a Maxi-Cruise. The difference is the percent torque rise. That's the R-model cab, virtually unchanged since 1965. They are hot, adding insulation helps. There should already be a heater hose shut-off, it'll help. The CH cab was the comfortable cab, it had about 1.5" of insulation on the floor and firewall.
This site is amazing- you guys are a fountain of information, I knew someone would chime in. Monday I've got three different crane's to move, then I'm going to dive in on it. Unfortunately everything is headed back to the yard, I guess its time for late summer lull. I'm going to figure out the surging first, then I've got to do something about the front steering, I'll never make it into a tight jobsite like it is now. Then everything else.....
I think you're the first person I've ever heard say that a mack had a roomy cab. Remember to keep your fingers curled around the steering wheel when making turns. I forgot one day and palmed the wheel around, drove the ring and middle fingers of my left hand into the front corner post.
I'm kinda tall at 6'6", and I struggle with some cabs for leg room, cabovers are real bad, some kenworths the lower dash nails my shins. The truck crane cabs that I mostly drive, are really small. The only real trouble in the mack was the clutch pedal is kinda high, and my leg ends up by the steering wheel against the door. I guess I was kinda surprised, I had heard the Mack cabs were real tiny and I was worried, but they're not too bad. I can see how you would get your hand on the post, I looked at it today.
Evidently it isn't a 350 hp, its 300 in a EM-6. I don't know how to identify between maxitorque and maxi cruise, I imagine that's injectors, pump settings etc?
Finished flying off the manlift from the 10th floor of our big building project this morning. I went up and rigged it and took some pictures.
Okay, here's the mack hood tipped to its stop, with the boom in the rest. I'm thinking I can run the ball up almost to 2 blocked. I'm going to make up a ratchet strap, to go between the ball and the front bumper. In the morning you should be able to pop off the strap, tip the hood, check oil and antifreeze, without having to start the crane and let out cable. Get to the job, pop off the strap without having to go up in the cab and let out cable. Get done, boom it down in the rest, and then when down on the ground doing outriggers, put on the ratchet strap. The hood will just clear the ball, with the boom in the rest. It doesn't have on of those winch buttons on the front bumper.
Took down a 40 ft tall dust collector today, in two pieces (which were subsequently further disassembled).
Welcome to the Mack club, I didn't know there was such a thing until I got mine. I have a picture on your front end headache ball/hood situation I'll post later, and how I resolved it on my National. But for now, here's a couple Mack mutts having a faceoff, mine and a welldrillers rig I was on a job with last week.
That's funny, a well driller's truck I'm guessing.
My rig came with a hand winch to tension the winch line while going down the road, here's a pic. The setup goes: the first thing I do when getting out of the truck cab is to walk around the front and undo the load hook, I use a large crescent wrench) then the outriggers, then I'm good to crawl up in the cab and go right to work. When I'm done working, I stow the boom, retracting it in to 32.2 feet, which is so I can fit it in my shed AND close the door. I can open the hood enough to check the oil and the rad fluid, I have a wood prop to keep it up in the partially open position. After retracting, I winch up almost enough to suspend the ATB weight so it doesn't jerk on the switch (but not quite, I don't want the buzzer going off while I'm retracting the outriggers) while going down the road, then outriggers up, and then back up in the cab to raise the winch line the last few inches to hold the ATB weight up, and then I shut it down and the last thing is re tension the winch. One thing I have learned to watch out for: while I am busy picking up my pads and stowing the outriggers, some well meaning soul will often snap the load hook into the winch, the problem there is when I get back in the can and then winch up that last 12" or so, it rips the winch strap up/off! I have taught my regulars to NOT hook me up, ever, "I'll get it," no big deal as the strap is just scrap 2" load binder webbing, but still it can get annoying have to replace so I have gotten in the habit of walking around the front to eyeball it first. Since I don't want my headache ball banging agains the steel front outrigger, I have a sacrificial scarp of glu lam secured there, that I replace when it gets ate up. If you are not tight for room lengthwise like I am when parking, why not just leave the boom run out a bit so you have free access to the hood?
Got to go set a couple generators today, both at cell phone sites. Took the 25- 3,000lbs or so. Was a tight fit in the fence at the one site.
Pictures of the condo building we finished up. Also got the 70 ton home and we needed to fix a outrigger. These drop out the bottom, so it takes a little cribbing to get them out.
craned this pipe today. The towers to the left to be taken down soon also.
Most of the outrigger pads on my new little boom truck have broken ears on them. I hate it when the pads won't hang, so I spent the other day welding blocks on them, I've got the new bronze latches ordered.
Put up roofing supplies the other day with the RT. Used my pallet forks for most of it, could have taken my 35, but I knew we'd set up in multiple spots around the building, and I didn't want to do dead stick 4 different times, so I took the RT.
Picture of the whole building, they probably are close to done with me, maybe a few rooftop units or something. Also the Western Star lives!, it seems to have its electrical issues worked out, used it for delivery and return and ran great. Had a little cribbing under one corner of the rt, just so knepptune knows I'm keeping in shape.
One of my guys installing a new scoreboard at the football field. New video board downtown. New shoes on the 25 ton, they are hankook's, I'm sick of the junk I've been getting lately for caps, so went with brand new ones. I went aggressive on the tread.
Amish ironworker's, just when you think you've seen it all. w24x84- about 50' long, I think I was showing just under 5,000 with everything on the scale. It was setting plenty far away over the side, they were worried about me getting it set, I told them setting it would be no trouble, if I could get it picked up from over by the front door, I'd have no trouble setting it. It covers the pool room in the house, not a pool table room, but a indoor pool room. I wouldn't want all that moisture in my house, but the rich are different. Cool little round 3 story room on the back side too. They tried zip system plywood on the bottom course, but it wouldn't bend without cracking, so they used cdx the rest of the way up. The studs were every 8 inches on the walls to make a smooth curve.
Indoor pools are ok if they are isolated from the rest of the house. Separate HVAC and good doors go a long way, otherwise it'll wind up sold or filled in.
That's some nice work it's hard to make a round wall look that good. It takes some even better work on the inside.
Crane Operator, I forgot, what RT crane do you have?
Grove rt 730b. early 90's. 110' main and 56' jib. 66,000 lbs machine. Mine is actually a 30 ton(730b), but the only difference in it and the 40 ton (rt 740b) is my chart starts at 12' radius, the 40 ton shows a 10' radius (where they have 40 ton capacity). Other than not having a 10' radius chart, at all other radius, they have the same capacity. I charge it as a 40 ton rt. It was originally sold in illinois, and I imagine it was made to fit a union rule about oiler's on cranes over 40 ton, so they made it as a 30 ton also.
I should have taken a picture of the interior walls, with studs at 8", I bet the sparky's are going to love drilling holes for wiring. It looked like a forest in there with all the wood.
Probably the only thing saving this one, is the garage is between the pool and the rest of the house. I guess I just notice in all the motel/hotels here in town, you can instantly tell which ones have pools, by the smell in the lobby. I'd hate to have that in my house.
CO ... Just how do the ears get broken off ?? Stuck in soft ground & the latches break off when lifted ?
Looks like an awesome crane! I am sure that you are spot on on Illinois oiler rules... What kind of engine is in your Western Star to pull this 66,000 machine? Your truck/trailer is probably 42,000 empty?
If the pad isn't at 90 degrees to the outrigger cylinder, like if you set up on a hill side or have a rock under one corner, the cylinder will push against the top of the ears, above the groove of the cylinder, or the tip of the latch. With the bottom center, anchored, there isn't anywhere else for the pressure to go, so it pops the aluminum ears off. Its kind of a poor design, and why I really don't like rt cranes with aluminum pads. Steel holds up much better over time, they're just heavier to put on and off. These are just on my new ( to me) little boom truck, and I'm kind of fussy about leveling up, so I don't think I'll keep popping them off, if I can ever get them stuck good..... I may end up having to tig them on, I've just got a spool gun for aluminum, and I had a hard time getting good penetration on the pad. I already broke one loose today putting in the latches. The ear is there only to hold the latch on, its not really structural, but the pads are a aluminum alloy of some type, and its hard to get clean and weld well. Plus I'm not the best aluminum welder with my spool gun.
I think I'm under 40,000 truck and trailer. Western star is 500 hp detroit 60 series (12.7 ddec IV) with a 13speed. We had to swap rear ratio's to a 4.10 from 3.42, I was having a little trouble getting started in hilly country. I think a big cat 3406b with a little more torque would pull a little better (14 liter motor vs. 12.7) but I don't think the jake brakes are as good on a 3406 as on the detroit, simply because of engine design. And the jakes are really good on the detroit. It pulls pretty good, but you still know you're grossing over 100k, I think I'm somewhere between 100 and 105k. Its hard to really know, I'm just going by empty weight (truck and trailer) plus factory specs (crane), I don't have any scales around me at a quarry that will handle it. Most of them don't want anything grossing over 100k, and they all have the newer steel style (above ground) with the side rails, so you can't just weigh 1/2, like you could on the old flat concrete deck scales. That and at 10' wide with the side drop lowboy, I don't think I can drive straight enough to put it on a scale with side rails. The trailer is a Talbert, non ground bearing. I was debating building a dolly/ gooseneck that attached to the crane, front and rear, like a nelson pin and go. That would save the weight of the trailer deck, but is not as easy to hook and unhook. The trailer actually works better than what I was going to build. Drop the neck, pull off the chains and drive it off. Really works well. I also like that its a side drop, puts the weight of the crane lower (which is top heavy- badly), and pulls much nicer than a flat deck. Side drop does not work as well, if you plan on hauling anything else, like industrial equipment like you do. But for big loader/ excavator or rt crane they are really nice.
Off loaded a drill rig mast this morning in the rain. Stopped raining about the time we were done. The mast was all twisted looking, not horrible, but noticeable. - I asked what the deal was, evidently one of the raise cylinders broke, and it laid itself over.
Ran an old p&h 790tc today at the asphalt plant
Nice !!! that's one stout old crane
At work we have 3 p&h cranes. 430 670 and 790 all truck cranes
Cane op, with that sort of truck/trailer, and crane, you could do scrap metal also. Say, you go someplace, with a crane, remove something from your customer, put on the truck/trailer and go. Or you could deliver your crane, then go with your truck and pick something up elsewhere, and then unload with your crane. Or you could do some moving services too, or just trucking, your heavy haul truck/trailer gives you endless money making possibilities.
Glad your keeping in shape crane op. Glad you got your issues with the western star figured out. Your steering issues with the mack reminded of the 1295 I spent a day in. It was mounted on a gmc truck but that thing wouldn't turn for nothing. I had to make 4 point turns at the first 4 corners untill I figured out you had to drive that thing like a semi.
Crane Operator I am missing my daily fix of work pictures.... summer vacation must be over soon...
Sorry Hank R. Been a busy week here. My youngest daughter just started her freshman year of high school, and my oldest is now a freshman at missouri university in columbia. The oldest just also turned 18 last week, and on her birthday she got a great present- new front brake shoes for the f-150. I did the first one, and she did the other side. What a way to spend her birthday. We took her to school tuesday, was kind of hard to drive off and leave her there, but its all part of getting older I guess... My boy, is a junior in high school this year, and he's sporting a new set of wheels. I bought his sisters truck, fuel, and maintence and insurance, if the grades in school are good. His aren't, and its been a ongoing battle, but the result is that he had to buy his own vehicle, and everything. He's been mowing yards since he was 10, and isn't short of money. He's kind of upset that I'm making him pay for it all, but the rules were set down early, so that's his deal. He found a 1997 camaro, ($2,200) and is in love with his new car. I'm kind of proud of him taking it all on by himself too. It didn't have the best week, second day of school my wife got the call, broke down with him and his sister in it, so dad to the rescue. I got there and just a little antifreeze visible in the bottom of the radiator. I'm thinking head gasket, my boy is seeing his dwindling savings account. I think we may have dodged a bullet. Plastic line between aluminum water intake and intake manifold/water jacket. Cracked and pumped all the antifreeze out, I hope it didn't get hot enough to crack a head, or take out head gasket. I don't see any antifreeze in the oil, so we may be okay. New replacement line is aluminum instead of plastic.
Here's a picture of the aluminum pads mounted on my National. You can see how if you have your cribbing set up and the pad is crooked, you can side load/ force the ears off of the old style pads. The last picture is the newer style, and you can see how the top is made a little different, it supports the ears better.
Been playing around with the mack/national at the shop too, making sure it will pick chart. Also been whittling on the list. Ratchet strap on the hook, headliner and top roof vent. Wipers fixed, lights/turn signals, fuel tank straps (you can see in the picture how bad the drivers side was cobbled together), input seal on the hyd. pump. Upper wiper arm, wiper blade, wiring. Fan in the upper. Rotation indicator on winch. New governor on air compressor, may need to do the head gasket on the air compressor also. Leaks on the hyd. tank., chains on the rigging cabinet door. Just all kinds of little things. Still need to sort out some better access ladders. Think I'm switching to 315/80 r22.5 steers for turning radius, I put some 24.5 low pro's on it from off my western star(which we switched to 315), just to see how it would turn with narrower tires (a lot better). Sort out the governor on the injector pump. New pins in the front jack. Probably painting the upper now, and lower cab this winter. New fenders/deck, probably later. Ran the mack across the scale, 16,500 on the front axle (with jib removed). Gross was 48,500.
Quote Still need to sort out some better access ladders. Think I'm switching to 315/80 r22.5 steers for turning radius, I put some 24.5 low pro's on it from off my western star(which we switched to 315), just to see how it would turn with narrower tires (a lot better). Sort out the governor on the injector pump. New pins in the front jack. Probably painting the upper now, and lower cab this winter. New fenders/deck, probably later. I did this to my deck last year it is really nice no ripping your shoulders out climbing up a vertical ladder.
That looks nice tradesman, I may put something in like that when I build the new fenders. Put the new elbow in the boys camaro this morning. Started fine, but after it burped the air from the block, it started to stumble, then pumping air/exhaust into the radiator. I'm hoping its just a head gasket, but it may have got hot enough to take out a head. I guess I won't know until I tear it apart. I know this- if it was me buying, I would have bought something with a easier engine compartment to work on, but its only the 3.8 motor, not the 5.7, so that gets you some more room, I bet the 5.7 is a tight fit. I was hoping he'd buy a old jeep cherokee or ford pickup like I got for his sister, but they don't look as good for the girls, and I figured it was his $, so I just gave advice.
Depends on how many miles on the car but I think the bank of Mom and Dad should spring for a rebuild motor and pay back in shop clean up and work it off. After he works on the car he will have more respect for wheels.
Thanks hank. I'm actually glad he bought the car himself, he's had the car for most of the summer, driving himself to his job at steak n shake. He treats it real well, better than if I would have bought a car for him. He knows the value of $. I will let him decide how far we want to go in fixing, and give him the options and see what he wants to do. He'll be 17 in January, I like him to make his own decisions, in just a few years he will be making them all on his own. As far as the shop work, he's at that age where dad doesn't know anything- and is hard on him, so, no love of helping dad out around work. I think he actually does better working for other people. He used to be gung ho about shop work, a few years ago, but it isn't "cool" anymore. He's struggling with the rules, and is mad at his mom and I both. I keep telling my wife its part of being 16, and he will grow out of it. He's a real good kid, its just a struggle at times.
Yeah, when my son was that age, I thought I was going to end up burying him in the woods some dark night, so to keep from inflicting that on the world, but a year or two later,we were close again, and have been for ten years.
Yes I have seen it all over 31 years of driving school, and twin boys 41 now been there. Best of luck with which ever way one goes with this. Sure hope he keeps thinking with his big head and not the small one.
Thanks for the advice guys- I think my son will turn out okay, it just takes time. We did dodge a bullet with the camaro- it had a air pocket stuck in the block after I refilled the antifreeze, I jacked up the front end of the car, and got the air out of the motor, and its running fine. Speaking of coolant, I called one of the guys looking for antifreeze jugs to fill the radiator on the camaro. "There's one in the back room, I saw the other guy putting fuel in it when he changed fuel filters on the 25 ton". I should have fired them both- one for using the antifreeze container (he said he "rinsed" it with diesel) with fuel in it to fill the filters, the other one for seeing him do it and letting him. I hope any drops of water settled into the media in the fuel filter, and doesn't blow the tip off a injector. Had to set in the road where they offloaded a stack of trusses, we threw them up on the hill by the house. Parked the skidloader below the trusses so they wouldn't slide back down the hill when they unbanded them.
Truss job this morning. Kind of a steep curvy driveway, just set the garage trusses. Garage trusses were attic style, and they are putting in two dormers, so they have two big gaps.
Did this little hvac unit this week too. Notice the big open empty parking lot, and it was flat, flat, flat. Of course it wasn't in my town- about a hour 1/4 drive away in the crane to Arkansas. Just main boom and no wood to put out. Set up, unit set, old one down, and tore crane down in 20 minutes .
Set a small tower this week too. At a welding fab shop site, they have crews that travel doing repairs on cell and radio transmit towers. This is going to be their training tower. Just put in jib and main- 113' boom. I figured then if we needed dead stick, we could put it out also. They did have the sections sitting nice and close to the tower base, unfortunately, they were under a tree. We moved them out in the open before we stood them up.
I have a cell tower on my yard. Those fellers have waaay bigger balls than me to climb up them. I'm waiting for it to fall over. They keep adding crap to it.
I worked with some guys up in Iowa that were tower climbers. They had been up the tv/ radio broadcast towers in Alleman Iowa. They are 2,000 ft tall. I think they are in the top 10 tallest structures in the us. They were built in the 60-70's.
Oh hell no. Then again, once you're 30-40 feet up it don't matter!
Quite "unusual" ;-) Got called by a company to provide "professional help". (!) Company has a bridge crane. We had to install a head on a molder. They told me to bring some tools, so we brought a few tools, wrenches etc. We show up. Turns out that the problem is that the head has to be picked up extremely close to the hook due to clearance issues. And what they ran into was that their shortest four leg sling was too long. And we did not bring any chains with us. I said give me 10 minutes to think about it. Thought about it. Found a way to hook up their sling differently, snaking the hook through lifting eyes and making a basket, sort of. Still too long by 2 inches. Thought a bit more, got some 4x4 pieces and padded something to stretch the chain a bit more. Worked out great and I got paid pretty well.
Watched a video at a safety meeting a few years back of a guy changing the aircraft warning bulb on the top of one of those towers. I almost got sick just sitting in my chair from the height. Junkyard the fall might be just a fatal from 30 to 40 feet but you would have a lot longer time to think about it on the way down!
Those climbers are the healthiest people around, made of steel and wire. I saw one guy like that once.
Exactly. I wonder if there's time to bend over and kiss your *** goodbye on the way down!
I was working up 60 feet when you drop somthing you can count to 3 before it would hit the ground. A few hunderd feet would give you lots of time to scream...
Was this video you watched ksh? My hands start sweating every time i watch it. Well, my hands are always sweating, it just intensifies. I'm good to about 50', after that i have too much time to think about the fall.
Prepare to be shocked. I spent Saturday at a concrete plant, setting a new bag house on top of their cement and fly ash silos. They weren't really ready, so I flew up the welder, torch and weld on ring. They had sent out two loads of concrete that morning that got returned (someone got their wires crossed at the jobsite). I know the plant guy, I helped build the plant a couple years ago, he hopped on his backhoe and scratched out a 4" deep driveway. I helped set forms and then got to relive a misspent youth:
That's right-concrete splatter on the boots and hardhat- just like someone that works for a living. like the old timers say "finish school or finish concrete!" I actually did both many years ago. The welder and his helper were laughing at me when they came down, said they had never seen a crane operator sweat. I was kind of wishing I had my mud boots, but I have pretty long arms, so I just ran the chute and the rake, then did a little hand troweling around the pipes and edges. Its funny how something you used to do all the time, is kind of fun to go back and do 20 years later. But a guy that does it all the time, doesn't think its fun at all... I should have brought my little R mack- it would have fit right in with their lineup.
I love pouring concrete, the guys that work for me say they figure that I get a little too excited when I see a ready mix truck roll in ( in kinda a sick way)
I break out with a rash just thinking about working with that stuff!
And my back starts hurting.
That national gonna be paying for itself soon. I'll bet your gonna love that 95' boom. I don't remember but how does that national chart compare to the 25t. Pretty similar unless your over 10k?
I haven't had the national to a job yet. Every time I fix something, something else is wrong. Won't build air right now. The governor was stuck when I brought it home, we replaced the governor, and two days later, now it will only build air to 60 psi and that's it. It was working right after we replaced the governor (we also did unloader valves, compressor head gasket). I've got a lot of oil in the air dryer, and with all the moisture in it, it looked like pudding in there. I imagine I've scored one piston. I think I'm going to have to reseal the hyd pump also, it leaks at the input. Still need to do fenders and ladders, governor on the injector pump, and I need to fix the exhaust right behind the turbo its cracked and leaking. Also have a outrigger leaking on retract. Did just get my new steer rims for it today, hopefully with them mounted, I'll be able to turn. I'll keep whittling away at issues, eventually I'll get it sorted out.
Trusses today on a resort building. Notice no one working near the crane.....Its like a detroit defense zone..
They just have the pan deck and iron set for the other half, they will dry in this half for the subs (plumbing wiring hvac) then frame the other half. It will look just like the last one they built a year ago.
This job does have a pretty good hill in and out of it also, took this as I was leaving the job, you can see the culvert tunnel for the railroad tracks in the distance, and the roofline of the gate house will give you a idea of the hill.
From the pic... Looks like you take your half of the road from the middle
Yep- that's a really steep hill, the road I came out of t's into this road, so I just came around the corner. I'm in 3rd gear there headed down, the gate on the left is the one I'm headed for, the real exit gate is to the right and I don't fit too well into it. I want anyone headed up to get the idea to stay out of the way, they usually sit at the bottom in the entrance until I'm through..... lanes? lanes? we don't need no stinkin' lanes....
My National has no access ladders built in, and I like it that way. I do have a 6' ladder scrap (half of a bent 12' cheap extension ladder) that i just throw up on the bed for transport, then when setting up I put it where needed. That is the key, depending on the job, a built in ladder can, WILL, be on the "wrong side", where as I just put it where needed. Simple and cheap also. Just be aware, when you let down the outriggers at the end of the job, make sure the ladder can't jam up against the bottom of the operator cab, it's really hard on the ladr, been there done that! I have a steady supply of ladder scraps, keep your eyes open they are just laying around, people don't know what to do with a half bent ladder, now they give them to me.
This is what I have on my crane to access the deck. Works well, I like it better than a non mounted ladder (ladder leaning against the deck or freestanding). I keep a 13' and 22' folding/multipurpose ladder on the deck for job access. http://www.uniquetruck.com/product/...MI8q2MuoWC1gIV2ouzCh22_AQxEAQYAyABEgKt3_D_BwE
Oh yes, set under the power lines and scope out, grab the unit and retract, I can do that and fit in there..... I took the ball and scale off to gain a few extra inches on boom head height.
Oh- I can fit in there too, shed, wall, trees, chain link fence, no problem.... I'll just tuck the corner of the outrigger pad under the shed, and remember to retract my beam before lifting the pad all the way up, so I don't destroy the shed.
Oh back down between the two buildings, past the drainage intake, and set those other two units--- we can do that too.
And finally a unit out in the wide open, how nice....
Not sure if that was the same one but still gives me the rapid heart rate just watching it and I fast forwarded to near the end!
Good thing there are skilled operators out there that work well under pressure.
Looks fun. Just noticed your jib stow winch. That beats the heck out of having to slam the jib in to get it stowed.
I had a crane inspector throw a fit about it. Its been on there for a long time, before I owned the crane. Inspector says "no welding of any kind on a boom structure". Then gives me a $8,000 estimate to install a LMI system on the crane (suggesting I really need it to be a safe operator, its "almost" required by osha). Which involves welding brackets all over the other side of the boom to mount wire reel, angle indicator, guides for the A2B wire, and boxes. He only inspected my crane once.
Truss job I went and did after the school units, I did the garage last week, this is the house.
A little track loader love too.
For those that have been following, I've got a P&H 70 ton hydraulic truck crane with a slightly damaged ring gear. Still drives and everything but parts are not available. I did find a ring gear in New Zealand, used. Its about $4,000 to get it and here, and I'm somewhat doubtfull that it will be the right one when it gets here. It's a 58,000 lb rear tandem Isuzu axle, Japan exported mostly to russia, china, new zealand. I've been kind of hunting for something to swap to, there's not a lot out there thats 10' wide, 55,000lbs plus rated. Found this over the weekend, M911 tank transporter. I haven't gone and measured yet, but military specs are saying 9 1/2' wide, 65,000 lb rears with a 6.21 ratio. My current ratio is 6.43, but I have good 14.00r20 tires. These come with 14r24 rubber. I know my current rims are a large hole, larger than standard budd centers. What are the chances of finding 10.00W budd rims for 14.00r20 tires? I know, probably not great. Parts are probably not very available for these rears either, but I'm not giving up yet.
Hope everyone had a good weekend for labor day (US) . My wife got some new wheels a few months ago, a 2006 Honda Pilot. (1st non-us big 3/ foreign vehicle for me, but she likes it). Anyways, ever since we've had it, there's been change rolling around in the interior, somewhere, hidden. Everytime you go around a corner, there it slides. Not world affecting, but just annoying. I try to fix everything else, so I tore the thing apart this past weekend. Completely dismantle the center console/dash trim, digging ever deeper for the change. Tear apart stuff, go for a drive listening, then tear more stuff apart. On the third drive, the harmonic balancer/ crank drive pulley, disintegrates about four houses down the street away from me. One more thing on the list. Have to break out the big tools to try to loosen crank pulley, and I couldn't budge that bolt. Ended up searching You tube, and used a breaker bar wedged on the frame, and bumped the starter a couple times and it loosened right up. Turns out the center console contains its own heater core and A/C coil, for the rear seat vents, and the change wasn't in it either, it was under it. There was a big u shaped plastic vent, that goes under both driver and passenger seats, that's hooked to the dash vents. Rather than disconnecting A/c and heat, and removing rest of center console, and both front seats and carpet to get at it, I cheated. Went to the shop and got a cut off wheel in the grinder, cut a three sided flap in the plastic, and drove around grabbing coins out as they would slide past. 10 assorted coins: dimes, pennies, and one quarter. Slapped some duct tape on top of the flap, and put everything back together. I can just see someone with a three year old kid, who had a ball sliding coins in the dash vent, and his mom having a fit at listening to them slide around for the first 100,000 miles. I just couldn't see listening to it for the next 100,000.
No leaves changing colors here yet like OIH has, but the walnut trees have lost most of their leaves Truss job from this afternoon, they're going to have a nice view.
It's actually a duplex/townhouse. We started about 11:30 and we were done by 4:30. Amish boys, and it went pretty well. It's not a deck you'd want to trip off of, in the dark, after one too many....
Honda crank bolt are somewhat notorious for being hard to get out, especially with normal diy-sized tools. There are special impact sockets with added weight for getting them off with a 1/2" gun.
Crane Operator: If you are serious about that M911, check the king pin diameter. The Super HD military tractors have a larger than standard size kingpin. Rick
I saw pictures of that online, but I was stuck at the house yard- hand tools only there. The starter deal worked really well. Thanks, I really only want the M911 for the rear axles. I need a heavy axle set up to replace what's in one of my cranes, the rest would be sold for parts/scrapped.
Hey CO ... Some internet trolling says the M911 is based on the Oshkosh F2365. A "commercial off the shelf vehicle" or COTS. Have you looked to see if the 2365 would suit you better ? It has 65,000 # axles too.
Finished up a retirement home this week too. What's that sign say? I'm not parking, I'm loading..
Looks like you are having great weather there. Blue sky is what we have not had since mid July forest fire smoke.
You'd want to be pretty spot on with loading that roughy, there's not much room for error width wise!
Been blue skies all week. highs in the low 80's, lows in the 50-60's. I hope you guys get a rainy spell, my wife got pics from here sister in oregon, and it doesn't look good. 8' trailer and 10' crane. I could put the outriggers back on the trailer, but the crane has just more than 1/2 of the tires on the trailer. I usually have someone to spot me when loading, but I can do it by myself.
It might be a bit easier with a dropneck, but around here we don't use them and screw doing that with a beavertail! Generally, anything transported over about 25ton goes on a rows of 8 trailer, which are either widening, or 10' fixed (or sometimes wider, but then they require pilots). I've put a 9' crane on an 8' trailer, but that still had me sweating a bit.
The drop neck trailer has a really low loading height, mine is also a side drop, rail type, rather than a flat deck, so its really low. Nice for loading.
Spent the other day moving conexes on a jobsite. One of the 40' ones they said might be heavy. I loaded the first one and it was just under 40,000. I opened the doors on the next one, and it was full of pallets of tile and grout. I started adding up boxes by weight, 60lbs per box, 36 boxes per pallet, pallets stacked two high. There was over 50,000 of tile just in the back 1/2 of the conex, and a dozen pallets of grout ahead of them. We unloaded most of that one with the forklift, moved the conex and then refilled it. I had thought about bringing my 70 ton out there to move them, but that one conex would have been close to 90,000lbs. More than I'd want on my trailer. All the other ones were under 40,000. They were moving them from being scattered all over the jobsite, to one location, so they could start on curb and gutter. 4- 20', 4-40' , 13 setups and teardowns.
HVAC unit the other morning at the big shopping mall in town, with the 70 ton. Shopping mall is right down by the river, it was 60's that morning and just gorgeous out. We have to leave a lane of the little access road open, its also the road to a underground garage, for the condo complex. Those people get upset in a big hurry when their road is blocked. People with money are different. I kind of measured out the job, and knew I'd be close on main boom. I had planned to swing jib, but decided to give it a whirl on main (I was feeling lazy). Good thing it wasn't another 8' away.
Got to do some light poles today, they're real similar to some that natman did a while back. These didn't have any light structure/ bars behind the pole, so I was able to be above the lights. We had to set up in the outfield for 3 of the poles due to limited access/ and powerlines. The lights all come with a premounted laser, that is mounted at a preset angle to project a red dot on home base when you have the pole turned to the right angle as your sliding it onto the base.
I took the RT, figuring it wouldn't leave as deep of ruts in the outfield, it's been dry here for a while so it was pretty solid.
Killed a whole day yesterday (saturday). We put block in the 70 ton, off to springfield to unload conexes in a yard. Got a "under 50,000lbs" estimate on weight, for off loading 10 conexes coming off a project, loaded with extra materials. I can use my 35, if I load them the right way and have a perfect situation, but I can't spin a loaded 40'. The 70 ton enables me to run out more boom and can spin a 40' if its not loaded to the max. We left the shop at 8, something went wrong where they were loading them at. We didn't see a truck until 2:30. Unloaded 3 trucks and then they had to drive back for another 3 loads. We got home after 7pm. I don't mind working saturday, but I like to be busy, its hard just sitting and waiting for trucks. First one was actually a 48', which you don't see many of, we lined up the rest of the doors, they delivered 20's and 40's mixed together.
Had a rough week this week. My mechanic was out working with me as a rigger, and got a call that something was wrong with one of the 25 tons. Operator never called me. We got back to the shop about 5:30, and the crane is up on jacks, sitting in the middle of the driveway between my front yard and back yard (no other access), right in front of the fuel barrells. So no one can fuel anything either. Crane is up on jacks, u-joint busted out of it, between the rear tandems. Operator had told the mechanic, he couldn't get it in and out of gear. I know he came down the hill to the shop, slammed it into reverse, then slammed it into forward at the fuel pumps after fueling, ripping out the u-joint. He did manage to remove the broken joint and get one ordered from O-reilly's, but it wasn't going to be in until 3:00, so he just went home leaving it set in the middle of the driveway. I had another guy at the shop, they could have put air to it and pulled it at least out of the driveway. He didn't call me either, to tell me the machine wouldn't be available the next day, or that the driveway was blocked up with a broken crane on jacks. The pictures are of the mechanic and I dragging it around the yard. We ended up pulling the trans, to get at the clutch. Somehow he has managed to shatter two of the fork pivot shafts, on the throwout bearing that release the clutch (push type clutch- and no, I've never seen one break there, clutch was less than a year old). In doing that, he also has the push pull cable from the pedal to the clutch torn up (the push pull may have gone first- I'm not sure). I hope in ramming it around in and out of gear, he didn't tear up a third member, and the ujoint went first. In the two weeks before this, he had managed to run into a stack of metal trusses on a jobsite with the ford pickup, tearing up a tool box door. Also, In changing oil/ filters on the other 25, he used a old antifreeze jug to put fuel into the fuel filters (we pulled all the injectors / rebuilt, one cylinder went down). I found out from one of the other guys what he'd done, and when asking him about it. the operator said he rinsed out the container with diesel first, and had never heard that a little water might be bad for the injection system. Two weeks before, he came into the shop complaining about the steering on the 25 he usually drives, the first thing I asked him was "did you hit anything?" He kind of avoided the question and asked about a upcoming job. I went over and looked at him adding fluid to the ps resevoir, I asked him where the fluid was disappearing to. He hadn't even thought to look. I climbed underneath and saw the frame rail sprayed with atf (which it uses for ps fluid). I didn't have time to look at it right then, so I told him we'd fix it later. Next day we tightened a fitting, but I pulled it outside, and all three tires of all three axles on the passenger side had been curb checked, hard. I had just put the tires on it, so I know it wasn't old marks, and I know it didn't happen and him just not notice. You don't hit a curb with that crane on all three axles and just "forget", it had to jump pretty hard. I handed him his check last thursday, and included two weeks severance. He was totally shocked. Had never been fired. Said the ujoint was the first thing he'd ever damaged. The sad thing is- he is a great crane operator, he just can't drive. He's smooth and fast running crane, I just don't have that many long term jobs where the crane just sits, and I can't deal with the torn up rigs all the time. Part of it I feel is my fault, I don't have the newest equipment, but I try to keep it in good shape. But this will be the second time in less than a year I've had to pull the transmission on the crane he's been driving. The first time the back box had the snap ring sheared off that holds on the syncro gear, actually damaging the shaft groove too. I haven't had the trans out of anything else in the last 5 years. He'd had a few other incidents, usually spaced out, but I guess this past week was the last straw for me, it just isn't easy to tell someone in their mid 50's, that they can't do their job. He's been with me about a year or so, and with him it was just one thing after another. It's not that I don't expect things to happen, I've broken equipment too. He filed for unemployment, and I've thought about fighting it, but I know he can't live on unemployment anyways, he's got bills to pay and needs a job. He just needs a job where the crane stays in one place.
Put some roof hatches on top of the big condo project we've been on, they can't reach it with their forklift, and they were a little too big to fit in the manbasket on their genie lift. Also had a early morning changing some coils on a big hvac unit. We went on the roof to help them swap it around, so we could get the old coils back down and get the crane out of the parking lot by 9:00. I thought the sun coming up by the crane boom was kind of pretty.
That sucks man. Kind of surprising that he's good in the operating seat but not the drivers seat. Does that crane have the rt6613 transmission? I always thought those grove drive trains were indestructible. The only trouble I've ever seen out of one was after the fuel was turned up on an 8.3. That crane did eat drive train parts. But that was a mean engine.
Thanks, knepptune. I like the guy, but he was real limited as a employee, because of his driving skill. He was never late, didn't mind a little overtime. He just wasn't ever going to get to the point where he could take any of the bigger cranes out driving, or the lowboy. He'd been running a rt on a jobsite for the last 5-6 years, traveling, but has driven truck cranes before. I could tell he was nervous driving with me in the semi-truck, when I first hired him, and I had two of my other guys ride with him at different times, and we all came to the same conclusion, he can run crane real well, but driving isn't a great skill of his. He ran my 70 ton setting a lot of the steel on the 10 story building, and did a great job there. I'm a small outfit, so I guess I look for guys that can do more than one thing. Usually someone that's been running equipment for that long, has some kind of mechanical knowledge, but he didn't. Couldn't weld, couldn't paint, couldn't fix anything. After the antifreeze jug for diesel, I really didn't want to let him even service anything. But a really good crane operator. How's that go again- drivers are like peanut butter- smooth or crunchy- he was crunchy. That and the lack of communication, and I guess I didn't trust him to tell me the truth. I can deal with things getting broken, its equipment -- its going to break, just tell me about it. The transmission in that one has been changed sometime in its life to a 9513. My other 25 and my 35 are both 613's. I actually like the distance between the gears better in a 613, they are closer together down low than a 9513, and that's nice getting rolling on a uphill stoplight, when your kind of underpowered. We got the trans out earlier this week, and back in friday, just waiting on a new push pull cable now. No one makes one local, I'm sending it off monday.
I don't think you had much choice if the guy can't even admit he made a mistake or hit a curb. I'd think driving a crane you'd be extra cautious everywhere. Kind of like riding a motorcycle, you have to pay 100% attention to what is going on all around you. On a motorcycle it's for your own safety, in a crane it's for the safety of others and to avoid damaging the crane or anything else. I saw a big crawler crane loaded sideways on a lowboy with the tracks sticking out each side. It was just before an intersection in the city. Someone turned right at the intersection to head the opposite direction of the crane and tore the roof off their car. I think they ducked just in time and weren't seriously injured but it sure made me wonder what the heck the pilot car drivers were there for. A little orange flag on the track doesn't cut it. With something that big you'd think they'd have a bunch of people blocking and directing traffic so something like this couldn't happen.
Unloaded 1 semi and 2 straight truck loads of shingles monday. Took the 35, the other 25 was out setting trusses, and one is down. Glad I did because the parking lot that was to be flagged off, wasn't and was full of cars. Extra 20' of radius would have really hurt with the 25. A guy came out to his goldwing at 8:00am, and expressed his displeasure at a 6-71 at full song outside his motel window, while he was trying to sleep in.... Moved a little loading deck for a customer that afternoon.
This morning's little project. All new hvac units on a walgreens. One unit was clear across the roof, no access to the other side, so my little hvac cart to the rescue.
I guess I in some ways had it lucky and at the same time it was something of a problem. See where I worked most of my life it was a larger shop and just about every type of job had someone who more or less specialized in that area. Truck drivers drove the trucks, crane operators lifted loads, welders did the welding and cutting and mechanics pulled wrenches. I was in the latter group, wrench fit my hand better than the stinger or gear shifter. Not saying I could not run the 40 ton bridge crane in the shop or jump on a front end loader to load out some haul trucks or drive the haul trucks doing stripping in the quarry just a torque wrench seemed more at home. All that said one of the things I always made a point of was to own up to a mistake. Might not run to boss before correcting it but as soon as it was corrected I would let him know what had happened. 99% of the time that was all that was needed and life went on. I can fully understand the need to let someone go who you can't trust to tell you the truth.
I love this thread. And you are right about telling the boss about a problem. Sooner rather than later, like after the parts houses have closed. and tell the truth. Stuff happens, don't try to dress it up. Just own up and we can go forward.
My hvac set today wasn't near as tough as yours I did two of these on a township building this morning
What's the rope stuff on the eave and up the valley on that building, some kind of heated line to keep it from ice/snow dam leaking?
Trusses yesterday, this is the other half of a resort/condo building, that we set the trusses for a month or so ago.
Put a little doghouse roof on the elevator shaft also. They turned it straight and anchored it down from a manlift.
Pretty ride this morning. About 2 1/2 hrs there and 2 1/2 hrs home. Clear to the other side of the county to set some more box culverts. The road from my shop there is nothing but hills and curves, 35 mph most of the way. You can see the bridge over bull shoals lake in the first picture. The second picture shows a one lane culvert/ creek crossing that we crossed to get there.
What's $5,000 worth of rigging look like? Looks like about a dumpster full. There was a auction about 2 1/2 hrs north of me, Sedalia, Mo. Company was a pipefitting outfit, went bankrupt this spring, they sold all the equipment online. Must have had enough equipment for 200 guys. I bought 23 different lots of cable chokers, shackles, nylon's, a job box, tools, etc. I sent two of the guys tuesday to pick up the items. I had them load up a materials dumpster I have, I didn't know exactly how much we were getting (purchased by pictures). The dumpster is about 6' wide, 9' long, and around 3' tall. They sold a bunch of job boxes, chain falls, and other equipment, I just bought some stuff I thought I could use. The guys pretty well filled the dumpster, Jim called me on the way back, and said the truck was leaning pretty good.
The two best lots of stuff (pictures from the web auction site), a shelf full of shackles, and a conex with a bunch of cable chokers:
I'm a sucker for tools too. Can't ever have enough vise grips and clamps, when I saw this lot of clamps, I kind of just bid away on them....
Looks like you have some good stuff there! Sad to know that someone went out of business but at least that stuff will get a new life.
You guessed it. Usually on well built modern buildings ( like the ones I build) you don't need ice thawing cables " no heat escaping at ceiling = no ice on eves.
Crane op, awesome deal on slings. I bought lots of that stuff also from a bankrupt company, a year ago, and got some gifted to me by another company. So steel slings and shackles wise, I am OK. What I missed and want badly, is to buy some decent endless fabric slings.
Wow, quite the treasure trove.....a good score. Living on a road near a ski area like I do, I get rid of my old strap slings by giving them away for use as tow straps. I once got jumped on verbally (on another site about crane work) by a guy who said he always cut his up, and I was leaving myself open to a lawsuit if one broke while being used (while towing a car) and someone got hurt and sued me. Probably true in his world anyway, (maybe he was an ex lawyer or something) I don't worry about it, and it is a good incentive for me to get rid of them and buy new. I see this as good business as I often get favorable comments on new looking my rigging is compared to what others use. My most used slings are 2", 4 12' and 4 20', and they aren't that expensive to replace every year or so. I should use more wire rope slings I guess but other then a couple 12' 3/8" slings for truss bundles don't, just stuck in my ways. You have me thinking I need more cable rigging.
Khansen- the company went under and that's too bad- the bankruptcy papers said they owed uncle sam close to a million in just payroll withholdings, so they had some serious losses Ichudov- my local rigging supply house has been circling the drain this summer- they had no 3/4" cable to make me a bridle set, for over 6 months. I've been getting my nylons/endless roundslings online. Natman- I don't see how you would have any liability for giving away stuff. When I hand someone something, I usually say "I have no idea where that came from". I use cables as much as I can when handling trusses/ floor joists, quarry equipment, steel, etc. They last so much longer. I use nylons for hvac units, and on big lam beams where steel would slide and on finished beams where they would mar the finish. Loaded a building with floor trusses the other day.
Setting a pole in a amusement park. Had to circle around through the trees and buildings, and down the railroad tracks. Pretty tight quarters.
Tightest gap through the trees, I'm standing on the tracks taking this picture, we had the manlift up on two tires getting through here and crossing the tracks because it was so steep. The rear axle oscillates on the rt, so it wasn't near as bad to get up on the tracks. I had just enough tip height on main, I would have had room to swing jib if I needed it, but I decided to try it without and made it.
Local dirt contractor had a bad week- last week. Large, track mounted crusher, the quarry road meets the 4 lane highway at a pretty good angle. I think he turned and tried to go uphill, and the crusher flopped to the down hill, pulling the tractor clear on back over to the other side. No one got hurt, probably just some pride and a wallet. Truck, lowboy, and probably a $400,000 crusher. Its probably a 80-90,000lbs crusher.
Big old cat backhoe, Dirt contractor has a 420 but he wouldn't carry these with his. He just put a new front axle in the 420 after breaking it (probably hauling big rocks). He borrowed this 446 from a buddy. The rocks went over in a mini putt course. The mason setting the rocks usually sets 4' tall rocks. When we set the first big stone, he wanted to leave it standing with just some little rocks wedged under it to hold it straight, and a little mason mix under it. I told him the rock was 8' tall and 10,000lbs, and if he planned on us setting any more, it would have some steel holding it, before any of us got close to it.
Wish I would have got a better picture of the tak excavator. It had a pivot from side dig, to middle dig position, for the dipper. I'd never seen that. He said he's worked on it a couple times, its evidently not real strong. But I could see it being real handy in tight quarters. Also just in case anyone is wondering, yes, rocks are a big pain in the *** to rig up and fly. There's no picking lugs on them, and they're even worse if you have to stand them on end. The plywood under my usual outrigger pads is because the owner is super fussy about his parking lot surface. I wanted it to be like we were never there.
And just because I don't have enough projects around my shop.... I brought home another one yesterday. 1992 peterbilt, 425hp, 3406 cat, 9 speed, 4.33 rears. Has a bad motor, and a couple other maintence items. I'm trying to replace the international that's pulling the trailer that the pete is loaded on. It's only a m11 with a super 10, and I'd rather have the pete because it should be enough truck to also pull my other lowboy trailer that we haul a crane on. The motor supposedly has a knock, I never actually heard it turn over, the batteries are dead. But its supposed to run, just hammers. I'm thinking we're either inframing what I've got, unless I find a good used motor, then we'll swap. Only other thing it really needs is jakes, but another forum member has mentioned he has a set. I bought it up by montgomery city mo, about a 4 hr drive from me. I gave $5,500 for it, so I should have a little room to spend some $ fixing it up. I hope to fix it then sell my international. It got a little late last night before I got home, I had to fix two tires on the trailer before I left, so I got a little bit of a late start. It had taller stacks, but they were rusted out, and they make me overheight, so we wacked them off with a sawzall before I headed home.
And we have a new employee also, she's just not trained very well yet. I'd say she's about 8 months old, someone dumped her out on our road, she was about starved to death when I started feeding her. I'd say she had a pretty rough start. The first week you couldn't get within 10' of her, but this week she's really come around, you can pet her and she'll shake. She's really filling out, her ribs aren't showing anymore either. She was eating two bowls of food a day for the first week. I'm hoping by next week I can get her into the truck and get a rabies shot for her anyway.
They both look like keepers. Don't understand why people just dump animals off.
May I post some pictures of our work in Saudi?
This is "Crane Operators" thread so it would be best if you started your own thread to post pictures to save confusion if nothing else. Go to the "Forums" link up near the top of Home Page and select one that would be close to what you work with or just use the "TGIF" forum if nothing fits. then scroll down to the bottom and on the right side at the bottom there should be a blue box that says "Post New Thread" name it what you want like "Saudi Work Pictures" and go from there.
Thanks for taking the time to explain how to post a new thread! I was trying to get some of "crane operator" fans attention but they seem too intolerance Regards
Start your thread, put a bunch of good pictures and info in it and then post a link to it here.
Start a thread with pictures and I will look. CO looks like you got a good start on a "new" truck
Then crane operator will send me a bill for advertising!
I did not get CO neither the "new" truck. Sorry we Arabs run on crude oil that is why we are slower than you people! I think you know how thick is the crude oil and how it is hard to burn it! I hop you got what I am trying to say!
80' broad band antenna. Erector was training a new hand. He went up the tower, came back down after the cordless impact. Went back up with the impact and spent 15 minutes, sticking the socket on every nut he tried to tighten with it. Tighten a bolt, spent 5 minutes beating the socket off, and put it right back on another nut. Finally, the old hand yelled up and suggested it might be faster to just use his spud wrench and just hand tighten the remaining 8 bolts. Or we could spend the rest of the day waiting for him to use the cordless.
Trusses today, had to take the yellow 25, it was pretty foggy this morning and the winshield wiper wasn't working on the white one. I of course hadn't left enough time to fix it before I left, I guess I need to get out of bed earlier.
Nice little truss job today. We've been a little busy, and these guys called a competitor of mine on wednesday to set these trusses. They said he had the crane on the yard for two hours and couldn't figure out how to get level because the hill was too steep (they're based up in flat country). I looked at it last night and didn't know about the other crane being there, the customer called and wanted me to "look" at it, because he was "worried" about it. I told him it didn't look to bad and wasn't really worried about it, that's when he brought up the other crane being there. Anyways, good group of amish boys, even though they won't even stay off their phone's now either. Caught two of them today yakking away on them.
But it was a really nice day, so I did get some nice pictures. Had all the trusses except the last gable and the hats set by 10:00, which wasn't too bad, they didn't want me there until 8:30.
Doesn't look like it would be too hard to level to me. You do get some interesting jobs.
Great work as usual Crane OP ! I love working with Amish crews .
The builder said as soon as the operator pulled up he was scared and said "there's no way I can set up there". He actually tried once to set where I'm setting, then turned sideways, pulled the nose of the crane up on the hill, with the back end downhill, and tried it again (why he did that, I don't know, he was right the first time). When he was setting with the slope, it slid a little when coming up on jacks (which isn't unusual on a slope) and then when he got out of the cab, they said he was literally shaking, he was spooked real bad when it slid. I feel for the guy, that's no fun at all. It really wasn't a bad spot, I only had wood under one outrigger, and the crane was setting pretty level before I even started. I thought it was a pretty "normal" set up spot. The builder, when he told the other crane to just head back for town, said it was like he flipped a switch on the operator's face. He shook his hand in gratitude, and was thankful that he was headed back for town and off that jobsite. It could be that he's just new at his job, and if he's just out of training school, or coming from refinery or powerhouse work, he would never see a crooked jobsite. They really don't cover that well in the books, they don't tell you how to set up on a 3' slope, just that the crane needs to be on a firm level surface. The framer's offered to cut up some 2x10's for him, he was short of wood on the deck, but he didn't want that either, said pine would just "explode". I carry a lot of oak, but I'll quite often steal a 2x6 or something to level up a pad if I need to. It just is hard when you're out of your comfort zone, but we all have day's that don't go so well, and I sure haven't seen and done everything either.
I was thinking the same unless there's something I don't see that's every second job for me. The Mennonites that I work for all Tex and talk on the phone and if there on the phone the job stops. And I think they all smoke by the time they're 15. But for the most part good guys and I like setting for them, never make much money off them because I'll do a 60x150 foot barn on my minimum charge.
As a Neophyte who uses a crane for basic non-commercial picks (country bumpkin picks) : when setting up on a slope (which I haven't done), does it make sense to dig out a flat for an outrigger? I made a set of pads with 4x4's sandwiched between 3/4" ply roughly 30"x30"....I noticed a steel pad of some kind as your 1st pad before stacking oak for your outriggers.....what is that? P.s. In the summer of 1986, my grandfather (who owned a Grove 180) tried to get me on as an oiler for the local 150......if only they were hiring....lol
I've got some 2'x3' aluminum pads that I put down typically under the wood. They're actually old military landing mats cut down. If you set up with wood in a big span/ across a big rock etc, you end up breaking the wood all the time. In a flat spot I can get by with just the aluminums, I try to kick all the big rocks out from under (a big sharp rock can punch a hole through the aluminum), and make it kind of level if I can. Sometimes there's no way you're moving enough dirt or rock to make a level place to start, we're mostly clay or rock, and I don't even carry a shovel, I'd rather just add wood to get level. If you look in this picture, you can see I've first put down a angled pad, I carry two of those on my small cranes, its just made out of a 2-3' square of 3/4" plywood, screwed together with ever shorter pieces. Sometimes I'll just lay down a 3"x12" x 3' under the downhill side, and the aluminum on top to bring it level. The aluminums will take a span that wood won't. If you look at the one front jack I put down a angled pad, then a piece of 2x6 to bring the aluminum up level, then stacked wood to get my height. The aluminum stays ridgid over any gaps, and supports the upper boards solid. The back pad I got by with just kicking the big rocks out of the way, and throwing down a aluminum(if its any more crooked than the back one here, I'll pop a 2x6 or something under the down hill side of the aluminum to flatten it out). If you try to dig down on the front jack , to make a level spot, 1st its all rock, 2nd you're just loosing height that you'll need to gain back. If its just 1" clean rock on top, I'll kind of kick it to a smooth spot/ leveling it out, but its not transit flat or anything. On my bigger cranes I'll make a double wide set of pads, to help spread out the weight, so I'm not sinking into the ground or a parking lot.
Detroit, regarding your second picture in the last post, are you afraid that this pile of wood may somehow shift slightly and then collapse? I have no experience building up just that high, but I had to level myself some good amount and was always worried about stability of these wood structures.
If the tall stack is setting crooked, then you worry about the wood walking out. I do all my leveling out down low, and the stack itself is level. Its rare that you have a stack that high in more than one spot too. Usually you're other side the jacks are tight on the ground, and the one on the same side of the slope usually has 1/2 that much wood. Sure, you want to be smooth and not get real wild on the controls or anything, but down low that's a 3' x 4' wide pad, everything else (all the other jacks) have to be moving too, to get that stack to come down.
Ever seen them "log cabin" stack up wood, when they're moving houses or putting in a basement under a existing house? Sometimes setting transformers. This is the same thing, keep it straight, tight and level, and it shouldn't go anywhere. We have hard soil conditions here, which helps a lot, muddy/ soft conditions would really play havoc on a steep stack if it settles at all.
I've got a little auction problem, namely I like to go to a auction on a saturday, and I usually end up bringing home stuff. Last weekend there was a truck guy selling out, I brought home a couple parts cabinets of brass fittings, and a big box full of air line, radiator hose, hydraulic hoses etc. I kind of justify it in my mind, thinking if it saves about 2 trips to the parts store, I pay for the stuff. Anyways, this saturday I had time and went to another sale, and I drug home something I've been looking at getting for a while, a tig welder. I've got some aluminum stuff, and I hear its better for that than my aluminum spool gun system is. I can mig and stick, and (kind of) braze. So I think I can probably pick up on the tig thing. This one is a old airco welder, it doesn't have the foot pedal control, its got a little button on the hand torch. I do not know its running condition, but its got a pretty new cover on the gun, and there's not much complicated stuff in most of the old welders to go wrong. Its surplus from a local college that closed their industrial arts department, so it probably works. I only have a $135 in it, I didn't want to buy a high priced rig to learn on, at that price I can afford to play around a little. I've also been busy in the back room, straightening out my mess of rigging. We went through a bunch of old rigging, anything with broken wires or rusty got pitched, and I've managed to get most of the 1/4, 3/8 and 1/2" chokers I got from a auction a while back, sorted out and hanging on the wall. I still have to do the 5/8" and up stuff, but this was the big part of the project. I kinda surprised the guys by my willingness to part with some of the old stuff- I tend to hang onto stuff "in case" we might need it. Anyways, pictures of the "new" to me welder, a pickup full of parts and my wall of sorted rigging.
Thank you Crane Op! My experience is on soft or frozen ground.....I'm still "crawling" in any pick I do (double and tripple check my level, footings, etc). I'm smart enough to know what I don't. It's sad all of the industrial programs falling out of school curriculums in favor of the "soft education". I picked up a Fadal CNC mill from a technical college for that reason (I assumed they were upgrading....they weren't). There is a 20,000+ shortage of certified welders....and it's only getting worse. Is this true in Crane Operators as well?
BobCatBob, are you in Australia, everything seems to be upside down
Pictures upside down? They show on my iPad right side up. I've had a problem taking pictures with the iPhone....need to consult my 12 year old on this...lol P.s. I'm a Chicago burbs guy (you're in Berkeley?)
Yep, in Berkeley!
I can find operators fairly easily. Finding one with a CDL is a little tougher. Finding one with a CDL and who can actually drive in hilly conditions is much more difficult. Finding one that can do all the above, and that doesn't mind fixing a taillight or painting or doing other "shop" work is the hardest. If I put a ad out for help, most of the guys that apply have been traveling, and expect road $, which I can't pay in the rental game, but I can offer them the chance to be home every night and not work 6-12's for weeks on end. Most of the ones that apply have been doing powerhouse or refinery work, so have just been driving rt's or crawling a lattice boom around a jobsite. They aren't used to setting up and tearing down three times a day, and certainly not driving 80,000lbs around in hilly conditions. I don't think I have it as bad as the framers, electricians, welding places that need a lot of employee's. I can get by with a pretty small # of employees. I do get some applications from kids out of "training" schools, but they really aren't qualified applicants for me, I can't go with them to babysit on every job, and we have to be the experts, when the crane shows up. I usually tell them to go frame or hang steel or weld for 10 years, then call me when they've learned something. I tend to get along the best with 40- 50 year old guys that are sick of traveling, know what they're doing, and just want to be home more and ease into their retirement.
CDL, crane operator, and fixer, such people usually end up working for themselves, hence the lack of suitable applicants. I am, sort of, such person too, and I have a business. I have a cdl, operate my crane, and fix stuff, though I have other ppl in my company that do more fixing than I do.
I'm a "wanna be" hobbyist.....I got a Class B CDL to drive a dump truck, rebuilt a crane for the challenge, mostly on weekends (along with an out of frame rebuild)....and in a 2nd life wish I wasn't so scared when running the crane doing small picks. You guys are the real deal....I log in to learn. Thank you as always
Pretty sure that's rebadged Miller welder. Points on the high frequency may need to be adjusted. There is a learning curve on aluminum... mostly because it doesn't change color like steel. It gets shiny when it melts and the next thing you know you have a big hole. LoL Once you master it though, you can do all kinds of things with aluminum Tig. Need straight argon and most people use pure tungsten for aluminum. Googling old Miller 250 AC/DC Tig welder brought up a link that the way the current control works may not allow for a foot pedal current control. Even the if Tig doesn't work, it's a good stick welder. Might want to take the cover off and blow it out.
I think that it is an old rebadged miller dialarc hf.
If I had to guess I’d say it’s the same as the Miller in the background.
The miller sold after the one I bought, and yes they are very similar. I haven't hooked up the airco yet, been busy with other projects. Got the swivel pulled out of the little mack boom truck, I was really worried the air portion would be heavily corroded, but it just had nasty oil/ crud, from the air system. The crud took out the seal, and there were a few light scratches in the barrel. I had the barrel at the machine shop for a light hone, seals should be in late this week or early next week. I also have the gear pump ready to go back in, resealed and rebearinged. After hone:
Had a kind of late night last night. Street closure for assembly of a christmas tree on a flagpole. We did this the first time last year, this year they assembled it differently, and it took about 3 hours longer. Great progress.
They wanted it dark to test out the lights, so we didn't start until 2:00, and it was really dark by the time they got done. We spent two days last year chasing electrical gremlins, this year it all worked.
Was still a little dark this morning when we left to go pick up the RT, we left it in a shopping mall parking lot after the night job, and I didn't want to have it blocking their lot, so we went this morning and picked it up. Had to get it done, I had a little unit to set at 10:00 with the 25, so we hustled right along.
The electrical on the swivel looks like a nightmare
This one was a piece of cake, only like 6 wires, outrigger controls are downstairs. My Rt that we did this past winter was like 70 some wires, that was no fun.
Put up some more floor trusses this morning (35 ton), then a hvac unit this afternoon (25 ton). You may wonder how I got jib put in at the hvac job, well let me tell you, I didn't do it where the crane is at in the pictures. I set up further ahead in the big open part of the parking lot. Installed jib. Back down on rubber, and backed into the alley/ dock. 2200lbs, and it was just supposed to be over the edge of the building, and it would have been if I could have set up in a 12' wide dock. But no that would be too easy. Instead I was about 85' over there, I should have just gone back to the shop for the 35 ton, but I got it done.
Where are these mysterious level sights, when I backed around the rear of this house I thought oh! They have a level spot for me great, nope it just wasn't as sloped as the rest of the property I still had to put extra dunage under both jacks on the house side. No problem I took my time and made sure I was an set up well ( last outing I tore my cab off, I'm still a little gun shy) the picture really doesn't do it justice. I'd hate to be coming down it in an ice storm
Those 25s don't steer that well with the jib and stinger hanging over the nose, do they? They barely steer at all if you have to hang the jib and put the boom over the back to get in. Lol
Pictures never do a slope justice, do they tradesman? Going to put a wall of glass and a dormer in the middle of the house? Everything working in the new cab? knepptune- I usually put the boom over the nose if driving around with jib on. I won't do it on a steep- side slope jobsite (unless I can boom down enough to put it in the rest), and I usually keep outriggers out a little. I think you could lay one over pretty easy on its side with jib on. and you're dead on- they are really light up front if you boom down too much over the rear, with jib on.
P I think it's getting timber framed for a big open front porch. The new cab is identical to the old one. It was kinda nice with it off I sanded all the rust blisters off under the floor, behind the console and all the nasty dark corners , primed and painted. I got my satellite radio going tonight, I missed it today. One of the nicest things about it is the dang wiper parks in the correct spot I don't know if you noticed but the old one always parked dead centre and I couldn't Fix it. Got some good news the insurance company asked a local truck shop for an estimate on removing the old cab and installing the new one, it turns out he is a good client of mine so I was talking today with him and he asked me how long it took me to do it, I was quite honest and told him I had about 11 hours into it, so that's the number he's giving them and they will be reimbursing me for my time " nice" never occurred to me.
That phenomenon of a picture never truly showing how steep a hill is, is well known to us pilots who land on mountain sides, so I wasn't surprised when I noticed the same thing on my work pics! Taking that into account, that looks pretty steep CO.
It was a little windy and rainy here this weekend also. Got a call about a downed tree on a house, tree man had trimmed most of it off, but was concerned about the big piece. Also one of the guys that works for me does a little scrapping. The local hydraulic hose/ welding/ construction supply house had this old forklift setting outside for a couple years. Lucky for him, he works for a guy with a crane, and truck and gooseneck trailer. He bought it, and we went and loaded it up the other day. Little sucker weighed just under 8,000lbs. I was thinking more like 6,000. I keep looking at that counterweight on the forklift, and dreaming of ways to mount it to the rear of the turntable, on the little mack boom truck. What boom truck couldn't use more counterweight?
I have a better weight if you want one. On the back of an old 14 ton picker, handy size. Still have a couple excavator weights as well as two forklifts......plenty of options!
I know- someday I'm going to just take a day and drive over there. You'd think you were on the other side of the moon instead of just over the state line. Did you see the pictures of the pete? Its really a pretty clean truck, I haven't dropped the pan or opened rocker covers, I've been busy. The noise is really high up, around #2 cylinder. I'm hopeful that's its not serious, and even a inframe wouldn't be bad if I had to.
I did see it, I think it'll make a good truck. Hard to beat a 3406B. I've got all kinds of crap laying around you mind be able to repurpose The two forklifts have propane motors if you're still looking for parts. They're gonna get scraped soon. I'll take the useful bits off then and toss the rest. Just about any weekend I'm around.
It must be my year for swivel repair. The tms 300 decided to start leaking air from the supply to the delivery to the lower engine throttle. We've had some moisture problems in the air system, and I thought that was the real problem, but today it started seeping oil too, and it has gotten to the point it was sending the lower throttle to wide open. We pulled it this afternoon. The air portion was rusty, but I think it will hone out enough to seal up. We've pulled the rt one twice since last november, and I've got the little boom truck's swivel laying on the bench waiting for one seal, so I guess one more isn't that big of a deal.
On that 300 are you leaving the tower on the crane or did you pull the whole assembly. On that style I never pulled the tower. Back to driving the 25s around with the jib on, I can tell you they won't turn over as quickly as I thought they would. I watched a guy drive one through a two foot ditch at an angle with the jib and stinger at about a 25 degree angle. I couldn't believe that it stayed rubber side down. The abuse that poor crane went through... same guy was moving around an apartment job with the jib and stinger out and ran the stinger through an almost finished building. Laid the poor crane over a month later. Didn't damage anything when he did that, building stopped the crane from going completely over. As far as I know that crane is still working. That operator was unemployed last I knew. Hopefully still is.
Already have the tower pulled, it was only the bottom hoses extra, and they were easy- had 3' extensions on all of them.
Overnighted a seal kit for the tms 300 swivel, and 1/2 the seals were wrong in the kit. I've got some different seals found at a local hydraulic shop, they should be here monday. You can see we had some corrosion on the air portion, the barrel needed some honing done on it. Trusses with the amish boys Thursday.
Had to back right up to the house, there was a girder and a little bump out on the back wall to reach. Should I be worried the buzzards were circling? There were 10-15 of them, so I tried to look active.....
Hot tub to finish the week, they were complaining about the cost for a extra signal man, but I'm sure if one of the hot tub guys, had swung me into the house on the blind side, they would want me to pay to fix the house.
I think you call that forward thinking. Someone on this forum said they thought it was crazy for me to lay all the ground mats last fall when I was setting the docks, but the way I looked at it the correct person was paying up front instead of me paying to re-sod. Same applies in this case, keep up the good work. And as for the buzzards, how's your personal hygiene, not making passing any judgment, just throwing it out there.
Been thinking about that used cab comment for a while haven't you? I guess I had it coming.
I did sneak in a new tool yesterday too. A new (to me) vise appeared on craigslist, and I'm a sucker for new tools. Its a chas parker, and its a heavy little ba$%erd. I picked it up and set it on the pallet on the forklift, and next time I'm setting the pallet on the ground first. It would barely turn, so I gave it a good dousing with some spray lube, and now it turns really free. I'm hoping the big jaws will hold smaller cylinders, etc. I put a paint can in the picture to give a idea of its jaw spread.
If you ever need more counterweight...
Why do vises come with swivel bases? I much prefer the old style solid bases.
I'm sure the homeowner in the photo could have signaled for you and saved that $100.
Yeah, they had to move their $70,000 diesel pickup grocery getter, out of the way of their $500,000 house, and couldn't spare the extra for a signalman. How's harvest?
Worked all day at the amusement park, Sunday is a closed day for them, so we got the Christmas tree set up.
Got back late from building Christmas tree, and had a emergency pick, I figured if I had to hang the moon, I better make it a tandem pick. Actually, they're both setting boom up, because they both have the swivel's out of them right now, I'm going to have to hurry, I need the grove 35ton on wed.
Harvest is winding down. Crews are finishing up punch list items. I am looking for next years work
Set another memorial stone at a private campground. People with memberships in the campground can pay to have someone who served, engraved on the stone. When they get enough names/ sponsorships made up to have another stone made, they get another one engraved. They have their name, service, rank, and years served. We've set six stones with names (each stone has 93 names), and the main entrance stone. Usually set about one a year or so. There's a 130' flagpole behind the main stone, then service flags each way.
Put the swivel in the 35 this afternoon. Hoses on, electric/ air hooked up. Putting in oil in the morning and testing it all out.
Looks like fun! Those number tags sure come in handy on a job like that. Just have to get things clean and dry so they will stick. When working on a bunch of hoses in a nasty greasy machine the assorted colored zip-ties were always handy. Even then I liked to make a sketch of the valve body with the colors of the hose to each fitting. If you need more colors than the number in the bag just combine two red/yellow green/blue and so on.
If you peer down in on those hoses, you'll see some of your colored zip ties. A old mechanic I used to work with had a chunk of old telephone wire, it had every color of the rainbow, and he would use it to mark hoses. I also like to make a picture/drawing when I pull something apart with a lot of connections. I've also on some things, taken a cell phone picture. Who knows when you'll get back to putting it back together, waiting for parts/ etc. My mechanic guy likes to just pull things apart and hope for the best (he's got a better memory than I do), but I've had to figure a couple things out when he had them put back together wrong, then I raise cain, about marking and drawing pictures. I did get it back together this morning, everything works wiring wise, and we've got a little seep at the bottom of the can where it joins the base, it was pretty cold this morning, so I'm hoping it just has to settle itself in.
I posted this picture a while back of a local dirt worker's small oops. Buddy informed me they had just bought the crusher. I went by today and took pictures of the aftermath on the trailer, its got a pretty good tweak put in it. Looks like most of the twist is in the gooseneck. Truck doesn't look too bad from the other side.
looks very sad, what happened? How did it overturn?
Its a steep road at a cross slope to the quarry road. He drives like a idiot also. He was probably giving it the throttle coming out of the quarry road, and it bounced a little coming onto the main road, and turning on air bag suspension and presto- instant scrap metal. He hauled my Rt crane for me on one job we did for them, before I had my lowboy. I gave him the option of hauling it himself, or having my regular guy haul it. That was the first and last time he hauled for me. He's got a employee that does a good job, but the owner is the one that can't drive.
Built this goofy roof awning this summer, and surprise, part of it is too flat and won't drain water. They had the bright idea to cut the support legs on one side, raise it up to get it to drain water, and add to the legs. A local sign outfit I work with came to do the cutting and welding. They've got a new guy, and he's got his own goofy ideas about cutting and joining I-beams and ironworking. I ended up calling his boss and telling him to send someone else out, because the new guy was just making a mess out of the whole thing. It was kind of awkward, the welder wasn't my employee, but I know his boss pretty well. I tried several times to give a little "advice", which he promptly ignored and did what he thought best. I finally just took some pictures and texted them to his boss, and he sent some other guys out, and we cut out the other mess.
He somehow had the idea, that after raising one side, he could get the I-beams to line back up, by me just swinging it back over. We added 13" of height, and I tried to explain how that just made the whole roof shorter, he said he could ratchet strap it back together. It started out when I told him to make the initial cut at the top of the column, so he could just add to the column, and everything would stay straight. He decided to cut it a foot down. He kept on making a mess and I finally got sick of it and sent these pictures to his boss. This is the mess he ended up with:
That's some nice work! Maybe he's an abstract artist and he's just expressing himself.
Had to install concrete block ledges all around these chimney's. In the blind with most of them.
Crane Operator you get some of the most interesting job there ever are, thanks for letting us in your world...
I was having a better day than the mason's manlift though- that fog in the middle of the boom is hydraulic oil. They let it spray for quite a while, I was on the horn trying to get them to shut it down, it sprayed hydraulic oil all over the new stucco wall. They got the emergency squad out:
There was like 18 manlifts on this site, and I swear half of them were in the way in getting to the chimney's on the back side of the building. Had a steady little mist, so I had to pop the window a little for a view of my signal man.
I always find it distracting when there's so much equipment on site, I always worry about someone running into me. The third picture shows the blocks we were setting. They're on the pallets in the front, right under the boom of the manlift, kind of rectangular with sloped tops. I have no idea why they did solid concrete, no one is ever going to see them, and a trim or stucco wouldn't have looked much different. You can't see them from really anywhere.... The building does have a nice view of the lake on the backside.
Glad you're enjoying them Hank R. I do enjoy what I do- I thank God quite often, that I get to have a fun and challenging job. I'd die stuck behind a desk every day shuffling paper from one side of it to the other, or staring at numbers running across a computer screen. Legal documents bring me to tears....
Thank you for sharing your work and the pics are awesome.
Crane Op, the ammount of new construction you have boggles my mind. You would starve to death up here in the "dead zone". New construction is little to none, the few good guys left are busy with small jobs, the hacks, well, they drive the back roads, looking for empty beer cans. Ed
Very interesting pics and comments. You do come across a variety of Dumskis
Had a great day today- set exactly 2, that's right, 2 concrete blocks on the face of the building. Glad I'm not paying the bill. We installed a couple, took them back off, measured, remeasured, changed how they were mounting them, then put two of them back up. Had plenty of time for taking pictures of fun around the jobsite also. First off, a huge flock of geese decided that its still too cold here, and were gathering up for warmer climates...
Two man backhoe action. And some quickie saw action, its a circular saw, its a grinder, it does it all. Yes that's them cutting plywood with a abrasive blade, and yes, he's grinding the cut ends of rebar also on a abrasive blade with someone else standing on the saw. Not a great way to work...
And lastly, some of my own accomplishments. We had to scope out under the roof (big overhang) to set these. Its a big pain, because its hard to see the top/end of your boom, until its too late and you're into the roof. I'm about 90' away. The blocks are under 700lbs. I set the first two with roundslings, but went to small cable chokers, they changed how they were attaching them to the wall. The roundslings took up too much room, they couldn't get them out through the grout line. I was afraid the 1/4" cables would bite into the block, so we put some softeners on the exposed side.
And people wonder where ideas for safety rules come from? It's from reading reports after people like those get hurt and go to the ER !
Ran across this today and thought you might like it for refrence.
Thanks, I've never heard of that outfit before. One more source for parts. First picture is all we managed to accomplish yesterday, we did get all the stone on that side set today, but some of them we set more than once. The dirt working guy spreading stone between the curbs, asked me what the cost per piece was up to. Had them cut a piece of that pink sill sealer/insulation stuff, to put between the window and the last stone, I could just see them knocking it out, or even scraping it up setting the last one.
Had a few lifts in the way on this side of the building too.
The nearest Motion Industries (Springfield?) should be able to help you
HEY !! What happened to that big Detroit scaring everyone away
Everyone's pretty desperate to get done, They've got rooms booked for the east side of it in end of november/december sometime. The lobby needs a lot of work yet. They were just setting the stone on the face of the big fireplace.
Did get the stones set on the other side though, took all day, but the other side took two days, so I guess that's progress. Sun was a little mean on one of them, and I was right up against the window on the last one, this side wasn't as handy, because the window was on the blind side of the boom.
Kind of a busy site, I saw the blue line mechanic, the sunbelt mechanic, and last of all- the cat mechanic, all there again yesterday- all working on manlifts. I need some chrome simulators for my ford, everyone else has got them (I think they dress is up a little). That and we're putting some round mirrors on the mirror arms, the little skinny factory convex mirrors are to small to see anything with. Just a little update on the ford 450 (because its in two of the pictures, I'm thinking about it). We use it as the support truck for the 70 ton crane, its got a little mechanics crane, tommy lift tailgate, sideboxes, and we put a big jobox in the back. Rigging is in the jobox, and one of the toolboxes. Other big toolbox has tools (surprise), and oil, sledgehammer, prybar, air hose. Small box on the back has some rigging for the crane and the controller. Its working great, there's enough room in the back for 4x8 skip box or plywood, pallet forks, block or ball, manbasket, etc. Nice to just fold down the tall sideboard and load with the forklift at the shop. Onboard fuel tank and pump for the thirsty detroit. Jobox holds most of our "standard" rigging, if I need big (+1") chokers or something, we just load them in the back. Best thing is the tommy lift tailgate, its so nice for loading tires, we leave it down 1/2 way for a step up to the rigging box, have rolled items on the pallet jack onto it, then pallet jack and all to the jobsite to work in a building (skates, hoists, etc.). I've never had a tommy gate before, and I really didn't think that much about it when we bought the truck, but its one of the best things on the truck. The mechanics crane, we actually hardly ever use. We load items with the forklift at the shop, unload with the big crane on jobsite. If I had to get rid of something, the crane would come off first, but I'm equipped different than most business's with lifting equipment. I did use it, to go purchase a used motor, and its nice if you go buy something used somewhere, that the seller can't load for you, the crane can just load it on the pickup. I'm not that impressed with the 7.3, it just runs so different, compared to my 5.9 cummins in my dodge. The cummins is manual 6 speed, the 7.3 is a auto, and I think the torque converter/ auto is robbing power. It seems like you have it all the time between 2,000 and 2500rpm just to get anywhere. I don't run my dodge near that high for rpms, and it makes power much lower than the 7.3 it seems. The rest of the truck (ford) is built way better in my mind than the dodge is, its just the 7.3 just seems doggy. We did swap the tires from 225 to 245/ 19.5 to gain some road speed, it was wound pretty tight at 55 before swapping to the taller tires.
I guess I'll just throw this out also. Anyone who works under a roof with a crane with a lot of boom deflection, needs to watch their boom top when setting down a load. Typically when your setting something down, your watching the signal man and the load, and just cabling down. With a load under a roof, you need to cable down until the load just touches down, then boom down, otherwise your boom "undeflects" right up into the roof that you were clearing when loaded. In this instance of the blocks: I was under the roof, but also right up to the wall beyond me, so instead of booming down when the load touched down, I actually had to telescope in a little, because your boom also "grows" longer when setting down the load, which would have shoved me into the wall beyond me. Think of a fishing pole with a big fish, its bent down and shorter with the fish, the crane boom does the same thing.
Yup. I've seen my AT's deflect 15' or more with a long boom.
Everytime I make fun of tradesman's weather, I get nailed myself. Today it was rain and mud. Thank goodness it was solid underneath, just greasy on top. Elevator shaft, cylinder for the elevator. In the rain, and yes I got soaked. At least it was right close to the shop- I got to go home and change clothes afterwards. I hope my boots have dried out by tomorrow.
The ironworkers had their little boom truck there, I think they need a collection taken up, for some funds for some new 4x4's, theirs are getting a little rotten.
I did get a driveway the other day too. I knew it before we ever went in there, brand new driveway, and they needed manbasket work, to put the last of the gutter on the backside of the house. It was 4 stories back there, and the ground was just too steep, and they were too lazy to pump jack it. I had them sign off a hold harmless on the driveway before I set up, and only cracked it up under my left rear jack. Afterwards they told me that's where the water line trench was to the house. Nobody was real concerned about the crack, but I still was glad I warned them before, and had them sign off (sub, and general contractor). I was going to take the 25, but there wasn't room to do jib, and it was a good thing, because they went across the whole back of the house doing gutter guard, and I was close to 90' radius on the far corner. I did plywood and aluminums trying to spread out the push, and used a old billboard tarp to keep the detroit from marking her territory on the new pavement. The crack was about a 8' circle.
Did get a scale set this afternoon at the local garbage transfer, never mind that powerline that's in the middle of the new scale, to the old scale house. Yes, it was a big pain.
Got to raise the other side of the goofy roof this week. They were a little more organized, but I still didn't get out of their lot before dark. I had to go get the crane the next morning. They haven't gotten much better at cutting I-beam straight, the last picture is one of the pieces they made to insert, they ended up cutting it again.
Finished out the week with some trusses. A retired crane operator lived just down the street, so he came down to keep a eye on me. I set up in the driveway first and set the garage trusses on main boom, they were all laid on the ground, where I needed to set up for the main house. They offered to move the whole stack, so I would only have to set up once, but I figured it would be quicker to move the crane and just set them, than move them all. The house sits right next to a helicopter ambulance pad. Its all retired people that live down there, the one retired guy said the helicopter showed up 5 times in the last year (we were the show for the morning- maybe the highlight of their month- everyone came down on their golf carts). Somehow I don't think the helicopter is going to be great for the new houses shingles, but it isn't my house.
My everyday go to 24" square laminated form plywood pads are getting round corners and getting tough looking and after seeing your post I got thinking they don't last forever so I priced some commercially available plastic pads yikes, so I made a visit to one of the local Mennonite shops I bought a full 4x8 sheet of 1 1/2" black plastic of the same material that my commercial pad are made of they are cutting 3 - 32" round pads and making some dunage pieces out of the drop. "Round pads so I can handle them a bit easier". For less than 1/2 in CND $ of what I would of had to pay in US $ plus shipping ( to lazy to do the conversion) and as far as traceability there are no identifying marks on my commercial pads. I plan on using them as my daily pads I was thinking it would save a lot of those times when I put my 24" pads down and end up replacing them with my 75 lb. large plywood pads. I'll make do with three of them for now till I know if I like them. Then either buy three more or get a commercial one to make a full set.
As a general, building a new house for someone I could see a jack hammer in my future!
A few trusses from last week, had to sort for a while to get started.
Some manbasket work to fix some more gutter. Close side was a little too close, and the back side was a pretty good reach.
New exhaust fan for a mexican place. This spot is kind of a pain to do jib in , with the trees and sidewalks, but the street isn't wide enough for the 70 ton, and I even had to get a little creative for the 35 outrigger up on a curb. You don't want to get into the grass, there's sprinklers everywhere.
Been helping out my son a little, he lost the motor in his first car, a 3.8 v6 in a camaro. The wife's old bonneville was setting in the weeds with a good 3.8, so jim and I dropped it out. I told my son I'd help, but it's his repair problem, and he's not moving fast enough on it for my tastes, but its hard for me to butt out. I keep telling myself not to take over and just fix it, but its not easy.
Just a dumb question a motor from a front wheel drive car to rear wheel drive is there a ton of extra work in the cross over????
Do tell I was wondering the same. Should you use a trim hammer or a framing hammer?
Also got the little boom truck swivel installed. Stripped down the deck this afternoon, got the new tread plate fenders ordered. I found a different hyd. tank, I think we're going to try to slip it between the lower cab and the frame of the crane, freeing up the old hyd tank spot, for a wood rack. I'm not throwing wood off and on that tall deck. Going to put the rigging box on the passenger side up on the deck. I'd rather snake a couple straps up high than throw wood. The aluminum pad racks are where I'm putting the ladders. I think we are going to put in a ladder like tradesman has built into his deck when we build the new fenders, the little flip down ladders always get ripped off by guys driving off and leaving them down. Picked up a pair of used aluminum budd's, I've got two more in the back corner of the shop, and I got new inner studs. Going to install them on the outside of the drives. They're pretty oxidized, I talked to a A/C repair guy, he said some coil cleaner acid would help clean them up. This little gap between the cab and the outrigger boxes is where I'm going to put the tank. Its wasted space , that I'd like to use.
The 3.8's from that time all use the same block, its just everything else is different. I had the bonneville after my wife got t-boned, bought it from ins. company. I figured my boy's got more time than $ right now, so we stripped the bonneville motor to block and heads, its basically free to him. The intake, exhaust, valve covers, water pump, acc. drive system and all the electrical will come from the camaro. I think I'm going to go ahead and put head gaskets in it now, its only a few more bolts while were this far. Wait- its not my project.........
Nice you got some skills man
No real skills, just always looking for the next little project......
Speaking of next little project, stopped by the motor core place the other day, when I was in springfield, picking up new budd studs for the mack. Wanted to see what they had for jakes for my little mack, and what they had for my 3406 when I open it up. Said the mack jakes are real hard to come by, they don't deal much with those engines. Parts for the 3406 are not terrible to come up with, regular jakes are around, what he called the "super" jakes for the cat are much more rare. He listed the part # but its already escaped me. He said all the old stuff right now is going overseas, they're buying up all the old mechanical stuff (africa- south america, mexico) because its easier to keep running. He mentioned one buyer that is taking much newer trucks, removing the electronic motors, and installing old big cam's and 3406's, I think that was africa. He said one of the odd one's he's been asked about a lot lately is 7.8 ford's (the brazilian). I only remember seeing them in ford 7 and 8000's, but he said the tractor pulling guys are running some, and he's got guys looking for pistons, and other parts. Maybe its the same guy calling him all the time, because he forgot who he's already called looking for parts. This is the place that came through for me, when I needed bell housings for my 8.3's, when converting them from allison's to eaton manual's. They had a whole rack of bellhousings that I dug through with a tape measure and a idea of where I wanted the starter location.
Loaded out a old lp tank this morning. They had been using it as a fuel tank at a quarry, but needed to move it to cut the cliff down for more rock. The face on the other side is probably 80' up. Ended up just tandem picking it with the two 25 ton cranes. I could have lifted it with my 35, but I figured that as I spun, the other end of the tank would have bound me up on the cliff face. There wasn't room to set the 70 ton up, and get the trailer beside me, and if it was heavy wall tank, I wouldn't be able to pick it from the end. Lucky for me I had other options.
Also in other news, this arrived yesterday. 1998 galion 150FA. Shipped up from houston, came from the ritchie bros auction there. I don't think its been flooded (fingers crossed, but we'll pull diff. plugs to check for water). Already found out why it went to auction (you always know there's a reason), the cable reel/ spring retract system for the boom hoses, is busted. Of course they've run it in and out and ruined the hoses too. The hoses are a little different than regular hyd hose, and the spring reel is pretty expensive. I'm going to try to tear it apart and see if I can fix it, but if not, the new housing with springs is $3,400. I think its built like a grove hose spring return reel, which is really like a overgrown tape measure flat spring, I'm thinking the flat springs are broken. Other than that, it seems like a pretty clean machine. They had about 8-10 of them on this last sale, and this was the cleanest one that had jib and the boom head for the jib with it. Some of them didn't have the jib, and some with the jib, didn't have the boom head for it (they remove them a lot for clearance issues). I knew it would be a pain to track down a jib and/or boom head, and so just went with this one. Its 60' main, 20' jib, 44,000lbs machine. No lmi, scale, a2b or shut downs. 6bt cummins with no dpf, def, regen, manual injection pump. Old school rules. It was even full of fuel. Who sends stuff to auction full of fuel? I've got a little project coming up that I need something this size for, and I guess we'll see what happens....
Looks good enough to decorate for for a Christmas parade. You got all the best toys.....
Thanks hank- I think its going to be ok. Found out why the hose reel won't work, the spring packs are shot like I thought. I think its too far gone to save, I ordered new today. The flat spring is broken in at least 8-10 places. Set some trusses the other day- they tried to set them by hand, but they were attic trusses with a 2x10 bottom chord, a little beefy for hand work. A Couple units with the 25, parking lot was all cleared out for us. Had to set up in two spots and had saw horses up. Guys moved a sawhorse as I was pulling up, some visitor (I was at a resort) pulls right in where I was going with the crane. He gets out of his car, and when the HVAC guys told him he'd have to move, he threw a fit, said he'd only be there 20 minutes or so. I think one of the guys told him to move the car, or he'd have the crane move it for him.
Also got the deck replaced on one of the goosenecks. I went with just regular 2x8's, and I think I'm going to linseed oil, or some green leaker fluid to treat them. They said I needed to use special coated screws for the new treated lumber, or it rusts the screws right off. I figured if it eats screws right up, it would probably eat the trailer up too, so I didn't use treated lumber.
Thanks for all the pictures crane op. I love seeing them, keep them coming.
Crane op said Set some trusses the other day- they tried to set them by hand, but they were attic trusses with a 2x10 bottom chord, a little beefy for hand work. Is that a plane is that a bird no it's the crane operator to the reskew, he'll have those trusses up in no time. HE'S my hero. Well that's what I have convinced myself that's what they say when they see us drive in.
Green leaker fluid works great about once a year. Use a paint roller.
I went to the Richey Brothers yard in Nashville today to look at a gooseneck trailer. They had a large U S Army hydraulic telescoping crane on the yard for the Dec 21st auction. I went to take pics but my phone was dead. They had it up on the outriggers with all 4 tires off the ground.
this one? https://www.rbauction.com/1989-GROV...d=10293888&id=ci&auction=NASHVILLE-TN-2017251
I've seen those military cranes sell before. They usually don't bring much. The big issue with them is they build them especially for the military with only a 2 piece boom, so you've got a 75 ton crane that usually has 114' or 125' of boom in the civilian crane, but the military only has 60' of boom. They usually use them for moving conexes and heavy tank parts, so they don't need any height/ long boom, which is what the rental market needs.
Ritchie Bros in Edmonton (Nisku) just sold a 2001 Demag CC2800 600 ton crawler crane but I don't know what it sold for. It can't be cheap to move something that big.
Don't get it on the soles of your shoes and then try to step on the painted metal around the edges of the trailer if it is wet or frosty.
That cc2800 takes an army to move. Depending on the what options it comes with. Total weight with cw's is just shy of 800k lbs. And then you have about 600' of boom/jib. Not to mention the wagon and superlift counterweight. That's an extra 200k lbs. Carbody is about 180k, each track is 100k. Gives me a headache to think about moving that crane.
I hear a cash register when I think about it! I moved a lot of large crawlers for various specialized, construction and heavy lift companies. Old school 4100's, 518's and 999 Americans all the way up to the latest and greatest Manitowoc, Terex etc. Getting the logistics of all the trucks down was toughest. Inevitably we'd have stuff come out of order and handle some of it twice.
Who's too lazy to put jib in? Yes, its still me, I had 6" yet between the jib stow pin and the eave of the roof- plenty of room. Been fighting to get these trusses set. I've been winded out twice. The building sets on the edge of a hill and its been 20mph here today and two days ago. I've got just over 1/2 of them set now, hopefully finish out the rest of them tomorrow. I've got about a day into them, and one more day should set the rest.
Fire suppression building. The pad (gravel) that it was supposed to set on was made pointing the wrong direction, so we just put it on the dirt (I at least talked them into boards under it in case it rains). I really think they're going to have to pour a pad for under it, it doesn't have a floor, just steel support beams for the little cummins (?) engine and the pumps inside. I think they use the fire water to cool the engine, no radiator on the motor,kind of like a boat set up.
Must be the week for close approaches! I've been not only inches from buildings, but from other crane booms too. Makes us concentrate, that's for sure!
I hope they have flex connectors on everything in that fire suppression shack. Between vibration and settling every connection will need to move. Or maybe the whole unit will hang on a pipe
That was exactly what the installer guys had to say too. They can't believe someone drew it up to just set on a gravel pad, just the rain water running off the building would wash out the gravel under it. The building has a installed heater also to keep things from freezing up, I'm thinking the gaps in the gravel won't help. Doesn't make sense to build the whole building out of insulated panels and then just set it on gravel.
Got the rest of my trusses put in, but they discovered that 16 of the trusses on the first half, they put up on the roof backwards. They may try to turn them around up on the roof, but I bet I'm going back and spinning them The first picture shows a old guy with a walker up on the second floor deck (he's right in front of the sliding glass door), this was across the lot from the new building. That old guy was out there everyday walking laps around the deck with his walker, wife probably won't let him wander around the neighborhood, so she sends him out to do laps on the deck.
Back at the 10 story building this morning, had one I beam they left out by the stairway, we threaded it in by the mechanical room behind a parapet roof. Then we flew up some of the doors, no elevator installed yet, so they drug them in a window. I took the steel table down there to lay them on. I also flew the tracked manlift back up so they could do some roofing on the penthouse. Left the crane there for the weekend, windows are supposed to be showing up and the lift will need to come back down.
6v92 in my 70 ton......
Crane operator we missed a shift and no video
I'm trying hank.....
Ahh. The music of my people.
Sounds good the super pipe good for 35 more HP?????
70 ton have upper and lower engines?
If your talking about the height of the pipe hank, it gets it above the boom when the boom is in the rest, so no black on the boom, and it does put the pipe a little higher above the driving cab, moving the noise up. Daro- I'm just lower engine, has a driveshaft off the front crank, driving a gearbox with two, two stage pumps. Pumps disengage going down the road.
Ahh thanks.
Sorry about the second video, I moved the camera a little quick about 1/2 way through, and watching the video it looks like the crane is tipping over. It's not. They are from a hvac unit I set this week with my tms 300. I need a way to stick my camera to the back window or mount it somehow so I don't have to hold it. I can about run that old 35 with my eyes shut, but my 70 ton is a whole different beast.
Maiden trip for the new (to me) galion this week. Had to do a golf course irrigation pump. We've done it the last couple times with the 25 ton truck crane, but it rained through the night and that's just bare dirt, and downhill toward the pond. It wasn't soft down in, just all greasy on top, so I thought I'd try out the 4x4. It slid a little going in and back out, but I don't think I would have got the 25 in and out, without waiting for it to dry up. Crane worked fine. But it sure doesn't run like a old grove. I'm not a fan of friction swing, but it works for these small rigs, when you're not level all the time and do on rubber picks, or even with outriggers up, but it sure is isn't easy to be smooth with. You can also tell it isn't multiple section pumps, its much harder to do multiple functions and be smooth.
Also played around at the shop and installed jib, its a underswing A-frame and its a pain in the a$%. I think I could put jib in the 70 ton faster. I used to have a grove tm250 (like td25's), and it had a underswing a- frame, but it wasn't too bad to put in, this one is a pain.
I had thought we had a boom cylinder bypassing on the galion, we set it up in the back yard with some heavier steel pads as a test weight. It was creeping down, not fast, but little by little was moving. I could hear a little squeal sound, like oil coming through the holding valve, etc. so I ordered a kit for the cylinder. Lucky we pulled out the 5 part block when installing jib, and went to a single line. When I went to lift up the jib with the winch, as soon as I'd let off the lever, it would walk right back down. Turns out the little squealing I was hearing was the winch brake, not oil. With the 5 part in, there wasn't enough weight to make it back drag, but on a single line, it was rolling right back. Disassembled the winch brake, and one shoe and the pivots were all rusted up. Cleaned it all up and it works good now. I always like to test things out at the shop before I head to a job with a new rig.
70 ton, pulling down their lift (for the last time I hope).
I've got stinger pulled out and offset in here, they had some items to put back in behind the parapet after I had moved the crane, so I just put that in, rather than moving crane back to the other corner of the building. A little more boom would have been nice, but it worked. That's 127' main, 60' jib at a 17 deg. offset. I'm around 90' of radius or so.
What's the load chart limit with all that stick out and 90" radius? I'd be afraid a big old crow would land in the end and tip it over!
90' radius is 3700lbs, and it boom deflects alot with that kind of weight. Chart goes to 130' over the rear with 2200lbs, and it gets really light out there. It would be a lot better rig at radius if they had put 15-20,000 lbs of removable ctw. on it, like they do with the newer link belt and terex's, but I don't have to have a support truck/trailer to haul it to me. My 70 ton has a self contained 8500lbs ctw. Which is basically the same size that my tms 300 grove has, and it only has 104' main and 32' of jib. You can really tell the difference at 100' radius, each crane has the same amount of counterweight, but one crane has 188' of boom, the other only has 136'. For comparison, I have run a grove gmk 4080 (85 ton) all terrain crane. That's got 125' main and 52' of jib, but the germans slap 30,000 lbs of counterweight on that rig. It really makes a big difference on how the machines feel at radius. At 100' of radius, 127' main boom only, my 70 ton is good for 2700lbs, a 85 ton gmk with 125' main, will handle 5400lbs. 20,000 more of counterweight, gets you 2700 lbs more capacity. If you put jib on, and offset, my 70 ton is good for 3700 at 90', the gmk is only good for 4400. So adding 20,000lbs of counterweight only gets you a extra 800lbs of chart with the jib on (structural on the jib is the limiting factor, not counterweight). I really like not having to mess with the counterweight and semi trucks, my 70 ton is about as big as you can get without having to deal with all that.
What is the purpose or advantage of offsetting the jib 17 degrees ? It looks like the 17 degrees is to the side from the pic ? If so, doesn't that create a side load or torque to the boom ?
The offset is between main boom angle and jib angle. It's straight with the boom, not to the side. I can offset at 0- 17 and 30, and the chief reason to offset is to reach up pretty high, then get out and over top of a building. If you have a 8 story building and your trying to reach in 50' on it, it helps a bunch. Here's a picture that shows it a little better. This is 17 deg offset.
Thanks I was wondering the same thing but felt dumb asking that question.
C-Op Thanks for the explanation... My lying eyes have deceived me again. Your pic in post 941 shows the avoided boom length perfectly.
New one on me yesterday. I found one wear pad laying on the ground behind the crane, when I hopped out at break. I telescoped back in, and stopped 2' short. I stuck my head in the back of the boom and found the other one caught up on the telecylinder. They were the rear top pads on the second section. We had a shot of snow saturday, and the crane was on the north side of the building in the shade. I think the snow laid on top of the pad (left the crane boomed up because there isn't anywhere to lay it down). I never scoped out tuesday, and when I did wednesday, the wear pads were frozen to the next section, or had a hard piece of ice on top of them. The pads are held on by countersunk screws, threaded into the top of the boom. It sheared the bolts off flush with the top of the boom. I think I can get the sheared off remnants pulled out through some access holes, otherwise we're going to having a little boom disassembly party... Wish our minnesota members would keep their weather up there, where it belongs.
Never seen anyone store glass flat on a pallet, they've already broke 2. I suggested upright chair type pallets, but what do I know, I'm just the crane guy. We've been putting the windows in, by sliding them through the window openings, some of the windows were too big to get out of the shipping container without pulling glass from the frames, that's where the pallet glass came from.
Roofing material showed up also, it was all crated up, had to get a little creative with the trim crate. The trim overhung the crate, so we made spreaders for underneath from some 2x6's. I didn't want to bend any of the trim. The big windows we put into the building one at a time, so I've been getting a lot of practice going to each floor.
can't be our snow and cold cause IT"S HERE - 30 this morning and we have a got a nice bit of snow to not like 25 years ago but we got a foot since Saturday. Seeing those wear pads on the ground would through me into convolutions. good luck with them. Are they chewed up a bit or will they bolt back on ? I've noticed a couple times that you have shown pictures of your LMI when lifting the glass that its showing you at over 50% capacity I'm I miss reading it or is it because you have the jib on?
I think I'll have to make new pads, that or I'll flip them the other way, grind off the high spots and drill new holes. I'm running between 67- 75 degrees boom angle, all the time, so there's not much pressure on them right now. I'll finish the job and then fix it at home. It will be the worst getting the remnants (broken bolts) out of the top of the boom. The lmi starts way up there with jib on. I actually rarely look at the little needle. I know about what I'm going to have on before it leaves the ground on this job, I wish the display showed the scale readout all the time, instead of having to push a button for it, I'd rather push a button to see my boom length, or they could get rid of the height reading all together. I don't care how high the tip is off the ground, I can either reach it or I can't, doesn't matter where the tip is.
Here's the scale function on a PAT system. Its a real pain to have to hold the button down when trying to watch your weight go up and down. The second picture is my "cheat" book with the different codes for my LMi. The bigger all terrains its like a book, with all their different counterweight, and boom/jib configurations. This is a little more complicated than my groves with a chart on the cab wall. Couple of what I'm assuming will be the maybe last trip to the building. The truck didn't show up this afternoon, I left at 2:00, super thinks he'll have enough of a crew to fly the last of it tomorrow morning. I've got a full week after the holiday, so I'd like to wrap it up.
Got off the job at 2, so I had time to look at the tire on the 35 (everyone else was off for the weekend). Didn't have just one, but 2 tires down side by side. Inside tire was a bad valve core. The outer was a bad tube. I love dayton's with hand tools. 5 nuts and wedges and you've got both at your feet. It's kind of nice, with the crane you don't have to go crawling underneath to put a jack under the axle. Did have to throw pads down, and it took a little shot sprayed in the air cleaner to get it to fire off. The ignition is far enough from the air intake, you can't do both at the same time. I cranked, let it sit for a bit, and cranked again, and that usually will get it to go, but it was pretty cold yet, so I gave it a whiff. I actually would rather just do it that way myself, the two man thing with one cranking and someone else spraying tends to go overboard. Got the tires on, and pulled it in the shed, they're talking cool again tuesday morning. I think this afternoon may be the best of it for a few days again, so I wanted to see what I could get running that I need next week. I went out back and tried to start the old winch truck, and the western star with the lowboy, so I could pull them up by the shop and plug them in for wednesday, but neither one would go. I put the ford on the battery charger (haven't ran it for a couple months, so I wasn't suprised it didn't go), but I don't know what's up with the western star. It always starts a little hard, I may be due for a set of batteries. I fired up the rt and got block put in while the ford was on the charger, and called it a day. I went back after supper and tried the ford again, it had been on the charger 4 hours or so, and it tried a little, but with as cold as it is , its going to need more cranking than that to get it to go. Western star may not be the only thing needing batteries. PS: I did get to do the tire with the bad tube twice, the first tube I put in was bad also (I didn't air it up to check before I put it in), so I still got to dismount two tires, I just got to do one of them twice.
The truck that was supposed to show up late yesterday, didn't show up. I guess they're packing the last windows up the stairs, they've got a big event next week and wanted the crane gone, so I broke it all down this morning. Went back to the shop and got some batteries pulled out and replaced. Have to pull a step to get at the winch truck batteries, the western star is out in the open. Two new 4d's for the winch truck, and 3- 31's for the western star. Both are now running, and parked where I can plug them in tuesday night. The ones in the western star were new when I got it two years ago. But they cheaped out when they bought them, they were only 610 CCA (under 500 at 0 deg), which has been working okay, until this cold snap. I put in the 31's and it barked right off. Also got the galion fired up and unloaded the steel deck, it was hanging over a little on the dodge, but I didn't feel like dragging a trailer to the job site (its crowded), and it 's only a couple miles from the shop. Hang a red flag on it and act like a farmer.
Minor complaint on the galion. The cab isn't bad, once you can actually get into it. The problem is getting in and out. All the shifting and trans stuff is on your right. The left isn't bad, except for the horrible placement of the parking brake. Anytime you get in or out of it, the lever is up. If its down, you could get your foot past it, but who climbs out without setting the brake. If it was moved, you could swing your foot right in there. Granted, I'm trying to wedge a 13 in there, but why didn't anyone ever slap the engineer's on the first one, all they had to do was move it 1' in one direction or the other. I think we're going to move it to either right by the seat, or up toward the dash. The placement now is ridiculous. It did fire right up the other day when it was cold. 5.9 cummins, no block heater or intake heater, so I was curious what it would do, took right off.
Is there enough slack in the brake cable to where you could rotate that thing about 45º forwards? Like you say an inch or so would make a big difference.
I've got enough slack to do about whatever I want, its just a hole in the floor and two studs welded to the side of the cab. I've thought about putting it up by the dash, but flipping it around so you push it towards the dash to lock it, would put it out of the way, but akward to lock. That or moving it right next to the seat. Would give you room to swing your foot through, but you might catch your pants leg on it when getting in and out. There's plenty of cable down below to do either.
Had some sewer boxes to set down in a hole. Blasters shot the hole twice I guess, then they had to break the last of it. I took one look at the hill and decided we needed the winch truck to bring the boxes in. I loaded the big base, then went down in the hole, they unloaded the rest of the trucks with their big excavator, and loaded them up by the road.
Had to pull the truck up the hill empty once or twice, when he got the right angle he could climb up it. There were two other little hills on the way back in, my guy said it was pushing hard enough to hop a little on the way down the hills.
I think there were 7 risers all together.
These boys showed up at my jobsite today. I saw them pouring gas in the pony motor, but it must have been too cold, or had other issues. Next thing I know, they dove the case right over the side. They had the trailer in a pretty good twist, they didn't even put blocks down, and its a pretty tall trailer. I drove past the trailer as I was leaving, and it doesn't have much straight steel in it. And you can see most of the steel, because there's only two boards left.
I was back at the condo building, where they unloaded the excavator. We had to pull the first 16 trusses they set. Pulled one at a time, spun them 180 deg, and dropped back in. Good thing it was nice and still today.
I am very surprised as to how rock (bony) your ground is there.
We're about 8 miles from arkansas border. Ozark mountains they call it, but more like short steep hills than real mountains. Scrape the ground about anywhere and you have a couple inches of dirt, then rock. Lots of drilling and blasting for big rock removal. Big breakers for the rest.
Got started on fixing the wear pads I sheared off a while back inside the boom of the 70 ton. One of the guys said left hand bits and easy out, I never have any luck with easy outs, but this isn't in a good location, so I gave it a whirl. Three bolts on each wear pad, one pad on each side on the top of the boom (the six small holes) Should have just welded on washers and then nuts, I did that after dinking around for a hour with the drill and easy outs. The worst one to come out was the one I had drilled out. The worst thing is the sheared off bolts are in access hole, on the inner boom section. Two other sections to reach through, and if they didn't come out, complete boom disassembly is the next step (two days worth of work with 2-3 of us). Fortunately they all came out, with some care. Tomorrow I'll try to figure out if they're metric or standard (they're probably metric, but I think they've been messed with before, so who knows) , and then we'll have to snake the pads in through the back of the boom and rebolt them in. I may have to drill one or two of the holes out oversize and rethread. Bolts are countersunk allen head, so I'll probably have to order them in from fastenal. They can't stick in too far, because the dead stick is in there below it yet, so whatever I order, I'll probably have to cut to length.
Crane Operator we may have to call you a mechanic also if you had a larger hammer........... and cresent wrench.
Those are the only two tools that I'm probably qualified to handle, or should for that matter.
crane op, After the last picture... we should call you a surgeon!
It was just like the kids game operation, putting the washer and nuts down between the sections, and hoping I didn't drop something down the sides. Couldn't see in it while I had the welder nozzle down in there, it was pinball wizard time, weld by smell. Christmas tree came down this week, it was a nice day but kind of windy. Put a small unit up at the denny's here in town. The install guys were less than thrilled, all the wiring is in a false ceiling that has been sheetrocked over on the bottom side, so no access. They were talking some fine words over that.
While working on the boom pads on the 70 ton, we investigated a little leak in the turntable area. Turns out the swing gearbox has wiped out its bottom seal, so out it came. I think it probably had some moisture in it, and froze in the seal in our cold spell the other week. The gearbox was held down by allen head cap screws, and they were tight, tight, tight. I had a good allen socket (17mm), but it was just 1/2" drive. We stacked up some extensions, and put on the cheater, and one of the 1/2" extensions gave up the ghost. Went to a 1/2 to 3/4 drive adaptor, then 3/4 all the way up, and had jim hold it all straight while I put it to it with the cheater. They were the kind that didn't creak when they broke loose, they just had that loud snap/ pop to them when they came loose. Several times I thought we broke something when they came loose, but they all came. We didn't have to disassemble the whole gearcase, it had a bottom seal bolt on housing, so less work there.
After getting the box pulled and seal ordered (should have monday), I pulled up the western star and trailer and fixed a couple tires. I've had two that have been slow leakers for a couple months, and I hate having to air them up everytime we go somewhere. One on the trailer and one on the tractor. The trailer is pilot, and the nuts came off good on it, but the wheel was stuck to the drum. The western star is budd, and the outer nuts didn't want to come loose. The 1" gun didn't want to get them, and I didn't feel like sitting there beating my brains out with it, so I got out the by hand gear reducer thing I got a year or two ago. That thing looks gimmicky as all get out, but it works. Mine looks kind of like this, but mine has more sockets with it. Slap it up on there and give it a couple turns and them old budds just eased themselves right off. Really. I just used it to break them loose, then took them the rest of the way with the impact. Shop yard is full of equipment right now. Good time to get things ready.
Just as a contrast to that last picture, its been a little cold here this week, and a bit of the white stuff.
Even pushed snow, twice. That's about all the snow we'll usually get in a year. The first couple years I owned this building, I didn't even push it, I just shoveled the pavement and let the rest melt. I've had the Allis forklift, and my twisted old mind decided that it's really just a backwards tractor, why can't I use it like a tractor. Old used 3 point blade and some scrap and there I was. Works pretty good for no more snow than we usually get. As you can see, it's not a very finely finished custom implement job, but no one else ever see's it, except all of you now. I've got no pride.
Lost a water line to the sink last night in the shop bath room, pushed off a fitting, but I don't think I have any bad damage. The toilet just had a skim of ice starting on it. One of my guys had -6 on his thermometer this morning. Dodge and the allis forklift was all I started up. Dodge was plugged in and I let it warm up quite a while. Allis took the block heater, and the battery charger, and a little whiff of the can that no one is supposed to use.
I guess you never chain up down your way then.
No, no, no, and really no. If it snows we all stay home, its going to be 50 saturday. No one knows how to drive on it here, and there's no shoulders and the roads are steep and curvy, and off grade, so you're just sliding off. I haven't moved anything all week. I really don't think I could get the crane up my road, even with chains on. I have taken a crane to a jobsite, before it snows, just so it was there. It doesn't snow enough, that we don't have to chain up and deal with it, it will usually go away in a couple days. I do have a set of chains for the pickup, after I got stuck in a ice storm a couple years ago, but haven't ever put them on. I put them in the pickup this weekend, but never mounted them. Actually when I lived in iowa, I never owned chains there either. (personally). We had them at work, but things are much flatter up there, and we just always drove through it. Had them for the tractor, and that was about it.
Snap On makes a 17 MM hex X 3/4 drive impact socket. It was $63 2 years ago.
That would help if I could get the snap on man interested in stopping by. I've met him twice at a local car shop, but it seems like I'm not good enough for a regular stop? Met the new mac man a while back and he was the same way. Seems like in our area they just want to stop at the car shops, not industrial, and frankly, I think I've probably got more $ to drop than the guy doing oil changes down at the quicky change place. Maybe I give off the "I'm too cheap to pay your prices, but I've got something I need to warranty vibe".
Since Toyota Camrys don't have lots of 36 mm the local car shops don't have the various cheater pipes and large impact wrenches heavy industrial shops use all the time... Means less warranty claims.
I also believe that all the new electronic scann tools is where the money is , $15,ooo.xx for a scanner to reset codes and 2 years latter you need a new one????
.. I'm a cheap azz too.. Lol I got tired of waiting on "snappy" to show up> IF he showed up< just to replace a 10mm wrench.. I'd go weeks waiting on him.. THEN I went to Northern Tool on my lunch hour 1 day, next to Burger King & found RACKS & RACKS of them, cheap.. NO MORE waiting on "snappy".. I went to Harbor Fr. on Tuesday just to buy a pack of red shop rags [cheap] & a box of crushed walnut shells for the blaster.. I took my 20% off coupon w/ me & my freebie tarp coupon.. I left w/ 2 carts FULL OF JUNK & 400.00 less in my wallet.. LOL I guess that "tarp" wasn't free after all??
Warmed up nice here today, got the 70 ton put back together. The new seal was a really snug fit, had to drive it in pretty hard. Put the halogen on the gearbox to warm it up a little for some gasket sealer on the bottom case, there's no seal there. Dropped it in and got out the 3/4" stuff and tightened it back in, it ran with no leaks, we'll hope for the best. Got some flat nylatron/nylon/ stock to make the new wear pads out of. Drill press and a table saw and I had them shaped up. There's a pad and two steel shims on each one, we used a little gasket glue to try to hold them together to slide them up in there, but it didn't want to hold. Jim said, how about fishing line to hold them together, so that's what we did. Worked great. I shoved them in from the back and he spotted them with a pick to line them up.
There's a harbor freight up in springfield, I'll run up there if I can't find what I need anywhere else, that's about a hour drive. I'm just always so disappointed in what I get there. It's pretty hard to mess up shop rags, I guess I've never tried them. I gave up on the ratchet in the 1" set we got from them, couldn't keep it together. I bought a set of car "skates" where we had to move a non engined, stock car. They fell to pieces and I had to weld them together on site. Their zip ties are really brittle if cold, and fall apart if the sun gets them. Their emery paper/sandpaper stinks. It always looks good, but their stuff just doesn't hold up, I only buy stuff from them as a last resort anymore, because I always end up taking it back or just pitching it. I think they're great for homeowner/ diy tools for people that are only using it once, but I just don't have good luck there. But I do find that I always get suckered into trying some of their stuff again- because its pretty cheap and the next time it will be better, but it seems like it never is.
My Snap on guy will take a phone order and drop ship to me. I don't need to see him.
I've actually gone to mostly buying my tools on ebay. I don't buy much snap on, because it commands such a premium price. Its really good stuff, its just I don't use it every day, and I do tend to lose things. I usually buy stuff that I think is good enough, but doesn't command the snap on premium. I like old mac stuff. Wright, proto, S-K, Armstrong, Williams, Matco. There's all kinds of different brands of tools in my box. I've even got some taiwan/ chinese stuff around- wrenches that I keep around to cut off for limited access/ specialty. I've got a lot of USA craftsman stuff, and for what it sold for originally, I can't complain about it. It seems like now the collectors have entered into the usa craftsman stuff. The really big stuff in sets, I usually get off of craigslist, the shipping for a 3/4" drive set kills the price on ebay. But if I'm just after a socket its hard to beat ebay pricing, plus I don't have to go anywhere, it gets dropped at the door.
Yeah, I own 3 Snap On tools. Two of the 17 MM hex sockets and 1 old 3/8 ratchet. Most everything else is US Craftsman, Kobalt, Tecton, and a set of Martin open end hudraulic wrenches I never thought I would see the day I would make a special trip to Lowes ect to buy a Tiwan wrench.
Been putting fenders on the Mack. Its not a high priority situation, it just needed done. It just seems like everytime I fix something, I find something else we need to do. Fenders, mudflap brackets, move the exhaust, new hyd. tank. etc, etc, etc.
Set a little steel in a new garage. One 40' beam for a overhead trolley. Two other short beams for overhead mezzanine. It looked to me like a real unhandy garage.
They did have a nice view of the lake and one of the bridges. And I got the other side fender fab. up this afternoon.
Looks good.
love the view. I was working in a grove of pines today. I could see the wind really blowing the tops of the trees. Makes going to work everyday a pleasure. I look forward to seeing your happy face looking out of the glass of your new boom truck. Nice work on it.
I set a old jeep, as a cupulo, on a 8 sided garage roof a few years back. Build by a ingenious classic car collector guy, it had one door, just a single car sized one. but it had a remote controlled rotating center section, so with pushing a button the car you wanted to drive that day would rotate into position to be driven out. He had 8 vehicles in there, and since he built the rotater himself (old farmer) it was cost effective as he only had to buy one door!
Trusses today down by the lake...
My guys keep kidding around about the mack boom truck. They think by the time I fix everything- like I want it to be, I'll decide I really don't like a boom truck and it will be headed down the road to someone else. I know if I don't fix what I want to first, I will for sure send it down the road, so I'm giving it all the help I can. I keep staring at the back of the turntable and dreaming of counterweight.
I have counterweights......the one on my old 14 ton RT might be about right.
Thanks, I keep saying I'm going to just climb in the truck and head over there some weekend, but my schedule is kind of like yours, family, work,etc. etc. I'm thinking that would be about the right size.
Well it's not going anywhere that I know of. I keep meaning to strip it down and scrap what's left. Just need to find the time.....
Very nice fab work!!
Just a unit on a steak n shake today. The poor trucker. I pulled in and met him out on the road. Narrow driveway off a busy 4 lane, and blind at that. He didn't look excited at all about it. I gathered up the HVAC guys and blocked all the lanes, and he backed it right in.
Spring cleaning. I know its January, which means some of you are still stuck in snow, etc., but I'm in clean up mode. First load went to the scrap man today, fenders from the 70 ton and the mack boomtruck, wife's old bonneville (less engine that we took out for my boy's camaro), Dodge 1 ton front axle with bent housing, and some other odds and ends. Stuff just accumulates, and I have to clean out. It helps if I just tell Jim what I want cleaned up, and if he sneaks off some extra stuff, I won't notice its gone. I have a little bit of a hoarder complex, I always think "I might need that someday, and this way I won't have to buy it". And pretty soon I just have stuff setting everywhere. Also the powerline clearing boys made it up to the shop today, that blade on the end of his trimmer just ripped through those oak branches like butter. I don't know what he's using for tips on the 24" or so circular blade (I'm assuming carbide tipped), but its got to be pretty tough the way he walked through branches. That blade just sings on the end of that boom, he must have quite a hyd. oil cooler. You can see the next hoarder mess in the bottom of that picture. Clean up!
I do the same, on an iffy access I'll give them a heads up, "I can do it, but....." more just trying to get everybody on the same team, right off the bat. If I get any sense at all that I am on my own if things go south, I pass. I checked out 4 jobs in the last two days, zipping around town almost for free in the PluginPrius I drive. The contrast between that and the Mack/National combo for getting around our mountainous area is always fun. Today's job ended up with the front tires 40" in the air, (had to two stage my outrigger setup, steep residential area) with one outrigger pad on a sidewalk, I got a verbal OK that if the concrete cracked, it wasn't my problem.
Our electric co had one of those trimmers here a while back, pretty cool to watch. Ed
Quarry work today. This is a crusher , and not the first time we've had it apart. Had to get the loader on the other side and give it some big love taps. Broke one of the lifting eyes with the loader, welded on a new eye and kept thumping. The fines get trapped between the ring and the wall, and its a pain to get it apart. Finally got it, it will need new "jaws" and we will put it back together later this week
Got a rigging box mounted on the galion also. There's just very little storage on the crane, and we rarely have the rigging truck with it. I like having a assortment in each rig. We just welded on 4 little tabs, and its all bolted from there. If you had to pick and carry a large tank or something that you wanted to brace off the front, or put a tire between you and it, you could just dismount the toolbox with 4 bolts and set it on the ground, then remount after.
Did you call Galion for approval to weld on it? I'm sure the manual says to..... Looks good to me. Smart to make it removable in case you gotta pick and carry.
Sshhh.....
Went late yesterday down to the quarry to reinstall the crusher ring. New blocks look much nicer than the old ones. Its about a hour and a half down there, and they weren't going to be ready to pick it up until 4, so it got kind of late.
Busy today too. 35 ton for a couple units, then the 25 off setting some glue lam beams, 48'. Far unit was 80' radius, so I put out dead stick.
25 ton beams. They were in three separate cabins all in a row. I was going to go down to the next building and talk to those framers, I work with them quite often also, and its been a long time since I've seen all clear plywood used as exterior sheathing (I was curious why they were using it). Most everyone here has gone to the zip system stuff.
Its a pretty drive out to that cabin site. They make me use a construction entrance, and it makes a 15 minute drive, into a 45minute to hour drive, because I have to drive all the way around. The first picture you can see the road on the other side of the bottom, going up the other hill behind the fence. Second picture is in the development, headed down the hill. The road goes downhill pretty good, and then where the road disappears before you cross the pond dam, that's where its really steep. The new cabins were off to the left of the cabins on the other hill. Third picture is going back up the hill leaving, don't worry, I had plenty of time to take the picture at walking speed going back up the hill, you don't have a prayer of shifting until you hit the top.,
Took a couple other pictures while leaving, the gravel road is the construction entrance. You have to kind of turn at the top of the far hill where you meet the county road, or you'll spin out. (It's steep up at the top). The second picture you can see the construction road on the far hill through all the trees. Last picture shows a nice big valley a mile or so up the road.
Precast today. This is going to be a pond inlet with the bottom one being the discharge to the next creek. They only sent 3 sections because they haven't finalized the elevations on the pond to make the top box. They made the hole a little big, I had all I wanted setting the base, I straddled the corner to get as close as I could. Bottom section was 52,000
I think there is going to be one or two more risers and a lid. This was 3 risers and they will basically build the pond dam around the outlet.
I can stand walls too! I just don't have those fancy snatch blocks, and all that other stuff like someone else has. Went last night and looked at this jobsite, steep entrance, no room and powerlines too. In fact the truss pile was directly under the power lines. Galion would fit though, unfortunately I'd delivered it to a different jobsite, where they weren't ready yet (but I was thinking ahead and delivered it early), so I'll get to deliver it again for practice.
And in case I haven't mentioned it, I hate friction swing. Did I say I hated friction swing? Yes, I'm pretty sure, I'm not in favor of friction swing. Really. Totally not in favor.
Good to see the neck breaker getting out and earning its keep...
Are you tempted to add remote controls yet?
My neck hurts just looking at that. Wonder how long it would take for you to get good at running it by looking at a mirror.
Pick up the truss tight to the building, hope the tag man doesn't swing the truss into the power line as I was sneaking past, then swing left until the nail-benders yelled (I almost called them carpenters- when will I learn?). That deaf, dumb, blind operator sure swings a mean crane ball........
That Galion has friction swing? How does that work?
It has a brake drum on the swing lever, so as soon as you let go of the lever, the brake locks. Some small boom trucks have it too. It really stinks for cycle work where you're back and forth like setting trusses. Free swing is much smoother. Friction swing is nice if you set one piece of pipe in a refinery, and they weld on it for 6 hours or so, you can fall asleep and the crane doesn't swing away in the wind.
Oh, I was envisioning swing powered by shafts, drums, frictions, etc; like a B-E 22b or something. I couldn't see where they could put that!
Anybody ever do this? Hour round trip to the shop, if someone came and got me,and I had a air line break on the lowboy. I tried to salvage the ferrule on the fitting, but I couldn't get it out. The air line had broken just 2" past the fitting, and after standing there and swearing at it for a little while, and giving up on the ferrule coming out, I just rammed the air line back on the fitting, and cranked the nut down. It sealed up mostly, and I just hammered for home. It was friday afternoon and I just didn't feel like messing with it, it was on the leveling valve for the air bags, not a brake chamber, so I figured if it popped itself back out, I would just be losing air fast enough I would see it in the cab. Made it home successfully, sometimes the equipment gremlins run and hide.
Messed with the indian statue again yesterday and today. Put him up on a different pedestal, and they took a bunch of pictures. We decided to let the owner look before we epoxyed him down. Good thing too, because today I went back and set him back on the ground so they could redo the pedestal. Also made a run in the 25 this morning to load out some fuel tanks. Amish boy in charge, and he doesn't own a tape measure. One tank was 10'6" and the truckers permit was for only 10' wide. Didn't make any difference though, the truck had a broken support bar on the 8 bag kenworth suspension. I saw him backing down the hill to the crane, and when the front tandem axle moved ahead and back about 8" depending if he was on the brakes or not, I told him he better stop. Eastern european driver, wanted to know if he should just take off for springfield to get it fixed. That's about a hour or so drive away, I suggested he should just fix it where it was, or have it towed, I'm not sure a 8" swing in the drive axle boded well for a long trip. About 1/3 of the break was old, the rest was fresh- I think he broke it on the way to the jobsite, you could see where the tire had been rubbing on the fender.
Okay- who's the old military truck expert out there? My 70 ton is still spinning right along with a chipped tooth in the rear tandem 3rd member. I know its there, and I think about it. Crane is a 10' wide carrier, 60,000lbs rears, 6.43 ratio, on isuzu rears, which the closest ring and pinion I've found is New Zealand. If its really the right one (and I think it is), I can get it here for about $4,000. But that doesn't fix any future problems. And if it's not right, its not like I just ship it back. This is my current direction for a solution. M-911 Oshkosh They were purchased by the army as a tank transporter. 8v92, allisons, but the important part is the rears. In the reading I've been able to find, they are a DP-650, 65,000lbs rears. 6.41 ratio. In military configuration, the have 14.00r24's, but I think that is on a wide budd bolt spacing, which is what I think my 14.00r20's are. The 24's are about 4" taller than my 20's, and I don't think I need the extra road speed, and don't want it down low either, so I'd rather stay with my 20's. And they are 10' wide housings. I've got one spotted north of kansas city, with a messed up transmission. He's a little high on price, but I don't think he's probably beating off buyers with a stick. https://kansascity.craigslist.org/hvo/d/oshkosh-911-6x6-military-truck/6472494742.html There's one coming up in Florida at ritchie bros. also. (one sold in North dakota last fall for $6,500) https://www.rbauction.com/1979-OSHK...vId=10227176&id=ci&auction=ORLANDO-FL-2018101 I know parts for one of these isn't going to be on very many shelves either, but at least they were made here, and would be a little easier to find parts. They also used these axles with a two speed rear in less heavy application, so they are in other trucks, just not with the wide housings. Anybody got any good reasons this isn't a option. I'm sure I'm going to have to mess around a little to get them mounted, maybe some custom bushings, drivelines and torque arms, but I'm not finding a lot of great reasonable alternatives out there. Probably one of the biggest worries would be if my 20" rims would clear the brake drums on the axles, but I would think I could source different shoes/drums......
Just a couple more pictures of the rears. The entry on the rear rear is higher than mine, but I think there's room for it. Just to clarify, I'm going to take the rear tandems and remount them under my crane carrier, using my existing crane walking beam suspension, and my current tires and rims. Ratio is close to the same (6.43 to 6.41) and they are both wide carriers.
This is the crane I'm looking at putting them under. It's just a big walking beam suspension, Hendrickson beam, supporting Isuzu axles. I could steal the suspension mounts off these housings, and weld them to the other housings if I need too, I could do the same with the torque mounts. Somebody welded them to the housings in the first place.....
I would suggest rooting around on the Steel Soldiers website and possibly Eastern Surplus.
I had an M911. It was a beast. All I put it through I never had an axle or driveline issue. I don't recall drum to wheel clearance though. A little taller tire wouldn't hurt assuming there's room for them. There may be a metric tire size that works on a 24 and gets a shorter tire closer to your current size. There's a lot of info online. There weren't a ton built as M911 but Oshkosh did build a civilian model without pusher axle and a few other military bits and pieces. It's hard to find certain parts but not impossible. Seems like I helped somebody find some gears for theirs and rebuild a third member. Small ring and pinion was $2,300 about 8-9 years ago. I'd even help make the swap for the 8v92......
Try reaching out to Robert Vannatta in Oregon, he is a logger there. I know he has or used to have one for moving large machines around the woods.
Still researching. Thanks for the advice, I'm going to try to get up to kansas and look at the one, and do some measuring. I don't think I'll take the lowboy with me the first trip. Hopefully I can do enough measuring on it to know if it will work. Thanks for the vannatta bros. Birken. I found this and it was a interesting read: http://www.vannattabros.com/truck.html Seems like he's had some issues with his rear ends, but hopping, loaded, up a 15% grade will do things like that.
And if I do end up with the 8v92 junkyard, I'm sure we can find some way for you to take it home- maybe power that sae400?
Offloaded a press and little ironworker today, the little ironworker would sure be handy. Press is 15,000lbs, later next week we're going to put it inside, I was kind of busy today so I didn't have time to skate it in. Took the galion down by the lake and set the poles for a deck. They'll fab the rest of it up, and we'll go next week sometime to put the rest of it in.
They about buried the framer's telehandler at the deck site. The next level below the retaining wall is dirt, and water seeps out of the hill, and it probably will always be soft. There wasn't a good place to put the crane on the topside, and it was really too far (150' plus from the only place to really set up), so I guess the little neck breaker to the rescue.
Finished up with the indian statue friday, and then went and set some hvac units. Picked up this also friday. Its a 1997, ford 3/4 ton, 4x4. Has 113,000 miles on it , 351, A/c, came with a plow and a salt spreader. (I don't think we'll get much use out of the plow). Suprisingly with the spreader, it isn't all rusted out. Just a little rust above the rear wheel wells, front quarters and rockers are solid. Same owner since new, was owned by a golf course/ housing development maintence dept. I don't think its spent a day inside in its life, the clear coat is peeling, and the dash is pretty sunfaded, but it seems like a pretty solid truck, runs like a top. No rear brakes (that's why they put it up for sale), rear brake lines rusted out, I think we'll pull the wheels and see whats going on inside there also. Haven't decided if this is a spare shop truck, or something for my son to drive until he gets off his *** and fixes his car. My wife is sick of hauling him around. Its probably going to be both, my son can putter around with it, and then it will become shop truck. Gave $1,500 for it, need to put on tires and get the brakes fixed and I think we'll be good to go. I thought that was priced right for 3/4 ton 4x4, with pretty low mileage. I really like these old engine compartments compared to the newer trucks. You can actually see the engine, and have some access to the parts. According to the door tag it was made January of 1997, and I think that's the last year of the old body style, and no 1998's were made 3/4 ton because ford was still tooling up for the new body style.
Not going to be able to use the military truck axles. The seller gave me a bunch of measurements over the phone (saving me a 5 hr trip) and the M-911 axles are about 2" narrower than mine. My tire will just touch the turntable extension weldement on my front tandem, so a inch on each side is a inch too much. May take a little vacation to new zealand and sneak a ring and pinion in my luggage on the way home. Not a fun one today. Old water tank that the city doesn't use anymore in a housing development. Power lines around three sides, trees, another water tank, all on a big hill. I could have set on the other side of the power line with my 70 ton and reached over and got it, but then I didn't have anywhere to load the trailer at. Galion and a telehandler from the rental house was the only solution I could come up with. We got it loaded, but it wasn't easy. When we got it on the trailer, it was leaning pretty good yet, I thought it might want to walk his trailer over as we drove it out, but it came right out. We had to push up the cable/ phone line to get it out.
Tank hauler drove up into the jobsite, when we turned him around, he scraped the dickens out of the city street, bottoming out the trailer because of the angle to the road. Not me and not my driver.
Units yesterday before we moved the water tank Trusses today.
Got the old girl kinda dirty this morning. It was misting a little, and the salt/sand they dumped on the roads from the ice storm this weekend hasn't gone away yet. If it doesn't rain, I may have to give it a bath.
A while back we set a big stacked sewer box, well, it was evidently not placed to the engineers satisfaction. Last week friday we went and pulled it apart, and yes, pulled is the right term because the sealer has the box structures locked together. Put pressure for about what I guessed each one weighed, on the boxes, and sit there for a couple minutes with the pressure on them, and they usually pull the sealer apart. They had to go swimming for the base section.
Went back today to reinstall the boxes, engineer was there with his laser to mark location, and I arrived to a episode of gold rush. Water in the hole- a lot of water in the hole. We sat around for three hours with a 4" pump going, just as much water was running in as we were pumping out. They went and got a 6" pump, and then by the time they had it down to gravel, it was the middle of a thunderstorm, with rain from here to tulsa. Jim and I got out of there with the truck while we still could. And of course by the time we got back to the shop, it had finished raining for the day....... 3' to go
Spent the afternoon like everyone else, unloading the props for a haunted house.....
Did set some of the rest of the steel for the deck at the lake home with the galion last friday. You can see by the house in the last picture that its kind of a steep road down in there. It gets real steep where the road kind of disappears there in front of me.
We did get the parking brake moved on the galion, and its way better for access, but its got a new problem. If you rev it up and cable down (spiking the pressure), it pukes atf on your feet out the control lever for the left rear outrigger. I think a new seal on the valve is in order. I guess that they are just a square cut o-ring type seal.
Been rainy and icy/ sleeting here the last couple days. Had a little shop time, so got the fenders painted up, deck is cleaned and primed. Got the hard lines welded into the new / old hyd tank. I capped off the lines and did a little hydro test, no leaks. Three pipes on the drivers side, one on the passenger. I think I'm going to put little wedge braces on the pipes so they don't vibration crack. I was going to put the old bolt on access cover in the center of the tank, but when I cut the top off, there are three baffles in the tank, so there's nothing you could really see by removing the lid. The intake filters on each side are behind the baffles, so I could mount the bolt on cap, but there's nothing to access under it. I think I'm just welding the top shut, that also eliminates a water intrusion place (the bolt on lid). I don't know what the old tank came off of, but I know the Hyd pump it was feeding had to be junk, the tank was full of nasty gritty junk. Me and the mechanic have both been to the car wash, and its had 2 diesel baths. I think I have it clean enough to use now, but if they were running that stuff through their pump, it couldn't have been making much pressure anymore. Tomorrow is supposed to be more rain, so I'm going to try to get the sight glass, filter base, and the top caps made and welded in. Fill pipe and breather mount in the top caps. Then I can mount the tank to the truck frame, and get the exhaust remounted. I think we're going to just straight pipe the exhaust, with the muffler its hard to get in the passenger door, it doesn't open very far because of the air cleaner. That mack isn't very loud.
I'm giddy as a little school girl waiting to see you working that rig
That "grit" is just break-in compound that they put in to help lap in the pump parts for a nice free fit! Gives the oil more room so pump works better!
HAHAHA.. Hansen your so full of sh*t, your eyes are brown.. LOL LOL.. I need that today.. the wifes been on vaca & been drivin me nuts for 5 days in a row.!!!
Have you found a picture of me on the interweb? I was on a growing spurt when I was younger but topped out just short of 6 feet. Seems you can only pile sh*t so high before it falls over!
I don't know what it was. It was grey like steel wear on the rag, but had the consistency of sand. It had a rinky dink "breather" on the top, and if it was a quarry or blower truck, it may have been fine dust/cement. That or they were driving with and without hoses hooked up/ swapping trailers in a high sand/dirt/ dust environment and it was contamination from the hose connections/couplers. I guess I could have tried a magnet on it on a rag and then I would have known if it was metal or dirt. Whatever it was it had to be destroying the pump. There was like a 1/4" layer of that stuff in the bottom of the tank.
Unloaded a couple more "carnival" trailers today. These had a custom dolly under the front with a bearing instead of a 5th wheel in the front. They just loaded them on a commercial hauler and shipped them out, rather than trying to make a hitch and rely on the old tires/brakes. The one trucker about lost his. We started unloading the first one, and he pulled all his chains off but two while we were unloading the other truck. When he backed up to unload, his chains that he left on, were all pulling the same direction, and it rolled 3' on the trailer before stopping, the brakes are all backed off. Its a wonder that it didn't go all the way off the trailer. They were heavier than they looked, the two yellow forklifts on the front (6k gehl's) both stalled out on the second one (I think they have a hyd. pressure relief). We got it picked up about 1" above the trailer and they stopped. As I was letting my side down, the automatic leveler wouldn't keep the forks level. Afterwards the driver told me they loaded the "heavy" trailer first, then shoved a bunch more stuff in the trailer before shipping it. Of course he didn't tell me that until after we had it off his truck. The yellow truck had one of those low front bumpers, but he had it on a switch to raise it, it pivoted up. I imagine on a air cylinder or something. He informed me it was also 1,000 hp truck. Maybe it was, but I don't see how anything would hold up over the road at 1,000hp. Had those pretty front stud chrome caps that stick out 6" also on the steer axle.
Unloaded another ride this afternoon, this one has some assembly required. Also got to get out the 25, and went and set a video led board.
Lake was like a bathtub this morning also, just getting ready to rain, its been raining all afternoon and evening, they're talking some small stream flooding. The dam is about a mile or so from my shop, we drive across all the time when we go south of town, sometimes I forget how pretty it is when I'm in a hurry.
Great pictures and story to go with it. You have the most interesting job in the world.
There is no O-ring in the valve spool itself. The boot fills with oil as that section is being used. The oil then drains back through a hole in the spool section when in the neutral position. When oil leaks from the boot, it is either cracked, or has a hole in it. Replacing the boot will the leak.
Crane Operator, nice pics. I noticed the Galion 150FA came from the NES yard (regular rentals, Ph. number on boom) in Geismar, La.. I worked for the NES Crane Division for 14 years, and retired 2 weeks before the United Rentals buy-out last March(2017). The Crane Division is base out of Nederland, TX. They handle duties at the ExxonMobil facilities in Baytown, Tx., Beaumont, Tx., Baton Rouge, La., and Chalmette, La.
The control valve that leaks, doesn't leak when you are using that function, it leaks when your using other functions. There has to be some kind of seal that is keeping the pressure or return flow from the boot area on that section? I could see the boot holding some seepage, but this is flow. There's no way those little boots with the spring clamps are going to hold the amount of oil I'm seeing. The valve that is leaking is leaking from the boot area, but it isn't leaking when running that function. The valve that is leaking is for the left rear outrigger, and it leaks the worst when rpms are up and cabling down. Its worse with multiple functions. I'm guessing its spiking the pressure to overcome the winch brake, and that spool's seal is bad. I hope it isn't coming from between sections on the valve stack. Its wet on the boot, but I haven't actually stuck my flashlight under there and looked. I'm just trying to get done with that job with it before I tear into it. But I'll be honest, I've never torn one apart, and it sounds like you have, so I'm going to be flying blind until I get it back to the shop. Thanks for the heads up though. I still haven't finished the deck job its on. Everytime I go out there it rains. Supposed to go finish next week. As far as the galion, I bought it from ritchie bros. Aside from the spring reel for the boom hoses being broken, it seems like a good little rig. . Those spring reels are spendy though. Its got some rust on the door bottoms, but it looks like they all rust there, the rest of it seems pretty solid. It has all new push pull control cables , and someones been into the swing brake. I had to free up the winch brake, and I'm not really impressed with how the winch brake was designed, but it seems to work like its supposed to now. Jib is a pain to install, I can see why most of them get taken off.
Let me tell you hank, there's days when there is a lot of head scratching going on, but somehow we always manage to get something done. They finally got the slab poured for the fire suppression pump building, so I went and got it set early this week. They're going to site build a water tank beside it, above ground. 20' diameter, and I don't know how tall. Also been piddling around with the hyd. tank, I got it kind of welded up early this week, we've got it in and mounted now, rerouting the hoses. That's also the closest thing to a office desk that I like to work at.
Got some units set earlier this week with the 35 too. These guys had me set the old unit on their trailer, and three of their guys dove into it as soon as it hit the trailer, pulling it apart for the scrap coil. We were just across the fence from the scrapyard, and I think they were after lunch money! It was either put in dead stick, or move crane, I went with dead stick, but I really think I could have moved the crane in about the same time. And I might have actually reached it on main, I just hate trying to reach it and be short, and then messing with it, so I just put the dead stick out from the get go, and then I knew I had it.
Finally got back to the sewer box today. With all the rain we haven't had much luck, but today was nice. There's no way I could have got in and out of this spot with a truck crane, so the RT earned its keep for a while again.
Before we did the sewer box, I ran out with the 25 ton, and moved this jobsite shed for a contractor. I think it was 10' x 20' or so. I always worry with old shed that they will hold together, the spreader bar really helps. We decided the weatherhead on the electric would "probably" clear all the lines, and we stayed on the property (no public roads), and just drove slow. I just had them carry the spreader bar all rigged up on the forklift, because I'm lazy like that sometimes.
They had us set it in a mudhole that they just scratched the grass all off. Water was setting on top of the clay. I touched one end down of the shed and set the door end on the forklift. That way I could pull my straps out rather than mashing them down in the mud and spending half of tomorrow washing them. Because- well, like I said- I'm lazy like that.
The spool-to-valve section is a machine fit with no o-rings. However, there are seals(o-rings) between the valve sections. Also, if the drain-back hole(I mentioned earlier) is restricted, back-pressure will build and cause leaking. I have a Galion Manual around here somewhere. I'll post the control valve breakdown. Like I said, that particular crane came from the Geismar, La. location(which is 7 miles from my place), so I wouldn't know the condition of it. Yes, the spring reel is pricey. I carried a new reel on my service truck before I retired and don't know what happened to it. All of the Galions in our fleet were sold because the have no Safety Shutdown Systems. Exxonmobil would not allow them after a certain date. We replaced them with Broderson RT300 and Manitex M150. There is a guy who designed and patented a upgrade winch brake for the Galions. It's a direct fit and works well. I can send info on it if you need. As for the jib, when not needed, we stored them on a rack. It was faster and safer installing and removing than to swing it from it's storage position. Also, removing it from the crane gave the operator a bit more lifting capacity.
Sorry for the sideways pic. Here is a copy of the Control Valve page. Item # 6 is a O-ring. Two O-rings are used on each spool section. They are to seal the Covers(#9 and #21) at each end of the valve sections(housings A-H). Housings A through H have drain-back holes that allow oil from within the Boots(#13) to drain back to the return circuit. Sealing Ring(#24) are installed between each valve section(housing). If the Boots(#13) are not the cause of the leak, it's possible the sealing rings(#24) are the cause. Housings: A-Accesory B-Outrigger - Left rear. C-Outrigger - Left front. D-Outrigger - Right front. E-Outrigger - Right rear. F-Rear steering G-Swing H-Slow(swing)
My new spring reel was over $4,000. Thanks for the picture, I'm not sure from looking at the picture whether it would be the o-ring or the boot. I'm suprised that i'm getting that much oil at all if the spools themselves are a machine fit. I hope its not a deeper problem than the boot or o-ring. Thanks for the heads up on the winch brake. I found the guy's you tube video, but his website is down. He had a phone number on the you tube video so I'll try it. My winch brake wasn't holding at all when I got it. I disassembled it and cleaned it all out, relubed and now it kind of holds, but if you get up there in line pull- (6-7,000lbs) with just a single part of line, it will squeak a little. It will do 15,000 though with the 5 part in and never move, and that's probably all I'll ever pick with it for total weight. I tested it all out after the brake clean out.
What?? That seem a bit high priced. Of course, I haven't bought one in a while. If you need anything for the Galion, contact these guys. Call their Baton Rouge, La. location. I feel they are the most knowledgeable. Ask for Frankie (Store Manager). They handle other product lines, but specialize in Galion cranes, and the Service Manager (Michael) is very knowledgeable in Galion. They ship parts out ASAP (worldwide) . They are also the only place in the south custom manufacturing of Push/Pull Control Cables. You tell thes what you want, they'll make it. I attached their Line of Product in a file(CC.jpg)
Truss job on Friday. I work for these guys quite often and I usually go look, but they said they were only 45' trusses or so and plenty of room. The trusses were right on for size, they were just 115' to the far truss on the house. Not going to get that with a girder truss and the 25 ton, so back to shop to get the 35 ton. The nice thing about sitting on the top of the slope, plenty of view of the top plate, great visibility.
Lucky it was in a circle road in a development, so I just blocked it, people could get out going either way. I looked pretty hard at trying to set up the 25 in front of the garage doors, but it was probably 5-6' of slope in the length of the crane, and that's pretty hard to get leveled up on.
Loaded out some electrical switch gear monday, then did some hvac units this morning. 40 mph winds here this afternoon, so we put off a truss job until tomorrow. Went and picked up this headache rack this afternoon, I need it for the white peterbilt in my back yard. Pete doesn't have anything for a rack now, and this one was priced right - $250 (its a little dinged up, but I think I can straighten some of it). I don't mind that it doesn't have chain racks, I put my chains in a box anyways, I just like a rack on the back of the truck.
Finished up the deck job with the galion this week. The leak ended up being the boot on the control lever leaking. Been a while since I've seen 1" used for roof sheathing. Most everyone uses zip system like is on the walls.
Set a little vault the other day. Poor excavator guy got told to dig a hole, and it was no where near right. I pulled the vault back out, and sucked the beams in so he could get back in there again. Went back to the shop, got a 4' level and a couple boards, got in the hole for him and at least got close to a level pad to set it on.
Spent the last two days after the vault, by putting in sheetrock through windows. Nice when the cradle is tight to the building, and the boom deflection changes the height about 8" from loaded to unloaded basket.
The poor concrete guys had to put in this stairway, I felt for them
I think we hit all the floors but one, but unfortunately this isn't all the sheetrock. Supposed to be more later, the general may make them pack it up the stairs. I wouldn't be much for 5/8" sheetrock 12' long up 10 flights of stairs, but I'm not paying the bill either. Trash man wasn't a happy camper either, seems they moved his dumpster with the forklift before they filled it. He just drug it across that big rock, but he wasn't very happy.
All loaded up for monday morning. Supposed to set a spiral staircase on the back deck of a house, with very poor access. I think we might need jib, and I'm pretty sure we'll have to pick n carry the stairway back up the road through the trees to get there. But that's Monday's problem
First off, I always look forward to checking out your posts, you do some really interesting jobs. Second, are you saying the "excavator" on site had no laser, much less a 4' level to get the hole for the vault right??!! Sounds like I would have hated being the concrete guy after the "excavator" got finished digging the footings.....
That job is a little different tags, the contractor is the owner, and has a site super hired. Most of the workers are hired directly from a day labor outfit. There are some subs- fire suppression and siders, roofers and sheetrockers, but they hire a lot of help directly. So the "excavator" guy, is probably the only one of the five guys he picked up that morning that has seen a mini before, and claims he has run one. So I show up with the crane to set the vault, and they had dug the hole the day before, typically they dig below finish level, put in a bed of 1" clean and use a laser for a nice flat bottom. This guy just dug a vaguely oblong hole in the general area of where they wanted the tank, and no clean rock in the bottom, and just eyeballed everything. I don't think they even got out a tape measure. I've done a lot of work for these guys, and the site superintendent has his hands full. My shop is only 10 minutes from there, and I grabbed the level when we went back for a spreader bar. I knew it would be a mess unless I just jumped in and helped, which I don't mind doing. Now, the sheetrock guys didn't send enough help for loading up the cradle, and I'm all for helping out a little, but I'm not loading the cage up all day long with sheetrock, and running the crane too. So don't go thinking I'm a super nice guy and all, a straight truck load of sheetrock wasn't on my list of things to do yesterday.
Sheetrock.......there ain't a damn thing to do with it thats any fun, nothing. Ed
Circular stairs this morning with the galion. Picked it up on the road and carried it back in there, and set it. I didn't need jib, but I had gone and eyeballed it before hand and knew it would be close. Kind of crooked, and even with as narrow as the galion is side to side, had to do a little cribbing up. I don't think I would have got a truck crane in here, there was a area of loose gravel on the hill up in there, and even if I could have, they had no way to back the stairway in to me, there was a curve in the driveway in the trees, to tight to get around. Had the cable just about on the eave trough and then let off while they pulled it the last 6" over into place.
Have the hyd. tank mounted now, and the fenders on. Still need to get the ladders on, and exhaust, toolbox and cribbing racks finished up. The old hyd. tank that came off had a filter as a "breather" on the tank. It was all painted over, so I just went to o'riellys and got a oil filter that fit the threads of the adaptor. Any reason I can't use a oil filter as the breather filter to keep it from sucking in dirty air?
Nothing wrong with that all. I'm excited to see that truck once your done with it.
Nice work! that's a beautiful house.
10 micron for a breather.
I don't know- I'm probably just going to get tired of spending $ on it and just run it. I'm kicking around painting the cab, should have done it before I put the hyd. tank in. The paint isn't too bad, just weathered. The top of the cab is all beat up, so I don't know how I'd deal with that. I may just take the roller to it.
Unit yesterday, sun was in my eyes, Trusses today, sun was in my eyes, I think its a conspiracy......
Well- its really not a crane project, but I'm posting the pictures anyways. Last fall, my son lost the engine in his 97 camaro- a 3800 v6. I told him he could watch you tube and learn to fix it, or get a job during school and pay someone else to fix it. He was really just too worried about doing it himself, and I'm not a great teacher. He's been suffering with no wheels and no $, which is a learning experience in and of itself. I think he's learned, that if there's smoke coming out from under the hood, you should probably stop and see what's going on. My mechanic and I snuck it into the shop tuesday morning. Jim could pretty well stay on it, and I threw in between crane jobs. We got it pulled tuesday. On wednesday we swapped all the externals to a 3800 I had from a front wheel drive bonneville (had the motor from the wife's old car) . I stayed late yesterday and finished exhaust and wiring. Then this morning we shoved it back under and got it running this afternoon. The camaro's of that era have the motor shoved way up under the dash. I looked around youtube, and read up on some forums. It is possible to pull it out the front, but everyone says out the bottom is the real way to go. So rear axle up on some rims, and the front on some jack stands. Once we had everything loose, we raised the body up with the gantry, and used the forklift underneath the engine. Pulled motor, trans, and front subframe all together. Seems to be working well this afternoon. It runs and drives, I went and fueled it and gave it a bath. He's pretty happy having it back together. I'll say this too, I'm too big and old to drive it. I can't hardly get into the stupid thing. I about have to lay down on the ground and roll into the drivers seat. No dukes of hazzard in through the window, it takes me a while to pretzel around the wheel, and get into the seat, and that's with the door open.
It seems to me that you have a ton of energy. I am impressed with all the stuff you get done. How old are you?
There's all kinds of people that get way more done in a day than I do davo. I just happen to take pictures and post them up here. Most people that really get a lot done, don't have time to take pictures. When I used to set concrete forms and pour concrete all day, I was too tired to lift a camera, let alone care about posting. I'll be 46 this summer, and I hate to admit it, but I can't work like I could 20 years ago. But I really think I can do what I do now, for another 25. I've got a operator that works part time for me that's 69. He'll work circles around guys half his age. My grandpa worked every day until he was 88. The last job he was a handyman at a motel, and I don't think he really wanted to quit, but they told him the date of his retirement party. I was talking with my brother-in-law's dad at a wedding last summer, a few guys were kidding around about him still farming. He said "I don't read much in my Bible about retirement". He enjoys farming, and he's still healthy enough to do it- why quit? I probably just like having too many projects. I think when I quit dragging home stuff to meddle with, there won't be any reason to call the doctor, they just as well call the undertaker. I hope its that fast. Some people count their days to a retirement, I really can't handle a 3 day weekend.
I may down size to one of these:
Retirement isn't for everyone...... Mom was teaching ait kids, 2 ait rooms & a kindergarden in the building. Janitor was 88 years old, supertendant talked him into retiring, he died the next day. They took away his life. Ed
I've done a couple jobs where I could have used one of those. Mostly just built a gantry instead. If you lived in a place with a lot of indoor/ high rise building work, rigging and such, I could see using one. Put it in a elevator to the 9th floor to set a statue in a vice presidents office, it would be just the ticket. The 25-35 feet per minute line pull would get kind of old though. Not really built for cycle work. Maybe for coffee break kind of cycle work.
Did you ever have one of those days? When the things just kind of pile up in the bad category. I had a afternoon of that. This morning went and did a tree, 25 ton, and everything went well. It was right next to a trailer house, they built the deck roof around it.
Then right after lunch, we went on a little drive down into arkansas, to load up some loaded conexes with the 70 ton, and that actually went ok too. Of course they wanted the conex from the middle of the row.
It was after the conex was loaded that things went bad. They had a couple steel pieces that they needed loaded up, and they were up a paved little driveway, onto a truck dock/ landing. They drive rgn's up and down it all the time, it's not really that steep, its just at the end it breaks over pretty fast and flattens out. Evidently, it oscillated the front tandem up, just a little bit further than it usually goes, and I was turning. I got up into the flat, and went to shut down the engine and engage the pumps, and when I hit the engine kill, the starter was engaging. That was strange, I stepped out and went to run the outrigger boxes, I just kind of slid in the pumps, and none of the outriggers would move. Then suddenly, there was a puddle of oil growing underneath the crane. I quickly shut it down (kill lever), and went to studying things. I went underneath to look where the leak was from, and discovered the issue. The wiring loom had wrapped itself around the driveline, removing the wires from both outrigger control boxes, and pulling it down out of the swivel. With the wire's crossed somewhere, I think the flow directional on the outriggers was dead heading at the valve, and took out a o-ring or a hose, I haven't found out yet. This is what I unwound off the driveline, I didn't even have to cut any wires, it had pretty well pulled them all out. Somehow I still had 24v downstairs, I said a little prayer and bumped it over, and the detroit took off. I had the boom in the rest and all the outriggers sucked in. I'd rather fix it at home, so with Jim running as Bandit, I slipped it into gear and headed for home. I told Jim just to flag me down if the electrical fire got out of hand, and maybe it would burn down on the side of the road. It made it all the way home, and I suppose that's tomorrow's problem, maybe a day or two more than that.
But my day wasn't over yet. I had to go deliver the 35 to a job for tomorrow morning. About 10 miles from the shop, it did a little sag to one side, and I could see a hard hat sized lump sticking out on the drivers steer tire. I limped it another 1/2 mile, no where to get off the road, and it blew. I'm sure someone thought the terrorists were here. I got to a parking lot a little further down the road. Called the wife to come get me, and I had the tire off by the time she was there. I had a tire and tube at the shop, and got it changed. When I went to put the chuck on the tube after I had it all remounted, the valve stem tip broke off inside the chuck. So I got to change the tire twice. I don't need that kind of practice. Got it loaded up, back on the crane, and made it to the jobsite by dark (permits are for daylight travel only). But it's 9:00 now, and I've done hung it up for the day, tomorrow will be here soon enough.
I feel for ya man my day was yesterday, no broken equipment, just the pleasure of running my own business, no details but it ended with me kicking my office chair. Now I've got a hole in the drywall to fix, I did feel a little better though that sick feeling was replaced with a sore toe.
Damn, that wire deal is a mess
I feel your pain. LOML is opening a cafe, for the last month my life has been a slow motion train wreck getting the building in shape. Hate to think how much gas & time has been wasted driving the mile back to the shop to get 1 damned tool. Ed
Extension on a boat storage building today. I asked them how they wanted to rig their upright frames, and they said just rig the center one, and maybe something to kind of hold the outsides? I decided spreader bar and a roll hitch would be just the ticket. Picked pretty nice. The building assemblers had never seen such a thing, (I won't call them ironworkers), and they build boat storage buildings all over the country. I asked a couple of them how they usually rig them, and no one gave a good answer, so maybe they've never built them this way?
Boats in the racks in the existing building. And looks like they just got a new forklift to stack them with, and its a beast, tried to get the 35 in the picture, to give some reference for size. . Also took a picture of a old timey paint job on another boat in a storage yard, looked like WWII plane nose art.
Poor Jim, he was stuck at the yard all day dealing with this, while I was out setting steel. I called him at lunch and asked him if he had just thrown his keys on the shop floor, and shut the gate on his way out, but he was pretty chipper, he said it could have been much worse. I looked at it at 4:00 when I got back, there's one loom of like 9 wires that are all white with no numbers or marks, so we're probably going to have to chase those out. He also has three identical green wires, that we'll have to chase too. He told me at noon that he had sparks flying off the wires in the morning when he first started messing with it. I told him he couldn't have, I had thrown the battery disconnect before I left. He was adamant that he had power, and checked that the disconnect was off. How could he have power with no ground? When I got back to the shop I figured out what was going on. I had put the 70 ton boom in "float" this morning (it has that for dolly travel) at 5 before I left for my job, and picked up the boom with the RT so he would be able to access the swivel, and work some of the wiring from the top side. I had shackled to the boom tip jib brackets, and put a pair of 3/4" chokers to the hook. I had no nylon's in between. The battery disconnect is on the ground, and he hadn't pulled the cables off the hot side. We were steel all the way through- crane to crane, and the hot power of the 70 ton, was grounding through the RT, to its batteries. Tomorrow its getting Nylons. That way they can isolate that crane separate.
Some oil filters have a rubber flap as an anti-drain back valve. If your filter has that, it will restrict air flow back and forth as the tank "breathes" You won't want to see a collapsed tank from vacuum.
I worked at an oilfield tank manufacturer. They had a 750 barrel tank all set up with studs to add insulation after hydro testing. The foreman forgot to let the air pressure off before letting the water out and it sucked the top of the tank in. Expensive mistake. Even on a 400 barrel tank they test with 1 1/2-2 PSI air pressure. You wouldn't think it's very much pressure but when you let it out through a 1" fitting, you'd swear it was 120 PSI coming out of a compressor tank. Almost blows you over. Crane operator I really feel for you with that electrical mess. I think I'm like most and dread trying to solve electrical problems. I had some sparks in the wiring on my Cat and of course it was under the floor board. I opened everything up and couldn't see a thing except 1 ground wire was a little fried where it was bolted on. Everything seemed to work OK so I figured it was just a freak thing. A couple weeks later a friend who's a mechanic took a look. He giggled the wiring in the loom and got a spark right away. Of course the loom was melted but it was right at the very bottom and there was no way to see or feel it without taking a couple mounts off. He brought a special Motorcraft wire splicing kit and fixed it for me. It had metal sleeves and a pliers like crimper that double crimped the sleeves. Kind of like a crimper they use to put TV cables ends on.
Put together a barge and launched a dredge Thursday. Flexi floats and spuds, and a old tugger on the barge. The dredge was self contained. They're going upstream to clean up around the city water intakes. Dredge had a 6-71, so he was thrilled with the old 35. Their last install of barges they used a 350 ton to set it, so I'm not quite in the same size.
I told them to watch the spud height on the bridges. We were still tearing down when they took off upstream, and sure enough they nailed the railroad bridge. They had enough water depth to drop the spuds a little more and sneak under. The dredge itself was over 25,000, and I was afraid the water level wouldn't be high enough for me to float it, I had a buddy bring his big boat launching trailer, and we just picked it off their delivery trailer, and put it on his trailer and backed it into the lake. If the water is down too far I was afraid it would be on the rocks before I got it floated.
I think junkyard had one of their guys in my neighborhood friday. They drilled the hole for this power pole. The power line guys said the drillers weren't there for more than a hour. We actually got this Friday afternoon, otherwise I would have been setting it this morning.
Truss job I did friday morning before the power pole. Just laid them all down on the roof for these guys, 3 at a time. I dropped the 35 off here on my way home from doing barges, they had scheduled the 25, but the truss pile was way out in the parking lot, I was glad I had the 35, especially 3 at a time. 65' trusses, I had them move the dumpster so I could set in the middle, between the stack and the building, and I was still 90' or so with the first one.
Unless it was a top secret job that didn't make my work list it wasn't us but that's ok!
The elec company foreman said Joplin drilling outfit, but he didn't remember the name of the outfit. It was probably 4-5' wide, 14' deep. They were just thrilled they didn't hit rock. They were actually replacing a pole in the background that is kind of in the middle of a driveway/ parking lot. Its been hit a bunch of times, but the pole swap was probably pushed because one of the guys to hit it was a line truck of the power company.
It could have been us. I've only been in the shop 3 days in 9 weeks so I'm not up on the day to day lol. I've become my own little Oklahoma satellite operation!
Nice looking job with the sectional barge. I dont like being that near to power lines even when working with the line crews,but they seem pretty comfortable with that stuff.Each to his own trade i guess.
Around the first of the year I was driving piles around this pump station and the killed the power lines and I pushed them out of the way with the pile because one had to be driven directly under the line. Then afterwards I clamshelled the pond out around it was a 1 1/2 yard bucket
Are you running a Round sling on the vibro?Always wanted to try that instead of cable when your unhooking and hooking the hammer a lot ,But tradition says use cable.
Yeah we always use a 12 foot endless doubled over
Good to know ,thanks gonna be brave and try one ,the sling on the 150 we are using is toast now.
We use a continuous on our hammers as well. I'd hate to fight a cable in that situation.
I just finished up using a nylon endless on a ape 200-6 and we use them on 150s all the time. I've actually never used a wire sling on a vibro. I am only 20 years old though so I haven't seen a lot of things
Couple beams with the galion this morning. Could have got it all from the top with the 25 ton, but it would have been a big pain to put in jib. Just used the galion and moved around a couple times. Got a new operator, so I've been having him come with me last week and had him run it for this job. He's been doing refinery work down south, and this is a bit different.
A little work from this week. Crusher at a quarry. Was a little foggy/ rainy. Had to build a custom lift bracket for getting the cone up. The crusher expert from california (he drove here), had a lifting eye for it, but his was the wrong size. I've got a pretty good selection, but this machine is metric and he thought he could just run someplace in town and get one. No one here has anything like that, so I had him steal a bolt from the crusher that fit it, and had jim run me a piece of 4x4 tubing. A little torch work and we had a lifting rig. The guy from calif. got a little smart about it, and I told him I could just sit there while he waited two days to get a picking eye shipped in if he wanted. Last picture is on the hill out of the quarry.
Been setting a little steel also. Had to haul in some mats for the Rt. The 70 ton wanted to slide down the hill when getting it up on jacks, it slid about a foot and a half when I tried to put down the rears to get some more wood under the front. Ended up having to boom down over the rear to get set up.
The extra mats for the RT
Action shots
70 ton
The plans I looked at just showed the I-beams, but the outside two beams came with all the pan deck and handrail weldements on them, which doubled the weights. I couldn't quite handle the one at the bend by myself, and al couldn't reach it with the RT from where he was either, so we just set those two as a tandem pick. I was about 114', Al was around 95', you want everyone to be smooth with a tandem pick way out there. I took the beam out all I could reach with the 70, then set it down on the beams we already had set. Al swung over and grabbed the far end, and I boomed up and took the close end. He then just swung with me as I boomed down and held the load on my end. I just have the pictures of the one that was closer to al, I didn't get out of the cab and take pictures while we were doing the far one, we both had about all we wanted on that one.
That looks like a cool project
Man I thought I've put cranes in tough spots. You take the cake. Makes my back hurt.
That is some dang cool, is that a foot bridge or is it a road way to the house.
I hope you charged them a lot And that brass bearing in that crusher sure was pretty.
The "bridge" is at a resort/ golf course. It's designed for car traffic, but I think its going to end up being golf carts. Last of the steel is showing up this week sometime. The 70 is done with the steel on that side, so it came home yesterday, I just have to set the last of the steel with the RT. As far as charging them a lot, the rates are the same no matter who I'm working for. We had quite a bit of time in setting up and tearing down, and in hauling all the steel and wood out there for the RT. I probably have more time in going out there and looking at that particular job, than I actually spent setting the steel for it. I think I've been out there 10 different times before the actual job, because the plans and the site has changed so many times. davo727- that bearing isn't round on the inside, its like a double circle and I don't have any idea how they machined it.
That is beautiful country your in. The way they've used the exposed stone as design features is brilliant. I know what you're saying about charge everyone the same rate "same here " but sometimes when I do something very technical with a lot of rigging and setup, I think to myself " man that was too cheap" NICE WORK!!
Looks like the golf course needs some water.
Welder Dave- No lack of water here lately dave. It's been spring monsoon season here- it rains everytime there is a dark cloud. I think the grass is a special golf course grass that just hasn't greened up yet from winter. The ground is a soggy mess where there isn't rock, and they had the sprinklers running full bore saturday. Tradesman- The rock isn't a naturally exposed rock, that's what it looks like if you dig out all the clay in between. Most of those rocks would have just seemed like a slab on top beside the dirt. They have done a bunch of digging to get those exposed.
How much can the 70T lift full out like that with the jib at that angle in the pics here? At About 45 degree angle ?
In that configuration- 98' main and 60' jib, I was good for 3100lbs at 110' radius, 2000lbs at 120' radius. I hit 119' radius on the far left one, but I was over boomed by about 6', I was watching the signal guy and got a little carried away. I knew I really only needed 114' radius because of the earlier beams I had set. I've got another 27' of main boom that I didn't run out. The wind was cruising pretty good, and I sacrificed 400lbs of chart to get a little less wind resistance. Those figures are for over the rear chart only, it wouldn't do that much over the side because you don't have the engine and front axles then as counterweight. (there's separate charts for side and rear). When we tandem set the far beam, we had 170,000 lbs of cranes, holding up 3,500lbs of steel beam. Not big, by real big crane standards, but still a lot of iron stretched out.
Wow, nice. I didnt realize the jib was that long. I have a fixer upper Galion 150F, with a 5.9 cummins that I hope to get back in running shape this summer.
Oh the stupid things I do. I was in a hurry (as usual) and loaded up the rt and headed for a job. I thought "if I don't put my lunchbox in the crane, I'll forget to get it out of the truck at the jobsite, and I'm a 1/2 mile away from the truck". So I walk up to the crane, decide not to put it on the floor of the upper like I usually do, and looked at the little black rigging box. It's pretty full of rigging (nylons), but, (you know where this is going), I'm in a hurry so I shove it in the box, put my shoulder on it and latch it. Next I'm out on the job and getting kind of thirsty, and I can't remember where I put my lunch box, because its usually on the floor of the upper, and I put it on the back steps before I start running. I call Jim at the shop, and ask him if I left it set where the truck/ trailer was parked, then I remembered stuffing it in the lower box. Hop out of the cab, and that's right, something has shifted in the box, and I imagine the handle of my lunchbox is jammed right into the latch. No tender love here, I clamp my handy dandy little vise grip on the handle, (after much pushing and turning with my shoulder on the box- and a few choice words), and twisted the handle off the box latch. Die grinder tomorrow and I guess remove the latch. Sometimes I'd fire myself - if I could find someone else. At least I didn't need any of the rigging out of the box for that job- that would have made things even more spectacular.
Anyways, I at least have been working so I can afford a new latch Finished up at the bridge:
Little maintence at the amusement park. 1 1/2" cable replacement, and yes I had my bibs on, it was 30 degrees and wind blowing that morning. Pretty cold here for early april, supposed to be that cold here again saturday morning.
Water tank removal. They are going to refurbish it , and then reinstall it. Tree was kind of in the way, I just went up and over the building on the other side of the tree, and used the 25 to tail it over.
Had to set up twice more to get the truck out of the neighborhood. Once when he bellied out getting onto the road. The second time because he couldn't make a corner. Just picked up the rear end and moved it over 8' so he could get around. Would have helped if they had sent a little shorter wheelbase truck. And I am back to lifting sheetrock in my spare time also. I had them worn out by 5:30, so I guess I'll finish the last of it in the morning.
Strange April morning, couple inches of snow. Ground is warm so it won't be around long, saw a couple accidents on my way to look at a job though, people are crazy. One hummer spun multiple times all the way across a 4 lane, and two suv's tboned and smashed up in a ditch.
Stacked a little more sheetrock, and took down a big old sycamore on friday.
Nice job on that tank. Tipping things up or down is always interesting with two cranes.
I threw up in my mouth when I saw that pile of drywall. Drywall, shingles and concrete forms are likely the big reason I have a crane, 40 years of carrying that stuff has ruined my shoulders and since I started running the crane a quite a bit my shoulders don't ache as much. Your Western Star looks nice with all the snow on it . We just got about 5" of the white stuff yesterday and today.
On a lot of larger tanks, unless you've got a lot of stick, its easier with two than doing it by yourself, IF---- IF you've both done it before. I did this one with the new guy and I had a pretty good discussion with him to stay off the swing brake and to only do what I told him to. Keep the tank low, while we were laying it down, and it all went okay. Finished up the rafters on the boat storage building this morning. 5,300 lb rafters, about 60' long (I'll admit, I never measured them). A little crowded in the building with the crane, two manlifts and a 10k telehandler, but we got them set.
Couple more pics. Also- I was puttering around on the peterbilt project saturday, and discovered a little oddity. Three of the four rear tandems have hub pilot, but the back one on the drivers side is budd's. Sometime in a pinch put on the budd's with a hub? I have no idea, the steers are hub pilot, and all the other tandems are. I have no history on the truck. I think I'll pull that one off and switch it so they are all alike. Should be able to just swap hub. I actually might have one laying in the yard from a cutoff. I didn't look into it that far yet. Got the galion delivered for a job tomorrow, and new latch came in today for my torn up toolbox. Also, for some reason the 40 ton Rt is stuck in 4x4, I think its the coil on transmission/ drop box/ transfer case. Called the dealer to order a solenoid, and he couldn't find it on the computer, so I spent some time in the parts book and came up with a number. Of course that # is obsolete, but he came up with a new number.
Deck on the backside of a new custom house. Tight fit, they didn't want me too close to the new retaining wall, so I snugged up tight to the posts. Above the posts, under the overhang, and right up next to the new windows, it would have been nice if they had waited to put in the windows.
The steel c-channel that was mounted on the wall of the house, put the ball right on the wall of the house above by the windows. I padded the ball up just in case, a little cardboard and some zipsystem tape. I figured it was better than nothing. Oh and we got a wood rack mounted on the rear of the crane, just to have a little along, also made it so it can unbolt like the front if you needed to be in a tight spot.
Looks like you and the old neck breaker are getting along fine lots of work there for it.
Don't even start that hank. I'm glad to have work to do, but that thing is a miserable little @#$%^ to run. The truck that they brought the steel in on, was parked exactly where I took this picture from. No way to turn the crane sideways, no where else to park the truck. I just decided to be uncomfortable first thing in the morning and unloaded the truck, and set it all in front of me on the ground. It's not easy to boom down and hold the load (both levers on the far right of the cab) while trying to turn 180 degrees behind you (over your left shoulder) and watch the truck. I've got pretty long arms, and I even struggle a little. And I'm too stubborn and in a hurry to just run one function at a time. I also still get a little disorientated when the counterweight swings around over the top window of the cab. It's just wrong and that's not supposed to happen. I'm supposed to be in a seat and the boom and I move together, if you can see the counterweight out the top window, something is seriously, seriously wrong. But not on that thing. But you're right, at least its earning its keep. I did cheat a little and pulled off the jib mount bracket on the top of the main boom, gave me another 8"s or so under the overhang.
Tree work out of a hanging basket... jeez. So many easier ways to do it.
That's 106' of boom, so he's 100' up. Got a bucket truck that will reach 100'? Nobody around here does, I know they make them, just most guys don't need one that big and heavy, so they don't own one. It's a sycamore, I don't know if they have those by you, but even when they are healthy, branches break out of them really easily. It was so dead up high, it wasn't safe to climb. Residential power all around on the lot, and a neighbor house real close, so couldn't drop it in one shot. No 125' lifts at the local rental house, only 80', and 125's are really expensive to bring in for just one day. With the trucking, he'd easily be over $1,000-maybe 1.200. Plus with the unlevelness of the lot, I don't know that you would have got a 125' to work anyways, without driving it up on a pile of dunnage, or a bunch of dirt/ rock work. I never have liked driving lifts up on wood. So there's another $1,000+ to bring in someone to level out a pad for the lift to set on. So- pop jib on the 25 ton, 3 hour job, up in the basket they go. Yes- it's not real easy working out of a hanging basket, but its done and down. I don't know what other options we really had. Actually, I think its much faster to zip them up and down and around in a tree with the crane. If its someone I've worked with before, I kind of know where they want to be, so it doesn't take to long, I find those big lifts to be really slow.
Whoa, didn’t mean to offend. It’s up to the climber how it’s done. I would have lifted the tree down with the crane, but if it were really that dangerous that the climber didn’t want to tie into it even after a substantial amount of weight has been removed by they crane, I would have tied into the crane and still climbed the tree rather than the hanging basket. Or even a boom tip basket. I’ve done it once from a hanging basket and I will never do it again. Had to be the most dangerous way I’ve ever cut a tree down. Every time you reach out with the saw the basket starts moving, not my cup of tea. I was just speaking as an experienced climber.
Looked at the tree pics again... Did the man in the basket have a line to the tree to stabilize the basket while cutting ? Seems to be an answer to classictruckman's point about the moving basket.
It actually works best with 2 guys in the basket. One holds onto the tree while the other cuts. That goes real easy. They point me where they want to be, I put them there, and you can make pretty short work of it, if you can let the pieces fall. If there's only one guy in the basket (because they don't have enough guys- I always recommend two), I'll usually just run him up against the tree so he won't spin as bad, and tying a line off helps. But it still spins a little, and just like truckman says, every time you step or move, or push the saw, the basket moves a little. Ride it out like a ship, and let the saw do the work. I had a chance this spring to buy a boom head basket, but I passed on it. I've got too many different cranes, and didn't want to build adapters for all of them. I thought about just setting up one or two of the cranes, but I guess I just didn't want to mess with it. Once you get onto it, and cut out of the basket, it really isn't too bad. I probably drop a dozen or two dozen trees a year, with a couple different tree outfits. Usually when they can't access the yard with their bucket trucks. Or the tree is so tall they can't reach it. Probably 1/2 the jobs they climb and rig the pieces and I fly them out, 1/2 the jobs they end up in a basket. I've done both on the same job, some of the tree from the basket, and some of it climb and rig. I've also been the guy in the basket, and I guess I didn't really mind it, but its been a while, maybe I've forgotten. I guess I'd rather ride up the basket as climb, but I'm lazy like that. It all comes down to what a guy is used to doing I guess, maybe the tree guys do nothing but complain about me afterwards. I know the telephone conversations about a tree job usually start out "I'm not sure about this job, you have time to go look?" Usually great big dead trees on the other side of a house. If it was easy, they would have already had the tree down.
In other jobs- sign today, on the other side of the building.
Still piddling around with the boom truck too. It had a leaky jack cylinder on retract, so we pulled it this afternoon. Wiper seal was like clay, fell to pieces. These jacks come out the bottom, so I used the slope on driveway to the back yard to my advantage. Probably won't be the only jack we rebuild on it, if this one is any indication of what the others are like. Sent jim to the hyd. shop for seals, and I've got them all in, I just can't get the gland end to go over the shaft yet. I tried to cheat and not pull the nut on the piston, I may end up pulling it, to put it on from that end. That's tomorrow's problem.
I’m envious of all of the work you have the ability to do on all of your equipment, I’m a decent welder/fabricator and I do turn some wrenches from time to time, but I’d get the cylinder out of the o/r and then I’d have to take it to a hydraulic shop to get the seals changed. I don’t even know where to start taking one apart.
Was also like christmas here yesterday. I lost my 5wr vise grips. I always carry it in the pliers pocket of my pants, and I think it fell out when I was working on one of the cranes on the side of the road last friday. I feel like a idiot, because I'm constantly reaching for my pocket, and I know its not there, but I can't help myself. Anyways, the new ones (chinese irwin's) are junk (the jaws don't hold up it seems like), so I always try to find old peterson made ones, but they seem to be drying up at the pawnshops, etc. So I went to ebay and they had some new old stock ones in the box, but $40.00 each and up. I don't care about a box, I aint a collector, I just want a good 5wr. I got lucky and someone had just posted up 3 like new ones, $25.00 for all three. I didn't even think twice. One had intials engraved in it , but they look like all they have done is lay in a drawer. I've got enough to last me a while now.
Not trying to hijack, but talking about trees.... I did a project years ago with my boom truck & Genie in a big apartment complex- 100's of pole quality sticks and no room. It was an adventure. We came up with some pretty interesting ways to lay them down. First go in with the Genie & the basket on the boom & trim them up, take the basket off and we came up with a choker rig with little pulleys & Sampson pulling tape to keep the choker open and then cinch it up after we got it up the tree as far as we could, he'd cut and give me nods until it was just hanging & he could just slide the saw out " [one nod]bump...bump.....[shake head]GOOD! ". Then (if there was room) hook the Garrett up to the butt he'd creep away and I'd lay it down. Fun job.
What's a garrett? And I've done about half a dozen jobs with one of those pioneer's. My old boss had one, and I had to go set trusses with it for a first job. I had always run truck cranes with free swing, and I looked like a idiot. I got the job done, but I didn't volunteer to run it for the regular operator, I usually volunteered to take one of the truck cranes instead. I'm a big fan of sitting down and a cab with free swing. My old boss did say that pioneer was one of his most profitable cranes. They are quick to set up and don't have much footprint. I actually went to wisconsin to look at one that was for sale. The extension cables had broken under load, and it trashed the bottom end of a couple sections. I didn't bring it home.
A little log skidder.
Concrete culvert. Making a new driveway for a new bank. Dirt work guys said the driveway portion was over $150,000. Its to get to a side street so the customers can have a light to pull out onto the main street.
We didn't get them all done on Friday, and it rained cats n dogs friday night. I was a little worried about the crane being in the hole saturday morning. I'm glad I did get it moved friday for the second half of boxes, otherwise it would have been fun in the mud. Water got kind of deep by the trash on the entrance box. 30 boxes total, at 18,800lbs each is 546,000lbs of concrete boxes. Unloaded 22 boxes friday, did the last eight saturday morning.
Drivers had to back around a blind corner, some were better at it than others. One of the contract drivers had a big sleeper long wheelbase truck, but he nailed it right in. Old School kenworth with some fancy lettering on the door.
I expect nothing less from Boonville. Damn, I just noticed the e. Must be Arkansas.
That’s quite a driveway culvert is it the Missouri or the Mississippi flowing through it
And what's with the three red horns behind the fuel tank?
Look like they are off a locomotive..... Ed
I sure would not want to have him passing me on the left while I was on my motorcycle and have him hit the horns!
10 years ago I was following Jordie into town and he had a set on his low bed truck I was in my school bus and the kids at the bus stop did the the air horn thing you should of seen them jump. When those Train horns went off
The state of Texas is off limits to that truck.
RT went to a water pumping station monday. They pump water from here to two other lakes for drinking water. There's actually 4 pumps here, but they rotate every couple years rebuilding pumps. The bad thing is its 2hours there by car, I used to do it with my 35 ton crane, but its a 4 hour drive in it, so I loaded the lowboy up and its a much nicer delivery in it. There's like 300' of pipe with a pump on the end of it, and all the pieces come out of a 8' x 20' lid on the concrete. The pump is about 16,000 lbs or so, that's it on the trailer in the one picture. The deadman is for pulling the whole mess, then we tie it off a piece at a time and two line it up out of the hole.
Pulling the first piece, and the pipes how they run down the bank and into the water. Its actually a pipe within a pipe/ casing, and runs on rollers up and down the casing.
Took the little neck breaker out again this week, HVAC work in a tight area. The units are on the other side of the building, and 30' down the other side, so up and over the security light, but not into the antenna or the upper part of the building, and then shove the boom through the tree.
Trains. whoo whoo, chuga chuga. They have been refurbishing this engine, and needed some weight figures for it. They said 10-12. I thought they said thousand, but I've lifted them before and knew they were way heavier than that. They might have meant 10-12 ton. An oh yeah- they needed a weight as going down the track, so the boiler and water reservoir were full too. Ended up around 28,000 lbs. Good thing I had the 35 ton. And they don't have much for factory "pick points" on the old engines either.
Roofing materials in Eureka Springs. Its a little resort town down in arkansas, about 2 hours away. Old- old town, narrow street and we drove in and backed out. I took the yellow 25 because its the fastest down the road.
Yellow 25 is getting some new shoes up front. And a little food trailer made out of a 20' conex going in.
So the camaro strikes again this morning. My boy leaves for school, drives around the block, and back in the door he walks. Says "my car is making a loud noise from the back, can you look at it?" (He's learning, it took him the trip around the block, but at least he's stopping when something sounds wrong.) Anyways, it rained a bunch this weekend, so I'm thinking a little rust on the rotor and a wheel brake is squeaking. Nope, there's two grooves in the asphalt like the oregon trail , he went the block on the rim. I've been laughing to myself about it all day. His shocks are shot, and I've been after him to replace them because it rides pretty bad. My youngest daughter actually walked right past the flat tire to get in the car, and he never even walked around it when it was "making noise". Probably just turned up the stereo louder. Unbelievably, the rim is okay. I figured it would be junk, but what's that saying about angels protecting fools and children? I'm not sure he's a child anymore, but I wonder about the fool part. He's learning though. He asked what the tire fixing was going to cost, he's down to about $60, waiting on his income tax return and hoping his $ lasts until schools out and his summer job. Oh to be young again!
Anybody else get to pick up a dinosaur today? Probably just me.
How do How you calculate the Center of gravity on a dinosaur
I figured it was between his head and the tip of his tail and I was right on......
I had that happen when I was a young'un as well, I guess I was already a pretty well qualified mechanic though, it was 4 dark something and possibly raining, got down the road a bit and did not feel right, flat tire. So I walked back and got the Bobcat, put a pintle hook upside down in the hitch, used a short chain to lift and drag that sucker down to the shop. After fixing the tire it took repeated blasts of the Cheetah to get the beads to seat on the old 16.5" rims, later I learned Grandpa did not appreciate that noise so early in the morning and he usually got up real early and lived quite a ways off and was always quite deaf.
Close call in Lowe's parking lot today. I went in for some stuff and as I was checking out the clerk said "did you hear everything in the parking lot". The red ford got some extra dents from the cart corral. The cart corral was between me and the blue dodge. The guy lost control clear back at the gold colored car, climbed up on it and lost his right front steer there and went all the way to between me and the blue dodge on three wheels. The guy in the blue dodge was sitting in the truck with the door open texting someone. The garden shed and the grass finally stopped him, after three rows of cars. Its a wonder no one got run over. I've got his insurance, but I don't know if its even worth messing with, they'll probably just total it, and I'd rather have my truck. I told the guy in the blue dodge to buy his lottery ticket on his way back home, if he'd stepped out of his truck, it wouldn't have been pretty.
Never 2 days the same for you, Glad now one was hurt or killed.
I think the appropriate words are “ holy crap” glad ya lived through it!
Yes, it was nice to be a little late for something for once. I don't mind being late for a accident. A little manbasket work today, in the rain. Better them than me. At least we got jib on and set up on the first side before it started really raining. I didn't have any too much stick either.
We caution taped it all around the crane once we got in there, its at the entrance to a mall. They unloaded a whole bus load of old people, and I saw one old gal, walk right into our caution tape. She just kept bulldozing, and I thought the tape was going to knock her over. Sometimes you can't win.
Cell phone antenna on a water tower. They wanted me there at 12 and set up when they got there. No one to unlock the gate, and powerlines all around, so I stepped it off and knew I would be close to running out of tip height from outside, but I decided to go ahead and put in jib and dead stick, rather than sitting and waiting on them. I was done setting up when they got there, so I swung over by the antenna, and knew I was close. I told their guy to go ahead and get up on the roof (he rappelled to unbolt the antenna), and see how close we were. He brought some 8' roundups up with him. He got up there and said it wasn't probably high enough, but I could see the tip of the jib was above the antenna. I telescoped in some, and set the ball on the ground so I could remove my scale, giving me another foot of height. Then I put a shackle on top of the ball, with a 2' cable choker on it basketed, that gave me a few more inches. It was only a 300lb antenna, so I don't mind lifting that from the top of the ball. That gave us just enough height, and sure beat moving crane inside the fence, and then trying to do dead stick inside the fence. There was no way I could do jib inside the fence, I would have had to put it on outside and then back in there with it on. And that would have been no picnic, because of the powerlines all over, around the tank. Of course, I was right in the sun.....
Also got the 3406b opened up in the pete I bought last fall. I bought it with a "bad" motor, it had a knock about mid height around #2/#3 cylinder. We dropped the pan, looks like one cylinder had had a new liner and piston in it, (#5), but #2 and #3, the pistons fall up and down in the sleeves, loose. I think the knock may have actually been the piston rocking sideways, they are that loose in the sleeves. I had them pull the intake piping and stuff getting ready to pull head, and this is what we found. Its like fine clay/ dust/ maybe feed mill powder, in the intake piping. I think they lost a air filter, and were running in a real dirty environment (end dump or grain/feed). If you rub your hand around inside the piping, it comes off brown and gritty. It's had to have run all that through the valves, turbo, and its likely what trashed the rings on the pistons. I'm going to go look at a motor thursday if I can. Supposed to be a good runner, and it has jakes on it (which my motor didn't have, but I want). If I can get some core value for mine, I don't think it will be too bad. I'm not going to be driving this truck everyday, just a couple times a month, so I'm not going to spend a bunch of $ rebuilding/overhauling it. I can hear the other motor run before we buy it, and I think I can get it bought between $3-4,000, I know there's no way I'm going to get mine rebuilt for that kind of $. If it was just a lifter or valve or something (which is what I was hoping when I bought it), I'd slap mine back together. But I bet that grit has trashed my head, and I don't think those 1 piece 3406 heads are cheap. Any bright ideas on how to clean the intake piping and the air to air? I was thinking I could take the intake piping to the carwash, and run some old sheets through it with a broom stick. The air to air, I was thinking of trying to flush it with diesel, and maybe a little air agitation with it. I just don't want that stuff getting into the new/used engine.
We where almost in the same business today
I saw it in your post, there's a lot of cell phone repair/ upgrade tower work in my area. A lot of it I can't do, just because I can't reach it. My 70 ton is only 188', and it takes a lot of room to put that together in. I've been looking at some rigs that I could get 250-270' up, which would catch a lot of the towers in my area. 150- 180 ton range All Terrains. $$$$ and then some more $$$$. But I keep working toward it. Baby steps, baby steps.
We've been drilling a lot of monopole tower piers lately. One or two a month it seems like. Quite a few tripod setups as well. It's only money for a bigger crane just dig up a few jars....
Hot tub/ swim spa. Galion comes through again. I could have set this from the driveway beside the house, but I would have had to back off the one side of the driveway into their grass, and that's a recipe for broken driveway with 80,000. So in the fence gate, and into the backyard. These have a big pump so you can swim in them. I even found a place to sneak a spreader bar onto the crane (its the blue bar tied to the frame).
A little quarry work. The shaft from the rotor, is actually twisted, and eaten up. The bearing locked up and caught fire, the heat and the 300 hp electric motor made the shaft twist up. They put the fire out and let it cool down all night so they could work on it. They had another rotor (used), so new bearings and they were back in business.
Was there any beer in that ice as a reward for the hard working highly skilled operating engineer? Everything on those crushers is mega heavy, what did you have on there ?
No beer, I can barely run crane as it is, let alone start drinking. Rotors on the trailers, the old one on the right has the "blow" bars installed, its 11-12,000lbs. The new "used" one on the left is only around 8,000 without the blow bars. They will pull the blow bars off the bad one and install them on the good one with their service truck after I leave.
For some reason, whenever I start digging holes, people think I'm burying bodies.
You must have a lot of jars buried!!
I think its more of a attitude thing, than that people think I have that much $. In other $ news, I got a check from the geico man last week for the damage to the red ford pickup. The cops had called me with his insurance info, and I stopped by the body man. The adjuster cut me a check for just over $1,800, and I think I'm going to just drive it, the body man made it pretty clear he didn't want to try to paint over the rust... A little unit the other day with the 25 A tandem unload of a loaded 40' conex. I can unload these with my 70 ton, but usually they are loaded way heavy on one end or the other, and I find that its a lot easier to do it with 2 small cranes as one big one, especially if they come loaded on the container trailers, if they're loaded heavy on one side they can be a pain to get out of those trailers. The last picture is a bifold overhead door frame for the small airport here in town. One of the storage hangars has a door that's a little dangerous on the controls, so they ordered a new one. I used a spreader bar and a 4 point rolling hitch on it, to even out the weight. I was more worried that the other doors would fall over when I pulled theirs off, I made the driver tie off the other ones, I could just see someone getting squashed.
A couple weeks ago we were at the lake pulling pumps and putting a new one in. Well the new one has been laying on the ground in their storage building for 4 years, and it won't run. Their one year warranty on the rebuild is kind of up, and they called us back up there to pull it out. I'm betting the pump is flash rusted in the housing from storage, but who knows. It amp spikes and shuts itself off without ever turning. It was a gorgeous morning the second morning up there. Lake was like glass.
The pipe is from actually 2 pumps, the one bad one and the one we pulled to send off to get rebuilt. I think we had 3 or 4 pieces to go when I snapped this picture. The pipe has a ceramic/ concrete liner. I don't know how they make it. The last picture is the pump laying on the ground. The farthest away end is the motor, it sucks the water past the motor to cool the motor, then into the multistage pump. One of the guys says it develops 400psi, in like a 16" pipe. It pumps the water around 14 miles if I remember right. Its got its own high voltage substation coming in right to the pump station.
400psi is impressive. Is it for town supply? Looks like a fun little hole to extract the motor from.
It actually takes water from this lake and transfers it to a different lake, and that lake is the one they use for drinking water. So yes its eventually a municipal supply. There used to be a whole temporary setup out in the lake also, we pulled it out a couple years ago, it all floated on a barge setup. I have no idea why they pulled the "temporary" set up, it had its own pipe set up and I couldn't figure out why they removed it all. I guess they used to have all four pumps in all the time, it seems like since we've been fixing them, they usually only have two operational at any one time.
I notice how your rigged with the snatch block to pull the pump.Whats the procedure for reinstalling the pump?
A little bit different style pipe, but I bet the interior coating process is similar.
In another life I ran a bridge crane toting molten iron to similar casting machines. Not much fun.
Pump is picked with two lines, boom down and let down each line to get it worked into the hole. Once the tip is started in the casing, we use a chain fall and anchor the top end by the snatch block/ puller bar, and then move the whip to the snatch block to let it down in. We use a bracket on the inside of the hole, to lock the pipe down into its casing, so we can let off the puller/ snatch block line when adding each section of pipe.
Water tower antenna again. The scheduled said "set up same place as last time, same antenna." So I get there, jib and dead stick put in, ready to pick when they roll up. Nope, not that antenna, the one on the other side between the power lines. Tear down, leave jib in, pull straight to the driveway in, and back in with jib on laid flat. Boom up over the far fence, while backing in. Do dead stick on top of the barb wire chain link fence. I was there till 9:30 last night while they tried to get that antenna working. Managed to get jib off and dead stick in while inside the fence. Drove it back out with the boom over the rear, but it was too dark to spin it around under the power lines, so I waited till this morning to do that, when I went to get it for the next job. I was tired and didn't want to stick the boom into the power lines in the dark. Last picture shows the gate, and we were working on the antenna to the right, not the one the crane is set up by.
Cheap chinese tools coming to town. Harbor Freight leased a old Staples store. They put in new HVAC, but don't pull any of the old units off the roof. Why they don't use the old units is beyond me (they were working when staples left last summer), but I don't pay the bills. Had to use my cart on one of them, I was about 5' from getting it with my 35, and I called them and told them that yesterday. I gave them the option of cart and plywood or bigger crane, and they wanted cart. So I put it as far as I could with the crane, and they carted it the last 5'.
Sent my shop man to the back yard to trade around some rigging out of the galion, and he came walking back up waving his arms around, all shook up. It seems a big old black snake has taken up residence in the back yard. There used to be one back there 8-10 years ago, but haven't seen one in a long time. Anyways, Jim is no fan of snakes. He's been parking his camper back there, and I said "you better get that up in the front yard or that snake will be up in it." A hour later when I got back to the shop, the camper was moved. I asked Jim if he was up for spraying the weeds in the back yard, and I got that "OH NO< OH REALLY HELL NOOOO" response. Guess I'll have to do it. He took two pictures, I'm surprised you can even see it was a snake, I'm sure his hands were shaking. He said "that SOB is 8' long and 6" around" . And its not quite that big, but its probably 4-5' or so. I told him that black snakes kill the copperheads, but I think it might end up being Jim or the snake, no peaceful coexistence.
Holy crap did they kill the lines for you or just guard them. I've never had to work around live lines, Ontario hydro won't guard wires they say if your going to be working within the limits of approach they will kill the lines. I've never had to have it turned off but I suspect it's not just a simple phone call.
They are live. 10' distance and a spotter. I've got a job coming up probably this fall that's by a great big transmission line. It has a 15' set back distance and cannot be shut off. These lines can't really be killed either, water supply, next to the school, cell antenna's were running to make sure they were working, etc. etc. I usually try to stay at least 15' away just for safety. But I've actually set big laminated power poles for the power company, replacing a pole in a line, and dropped the pole between the different transmission lines. I felt real good when the pole truck guy came up after - " boy I'm glad you came to set that pole, I told them I didn't want to do it". Thank's buddy, for telling me after! If you think about it, really the "jump" distance, isn't any more than the insulator distance on the poles, or it would jump to the pole and ground out. But you don't really want to get that close. I don't work within the 10' unless the power company is there, and its setting a pole for them.
"He took two pictures, I'm surprised you can even see it was a snake, I'm sure his hands were shaking. He said "that SOB is 8' long and 6" around" . And its not quite that big, but its probably 4-5' or so. I told him that black snakes kill the copperheads, but I think it might end up being Jim or the snake, no peaceful coexistence." Well I'm not a big fan of snakes myself but supposedly we have very few around here that are poisonous. Just remind him once he kills that little black snake all the copperheads will know it is now a safe haven and set up housekeeping! And if he's scared of snakes how did he wrap the tape measure around it to know it was 6 inches around? what ever you don't toss a 6 foot section of that wire or an old hydraulic hose in the camper when he's not lookin!
I thought about nailing a 3' piece of hose on the top inside of the walk in door, for a little surprise when he unlocks the door in the morning, but I really don't want to have to hire another guy.....
We had a big crane to set precast box culvert section on a project. The operator says to me I can't set the last one due to the power lines. I said "talk to your boss, he looked at it before he sent you here.". So.... I got the job of getting the power shutoff. Power is to go off at 9AM. At 9 the flasher light at the corner goes dark. No power company. A few minutes later the power company truck shows up. The crane operator says now I can touch those lines correct? Power guy says nope, we can't guarantee the dairy farm down the road's generator set isn't back feeding into the line. Crane operator says I'm done adios. Contractor and I are pissed. Solution, we as the owner bought the 8 foot section and the precaster cast 2-4 foot sections which the contractor set with his big hydraulic excavator which fit nicely under the lines. Worked out ok, we used the 8' section on another project but the crane company isn't on my first call list.
You rarely find snakes and mice in the same place. While I am not really fond of snakes, I really hate mice. The mice crap everywhere, stink the place up, chew the insulation off the wires, and then die in the most inaccessible locations. Just so you don't see a copper-headed rattle moccasin.
We do have copperheads here in the hills. They aren't aggressive at all, usually just lay there or try to slither away. On a cool morning they will be out on the stone shelves. If your wearing good boots you really don't have much to worry about when walking. You just don't want to reach under something with a leaf pile (like tin laying around) or go crawling under something with brush under it, they like a cool spot on a summer day.
You probably don't want to read this, but I would have done the same thing. Around here, we have a 4 metre"minimum approach distance" that you cannot enter by law without written consent from the lines owner. You can get a permit for a "Minimum Approach Reduction" for live lines, generally with conditions such as a lineman on site to act as a spotter. And all lines are considered live unless proven dead, and earthed to ground either side of the work area. If another operator wants to break those rules, then fine, but I won't risk causing injury to myself or others, or a prosecution if caught. Of course, this should have been identified by the boss during the first site visit, but the contractor should also have verified the MAD first, imo.
I was not upset the crane operator packed up and left. I was mad at the crane owner that scoped out the job site and the operator wasting my time to get the power shut off. The owner should have seen the issue and the operator should have said no I can't before I went to all the effort and called in a favor to kill the power.
Your procedures around power shutdowns must differ from ours here. Before work can start around dead lines, they need to be earthed to ground at either end of the worksite. This is so that, if an improperly installed generator backfeeds the line, or if power is mistakenly restored at the switch, the workers and plant are protected. When this is done, then we are able to sign on to the permit to work. The earths are not removed until everybody has signed off that permit again. The MAD also applies to all plant, including cranes, forklifts, aerial lifts and excavators.
Conexes this morning. They cut one side out of each of these, and are joining them together to make a "coffee house". I'll have to come back, there's a third one that they are going to set on top. We usually lift conexes from the top, but with the one side cut out, I was worried about the roof folding up. (I would have really preferred to set them before they cut them, but that chance was gone). I asked the owner what he wanted to do, he said " I've talked to the engineer already, he says we can lift from the top". I told him he better talk to him again, because with the crane rigging, I'm pulling in as much as I'm lifting up. I suggested spreader bars and going to the bottom picking eyes, and hoping that the floor would stay straight. He called me back last night, said the engineer agreed with me that we better lift them from the bottom. I told him I could bring my 70 ton, and pick them where they set, or if I brought my 35 he'd have to drag them closer. He said he could drag them around easily with his pickup. He sheared his front tow hook bolts right off (think ford will warranty that?). I was kind of surprised, the truck actually just stalled out, I figured he'd run out of traction, but it just sat there and wouldn't spin the tires, I wonder if the ABS prevents that, or the computer somehow? Ended up moving one end at a time, and then moving the far end with the crane, then just pulling it up close enough to grab it.
Transfered a "traction wheel" this afternoon. One truck was broke down, he limped it to here, it supposedly had to make it to a port by tomorrow to get on a boat. Both truckers, and broker were on the phone to the office, all upset with each other, and really concerned about time. Looks like a big electric drive wheel motor for a mining dump truck, supposed to be headed overseas. After we had it moved, I was kind of wishing we had just rigged the motor, and ratchet strapped the skid to the motor, but the crate held. I figured about the time I wrapped the rigging around it somewhere, that would be some machined surface that can't be touched or something. I figured they built the crate just for that motor, and are probably moving it at the port by that, so I just went ahead. 27,000 lbs motor.
I love the diversity of your client base, that's what makes this business so great!
I'd like to see the engineer's license. He thought it would be ok lifting from the top with most of the side missing? Does he even know what a Conex box is? And the owner? He thought he could slide that uphill with a pickup? Maybe with a ton or 2 of ballast. Both are rocket scientist's lol BTW I am a civil engineer licensed in MI it's not limited to MO. I told another engineer here how to calculate some earthwork. Even took a couple x-sections and marked them in red as to how to work the existing grade to minimize the earthwork. The x-section she drew up looked nothing like what I drew (all by hand since I don't do cad). I can understand misunderstanding my verbal instructions (that was try number 1) but not following my examples? I too love seeing your photos of your work I'm fascinated by cranes and lifts. Even owned a 15 ton P&H Mighty Mite truck crane just because I could lol
I kind of just told the owner, that the engineer didn't know what he was talking about. I try to do it in a real nice, conversational way, the owner is probably paying the engineer big $, and I don't try to upset people if I can help it. When you tell them its probably going to just rip/buckle the roof up to a right angle, they start making phone calls. I told the owner I could bring something else to move the conexes around, but that's their choice. I'm getting paid until they drag it closer, or I figured I could always break the crane down and skip it once and then set it. If he wants to tear up his new truck, that's on him. I think you could have picked them from the top, if he would have made a couple x's across the big opening with some 2" angle iron, then cut them off after we had them moved, but I just figured it would be easier to hook at the bottom, the only real issue with the bottom is getting the rigging back out when setting the second one tight to the first one. I just got out the big pry bar and got all medieval on it. Pried it out a little, pulled the rigging out, then pushed it back together. Glad you guys are enjoying the pictures.
Had a good time craning today, and the money was good too. https://www.machinerymoverschicago.com/blog/Taking-Down-Dust-Collector/
I don't know if you lift enough containers to make it worthwhile, but we use these They are fantastic because you can lift from the bottom of the container, making it unnecessary to climb on top.
Someone got to stare at a dog's *** this morning. I just drove it to the site, and helped to get it set up and running. Of course we forgot to throw a tagline in the crane, I always forget something. I talked to the operator at about 5:00, he had the trusses all set and was back to the shop. I asked him if he had to go back tomorrow and do it again, if he'd take one of my old 25 ton grove truck cranes, or the Mack, and he said the mack, so I guess it went ok. (I'm glad he likes it, I know what I'd take-old dog's and new tricks etc.).
Ive got a set, they work great,althought your strap thru the corner holes with the shackle on the outside looks pretty good to.
So when you guys use the brackets on the bottom, do you then use 8' spreader bars, and pick from the side hole, or the end hole? I did the choker through the hole so that when we set them tight together, it wasn't as bad to pull it out. I usually lift them from the top, and I have a set of 5 ton hooks that I will hook the top end hole with, quick and easy, we usually just use a ladder and climb on top. But I'm kind of liking the idea of a set of lugs. Always something you don't have isn't there?
That's great glad to see you got it mobile looks like you did a really nice job putting it together, you've got waaaay! more patients than me. What does the over ride button in the truck cab over ride? Is it long sticks out in front of the operator? See not a single snide remark, like : welcome to the dark side or anything at all about being just a boom truck operator. Good luck with it.
The override button is a shut down for the engine. You can shut it off with the key, with a cable lever, or that button. You've got a couple options if things need shut down. The operator controls are long sticks, that turn shafts, that link to the valves directly. No push pull cables, so you get a lot of feed back/ pressure. The work we went to with the front end really paid off. This first job we went too, I had to back around a dumpster and between it and the truss pile, and stay out of a hole on the other side of the road. I would never have gotten it in there the way the truck was set up when I got it, it just wouldn't have turned that short. It has 425 floats up front, and the original steel rims didn't have enough offset to push the wheels out. We bought new aluminum rims with more offset, I had to modify the original axle stops to push them in. Then had to send off the steering box to get the pressure reliefs on the power steering to adjust. But it cranks those big 425's around like nobody's business now. The dual steering boxes help. So the list so far is: Steering box rebuild, new front rims, fuel tank strap repair, new deck, relocation of hydraulic tank from below deck, to between cab and front outrigger box. New racks for wood storage on each side of deck, stairs in the deck and removed old flip flop ladder from on top of the tandems. One outrigger jack rebuild, upper hydraulic swivel removal and reseal, hydraulic pump reseal, exhaust replacement from up pipe to tip. Paint on the upper, painted deck and frame. Rigging box on top of the deck. Rebuilt the aluminum outrigger floats, ears were busted off. Rotation indicator in upper. new hood latches. Have a new MACK chrome letters for the hood. Injector pump rebuild. A bunch of other little things. Still to fix: Going to need a new winch line cable, only has enough cable to reach to ground on main with a single line. Block and storage for block on deck. Planning on building a bracket/ storage pocket on the boom rest for a single sheeve, quick reeve block I have for it. Spreader bar and storage rack for it on top of the front outrigger box. Need to do some work on the wear pads on the outriggers, one is drooping real bad at extension. Air compressor seems to be running all the time, not unloading like it should. Rotation indicator that we installed, has now stopped working. Extend the foot lever on the boom pedal control, for better feel. Decide when we are going to paint the cab of the truck. Windshield wipers on the lower, that I have tried to fix once, need fixed again. Going to build some kind of radiator/ grill guard that stays with the radiator when you flip the hood open, there's nothing on it right now. I've got aluminum rims rounded up for the outside rears, and studs and nuts for them, just have to get the tires unmounted/ remounted. Scale and a2b, either take one from one of the 25's, or buy one for this crane. Air conditioning/ generator for the upper. Probably going to need to reseal a few more outrigger jacks. Tint the upper cab windows. Baby steps, baby steps. We really haven't been in a big hurry to get this up and running. If it was the only crane I had, I would really have had the push on. With my two old 25 ton Grove's, this one hasn't been a necessary crane. If I had the chance to do it over again, I probably wouldn't buy it. It doesn't do anything, that I can't already do with equipment I already own. It needed more work than I thought it did. Sure, if I have to go set a HVAC unit a hour away from the shop, it would be a better option. But if I have to go make a 50,000lb tandem pick, the mack wouldn't really want its end, but I wouldn't hesitate at all to use my old 25 ton grove. So in that regard, it really feels like a step back, in that its a less capable machine, but I knew that when I bought it. That said, if a guy wanted to get into the crane business tomorrow, it would be a good option. It looks pretty good, has a good amount of main, and gets up and down the road pretty good. You could set a bunch of HVAC units and trusses with one.
Don't normally use a spreader, just equivalent length chains to the size of the container. If they don't want the container scratched, then I just use synthetic slings. There's still situations when it's a better option to hook through the top, like if they want the container hard against another, or against a wall or fence, but not many.
Loaded out at a military base with the 35, they were headed for training. Headed for ft. irwin. One of the guys said he'd rather go back to afghanistan, "ft. irwin is in the middle of nowhere, and the closest town is barstow, which is worse than nowhere..." Actually he was a lot more colorful in his commentary, but I'll let you use your imagination on the extra words. Third picture is their mobil mechanics station. Gen set, aircompressor, welder, knuckleboom crane and a big old toolbox behind that door in the middle. Hooklift load and unload, bet that slides everything around in their drawers!
Driver with the big pete barely got turned around. I was a little worried about the tail of his trailer, they had the back rail up on the rubber bumper stops on the concrete ramp. It popped pretty good when they came off the ramp onto the trailer. I don't think they had any volunteers to road them to calif., hauling is probably way more cost effective per mile.
Pond overflow box. Had to dig down a little to get closer. They told me they were only putting in a foot of fill, and I got there and saw 5' this morning. They took some back out. There's a big hole in the far bottom of the box for the outlet.
Rt is out building a new amusement ride. This has a big fan on that motor, then its a trampoline above the fan, its like skydiving only never getting more than 30' off the ground.
Mack even got out this afternoon to set a couple beams, operator sent me a couple pictures.
Nothing crane related today, but we moved oversize load for a company where we craned last Thursday. 12 foot wide load, I drove the truck with the load and someone else drove the forklift. https://www.machinerymoverschicago.com/blog/Oversize-Load-Rigging-Elk-Grove-Village/
If anyone wanted to see more pictures, the army repair box is called a M7 forward repair system. (FRS), the army boys called it their "fresh". Here's a couple more pictures of them (taken from the web, I didn't take any more while I was there.) I think its kind of a neat system, except if the crane is 2' too far away from whatever you're working on, its kind of tough to move it closer.
Dang I should have one of them. Only problem is I’m a poor wrench
Little two line work this morning. Old smokestacks on a resturant that was made to look like a paddlewheel steamer. The roof was rotten under them and they needed to come down. 75' over there to the far stack, so I put a guy in the manbasket, and had him cut the pipes joining the two together. Then I had him rig the pipe to my second line, and I swung him over and set the manbasket on the roof, so he could step out. They disconnected the base, and the bottom of the guy cables and I flew the stacks down. One fell apart as it hit the ground.
The other guys were busy building amusement ride.
Amusement ride is together. I think they are going to get to testing it this weekend, maybe customers next week.
Got to play rigger early friday morning. A rock broke off a cut back and ended up against the building. It captured a bunch of leaves and routed rainwater into the building from the gutter. We slapped the mack in the road early and a flagger. I dumped a ladder and a chain over the edge and we tipped it back off. Only a little damage to the downspout. Owner wanted it left as a crude "retaining" wall to try to catch little rocks and dirt that will continue to fall.
Trusses from Thursday. No, I didn't take the mack, I fought jib on instead, between the trees and the dumpster. The guys are starting to make fun of me about it, but I like the old Grove. Me and it got a deal, I don't do anything stupid, and it won't hurt me. Eventually I suppose I'll take the Mack to a job. The one operator really likes it. First truss we needed was half way down the top bundle, second truss was on the bottom and working back up through the stack. We just played flippy flop for a while with the whole stacks until I had them in order. I threw the top bundle out in the street and split it there in front of the crane, then flipped the bottom 1/2.
I showed up on site at 8, we had them set by 11 or so.
Offloaded a conex at the shop between the rock job and going to set a unit with the 25. I'll store it until next fall. The unit I did after the rock job friday morning.
After the unit, I drove over to help set a sign. I'd sent one of the other guys with the mack, he called me, "how long you going to be, I could use a little help over here". It wasn't a pretty site, powerlines, driveway, right between the power lines and the main road in town, on the friday of a holiday weekend. He offered to set up the mack, and of course, if I'm setting it, I'm using the old Grove. Yes, I got made fun of again. Pole is vertical, but the sign is made to look like a guitar setting at a angle, so we had to get it to hang at just the right angle, after I stood it off the trailer. Sign drops over the top of the 35' pole. Snatch block and chain comealong to the rescue.
Top piece had to get turned to the same angle to match, and then slid down the stub of the pole left sticking out the top. Had one clueless driver nail two traffic cones in the lane, one guy by the bucket truck about got hit by the one that really went flying.
Memorial Day weekend, Flew the flag for a little while this morning. I'll probably put it up monday too.
Had a little trouble with the lowboy the other day, they were having trouble keeping it running, and parked it. The customer called me, "why did your guys park the lowboy so crooked?" The hill was steep enough when they left it, it slid the truck back. Its a wonder it didn't go over....
Called a wrecker guy that I trade a little work back and forth with. No pictures of the pulling out, it was getting dark by the time he got there. I don't think my guy will leave it on quite that steep of a slope again. I actually don't think the tires ever turned, I think once it got started, it just slid, and the only thing that kept it from going on back was the curb.
You got very lucky. Go buy a Powerball ticket
In the picture where you can see the front of the truck, you can see where the truck was parked over the antifreeze leak. So it was setting all in its lane. It just slid the truck downhill, turning the trailer. No one was even there to see it go, my guys had left, and I fortunately brought over the other truck and trailer that afternoon, after the customer had called me. I don't know if it would have stayed all night, a chain or tire letting loose would have been bad. The wrecker man asked me if it would start and run, I told him I wasn't touching it until he was hooked on to it. If one of the uphill chains had broke when it stopped, I think the crane (because its so top heavy) would have gone right on over, and the other chains would have probably drug truck and trailer with it. The reason it quit running was the antifreeze it burped out, it had thrown the water pump belt, and it would start and then give a shut down light, because it was low on antifreeze. I don't think I could have got rolling with it on that hill anyway (too steep, not low enough gears), last time we were at this location I dropped it out on a flat side street. One of my guys thought there was too much traffic there, and so he was trying to get to a back parking lot, not a good choice.
That's an undie bunching moment for sure! Glad it worked out the way it did, there's a million ways it could have ended worse.
you are a very lucky man... what a nightmare...b
Who want's to set up in a crooked spot? Oh me, pick me!!! Water tank in a housing development. Had to set up in culdesac, transfer tank from road truck to pintle hitch trailer on tractor 3 point, no way was over the road trucker getting to where the tank went. About a 9,000lbs tank. I barely tapped my hard hat when I ducked and walked under the back right corner outrigger beam (I'm about 6'6"). I've had one of my 25's up higher, but this is the most I've put under my rt. There was really no way to make a better spot, it was uphill all the way to the tank pad. And it was all a solid shelf of rock, they would have had to spend a week with a breaker to get a level spot up there, and then would have had to put it all back in to replace the road to the tank for maintence. By the way, that's my ugly mug standing out the top hatch of the rt in the third picture, its a wonder I didn't break the camera.
Wow! Scary! PS The dust collector that I took down with my crane, ended up being given to me by the company as they realized they do not need it (with a credit from me), and I promptly resold it...
Lp tanks, they are moving the tank farm to a different location. 35 for the first tank- about 40,000lbs. I asked the truck driver before loading the 1st one, if he needed me to roll it, to put the top valve to the 10oclock position, to keep it under height. No- he was fine, he had measured the tank. I load it, and sure enough he gets his tape measure out, and lo and behold, he's over height. Demons sang and the angels wept. So back to the timbers it was setting on in the weeds to roll it. I was thrilled....
Second tank was 65' long or so. Just over 60,000, I had the rt over to lend a hand, they had set a unit with it first thing in the morning while I was loading the first tank with the 35 ton. Driver put the back of the tank on those little "load leveler" aluminum racks. He said that's how they always hauled them, but it didn't look great to me.
It's not often that you get a second chance at a job that went bad, but I got to redo one this week. Eight years ago one of my guys tipped my 35 at this location, taking down one of the ice machines from the roof. No one was hurt. I was out running a different crane, and I left that job, came back to town, and set the 35 back on its jacks. The crane had tipped up until the load hit the ground, and there it stood with the off side jacks 8' off the ground and the boom at about 20 degrees. I've never been so thankful as I was that day that no one was injured, 3 guys could have easily died that day. Anyways, the ice plant has sold, and I got to take down all the old machines, and load them up. It was just a nervous day for me, just being on the same site again. Everything went well and they are all loaded up and gone. Just a interesting tidbit on the ice machines. One had a build date of 1972, and has been in continuous use since then. These are still made today, and these are going to a different plant after a refurb, but they were still working.
Last job for the week. One of the guys set the pole for this billboard a couple weeks ago, we put the head on today. 20,000lbs or so. And yes, the sun was right in my eyes again.........
Slow week this week, so we've been practicing for a job next week. MRI machine going into a vet clinic, 70' down a hallway and then a 90degree corner and into a room. 15,000 lbs. Have got a set of "air" skates. This is three of them under some steel mats at my shop. There's a little over 16,000 lbs there, and two of us by hand pushed it 20', spun it 180 degrees and pushed it back. It didn't push easy, but 15,000 lbs on a set of regular machinery skates, you can't move by hand. I bought the skates used and wanted to try them out before we went to a job with them, hate looking like a rookie. We put down masonite and some steel transition plates that we use on the mechanical skates so we could practice a height transition. You can see the air manifold on the left. It came with faucet like valves on the individual lines with a main regulator. I removed the individual faucet valves and installed regulators with gauges so I had a little better fine control of the individual skates. I'm much happier having tried it out at the shop, I know they will pick up 16,000 and we can turn a 90 degree corner with them.
Also got a 3406b picked up for the peterbilt. Got to see it run before purchase, and it has jakes already on it. Don't know anything else about it, but I guess we'll see.
I've got a bad auction habit. I see stuff that is kind of expensive new, and think "I might need that some day" and drag stuff home. From today- a pickup load of takeoff exhaust. I really just need 2 tips for the peterbilt, but they were cheap. Truck is used, so I figure some used exhaust tips won't hurt. Also 4 aluminum headache racks, I actually have one already bought for the pete, I just like one of these better. Picked up a shop fan- its mounted on a pole and a tire, and a couple other small things too. I gave $250 for all the headache racks, and $170 for all the exhaust. I think the last single elbow tip I bought was over $100, and it was just a short cap. I'm hoping to sell two of the racks and cover the day.
Crane Op … I'll bet you liked that lockable chain rack over the over the one you already had.
You done good
good deal on the headache rack...
Nice haul at the auction i like the locking chain racks. Do you have the brakesaver/retarder on your 3406?Ive got one on mine, but the darn thing leaks oil so i dont use it which sucks with all the hill we have here .Its kind of major to get it out and rebuild it. I wish i had jakes on mine.My trucker friend says having both is the best.
Jakes only is my preference. If it does not hold back you can always pick a lower gear and go slower. Nothing gets overheated or burned except the air going past the exhaust valve. What would it take to add them?
Funny when i bought the truck id never used a brakesaver,the seller warned me not to use it too heavily or i could burn up the seals in it.Using it sparingling i figured i should stop after creeping down a hill called the Anarchist just out of Osoyous and check things out.I was down about 3 gallons on engine oil ,i think the seals were long toasted.Lucky i had me my pickup on the lowbed with lots of supplies in it. Asusual buyer beware ,in spite of that the truck has been great for me.
Brakesaver were the best back in the late 70's and early 80's, drove a 3408 Star man was that great, the thing that takes getting used to one can not shift with the brakesaver on . Jakes now a day are the way to go, almost scary how well they hold back. Lots of cars can not keep up to some trucks on the hills around here.
The chain racks are nice, I have them on my western star, and the one for the pete I had doesn't have them. I actually don't use them on my Western star, every time you start and stop it sounds like the ghost of christmas past with all the chain clanking going on. I've seen guys mount mud flaps to the rack to cut down on the noise. No brakesaver on the 3406, its pretty rare to see one of those around here. The motor we took out did not have jakes, and I wanted to add them, so finding a motor with them already on was a big plus. I guess they are getting hard to come by used. Everyone I talk to, tells me to not expect as much jake braking power out of the 3406, as I get out of my 60 series detroit. Current transmission in the pete is a 13609b 9 speed. I have a 15 speed that I got for my engine repower in the 35 several years ago, that is still laying on the floor of my shop. I've been debating putting the 15 in the pete, and putting the 9 speed in the 35 when I finnaly repower it. I think I would get a lower 1st gear, and closer steps down low with the 15, and the 9 speed would be 3 inches shorter in the 35, where I'm really going to be hurting for room. I've also thought about a 8LL in the 35 for that really low hole when crawling around on a jobsite, but it would be just as long as the 13. Both the 9 and the 15 are RTO transmissions, but according to the eaton chart, first gear may be the same in each, the 15 just has closer steps down low. I could stick each trans in first and count revolutions I suppose, but I don't know how that would work with no air on the transmission, if I'm getting low in the deep reduction.
If you get a chance to pick up a used Eaton 18 speed, that would let you split the basement gears. Much like a 13 speed but every gear can be split.
Getting another different transmission isn't going to happen hank. I'm just debating if I keep the 9 in the pete, or switch it to the 15. I think the 15 would be a better choice for my short steep hills, but I'm wondering with the torque of the 3406, if I'm okay just leaving the 9. I really don't split a lot in my 13, I'm not on the road everyday all day long. The 9 is just a 13 without splitting the top, but the 15 is actually in ratio a lot like my rt613, where the gears are a lot closer together down low. Although a 18 would do that with being able to split the bottom, I don't have one of those lying around.
I do.....
Was trying to decide if that fan mounted on the Ford pick-up was a new version of "Jake Brake" for pick-up trucks or an auxiliary wind powered generator for a hybrid conversion kit you installed on the truck!
I am thinking that the 9 would be good last fall drove a 3406 with a 9 and just grabbed 2 gears, at the early part of the hill to make sure I had enough engine to get me up. Not like your on the road 10 hrs every day with the truck.
I know- some people have all the cool stuff..... HVAC unit with the mack. Would have had to swing jib with the 25. One of my guys is really liking it- we're getting the kinks worked out of it.
Amusement park ride. It gets a set of cars under the "excavator" arm. I think we will end up moving it again all as one piece, I think its going to be to close to the ride that its next too.
Set the third conex on the new coffee shop. I took the 70 ton, we had to spin it and set it on top at a angle.
I’m most likely going to part out the truck that 18 speed is in. If you decide you can use it let me know.
Thanks for the offer, the pete isn't really a heavy enough truck to need that much transmission. If it was 20k front and big rears, double frame etc., I might want a big trans, but I think I'm going to put the 15 in it. The only reason to leave the 9 in the peterbilt, is because it looks like a pretty new reman transmission, paint marker writing on it yet and everything with the reman tag. But I think I'm going to prefer the closer together gear ratio's of the 15. I'm probably going to use the 9 in the 35, just for the extra room, unless I find a 8ll and decide I have room for it. The deep reduction in the 8ll would be nice on a jobsite, getting into position. But the extra length may make it tough.
15 speed all the way 3406 and a 15 are a nice comb been loaded heavy and never lacked a gear and we have some steep and long hills Can't say I like the 9 speed they get the job done but leave a lot to be desired
70 ton down into arkansas on wednesday. Got there and set up -Jim hollers at me "hey, did you see this steer tire?" It felt like standing near a bomb. Everything was good before we left, but its been super warm here, and it was pretty long drive. We'll be changing that before we head home.
Nothing a dollar two ninty-eight won't fix. For curiosity, what is the date code?
It was your lucky day you got to the job site,
Vet clinic MRI machine. Offloaded with the galion, skipped it to the door. Two brick steps and then 60' down a hallway. 90 degree corner, and into the metal cage. 15,000 pounds, and its a semi permanent magnet, so you can't get anything steel close to the table or its stuck. No watches or credit cards in your pocket either, it will wipe the credit cards. When the mri machine was still in its crate, you could stick a vice grip to the outside of the crate and it would just hang there. Plywood and posts outside to deal with the steps, then plywood and masonite inside. Air skates worked great. Its kind of like painting equipment, a ton of prep work for not much moving time.
After we got it in the cage, it had to get jacked up 8" for the feet to go under it also.
25 ton out setting a A/C unit. Old unit we took down was from 1973, and had still worked until this spring.
Sold my metal lathe. I bought it a couple years ago, and its been sitting in the corner of my shop since. I really don't have time to use it, and a customer of mine needed a big one, so I sold it. Big red picked it up and out of my shop, but we took the 25 ton to put it in their building. Their shop location has less than ideal access, trees, steel, narrow driveway and a couple buildings. Hauled it there on the winch truck so we didn't have to deal with gooseneck trailer. We got it scoped out into the building and on their concrete, then skated into place.
I honestly never looked. We don't do a lot of miles, but it sets outside a lot, and between the sun and setting around loaded heavy all the time with the crane, nothing lasts forever. I've got some tires set back in the shop for it, I'm probably going to replace all 4 steers. Every dog has his day!
Roofing outfit came to town from kansas city today with a 2007 manitex (they own it themselves). They no more than had their jacks down and swung over with their first pick and it died. Truck would run, but when the pto was engaged, engine would die. I sent out the little mack to the rescue. Simple is kind of nice. I felt bad for the roofers, they bought the crane a year ago out of texas and its been down more than they've been able to use it. Leaks, not running, a little bit of everything. Mounted on a 07 Sterling with a mercedes engine, I think today's issue was electrical- something in signal between crane and ecm, they had a call in to a mechanic out of springfield. Looked to me like the crane had a hard life before they got it. 07 would be one of the last sterlings I think. When it died, they had a pallet of material about 15' above the roof of the mall they were working on, with boom out and on jacks and not running- it wasn't a good day for them.
Seems to me you should be writing a book about all the interesting jobs you get. I am sure every year you would be on the best seller list.
Interesting boom angle indicator on that boom truck, relative to the truck not gravity.
Also 2010 was the last year that sterling was produced, I think there were even some 2011’s made from left over parts.
I had a sterling rollback with a Mercedes. Biggest POS I’ve ever owned, driven or cussed at. Only ex-wives should be allowed to own them!
They have a Sterling with Mercedes for a water truck at the quarry where I worked and I would have to disagree with you. I have an ex-wife and despite some differences, no she does not deserve that!
Pretty amazing how common those are. Less than two decades ago only select locations for people had them, and even fewer university veterinary research facilities. They're life savers for people and Fido, I know.
And also not that many more years ago ultra-sound was a "new thing", now days if you call out the Cat dealer to do an estimate on a bucket repair they us their ultra sound machine to measure the thickness of the steel so they know what sections need replacing and which ones are good to go. And not that long ago if you were having a problem with the shifting of your D6C you either figured it out yourself using the service manual or paid the dealer to come out. Now days you can post something on this site and you might have half a dozen different people from as many different countries or continents offering help from trouble shooting charts, parts books and such!
I’ve heard all the hate for these trucks and engines but I had mine for 5 years I changed a fuel line and did the front spring pins and shackles. Now having said that it was on a boom truck and was driven from job to job at 85 kmh ( a little over 50 mph) not to tough a test but I had no complaints. But then again I don’t have an x wife either just the one I married 32 years ago and I still think real highly of her too.
I think the big complaint on the mercedes of that era, is due to a couple things. It was loaded with emissions stuff. It wasn't a common engine, like cummins, detroit or cat, so no one really wanted to work on them or grow to understand them, or stock any parts for them. The germans just build things differently. The volvo engine is another one that isn't real popular in my area either. The complaint I always hear on the sterlings of that era is how cheap the dashes/interiors are put together. In the rough use of dump truck or garbage truck that the vocational market that ford/ louisville/ sterling always tried to hit, the interiors wouldn't stand up to the daily pounding. Plastic would bust up and fall apart.
Exactly. Oddball motor parts etc and JUNK interior. I had another sterling that was my boom truck. Little C7 Cat and an 8LL. Poor little motor never had a chance with a 23 1/2 ton crane on it. Only interior cheaper than a Freightliner is a sterling!
What's the difference, a lot of the parts seem to be the same as I remember.
Oddball as in nobody stocked anything. Even the dealer. The rollback sat almost a month waiting on parts. Around here Mercedes parts aren’t as readily available as Cat, Cummins or Detroit. Not to mention they do things their own way like Crane Operator said.
Little walkbridge at a resort near town, across a creek. 66' long and allowed to clear out no trees. None. No branches, no weeds nothing. Touch nothing in the creek bed either. And don't start working until 11:00 in the morning, because its right next to the honeymoon cabin, and we don't want to disturb the guests at $1,000/ night. And the other side ends on the main entrance road, which is a constant stream of traffic after about 9:00. The side I'm on with the 35 is in a parking lot. They fabbed the beam up in a different lot, brought it to the 35 with two forklifts. I picked it in the center, and boomed it down across the creek until I was touching the tree that was really in the way. Then I had one of the other guys block one lane of the entrance road, with the galion, and grab the far end of the beam. You can just see it through the trees. They flagged the road to one lane, and let the tourists howl for a while. After the galion grabbed the far end, I let down on the center, then re rigged on the close end of the beam, and we finished setting it with both cranes. In and out in a couple hours, for the two beams, and never had to block the road totally, and no trees damaged. Honeymooners even got to sleep in until 11:00. Everybody happy.
Looks like a tree is going to be in the middle of the walkway. "pears to be covered in poison ivy too. Hope it's an optical illusion or the future honeymooners are gonna be itchy.
I like that beam grabber. We don't really use them here much, except for the guys in the fab shops. Are the beams weathering steel, or are they going to paint them later?
I have two of those, they are really nice on big I-beams, that are hard on wire chokers. They are super nice if you have to grab a beam off center and tip it up to thread through a structure. Filling in, so to speak. When you do that with a wire choker, they tend to want to slide off the beam, and the clamps will stay where you put them. The beams are actually all to the left of the tree (just barely), the reflection in my glass makes that hard to see.
To heck with trucks, excavators and cranes - we are in the wrong business!
I don't know- if someone wants me for a day with the equipment it costs $1,000, more for the bigger stuff. Its just kind of pricey for a room. It is a really fancy resort, and this is their fancy "honeymoon" cabin right by their spa. They had a wedding there shortly after they had the restaurant back open, and the number for the wedding and reception and rooms was on the far side of $100,000. Busy day friday, two different locations replacing HVAC units (35), then a water tank with a two hour drive each way. Used the Rt and one of the 25's for the tank.
Busy monday, HVAC unit first thing at a shopping mall. Then off to set a tank that we took down earlier this spring. 70 and the 25 to tail. After the tank I got to take the 35 back to the military base- they were back from training at Irwin, and needed their conexes unloaded.
Water tank, they at least brought a short wheel base tractor to deliver, unfortunately, they loaded it backwards, but we made it work.
Looks like it was a tight squeeze to get the bale in the back of the truck, but if it fits, it ships.... (its antique plates on the truck too) And when the clouds look like this behind you, its time to get to the barn.
So another trip to Ft Lost in the Woods?
I actually went to the guard base in harrison ark (that's only a hour from me). There's a engineer group there, that took some of their stuff to california with them. I don't get over to ft. leonard wood. Its too far for me, I do a little work with a crane outfit out of rolla mo. They do most of the work on base.
New concrete furniture for a little park/ patio area. Took the galion to keep boom tip height down to stay away from the power lines, concrete trash can sits right at the base of the power pole (the one you can't see in pictures).
Left one of my guys to set the furniture- sorry no pictures of it in place. I went to work with the county boys setting bridge beams. I had my own power line issues to deal with.
All done.
I shudder at the resultant loads on the chain
Looks like at least 120° between the 2 chains so somewhere north of double.
Looks like a whole lot of bridge for not much river
Yes, that's not exactly a approved rigging procedure. There used to be a culvert here, and it would come over the road once or twice in the spring when it would rain hard. County was worried about someone getting washed away.
New winch line for the mack. It had 9x16 which is hard to becket and isn't good for multipart, and it was only about 200' long. So 400' is reeled up on it now of 8x25. 8x25 is much easier to becket and sometimes its nice to put in a 2-3 part setting generators or a little heavier stuff. The mack winch is really fast, so a 2 part helps to set stuff slow. Its really a fast crane on the boom also, booms up really fast. Nice when you're setting trusses, not so nice if you're trying to be precise.
This is the concrete furniture in place.
In other news, tradesman's pretty boom mounted basket has had me thinking, and this basket was on a auction in Columbia, Mo. I'll have to send a guy after it early next week, because I looked at a job yesterday, that I need it for after the 4th holiday. Hope it fits. Also- the same auction I picked up this 1985 freightliner. It's not as far away, just up in springfield. We'll take the rollback up there and load it up, its 3406b with a 15 speed. I'll probably keep the 15 speed, and part out the rest, unless I find someone that really wants the whole thing, but its in kind of tough shape. It does run and drive, and was a dump truck before water truck, the hinges are still on the frame. But I don't think its worth changing back. If it was a 95 instead of a 85, I'd be a little more inclined to fix it up, but I think it might take too much to make it right. I guess I'll know more once we get it home. I think we can part it out and make a little money, because I don't have enough projects at the shop right now.....
the water truck if it all works you might try selling as a working water truck,. out west water truck sale for some real money a lot of times
I was looking on the net to see how your new basket attaches and I came across the add for it. That is a nice basket by the pictures it looks like it rotates, other than mine is a much nicer colour,yours is much better and more versatile. I’d love to see some pictures of it working when you get that far.
Thanks tradesman. I'm not sure what the big hitch pin is for on the attachment bracket. It looks like it can pin in two positions, but I think you would only want it pinned when hooking up to it. The rest of the time that would have to be able to move to level out the basket I think. And like you said- I think it rotates on the other shaft with a jackscrew, that could be handy in the right spot. I think the big crank handle on the top is for the leveling, but I don't know if its just a brake, or if its a crank on a jack screw that you can adjust angle and it stays. We'll have to see how it works when it gets here I guess.
Crane operator, when you see how your new truck runs let me know how much you want for the engine. I have a '93 with a c model that spun the rear main and I'm trying to decide if I should swap engines or junk the truck.
Will do. It might be after the 4th before we go get it, I'm busy early this week.
Got the basket fitted to the mack this morning. The two pin positions are: one for more height, and it gets you away from the load line, the other one drops it below the boom so you can rotate further around. Pin must be in one or the other position. Handle on top of the arm is a brake, make sure you're standing in the center, not a corner, or it really swings when you pop it loose. Bracket on the boom wasn't quite the right dimensions, so we did a little adjusting. Also put a stop on it to help pin it up.
Who else ends up with a rat's nest of hoses, cords, tools, and welder leads when they work? Maybe its just me, but everything ends up tangled with everything else. Happy 4th too!
That's what I thought was normal a tangled mess and it only takes 3 minutes to get that way
What the big yellow hook hanging on the wall for. That is a nice setup for the basket, good bye !
It's hanging on the wall because I wasn't the last one to use it. If I was the last one to use it, it would be laying on the floor in everyone's way.
Lol, not why is it on the wall, what do you use it for and I meant to say good job, but auto correct thought better.
Someone's got to be the grammar police around here. Just because you have to know french too, doesn't mean you can butcher it up, when you speaken ze english. No slack for anyone. It's a coil lifter, caldwell made. One of the guys brought it home from a auction he was at. I wondered if a guy could set trusses with it, but I haven't tried yet. Might need to extend the pivot arm, or tighten it a little. http://www.caldwellinc.com/strong-bac/coil-lifters/pivoting-coil-hook
You should work with me for a couple of hours. I can get a lot more tangled up mess than what you have there. You must be just a beginner!
Work in a shop where 4 or 5 guys are on the same project but the boss/foreman doesn't belief in wrapping up cables at the end of the shift. You come in for the night shift or the next day and you start off with a tangled mess and it only gets worse. The better shops require you to clean up for the next shift unless the cables are in an awkward location and the next shift is finishing the job.
More issues with the camaro. My boy is at least checking fluids and noticing puddles. The plastic tank gave up the ghost so we had a little father son repair time. The rest are just Hvac units, its prime AC season here so that's what we've been doing a lot of lately.
Pictures from a truss job, they outdid themselves, and put the trusses under the tree, and actually leaning up against the trunk. I telescoped in and grabbed them and pulled them out. It was a 2 1/2 hour drive over there, the last 10 miles was really up and down, I hit 1st on one of the hills. I think I could have made it and second, but I wasn't taking the chance.
Another unit
I'm also like a old dog- just looking for a way to be in the shade- this was while I was redoing the basket adapter.
This is a link to the last 20 odd miles I drove to the last truss job. When google maps says 13 miles and 24 minutes, that translates to about a hour in the crane. When its all green like that in the satellite, that means its in the middle of nowhere. It was a pretty drive. I think if you highlight the following, you can open it in a new window, if it doesn't work right, I goofed up. I tried to embed the picture of the map here, but couldn't figure out how to do that. https://www.google.com/maps/dir/36....36b8fc351a0!2m2!1d-93.512849!2d36.6191776!3e0
The unit I changed a couple pictures back, we changed out on monday with the 35. It came back off the roof today. It was bad from the factory and wouldn't work, so we set back up and swapped it again. Also put the manbasket on the mack and went to a job this morning. I went along and helped to get it mounted and then left to go change out the unit with the 35. The basket worked great for the billboard. He was actually installing a sticker over the "coming summer 2018" part, saying "open now" or something like that. It would have been really hard to install from a hanging basket, because he would have swung so much trying to push the sticker on.
Went after the old freightliner this afternoon. The water tank is rusted out, but it fired right up and drove on the trailer (so it even has good batteries in it!). Engine sounds good. I'm thinking we may clean it up and put a dump box back on it. The pto is still mounted to the transmission, and the hinges are still on the rear of the frame. The hydraulic tank from the doghouse of the dump bed is mounted behind the drivers door on a little rack. So may be looking for a dump bed and cylinder and some clean up work. The interior is in really poor shape. Used to have a lift axle under it too, the controller for it is still in the cab. I'm going to give the truck a pretty good look over before investing in a bed though, just to make sure there's nothing major wrong.
Today was trusses. One of my guys and the Mack went to a 12,000 sq. ft house, I just had a little house with the 25 ton. Both wanted Saturday so OT charges. ' As far as the 12,000 sq. ft house, who puts garages on both sides of their house?
"As far as the 12,000 sq. ft house, who puts garages on both sides of their house?" Easy, Rich people with more money (or cars) than they know what to do with.............. Rick
And As long as the check clears I really don't think Crane Operator really cares! Right?CO?
Oh no, I don't mind whatever foolishness they do. A old man once told me "no poor man ever wrote me a check for a new mansion".
Old mack is looking good. Bet your op loves that 95' main. I'm sure he's enjoying the extra ponies as well.
I suggested that saturday, he could just take one of the 25's over there to set trusses, and he didn't want anything to do with that. I think its great because then I can go run my old white and red 25. I'll say this about that mack, I've driven it around quite a bit, and its only rated at 300hp, but its a maxidyne, and a torquey little beast. In anything else, I'm thinking "you better shift, you're running out of rpms." But in it, when you reach that point, you just lay your foot into it and it just hangs with it over the hill (within reason). The slower the rpms, the better it pulls.
"I think I can get the crane in there" Famous last words. Between the gate, the bent post at the gate, the grease dumpster, the regular dumpster, and the storage shed, and the overhead wire- today's job was not blessed with a large work area. The fence and the dumpster and the shed all had about a 8' gap, and the crane is 8' wide, so it should all work out right? The first time I went to swing, I was hitting the dumpster with my counterweight. I had to pull up outriggers and sneak ahead and over to get a little clearance. Once I got ahead another foot, I had all kinds of clearance for the counterweight, it just put the wire in a little less handy spot. I couldn't get the back stabilizers down, but I wasn't swinging that way anyways. We changed out a HVAC unit up in that little area between the two higher roofs, I pick and carried in the new unit, then brought the old unit out when I came back out. The worst place going in was actually between the little black post that holds open the gate and the lifting lug on the little dumpster. It doesn't look it in the picture, but I was scrubbing each side getting through that spot.
Took down a tree yesterday. I couldn't reach the tree, but they dropped the pieces where I could pull them out. It was in the middle of a putt- putt course at a resort.
The heaviest was putting in their stump grinder, they said under 4,000lbs, but it was quite a bit heavier than that on the scale, I wonder if that was a "dry" weight. Used my old skip box for the little branches and the stump grinder mulch clean up. The main trunk was pretty good sized. We laid out some mats and plywood to protect the sod where we dropped all the limbs. The worst thing is the neighbor tree to this one is probably next, they disturbed all the roots of these old oaks putting in the course, and now these two have both died. Those old oaks don't like being messed with around here with our rocky conditions, it seems like if you disturb them too much around the bases, they give up pretty easy.
Skated a fancy dehumidifier into a indoor pool mechanical room today. They said it was over $40,000. Unit was about 1 1/2" shorter than the doorway, so we didn't have a lot of extra clearance. Used some short skates I have, and put some pipes through the base of the unit. We stuck a wood block on each side of the forklift pockets where we put the pipes, so they couldn't slide in. The unit was top heavy and off balance, so we ratchet strapped around it (after I took the picture), so it couldn't tip out of the rigging. Doorway was between the chain link fences that the guys are standing by in the second picture. Had just enough room to get in on the concrete pad outside the door, the overhang on the building was kind of in the way.
And for those of you really paying attention- yes there is now a grill in the old mack. It was just a open hole to the air to air. I had a old freightliner grill that was kind of damaged in the back room. I had one of the guys cut it down and install it to the radiator mount frame, just to give a little protection to the air to air and radiator. And yes, its crooked to the hood. At least its mounted- we'll have to do a little adjusting to it.
I like the grill - it gives the Mack a L9000 sort of look.
Thanks, cm1995. I just didn't like that big black open hole, and could just see someone smacking some rigging or a spreader bar into it and wiping out the air to air. This should give it something to bounce off of first. We actually did a skating and unloading project yesterday afternoon. It was so stinking hot I didn't take a single picture. It was a granite cutting cnc saw, came in a open top conex from italy. The trucker said he didn't have any idea how to take the tarp off or put it back on, but it had to go back on before he left. I was just going to toss the bars and the tarp in the back, but I put it back on. No thank you from the trucker either. I should have just left it, I was ready to just let him drag it back to Kansas city. The saw was 12,000lbs, and was touching the conex on both sides, we had to pick it crooked because the truck was on a slope, and when we picked it straight it wedged on the sidewalls and wouldn't come out. These pictures are the conexes we moved in the morning. I moved them once on this jobsite before, now they were in the way for more landscaping. I put them up on the berm, then they drug them to the new lay down yard with the forklifts. Heaviest was just over 30,000lbs. When he tried to pick one end with the 12,000lb cap. forklift, he had some trouble backing up, his rear was too light to steer.
Only a unit with the 25 this morning. Got done before it got hot. Took the 25 instead of the mack, the control valves have started leaking a little on the mack, so they came apart and got all new quad rings. Its back together and should be good for monday. Had a skate bust a pin moving the granite cutter. I just pulled it out and finished moving it with three skates. I called Hillman rollers, and they want over $200 for a new chain. I looked it over this morning, and I think I can just grind out the old pin, and get a new connector link pin to replace the pin that broke. We were pulling the cutter into place and the floor wasn't in very good shape, when this skate caught, it broke the pin.
Had to fix one of the feet on the cutter, it broke off a screw in the bottom that hold the foot to the adjuster/leveling feet. Broken flush- so I welded a washer and a nut to it and screwed it right out. I don't mess around usually with drilling and easy outs, I usually just get frustrated going that route, so I just start out with the welder.
Pretty drive this morning. I let her roll a little up and down one of the little hills back into this development, and thought "3rd will walk that hill". The detroit had other thoughts this morning. The hill got worse around the curve. When she started to complain- I just flipped her out and grabbed reverse and the brakes. I went back to the bottom for another run in 1st. I didn't think I wanted to mess with a driveline or axle this morning, I've got no one to impress, so I don't mind getting another run at a hill.
Had to get a little creative today. Deck on the back side of a big house. Big drop off on the other side and hard to even stand a ladder on a lot of it. No way to get a self propelled manlift back there. Steel columns and then I beams between columns. All weld up connections.
Just got the last piece attached, I'd been watching the clouds for the last hour or so. I no more than got the boom in, and we got in the trucks and headed up the hill, when the rain cut loose. Good timing. I usually leave the crane boomed up, but it was pretty rumbly, so I decided boomed down would be prudent.
Did you get a chance to use the boom tip basket yet?
Yep. Modified the boom tip bracket and did a billboard wrap job. Worked great. The pin settings will put it even with the boom tip, or hang it clear below the boom tip. The higher setting gets you a little more height and reach, with less boom sticking above, but you can't rotate the basket very far, because it hits on the boom. If you use the lower pin setting, the basket will rotate almost 180. But you better not be up underneath something close, and you lose a little height. It is easier to pin on in the lower setting, because its easier to reach. The picture at my shop has it in the lower setting. I put it on the upper setting on the billboard job, because I was worried about height. Afterwards, I wish I had put it down so he could have rotated the basket further. Its really stable on main boom. Much less sway than a 125 genie, and I can set up in a crooked spot with the crane, the self propelled lifts have a hard time in our hills. The service guys for the rental places spend a lot of time making calls to "non working" lifts, that are just shutting them off because its on too much slope.
Well yesterday was one of those days you don't need too many of. I went and off loaded a cell tower in the morning, and it went fine. The tower guys were a bunch of skeptics on whether the 25 would unload it. I don't know what they usually get sent out for a crane to offload (the biggest section was only 10,000lbs), but evidently its a bigger crane than what I sent. If I had a 150 ton crane, I could have set the tower, but I'm still saving pennies for that. It was after the cell tower that things got worse. I took the 70 ton down to the big condo forever project to put up some more sheetrock, trim, and vanities, bathtubs etc. At the steepest part of the hill, I felt something let go out back. I think the crane slipped a little with the weight all up on the steers, then grabbed (jakes on) and popped a axle. I put the power divider in, after checking to make sure it wasn't a driveshaft/ ujoint, and climbed up into the jobsite. I think I may just leave the axle alone, and drive it back to the shop like it is. If its broke and just a stub sticking out of the 3rd member, I'll have a hard time getting it out on the jobsite. Its only about 2 miles back to my shop, I'm thinking of just limping it home and fixing it there. I'm afraid if I take out the outer broken half, the inner piece may fall down and hang up on the 3rd member, so maybe leaving it all together might be a better choice. When I got to the jobsite, one of the other guys sent me a picture of the tire on the RT. It had developed a baseball sized lump on the side of it. After he got done setting steel, it popped driving out of the way, but the tire itself still has air. The outer layer just separated from the belts, and it split there, the tire is still up. New tire is supposed to be in late today or tomorrow. They don't give away 23.5r25's either.
The steel building the rt set roof rafters for yesterday. And my sunspot at the condo building
They've repainted the whole condo building, the original was a red and dark blue. The new colors are certainly eye catching, but they wouldn't have been what I would pick. I thought the old color looked better. The last two pictures is the old color. I think that was the color the siding was ordered in pre painted. I'm glad I didn't have to paint the whole building.
Just MHO … The new colors are way too garish. Makes me think of Lego blocks. But that may be what the owners want. Hard to miss sight of the building.
I was discussing big all terrain cranes, and we were talking suspensions. Here's two pictures that show how the different companies make them. The first picture is a late 90's leibherr. A solid axle with a hydraulic cylinder on each side from the frame to the axle for raising and lowering. Pretty simple. Grove uses what they call Mega trak. Looks like a overgrown GM 4x4. Center gearbox with driveshafts going to each wheel. From the frame to the wheel assembly is a strut/ cylinder much like a front wheel drive car, only with a hydraulic cylinder instead of a shock to raise and lower the wheel. Then there are a- arms to control forward and aft movement. Grove gives you more clearance between the ground and the bottom of the axle- more travel height in the specs. The downside is they tend to have more tire wear, and if your really out in the mud turning, they can damage a arms pretty quick. The struts are a pain to take apart and rebuild when they start leaking also- and they all start leaking. I prefer the solid axle like liebherr uses. Its just a simple cylinder when it needs rebuilt. And they don't wear tires as bad it seems. The first three pictures show grove axle/ drop box. Last picture a liebherr axle.
Thanks your correct, and to make it worse I know better, I’ve been a municipal councilor and the chair of many boards of directors, writing and delivering speeches to thousands of people and I can tell you they are heartless if you’re anything less than literate. It is mostly laziness, so I’ll be more careful from now on.
Blame the french- blame the french! One of my daughters is taking french in high school and I'm always teasing her about it. The other day I held up my white handkerchief and asked her if she recognized it. She looked at me funny- "It's the French national flag- anytime there's germans around." She wasn't amused. Anyways- I dug into the 70 ton rearend a little on friday. No such luck that a axle broke. Its the ring gear that we patched back together last year and have been running with. Looks like I'm getting parts from overseas or swapping rear tandems. The fun never stops.
That suspension on those Groves is a total nightmare. Company here had 2 350 ton Groves over a year and a half we had pulled all of the shafts out of those wishbones and replaced them all. After drilling them for grease fittings. It is not a fun ride when one of them breaks running down the road a 50 mph.
I spent the weekend making lift plans and rigging plans. I had them down to 5 shackles to attach in 80' of water. Coast guard, NTSB, State patrol (who used to be the water patrol), fire/ water rescue from the county. All kinds of agency's. And everyone needed their boxes checked off. The barge guy is a boat transporter that I do some work with, I provided the rigging and lift plan. We offloaded it at the storage facility, from the trailer that the barge loaded it on. It was kind of hard to guess how it would pick- the weight of the engine and tranny is all up front, and I didn't want the front strap coming out of the wheel well half way up (if it was nose heavy). I told them I would try to make it pick nose high by a foot or so- I was close, it ended up being a couple feet high on the front, but that helped roll the water out the back. Pictures are from the local news station.
That’s really impressive man. I don’t like why you had to do it. Tragic deal.
I was thinking about CO when I heard about this accident knowing he was in that area. It is a very sad thing on many levels and will have repercussions for years to come I'm sure.
Is that the duck bus that went down? It's been all over the news here, mainly because there's an operator who runs a fleet of them and there may be implications if investigations reveal a fault
The boat launch for the ducks is probably under 2 miles from my shop. I was at the house when the storm was rolling in, I drove over to where we had the 70 ton at with jib and stinger and dead stick in and boomed it down. It was real nice out- still with no wind, before it hit, then went to 40-50 mph in about 2 minutes time. I met the fire trucks as I left the 70 ton jobsite after booming it down- its just a mile in the other direction from the lake. Its a sad, tragic thing. And hindsight is 20/20, and everyone is pointing fingers at everyone else. I don't think the ducks are inherently unsafe. Probably a far less accident rate than any car, truck, jeep, or whatever you want to pick. Probably safer than walking in a walmart parking lot. But don't have any business being out in 4' waves. All the people talking about them being from 1944, the only thing on them from '44 is the titles. They have new hulls, new drivetrains, different engines, different everything. My mechanic guy used to work there. I read a article the other day that said they shouldn't have been on the water because there was a thunderstorm watch issued at 8:00 that morning. A lot of july and august weeks there is a thunderstorm watch every day. Nice in the morning, heats up , and the thunderstorms roll through in the afternoon. If you didn't run every time there was a watch out, you'd never go out. That said, I saw it coming in and went and boomed down the 70 ton. The captain could have just said "sorry folks, it looks like that storm is moving in, we aren't going in the water, you can all come back tomorrow with complimentary passes"- or something like that. Of course there would be one PO ed person who would leave a bad review on trip advisor- "they said it was too stormy out so we didn't even get to go on the water and we were leaving the next day- so what good would a voucher do us? It looked fine out to me." And all those resort/ tourist activities are scared to death of a bad review on trip advisor. There were (per the us coast guard) - 658 deaths in 2017 in boating incidents. in 2015 there were 626, with 2,613 injuries. There were 5.3 deaths for every 100,000 registered boats. That's not to lessen this tragedy. But they have been in town here for 40 years with no incidents. Yes there have been other duck boats go down. But compared to tour buses, airplanes or personal vehicles, their reputation is pretty good. Nobody is talking about banning those modes of transportation, or all boats, or jetski's. None of that lessens the tragedy of people dying on vacation in a tour boat, and its a really sad thing. But I think its ridiculous when the former NTSB chair, says now they should be banned. He used to be in a position to do something about it- and did nothing back then, but I think now he's just fishing for a chance to be a "expert" witness in a lawsuit. Any time I hear someone talking about banning something- look at the statistics. The most dangerous thing we all do is hop in a car and drive- nobody says a word about banning cars.
My thoughts exactly. Tragic no matter how you look at it. But not necessarily any more dangerous than anything else we do on a given day.
Anyways- enough about the ducks- I don't have any control over any of that, and I try not to get wrapped up in things I don't control. Speaking of things I don't control but should- architects that design entrance/ exits/ and landscaping plans with windy narrow "streets". We had to get a generator into a new medical facility this morning. They had to get a fire truck out here the other day because a electrician had a heart attack, and they couldn't make the corners with it. I got the cranes in there, but the 53' double drop with the generator was a different story. We had to pick the trailer up with the crane and swing it around one corner, another one we had to hop the curb on. Poor guy had a long wheelbase pete, we probably should have just transferred it to my short truck and trailer, but I didn't bring it.
Nice fresh new curbs too. I may or may not know how easy they are to shatter lol.
Of course they hid the generator behind a wall, behind the dumpster walls too. 70 ton wouldn't set it- so RT and the 35 tandem pick. Good thing the RT counterweight is pretty high off the ground. We had to clear the dumpster walls with it.
Oh yeah- its a whole new facility, on 7 acres and they could have put the roads anywhere, its all grass. Or at least made 35' wide roads and not islands and little flower planters everywhere. But it looks neat on the plans. They are even going to have one of those truck mounted MRI machines. Wait till he drives through the planters a couple times in and out of there. Don't get me started.
See it all the time myself. Usually we’re in before curbs are poured. We’ve done some additions lately that sucked. School in Lawrence, college in Edmond, hospital in Edmond. Always something. Refineries are the absolute worst for getting around.
I took the 35 after the generator, and went and set some beams on a new house. 95' away with a 1,400lb beam. Wouldn't get it with the 25. The big beam was on the back side for a deck. Couldn't get real close to the house do to the road being 40' from the house, and the house being down 20' from the road. Trees, powerlines, steep drop off, all the usual stuff. People are crazy, I wouldn't want their driveway if you gave me the house.
And I saw a new sign today- one I'd never seen before in front of a house. For those of you with poor resolution or small screens- it says "caution deaf dog" What I want to know is- how do they know he's deaf, maybe he just doesn't like his owners? I've seen a lot of dogs that you can yell and yell at and they don't seem to hear a thing......(Wife says I'm the same way)
If I don't hear something my wife says she tells me I need my hearing checked, but if she doesn't hear something I say she tells me I'm mumbling and need to speak up!
Sounds about right. I swear my kids have the same problem. It’s fun ignoring them when they ask for this or that. Huh? Sorry didn’t hear ya lol
Crane operator, Just looking around on Iron Planet and found something you need: http://www.ironplanet.com/jsp/s/item/1295243?kwtag=p13n-R&h= Might be a little tricky getting into those tight places but should be able to lift most of what you need to hook onto! Only asking $1.98 mil!
Well I guess I'll have to take a trip out to new york and do a little digging under your mattress and find your $ stash- because that is a little out of my price range.
my boom lift genie x80/60 can not do anything . This fault code are display on LCD, Decon safety switch p7r fault and safety switch p7r value too high.
Heck just put that 2800 in the town square and I'd think you could reach most of the town. Cover the whole town and never have to move. Seems like a no brainer.
When I used to do landscaping I hated these new developments. They put up the HD fancy fence all throughout the entire area before anyone has done their landscaping. Then you get one neighbor who's in a hurry to finish their landscaping and doesn't bother to consider his neighbors. Then they Beetch because you drove over their new sod to haul dirt into the yard next door. You don't have a choice when they build the houses 7' apart. The 2nd guy beetches because he has to pay extra to move the loads of topsoil from the road in front of the house instead of just having it dumped in the back yard. The smart ones plan their landscaping at the same time. Some of the developers are clueless and don't even think about access for emergency vehicles or that there are many trades and other people that need access around the houses.
Well I've been learning this week. I've been stuck in the mack for a couple days, old dogs- new tricks, etc. etc. Jobsite that I couldn't get anything else in to, so I've got to set steel with it, 75' away or so on a back deck, no room to put in jib so no 25. Nice driveway so no 35 or rt. I am so unimpressed with it over the side, its really light. And it swings - well- not like a grove. I will say this, that 300 mack maxidyne is a gutsy little engine. The less the rpm's the more torque. I was coming out of the housing development yesterday, and I thought I'd never make that hill in 4th, but that old doggy on the hood just squatted down and grunted right up the hill. I just feel like a rookie trying to set trusses with it, I can about run the old 25 or 35 in my sleep, but man its a struggle to run that national. First picture is at the deck on the back side of the house, the other three pictures are the job I went to after that, I'll be back at the other house sometime next week to finish setting steel.
New tools! My old railroad bars are both bent, I found these from harry epstien in Kansas city. The blue bars weren't that expensive, but the black one was. Its one heck of a bar. All Us made. The blue ones are warwood, the black one barco. I only bought one of the barco- I wanted to make sure it fit my railroad toe jacks, it fits like a glove.
Oh- this was a joy after running that mack, radio tower, tight quarters, and powerlines and all. Units at a old peoples home.
Got the other granite cutter set today. It was much nicer out today than the last time we were up there. High in the 80's today, last time it was 100deg heat index. I brought the forklift along (he was supposed to have one there last time, his is still at the mechanic, and the message didn't get through). It went much easier with the forklift. There's a big pit just inside the door, 4' wide and 30' long. Its about 6-7' deep so you don't want to drop a tire in it. I recommended he fill it in before he's hauling around granite with his forklift, you'd hate to drop a tire in it.
I thought all those big bars came pre-bent funny directions from the store? I had no idea they were once straight since I've never seen one!
Plus the ends are usually mushroomed out so your hands don't slip off the ends!
Tree job from yesterday: Wind took out the top of the one oak and laid it on the roof. We took down both of them, not a lot of room to work with the power lines and the other trees in the way.
Not such a good day today. We damaged the rear 3rd member last week taking the 70 ton to a job. Its the ring gear we damaged a year ago. I made it into the job with the power divider locked and we pulled axles and driveline on the rear. We got done out there the other day, so I went this morning with fingers crossed- to limp it back to the shop. I made it about 100' out of the jobsite, and something in the front 3rd member popped, I heard it from the cab. I removed ball and the rooster sheave, and we flat towed it about 2 miles to the shop. We stopped at the top of the hill to the shop and swapped places, I wanted a little help- a anchor on the way down the hill. Got it up on jacks and the tires pulled. Carnage to come....
Uh oh. Sounds like I know what I’m doing this weekend on “vacation” haha
Oh no- I wouldn't dream of cutting into family time. Got your weekend all planned out, or just playing it by ear? Silver dollar city, whitewater, go karts? Your boys are just the right age for that stuff.
Another one of those fun ones today, not a easy to access job site. Bridge beams at a resort. It is a pretty place to work. I actually backed down the hill into the site with the transmission in forward, just letting the torque converter slip. I figured that way if the brakes/ machine tried to get away, I could hopefully just throttle it up and hold myself. Used my big steel mats to try to spread the weight out on the bank. We got away with not cutting down a bunch of trees to access it.
Looks fun alright. How did they get the beams into the site?
Two telehandler forklifts. One on each end of the beam, they walked them around the corner up top, then down the hill to me. I would grab one end, and let one telehandler bring the other end close enough to me that I could grab the middle. The beams were stored on up the hill in a parking lot. Took around 30 minutes to bring me each beam.
I was actually told that was a good thing to do by a senior Allison guy. You can goose the throttle a little as if it were the brake but it gives strange reactions some time, not real fine control. Have to watch the transmission oil temperature. The best thing about this method is no brakes are being applied to the front axle so it does not tend to slip around in mud so much.
Getting into the site looks far more sketchy than the actual crane work.
They do the same thing in the friction cranes that run a torque converter. If you have a load on the winch you can be throttled up, and raise the load, and let off the throttle, and it will start to let the load down- your load is overcoming the torque being put out by the torque converter. I was on the brakes hard going down the hill, even with the trans in forward. It wouldn't begin to hold itself in reverse. Jim made me give him a attaboy when we got to the bottom of the hill, for his good job when we rebuilt all the brakes on the RT after we got it. In other news, we did get back in time yesterday to pull 3rd members. I got them disassembled this morning. Front axle has sheared its ring gear bolts. Rear axle had vibrated out most of its bolts, and sheared off what wasn't vibrated out. There is a little more damage on the rear axle ring gear- new from last year, but this is just at the very corners, I'm sure from chewing on bolts. These bolts were not loctited, and no safety wire either. I'm thinking one or the other when it goes back together. The old chip from last time, shows no additional damage or wear. I think we are going to do a disassembly and bearing check on the front one, and put it back together. I think I have a ring and pinion set found for the rear set, in New Zealand. I really don't want to just put the rear one back together with the damage done to it, but if the numbers don't work to get parts here, its getting the teeth polished up and its going back together. The axle is a isuzu axle, no parts are directly importable through isuzu, but the parts are available in Japan. The new zealand guys can get parts direct from japan. I'm going to try the isuzu USA importer direct on monday just to see if there's any other alternatives.
Did you have any luck with the place you asked me about? I was going to try and get to the dealer to ask them what the availability was but I've been up North all week.
Yes- I think he has what I need, I just wanted to get mine apart- to make sure the parts are right. The part #'s are not the same, but if everything measures out the same, I'm going to have him send me the ring and pinion that he has. I had to think on it a little while to figure out what time it needs to be here- so I can call him there. I think if I call at 4:00 in the afternoon here, that will be 9:00-10:00 in the morning the next day there. I struggle a little with the idea that today is tomorrow out there, but I'm kind of simple sometimes.
In other news- thanks to junkyard, he came by and bought lunch for me today. Went up on the strip and had a brisket lunch and it was good, so good that I think I'll need to lay around in the A/C this afternoon to digest it. He's going to have to run around an chase kids on vacation, good luck to him- and thanks again for lunch.
If it helps, right now it is 9:30am on Sunday. So in 24 hours from now, it should be the perfect time to call
My pleasure! You did grab those Soilmec tools for me and drop them in Joplin. Come to think of it I’m not sure I ever paid you for them!
If the current option is to reuse the damaged parts it would be money well spent to get the parts NDE tested ( crack detected)
Got to put the jib on the galion monday and set some trusses. It was really steep and a little flat spot right in front of the house. Choice between galion and jib right next to the house, or 25 ton with jib and stinger and setting up on a really steep driveway at 110' radius. No way to get anything bigger down the road to the house. I could even see one of my other cranes working up the hill. Clint had the mack up there putting steel beams on the other side of a house.
Roofing materials at the new medical clinic this morning with the 35. Imagine that- sun in my eyes
In other news, another car missed the shop corner last week, they didn't take out the curve sign, because someone got it the night before, and left their headlights, and a bunch of undercarriage plastic fender type stuff scattered in the driveway and ditch. Daughter came upon the blue car, let the gal use her phone to call for a ride, popped the air bags in the car. Someone had called 911 so a highway patrolman showed up. My daughter found him wandering around in my building, looking for the driver, and accused my daughter of hiding her- or being the driver of the car, drinking and driving, selling drugs, everything. Cop told my daughter she shouldn't be sneaking up on a cop in a building, daughter wondered why he was in the building in the first place. My wife went down to see what was up, and informed the cop that I was on the way with the truck and lowboy loaded, and if he was in the driveway when I showed up, the little blue car wouldn't be the only damaged thing on the yard. He found someplace else to hang out. County is on the ball, they already have the curve sign back up. You can kind of see the black marks on the pavement where they straddled it.
From the last pic … Looks like the curve crests the hill, and the road is off camber too from the erosion... Needs some serious regrading. Might be an opportunity for some dirt work.
Glad your daughter is okay! Seems too many police are in the shoot first and ask questions later mode these days.
My daughter was scared and shook up after it all. The cop was really young, and I realize everyone lies to them, but the car is sitting in our shop driveway, and my daughter drove her own truck down there. The cop just had to run the plates to find out whose car it is. He even tried to bully the wife around a little on why there wasn't any guys around in the shop. She told him we are in and out all day, and when my mechanic showed up, knowing I was right behind with the lowboy, she told him to get off the property.
Might be worth a phone call to his superiors....that’s unacceptable behavior in my opinion.
I couldn't be a cop that's a tuff job but walking around someone else's yard and then questioning why they are there don't work in my book
I would report him , start playing the blame game with out getting some information is BS
At least his supervisors need to know exactly what he is doing when he is out and about. I would tread somewhat lightly, though, you don't want to get yourself or your property branded back at the cop shop as someone to not bother helping when the chips are down because they see you as being a jerk toward them. Best to be on speaking terms with people higher up in the department and handle it informally I should think.
Unfortunately a lot of cops are on a power trip and this sounds like a new cop too. He should be reported for harassment and even though he's a cop, possibly trespassing. It's no different than accusing someone of theft with no evidence just because they were in the vicinity. A store owner/employee can get in trouble for this. If nothing is done it's going to go further to his head and he'll get worse. Cops are being scrutinized a lot lately because of shootings, harassment and other issues. I somehow don't think he would have acted the same way if you or your mechanic had been there. Sorry but this young cop was acting like a jerk. I don't know how old your daughter is but if she's under 20 it would be pretty traumatizing. Then to pull the same crap on your wife???
Made some ruts the other day getting in and out of a resort, we kind of walked them down while they were wet, but I think they are going to have to do a little landscaping. Funny thing is last time I came from the parking space in there, that was the softer area, this time it was below the tree that was soft, and I came out the upper side and it was pretty solid. Its kind of hard to see from the pictures, but I was down about 8" or so in the ruts, I could feel it walking down in while backing up, but I knew stopping in the middle would be a recipe for disaster, so I just kept rolling through it. Third members front and rear for my 70 ton crane, are supposed to be going on the slow boat from New Zealand to me. They are saying 42 days from there to here. I have a bad ring and pinion in the rear rear, the front diff actually has a ton of wear on its ring and pinion also, from having a bearing that ate into the ring gear carrier. I could maybe make up one decent diff from the ring and pinion of the front diff, with the carrier from the rear diff. But that doesn't really get me very far. I'm just going to say also, the internet is a amazing thing. I've found diff.s in a wrecker yard in New Zealand for a 60,000 lbs rear with Isuzu axles for a crane here in the states. A bunch of pictures and measurements and I think we actually have the right stuff. I may have to change input yokes, but I'm hoping that's all. I wish it was a little sooner than 42 days, but there's nothing I can do about that.
My son helped out at an accident last night as well. He came upon a driverless horse and buggy running down the centre of a county road heading for the highway, he passed it, directed it down a gravel road then passed it again and directed it into a field then caught up to it and grabbed the lines and drove it to the closest Mennonite farm where they searched the back seat for evidence of who owned it. Turned out that it had come 5 blocks. The Mennonite farmer was shocked to see a young guy driving the horse, but my boys could drive a team of draft horses by the time they were 10
Sounds like your son prevented a very tragic accident.
Been playing egyptian- hand moving a bunch of steel. Kind of. The mack is all I can get into the jobsite, and we can just get the steel over there, but can't reach all of the deck to install it. They're adding steel and pan deck to a old wood deck. Lower deck is probably 20' off the ground, upper another 12' or so up. So how do you lift something up below your feet with nothing above you? I- beams are up tight to the bottom of the old wood joists. Here's what I came up with for quick and dirty, I put the fold up engine hoist on the deck and dropped a come a long. I put another come along on the other side of the big beam, off the upper deck. We've done a bunch of other monkey-arounding with chain come a longs and pry bars. I'm hoping to set the rest of it by monday/tuesday. Biggest beam is just under 1,000 lbs. We're like 10' radius from reaching it with the crane. We've just been supplying the gear and the crane and some help to the carpenters and the welders.
Replaced a wood walkway early friday morning before heading out to the deck job. 25 ton, they said only a hour, but couldn't wait till monday, so I squeezed it in before I headed out to the deck job. Of course it took more than a hour.
Oh it makes my skin crawl when a customer says "It'll take longer to unload the machine than it will to do the job!" I typically find after those words are put out in the atmosphere that the job quickly turns into a solid one to two days of miserable work.....
Got to spend some time with the fire department last night. There's a bungie ride/ launch thing here in town, and they got two people stuck on it last night- 100' up or so. The winch that lifts them jumped the cable off the drum, and wrapped it around the outside flange of the drum. Essentially a bird cage on the drum when they released the brake. Fire dept. couldn't reach them with the ladder truck, and were worried about transferring from a swinging cage to their ladder, so they gave me a call. I thought I might be bringing crane and manbasket up there in the dark, which didn't sound like much fun at 10:30 at night. I installed a cable choker parallel with the lifting line- cable clamping it to the load line, then installed a chain hoist between it and the winch frame, to release the load tension off the winch. We were then able to walk the cable back around the drum, and get it wrapped back right on the drum. Then we just let them down with the winch like they usually do. They were up there about 2 hours. They called me about 10:00pm, I asked the fire department guys a couple questions on what it was like, and I stopped by the shop on my way over there to load up the big chain fall and some rigging. I was back home by 11:30. Nothing hard, but it still different when there's two people stuck up in a cage with them on the end of the line, and there's no real manual on how to do it. The picture is one I stole off the interweb, but it shows what the ride is like. The cable winch is mounted in the base of one of the towers. It runs to the top of the tower and attaches to the bungee on the cage there. We did all our rigging inside the tower, right by the base. They were stuck basically between the two towers. Talked to the husband of one of the ladies stuck in the cage afterwards, he came over and thanked me and the firefighters for bringing her down safely.
Looks like I even made the news The worst part of the whole thing- my phone rang at 5:37 this Sunday morning, it was a reporter wanting to confirm that we helped with the rescue. I think they were trying to make their 6 a.m. news slot. I wasn't my usual jovial self on the phone. http://www.ky3.com/content/news/Two...-the-air-at-Branson-attraction-490669121.html
Firefighters got some good pictures of it. Fortunately they just got the good side of me in one picture- that's me in the red hard hat in the third picture, trying to get it respooled on the drum. Yes- I know no safety glasses, but all I had at home was the tinted ones, didn't want them on in the dark, at least I had my hard hat and my mittens on. https://www.facebook.com/bransonpro....1534087695./1713043995460145/?type=3&theater
That’s awesome. It’s obvious your the go to guy in Branson. That’s the stuff that makes it worth getting up every morning, and a great outcome. Good job. I’ve been on a ride similar to that, but just three of us in a harness and we had to pull a release cord and swung in a pendulum motion, if I remember correctly I think we were supposed to be going around 80 kilometres a hour on the first swing “ cool stuff”
Good job man. That’s precisely why you’ll never see me on a ride like that! I’ve seen too many crane and drill rig winches get fubar’d! When you said good side I was thinking to myself why in the hell does he have his hard hat on his ***.....
Good job ! It looks like something that happens to me sometimes if i get carried away chucking the grapple around. Frightening thought if they had parted that cable trying to go ahead on it. It looks to me like there should be some drum guards or maybe a spooling roller.
On the opposite side of the winch there's a flat nylon bar that rests up against the cable like a guard/ guide. You can see it in the picture where we are trying to respool it on the drum, the white flat bars on the right side of the winch. They said for some reason it slacked when it went to cable down, and I could see it jumping around the drum. That winch actually runs both sides, its a double drum with the other side running flat across to the other tower. A spooling roller might help, but a VFD on the drive for a little slower start would really help. We had to slack the motor a little to get enough cable to get it straightened out, and the motor when it first starts- is really fast. I could see it easily snarling it up if the pulley up top is slow. There's no variable speed on the motor/winch, its all or nothing, and it really goes. I did check the cable out really well when we had it slacked, and I didn't find any broken wires. I thought if there was broken wires, we could slack the drum some more, and cable clamp a second cable to the bad section of the load line to get the people back down, just as a fail safe. This one anchors on the ground, then the cables pull the bungee toward the top of the tower. When you release, it shoots straight up, then down, then up , then down, then --- well, you get the idea.
Good job … Especially asking the right questions on the telephone. That's quick thinking, instead of using the crane (as the fireman were likely asking for ) Remember about a "saddle on dead horse" (center clamp) I'll allow some slack...He's a fireman not a crane guy. Looks like the, kinked over the flange, winch cable is FUBARed anyway.
I'm kind of the same anymore with the rides, I've seen too much mechanical go bad, it kind of takes the thrill out of it. That and I'm not much for being strapped into something that I can't steer or run the throttle on, and am just along for the ride. And as far as "good side" discussions, I was talking about the back of my head. If that's the first part of me you think of when I said "good side", that might say more about you than me.....
I actually had him clamp it that way. If you think about it, we are taking the "live" line, and connecting it to the choker. Then I'm pulling on that choker with my chain fall, to slack the load line below my choker. Making my choker "live" also. In that situation, you don't want either side to have any movement, so I alternated one of the clamps, so that neither cable could slide, they each had a "grip" on them from one of the clamps. Usually you take a cable and wrap it around a pole etc., and then are clamping it off to the dead side of the cable, but on this one we don't have any dead horses. It would have been nice to have one more clamp to have two going each way, but we used what was available, meaning what I found in the shop on the way out there. But you are correct that we didn't have to worry about damaging the cable, I was just worried about one more cycle, then they can wrap that cable up and pitch it.
Crane Op … all's well that ends well. But a cable clamp discussion. I thought the purpose of the saddle on the live line was to prevent u-bolt damage to the wires, not slippage. In a pull, which line slips ? in the saddle or under the bolt ?
Touché! Lol
The key here is we end up with the splice going from dead to live and back dead again. In my experience in a hard pull, the clamps can/will damage both sides. The saddle won't kink/ crush as much as the u bolt. My experience is the saddle will grip the cable tighter than the u-bolt. This page shows crosby's version of a splice. http://www.fdlake.com/wrclips.html The only real way to grab a line without damage is in a becket, and even those will make a cable take a "set". I could have used one of the electrician/ linesman cable grab/pullers, but I felt the choker was a much safer solution. As tension comes on and off the linesman pullers, they "slip" just a little, and I had two people 100' up. I also had them put the top clamp in the assembly right next to the swage on the choker, the idea being that it would act like a stop on the line if it started to slip. Another thing to remember is as tension is applied, the cable will stretch, and you need to retighten the cable clamps. I have just a 3/4 ton chain come a long, and it would have been much lighter and easier to handle in the tower, but I wanted everything to be slow and easy so we put in the old chain fall, I figured the ladies up there were nervous enough as it was, I didn't want it jumping around.
I didn't even know I could quote myself (what a forum), and not that I'm quote worthy, but this is on my mind today. This is about the duck accident we had in town a while back. Now this morning I'm cruising through trip advisor for the local amusement park, and this is a quote from a visitor from yesterday: "Silver Dollar City is a nice park; however, park hours are way too short for the price. Also, the ride shutdown policy seems way too restrictive. Lightning was spotted 10 miles away and even kiddie rides were shut down for hours. Definitely did not get our money’s worth out of our day passes or Trailblazer passes. On the plus side, enjoyed the atmosphere, the awesome coasters (especially the Powderkeg), and the Marvel Cave." This is a 3 star review from yesterday. So they had a good time, but not spectacular. How dare they shut down the rides. Kind of explains the no win situation for the boat operators. The week after the incident, we were discussing it on the jobsite. My customers comment was this. " Its 90plus degrees out, water temperature is 82 degrees. They were all of 100 feet offshore, closer to the branson belle dock. As soon as that water started coming over the top, I'd have life jackets flying out of that boat like a clay pigeon thrower, and I'm throwing the kids and the wife out, and I'm following. You wouldn't have to tell me to abandon ship, its not like they were in the middle of the artic ocean." I think, sometimes people think everyone else is going to take care of them. Stickers on the lawnmower to not put your hands under it when running. Don't inhale the paint fumes, or eat the paint. The cops will come protect you from a criminal. I sound like such a grumpy old man sometimes. Sorry, just was thinking about it today.
I just learned this site allows one to just quote a portion of a post. Highlight the desired text and click the pop-up … Crane op. In a bigger picture of your successful rescue, the live line was always the winch line. It was supporting the basket. If any of the chain fall, choker line, clamps, or anchor were to fail, the winch line would still hold the basket... being last to part. You were prudent to inspect the kink over the flange. Any damage to the winch line is to be avoided. So, in that thinking (and that's all this is... not criticism) the saddles would be on the winch line. as you wrote ... "The saddle won't kink/ crush as much as the u bolt."
Good work Crane Operator!
I used to work at West Edmonton Mall. About a dozen people or so were stuck on a ride half upside down for over 2 hours... because of a blown fuse. Couldn't be rescued because the position they were in. This is the same mall where people were killed when the roller coaster came off the track. Apparently the designer of the coaster had a heart attack when he heard people were killed on his coaster. Major contributing factor was they never bothered to convert to the German maintenance manual to English. They were running late on inspecting rides before opening and didn't do a full inspection of the coaster. Had they done the full inspection they likely would have seen bolts that came out of the bogey wheels laying on the ground. Standards and inspections are much higher now and covered by the same group that inspects elevators and escalators. I've also seen what I thought was unacceptable wear on rides when the fair comes to town.
Still dealing with the 3rd members on the 70. Spent two hours this afternoon trying to get a call to go through to new zealand. My cell phone won't international call- wrong phone plan. Landline business won't international call- I'm dialing it wrong, and our service provider no longer has a operator service. We've been just emailing back and forth. Ended up using skype, and dialing his cell phone, and of course I got his voicemail. He got my message, and called me back. They probably do more international calling in new zealand than we do here. Or he's just smarter than me- but that wouldn't take much. Anyways, I'm looking at if I can have them remove all the internals from the third members, and then air freight those parts, and use my housings. 42 days is a long time to ship the whole third members by boat, if it gets hung up in customs, I may not see the parts for 2 months. I would then have to use all his internals in my housings, essentially rebuilding them here. But I may be able to have the parts all in a week and a half or so, rather than a month and a half. It would be easier to just get the whole housings (for my installation), but I hate to wait that long. He's going to try to come up with a air freight cost for all the internals, and I guess we'll go from there.
At least you speak the same language.
That's why I'm dealing with the boys in new zealand, my Japanese isn't very good. I guess I could google translate, or they probably know english. Americans are such backwards clod kickers. Expect everyone else to speak our language. How's the fires in your neighborhood, skies a little hazy?
air freight------ brace yourself
I saw your rescue efforts on thelocal news. Both rescue efforts. You’re famous. I’m gonna stop sometime and get your autograph! Lol
My autograph and $3 will get you a burger at Mc Donald's.
A rough estimate on air freight is the same cost per pound as a 175# passenger with a ticket.
The big thing is the time difference. They told me 42 days by boat, I'm going to guess it will be at least 60 days before I see it. The air freight is a week door to door. The nice thing on the boat would be its complete when it gets to me. If I have him ship me the parts, I've still got to take them to the gear shop and have them put them together. The full pumpkins I could just slide in and go. Oh well, it will all work out in the end. I think his quote on just the ring and pinion shipped was like $500. If it was $1,500 for all of it, and I can get it a month and a half sooner, that's kind of a easy decision in my book.
Differentials front and rear is $3,200 US used- in New Zealand. Shipping options: Full differentials on the boat is approx. $1,000. 42 days door to door- plus any customs delays (I bet I'd be lucky to see them in 50-60 days-my guess). Disassembled diffs with no housings on a plane approx. $2,000 - 6 days door to door plus customs delays (maybe 10 days to me?) Plus my cost here to reassemble them. Last one was like $800 for one if I remember right. So a additional 1600 for that. Last option we are going to explore: Full diffs with housings assembled- but air freight, I just got off the phone with him and he guessed $4,000, but he wanted 24 hours to explore a couple other options. If I ship them this way- I don't have the $1,600 to reassemble when I get it here, so that's only a extra $400 over sending the disassembled diffs, and the two trips to the gear shop and the wait for the gear shop to put them together. It cost me one job this week and one last week in not having it together, so I think I'm all over the air freight thing. I want it back together.
I might have made a mistake today, I'm not sure yet. Since we've had the Mack together and running, I'm a little over supplied with cranes in the 25 ton category, with the mack and my 2 - 25 ton grove's. 3 cranes that size is more than I need. A guy I know in the crane game and I were talking and he brings up that he's looking for a spare crane. So I priced him the Mack and the yellow 25 ton grove truck crane that I have. I told him I didn't really care which I sold, but I need to sell one of them. If it was just me- I'd rather have the grove, but my one operator really likes the mack, and the 95' main is handy. Anyways, he showed up today with a check in hand for the 25 ton grove, and I sent it down the road. How's that go- "Never turn down money." I've had it like 6-7 years or so, and the only real big money I spent on it was repowering to a 8.3 cummins from 3208 power. A few hoses and repacked some jacks and outrigger cylinders. Some tires. But that's really it. It's been a good crane and I'm not sure I should have let it go. But its done now.
Now you have the option to get into the 100 ton category.
Unfortunately, selling a 25 ton crane, doesn't equal up to the costs of a 100 ton crane. It would be nice if it worked that way though. I've been looking though. I just think the timing hasn't worked itself out yet.
A little demo work this afternoon. Took the galion. I've actually had the 25 ton and the rt in this area, but the galion fits in there much easier, its narrower than the rt and turns shorter, and turns much shorter than the truck crane.
It was a wooden water trough at one of the rides at a local amusement park.
Finally finished the deck project today. Seems like we were there forever and only put up a few beams, but they weren't easy to get too. We got rained out on Friday, so we finished Saturday morning. During the rain friday, someone else missed the shop corner too. I wasn't there but jim sent me a picture. We had just been talking that it would be the kind of day where someone misses the corner.
Put the 3406 in the peterbilt friday after getting rained out. Put the clutch on it about five times. First time the pressure plate cracked, and dropped out a piece when we snugged the transmission up. Just pulled the motor back away to reinstall with a different pressure plate I had. Second time I broke a bolt off in the flywheel (jim wouldn't let me use the impact after that). Third time the little plastic clutch alignment tool broke, because I couldn't find the old transmission shaft we usually use. Glued the plastic one back together. And then re broke it after tightening up the clutch and only got 1/2 of it to pull back out. Removed clutch again, to pull out the plastic piece, and dug around and found the old steel transmission input I usually use and finally got it installed. Got the motor in and the transmission is close, but we called it a day after getting the motor mount bolts installed.
I thought impacts were acu torque wrenches The last clutch I did are my lunch I didn't have a jack and dropped it out of the bell and the clutch housing broke If I have to do another one it will be to soon
Jack? Jack? Just kidding, I've seen them, but don't own one, but those twin disc clutches are a handful. Jim had the motor pulled just far enough away to drop it out the bottom after the first try went bad. I decided I wasn't up to stabbing it up there from the bottom, when we were only 6 bolts away from pulling the motor back out. If the motor was all hooked up, I would have probably just stuck it up in there, but I was feeling weak looking at it, and decided to just pull motor out.
I understand what you mean it's not that you can't lift it it's just awkward One trick I learned from a guy is to hang the clutch on the trans and then stab the whole thing together then you just turn the fly wheel to get the clutch bolted up after the trns is hung it's a little time consuming but it definitely takes the possible hernia out of it
Shingles with the Rt from earlier this week. The shingles are bad so they need to warranty/ re install. Unfortunately, they didn't order enough shingles so we'll have to go back next week or the week after to put the rest up.
Maybe, maybe, the 70 ton parts will get headed here this week. Air freight ended up being $2,600 vs $960 on the boat, so I went for the air freight. (40 days difference time wise). We will see. Made a becket attach point on the boom head of the galion, so I could attach a scale, nice to know what things weigh. After we did a test pick, and did a full radius test pick for a job I went and did today. Took 8200lbs to full chart. We were scheduled to set a unit in a tight spot at a hospital. I went and measured the job all out and we were good. Unit showed up and weighed 8000, instead of 6,000lbs, so I did a test pick at the shop to be sure I could get it. Galion lets you know when you get over chart over the side. But its good for 8600 at 30'.
The crowded hospital job. Unit ended up showing 7,300 on my scale, so I knew we had it. Up 15' and over 20'. Counterweight cleared by about 8" at the close spot, and I had to put down the riggers on the drivers side first, otherwise the other side leaned my wood blocks into the bricks on the wall. Couldn't swing 360, but I didn't need to, just a little over 90 degrees to pull the unit from the alley to on the roof. Small regional hospital down in arkansas, two hour and 15 minute drive down there, couple hours to set the unit and some other stuff. Then the over 2 hours back. Pretty well shot the day.
So do you charge for the total hours or for a full day since the day is shot anyway?
3 hour minimum on the small cranes, 4 hour on the bigger ones. All charges by the hour on top of that, split to 1/4 hour. It all works out in the end. Banker hasn't asked for the equipment back yet anyways. I don't bid really anything. I'll give out estimates on what I think a job might cost, but I just bill hourly. So much of what happens on the job is out of my control, (how fast the framers want to work- when the trucks are showing up, etc.) and a customer is pretty ticked if I give out a bill for 8 hours for doing a hour or two of work.
Seems like such a fine line between charging enough to prosper and keeping your customers happy.
I always kind of figured if the customers stay happy, the prospering will take care of itself. I'm not the cheapest out there, and I'm not the most expensive, and try to treat people the way I would like to be treated. I enjoy what I do, and no amount of money would make up for that- a desk and shoveling paper from one side of it to the other, would kill me. A good customer and I were doing a difficult location job a while back, "you know Dan, you don't really have to worry about someone taking your work away- there isn't anyone else that would put a crane down here...." I don't want to be the person who will "do anything". But I'm always up for a challenging or interesting job, and figuring out a way to do it safely. As far as the estimating, I try to be realistic with what the bill might end up being, I've got a competitor that loves to give out lowball estimates, then give out bills for twice the estimate. That tends to only work once. I'd rather do business with people for years, than make some big $$ on them once. I also don't play around with rates. My rates are the rates are the rates. As soon as I give someone a "special deal", everyone talks to everyone else, and I guess I just find it easier to keep it simple. I don't charge anymore for a job at the bottom of a hill, than I do in Walmart's parking lot. It takes more time to get to the bottom of a hill, and set up and torn down, so it does cost them more. But the hourly rate stays the same.
Set two mausoleum's the other day out at the cemetery. There's a whole row of them out there now. Also took a picture of their old truck, its been around a day or two.
Big LP tank today. This is one we loaded out this spring, it went and got "refurbished", whatever that means, I know it means at least a coat of paint. We had to drive about two hours away to do go this one. I gave them a phone number for a guy that is closer, but he wanted us to come do it, and we needed something to do today. It was out at the bottom of a grassy field, they had scraped off the grass where they dug the holes for the saddles, and it was pumpy clay. RT walked right in and out. The 35 cut some ruts but the low rears came through and I walked it in and out (but it was talking to me). The abutment truck made it in, but the big LP tank truck we had to pull in with a trackloader. The driver was a little worried because we had him on a sidehill. We hooked up before we cut the tiedowns loose. Had to roll it about a 1/4 turn after it was in the saddles, to get the valves up and down. We always roll them before loading them out too, otherwise the top relief cap puts them overheight.
Oh what a beautiful morning. Sun shining on a rain shower, and a nice rainbow, a day full of promise. Little did I know. Junkyard from the forum has a old crane he's using for a different project, and he offered me the counterweight off it to beef up the mack. I hooked up to the trailer, and headed for O-KLAH-OMA where the wind blows...... Stopped off at 4 state truck parts in joplin, and saw a set of exhaust stacks I think I could crawl into, and I'm not a little boy. Junkyard did a little cutting for me. And he didn't even give me a attaboy for the amazing rigging job I did on it, it came off flat and level. (I think he was distracted by the loss of his skin and hair- note the lack of PPE...) And I ended up leaving it all in his yard, actually I was lucky to make it to his yard, the transfer case in the dodge decided to disintegrate about 10 miles from his place. I made it the last few miles with the sounds of metal and chain- crashing, whirring, and beating all around under my feet. I was waiting for parts to either rise up through the floorboards, like zombies eager to claim me, or scatter themselves in a collage of abstract art upon the pavement. Neither event happened, and I made it there, with just the crashes of disaster and mechanical mayhem to accompany me. Anyways, that's next weeks problem, to figure out how to take the least amount of vehicles over there, to get everything back home. And a big thank you to junkyard for thinking of me with his counterweight, I really appreciate it. One last picture- poor old dodge looks hurt doesn't it? I'll give it this though- it hung with it long enough to get to his yard, and I really, really, thought I was going to be sitting on the side of the road.
I was thinking about this post this weekend while re-earing a forklift mast. I swear I wasn't trying to make a mess. I do like to play a game of how many grinders can I use on one job though. (It's 5 if you're counting)
Messy just means BUSY!!
Then my shop must be like a long tailed cat at a rocking chair convention.
They're in. The rear diff's showed up from New Zealand yesterday. It's kind of hard to think I bought a plane ticket from New Zealand for some parts, but I did. They look really good for used diff's. I put the rear one in first, used a chain comealong from the top, and it fought me bad (I thought it would be the easy one). I had the bolts in and was just crooked a little bit and could not get it to come around. I finally loosened it all back up, took most of the bolts out, and somehow it kind of relaxed and fell in. Got the front one in after lunch. Kind of got it propped up on the transmission jack and tied to it, it wasn't too bad, just kind of heavy and awkward. Actually ended up turning it 180 deg from where the picture shows, we didn't have room for the jack in front with the drop axle there, so we turned it around on the jack. 17 1/2" ring gears, seems to make quite a difference in weight when installing, you can't quite bull them around like the smaller ones.
Unfortunately, I wasn't paying very close attention when I put the rear diff in. I should have swapped yoke's, the one installed on it is a smaller yoke, and I didn't catch it, so I had to drag the big impact in there and pull it off. Would have been much easier to do, before I installed it. Will also have to extend my front driveline. The front diff, is a gear pump for lubrication, my old one was splash, and the front nose on the new one with gear pump is much shorter, like 4" shorter. The seller didn't have the exact same front as mine, but I can extend my driveline pretty easy.
I did get the dodge home also, the old ford saved the day. We just loaded the old ford on the rollback truck/trailer, drove out there, put the ford under the gooseneck and hauled the dodge home. Brought home a used cab for the interior and dash, and a air axle for the mack, and a couple rims and some seats. I found a air down, spring up axle for the mack, which is much nicer on a crane when its up on jacks. If the air runs out when your up on outriggers the axle isn't all drooping down hanging from its bags and chains. Just in case anyone is curious. Grove's older counterweights are a steel tub/shell, filled with steel scrap from their shears and punches. The sweepings from the shop floor, the best kind of recycling- just don't waste anything. We welded the lid back on it.
Hard case about the counterweight! Good to see you got your diffs alright
How certain were you that the diffs were going to fit right before you got them all the way over here? That had to be nerve wracking.
The axle side gear spline was the same too??
I'll be sure when it actually drives, but so far it looks good. Slides right in. I probably spent two weeks sending pictures and measurements back and forth by email. 4:00 in the afternoon is tomorrow morning over there. First we were going to just ship some parts, but the more I dug into my old ones I found out I really just needed the whole diffs. Air was 40 days faster than boat, and only a extra $1,500. I'd rather have the parts than wait on the boat, I'll sleep better when its back together. Only thing different so far is they had smaller yokes on the input and output between the diffs. I'm going to switch those to my larger style so I don't have to change that driveshaft. The different design of the front diff meant a totally different power divider thru shaft also, which they sent along. Of course, you never really know until its here, and its not quite like taking it back to wal-mart. I think I'll try to button a little more of it together this afternoon, and get a measurement on the driveline, so it can go to springfield in the morning to get a new driveline made. We are kind of all tied up with crane work for early next week, but I would like the crane back together for a job late next week. I knew my mechanic wasn't going to get them in there by himself, so I took my son down there yesterday and had him help me put them in. Now whatever I don't get done this weekend, my mechanic can finish. I'll probably have to install all the 14.00r20 rubber, I don't think my mechanic can get them by himself. I would kind of like it back together for a different reason than just that job, I had a guy call this week that is looking for a crane for a job out in kansas, and he's looking to buy. I'm not really sure I want to sell it, but a +100ton crane may suit my needs better, so I guess we'll see what comes of that.
Good luck and fingers crossed for you that it all goes together and runs good.
Forget sand bags if you want traction in your 2 wheel drive truck. Nothing beats ironworker plugs! Worked in a tank shop and built a truck loading station with a platform that was lowered by a hand winch. A couple 6" pipes about 2' long filled with ironworker plugs from punching manway holes. A 3 year old could have operated the winch.
Shingle removal from earlier this week with the rt. Building is 40-50' from the parking lot, the other side they can do with their 12k telehandler forklift. Around 80-90' radius for most of it. The box full of shingles is around 2,000-2,500lbs.
Galion for a tree job, a big old oak was hollow and landed mostly in the yard and partially on the house. I'll say this about that galion- it may not have a lot of boom in it, but its a pickin' little ba$$t** over the front. Of course I was pretty close, but I could just grab a big chunk of tree and make a lot of wood move. There was a steep driveway up in, and then the powerlines were too close to the garage to get boomed up with any of the truck cranes, is the reason I brought the galion. I couldn't see any way to get anything else in there. I parked the lowboy a half mile away and just roaded it over there. They never did get their bucket truck spun around because of the lines. I kind of rigged on the stuff and pulled it off the house, then held it up while they cut it.
Truss job from the other day. We watched a UFO for a couple hours. There was something white and round (blimp like) looked like up around 20- 30,000 ft or so. There were several planes that flew near it also. It was really too high up to see what it really was, but it was in visible sight in roughly the same area for probably 3-4hours or so. You can see it as a white dot about halfway between the ball and my boom head, just to the left of the load line in the last picture. It looked like a balloon that got released, but it was way up high, and it stayed around for so long, it was just kind of strange.
Did three jobs with the old 25 today, all before noon. Set a little unit down at the shopping mall this morning. Then went to the hospital and put on jib to put a hot water heater up on the top floor to go into their mechanical room. Then I had to go around to the back side of the hospital, and load up a big old chiller unit that they are getting rid of- 12,000lbs or so. Had to set up right next to the ambulance driveway on that so I had to leave that part of the road open. I cheated though- I put block in around the front side after I took jib off, because there wasn't any room around the other side to put it in.
Jeeez! That’s a tough way to make a living, I've done a lot of shingling and looking at a roof that size kinda makes me sick. My hats off to guys like that. I hope that underpayment is on tight with the weather that’s on the way!
I was busy yesterday running crane during the day, I did a little unit in the morning, then went and loaded the galion up where it was setting on a different job, and took it to do that tree. I then went and looked at a couple jobsites. I got back to the shop around 6 and decided to make my mechanics life a little easier. We had all the diffs buttoned up on the 70 ton, and the new driveline made and installed. He was going to try to get someone to help him today to mount the tires all up, because the rest of us were busy running crane. We need it for a job tomorrow, and I was worried that something would come up today, so I grabbed the bars and slid the eight 14.00r20's up on the hubs. They're big awkward and heavy, and I could just see one of them hurting someone. I didn't tighten them all down or anything, just put three nuts on each one to hold them up there. Jim had the rest of the day today to finish putting everything back together, and he's got it ready to go for in the morning.
They're showing sunny skies from now until the middle/ end of next week here. Upper 80's to low 90's. They already have sent some "disaster relief" volunteer groups from here to the east coast to deal with the hurricane. I would have waited until it actually hit somewhere to leave, but that's just me.
You’ll be glad to get your 70 back on the road, I bet you’ll hold your breath the first time out hopping she holds together. That’s no comment on your mechanic, just my close relationship with Mr. Murphy and his law. Lol
I thought someone would have made a comment about the name on that truck! I wish I could borrow that truck and thier chipper for a few weeks to clean up a hedge row along my property!
Maybe you could borrow a 988 from your old work, it would probably take out the hedge row quicker.
I just thought it was your missouri division. I figured you're worldwide by now.......
Actually "back in the day" as they say. Management did allow workers to "borrow" a machine now and then. If you needed a stake rack to haul a load of hay on a Saturday, no problem, need to use the crane on service truck to stand up the walls on the garage you are building, or need a fork truck to move a stack of plywood the lumber yard dropped off in the wrong place, same with a skid steer. Did did all those and more back before the company got too top heavy. My immediate boss knew about just about all them before hand and there was no problem! Just a few years back one of the guys who lives about 1/4 mile from the front gate and his property is surrounded on three sides by the companies land made the mistake of asking one of the over the road truck drivers who had to drive his company dump truck right past this workers house on his way home to dump about five tons of clean up stone in his driveway on his way by. Not sure how the head man in the state learned about this but this boss blew his top over this major theft of material and the fact that a company truck was used to haul it! The way I understand it he had to pay full price for the material and the driver and worker got off with a warning to not pull a stunt like that again! Heck over the 45 years working for the company I probably carried that much material home in the pockets of my coveralls! PS: Just remembered the time I, without telling anyone, drove a 966C right down the state highway to my house to open up my driveway after a bad drift of snow blocked it that was at least three feet tall and so hard you did not even leave hardly a foot print in it when walking over the top.
Got my units done with the 70 ton friday. 100' main and 60' jib with 30deg offset. Didn't have to put out power pin section. Heaviest unit was supposed to be 2400 and I showed only 1800lbs, its always nice when its lighter.
Had to set up out by the street, put jib and offset in , then back up between the dumpster and the building. We had a couple inches clearance yet on the dumpster- the angled top gave us the clearance we needed for counterweight. The little crane on the rigging truck works great to put in offset and take it back out. It just takes a lot of time, to put in jib and offset, move and set up again, and then move again and set up to take it all back out again. I usually leave my beams out with the jacks off the ground just a little when moving it with jib in and the boom in the air. The 10' carrier is really nice when moving around like that, its a lot more stable than a 8' carrier. And I didn't see how my guy cribbed the front jack until after we were done, we're going to have a little talk about that.....
I take it that was the one getting the new gears, did it work out OK? Maybe I missed something? What about setting the feet on the curb like that, aren't you worried it will bust or something?
Yep, its the crane with the new gears, buttoned it all up on thursday for a job on friday. Nothing like extra time to get things together. On the curb, you can see I have blocks down on the parking lot coming up to the same height as the curb, so most of the weight is on those blocks, not on the curb. And if you've ever seen curb poured, there's actually a lot more concrete there than in the drive.
Curious why they didn't just move the dumpster out of the way to give you more room to set up and work. Is the rust on the boom from the cables running on it?
The dumpster has a packer attached to it, and its a big pain to get them there at the right time to pull it out. I had room to set up in so I just didn't make waves. The rust is just surface rust on the top of the boom, the cable bounces up and down when you are driving down the road, and that takes the paint off. Its actually I think the factory paint, so its held up pretty good. I could repaint it, but it will just take it back off again. That and I'm lazy.
I can see the dumpster guys not really caring if they get it moved in time. It seems odd they don't put something on the boom like nylon wear strips to protect it from the cables.
Maybe they make curbs differently but I have seen them busted from just running a truck front tire on them so much that I stay far away from them if I can help it.
When you hit a curb with a truck tire they generally push the top off to the side, they don't have much side support, plus the impact. But I've got the push spread out with my mat, and the concrete curb is probably 10" thick, while the drive is probably only 4 or 6".
Crane Op … RE: front cribbing … would you have used 4 timbers crisscrossed instead of two stacked ? For stability ? Or something else ?
Those blocks are a little narrow for one stacked on top of the other. I usually go two and then two more crosswise. Its just throwing two more blocks, and I don't like cutting corners. I like the wood to be at least close to as wide as the steel pad.
So there's a couple retired guys in my neighborhood always complaining about people driving too fast. I think they got the county to put up two speed limit signs, that have solar panels and radar readouts that show your speed in real time. It's not working for me, at all. When I back out of my driveway, the northbound sign is about three houses down from me. When I stop, and shift into drive, it has a little blinking red light, then as soon as I start, the numbers start going up in real time. Everytime I see that blinking light and the numbers start moving, I get that feeling like "wonder how fast I can get the numbers to change". Like the big hammer game at the carnival, I keep wanting to peg it. I try to force myself to look the other way, the signs are playing mind games with me, and not in a good way. My wife thinks I'm crazy, she says they don't effect her at all that way, I feel like its my own little private christmas tree, dragstrip set of lights, everytime I leave my driveway.
You need some way to test the repairs on your P&H. I think it's a great diagnostic tool!
Well if anyone sees a f450 with a flatbed, mechanics crane and aluminum tailgate out driving around, let me know. They stole it out of my shop yard between 12 and 4:00 today while I was out on a job.
That’s the sh!!!Ts man. Hope you get it back in decent shape. Edit: cops didn’t take it for drag racing at the speed sign in front of your house did they?
I don't think the cops took it. Its not hardly fast enough to beat the speed limit there. I'm sure wishing I had that GPS chip in it now though.
I get Earthmovers Magazine every month and Equipment losses are huge every where in the world. Cameras and chips are a must have now a days it is sad this world. I feel for your loss.
That sucks! Hope they find it fast!
Reckon they are the same bunch from the last episode ? Hope you get it back in good shape and they end up in the slammer for a long time .
I am lucky to have the county Sheriff department's main entrance 50' past my crane yard/boom truck yard (?) entrance, that seems to be a good thing these days.
Took the 25 ton truck crane out to set trusses Saturday, and ended up having to come back and get the galion. I could have got the 25 down the hill, but the road wasn't wide enough to get turned on, I would have stuck my back outrigger on the gravel hill up to the garage. I thought about taking the mack out there, it has a lot more rear clearance, but I didn't figure I could get it set up on that hill without a lot of work, and the galion would reach it. Its just that we had just loaded the RT on the lowboy friday for monday, and so I had to unload it, then load the galion. I had kind of a late start because they didn't want the crane until 11:00, so by the time I drove back to the shop to get the other crane, we weren't getting a exactly quick start, but they had walls to straighten and brace yet, so they did that while I switched cranes. Fortunately, it was kind of flat between the blacktop and the front of the garage on the gravel.
I tried to get the door post in the picture on the way out, its hard to get a feel for angle in pictures. I went down in 1st in low range, but I should have put the transfer case in. It was sliding a rear wheel for a lot of the trip down. I was worried if I had it locked in it would bind up when turning off the black top and tear the blacktop up, and it can be kind of finicky about locking and unlocking, so I didn't want to try to do that on the slope. I didn't mess around though when walking it up out, I just locked it in, and walked it up the hill. They only had two carpenters, so I had my son meet me at the shop to load and unload, then came along to rig and run tag rope. Saved them some time. In the one picture you can see the truss pile, the delivery truck wouldn't go down the hill, he dropped them up top and they drug them down the hill with a track skid loader. They had to park it on the bottom side of the pile so they wouldn't slide on down the hill like a pack of cards when they cut the bands.
Tailed a tank at a factory, they have a guy right close that just repainted his old 35 ton. We picked it up inside to put their skates under it, then rolled it outside to stand it up. Rt is at the mall doing some units. This was a new VA clinic, so the "superintendent" was all about paperwork. Lift plans, copies of last three months inspections, rigging plan, certifications with picture ID's, the whole nine yards. Last picture is a hot tub with the galion. It fit just right on their blacktop down to their lawnmower garage.
Ready mix trucks must of loved backing in there
I really look forward to your updates, you do some really interesting things in some very challenging places...sorry to hear about your truck, any news on it?
No news on the truck, they found a abandoned stolen car near our shop that day, they think they abandoned it then stole ours, but who knows? The concrete drivers have some real fun in our area, you really have to watch not to spin the drum up too fast on a side hill, or when it climbs the side it can lay you over real fast. Most of them have full lockers on the rears, the one concrete company has their own winch truck, the other one will have a wrecker come to pull them out uphill when they are empty on a steep hill. They probably parked a pump truck, right where the galion is, then just backed the trucks straight down the hill to dump in the hopper while on the blacktop.
Well, I craned some 42" gate valves yesterday that I bought from MWRD. Two of them turned out to be brand new. Then, surprise, turns out that I also got a FREE SKUNK that was living in the wood crating of one of those valves!
You guys have a great variety of work. Hope you kept that little guy happy.
How did he not let the stink fly?
it was a "lady skunk" actually, my guy let her go
literally everything on this side of the warehouse stinks right now
Guess that "lady" had a boy friend or two in the area!
Well the cops called and I got to go pick this up middle of the week. They had it stashed out in the weeds and someone spotted it. They unbolted two of the aluminum underbody boxes, and took the hand tools. I had to bust the ignition out with a screwdriver and a hammer, and got it going and drove it home. I suggested to the cops that they hang a camera in the trees- there wouldn't be 5 people a month drive back there. Check the camera once a week for a month or something. But that sounded like too much work to them.
Back deck on a house. They build the sections up front on the garage floor, the inset is for a hot tub.
How tight is the crane operator? Tight enough that I'll take a rusted out exhaust pipe, cut a piece out of a different rusted out exhaust piece, and weld them together. Its not a good character trait.
Picked up two really nice peterbilt seats last week. I'm thinking of mounting them in the white pete project that has put down roots in one bay of the shop. Then I got to looking at the seats in the peterbilt. Is the goofy looking stitching in the headrest of the seats actually a "P" for peterbilt, and these are rare factory original seats that I shouldn't replace?
Better than my repair! "What have I got on board...." Soup can from last nights meal & tie wire. Got me home from Montana to Washington though. Even had a L1 inspection "creative" was all he said and sent me on my way. [edit] cutting a soup can with a pair of wire cutters is asking to get bloody Glad you got your truck back, even without what they took better than nothing I guess.
That’s some nice work, it’s clear that they can read a tape. It looks simply, but if it’s not done right all you end up with is a crane invoice, a bunch of wasted time and ruined lumber. My hats off to these carpenters.
They're good carpenters (if there is such a thing ). My son worked for these guys this summer on this house and a different one. These guys just do custom big houses, and the lead framer is super detail orientated- unusual in a framer. They worked with just 3 guys all summer- he doesn't use a big crew and doesn't get in any hurry. They get a lot done, its just they do framing like some guys do cabinetry. I told my son - these guys will teach you the right way- if you end up framing for someone who just slams it all together fast, and lets the sheetrockers cover up the sins, that how a lot of the commercial or spec building gets done. But this way he'll at least have seen how it is done right. But not all framing gets done on high end homes.
That sounds familiar, we could never survive mass framing my guys are too fussy. We work on custom houses on contract pricing.
To my knowledge there isn’t anything special about the seats in that truck. I’d put the ones you got in there unless the current ones are comfortable. Glad you got the truck back!
Yes, glad you got your truck back. Maybe you could set up a game camera where your truck was found and get some pics that might help identify who might have took your truck. After the cop accused your daughter of the accident by your shop , it doesn't surprise me they aren't too interested in finding who took your truck. You could check pawn shops for the tools and/or craigslist or wherever people advertise.
I have a friend who is the the assistant manager of our local (and only) scrap metal recycling biz. We have talked about my aluminum outrigger pads (I'm told they cost about 1 K EACH to replace, could that be correct!!?) and hopefully I might get them back if stolen. I need to etch my SS # in them, though I hate to create any (more) stress risers.
I bought an extra one for my Elliot and luckily they fit my Manitex so I kept the best one. With the aluminum floats if you break one your out of business till you get a replacement. I priced it with Elliott and me picking it up in Toronto was over $1,200 and at that time our $ was at par. On my pad was the manufacturers name, a quick google search and I was on the phone with them. Five days later and around $500 it was on my door step. You likely have the same brand, I will check and post their name later. Sauber mfg.
happy to see all the working area pics. Keep Working
I don't think I would engrave the pads with my SSN. Use something else perhaps the last 8 digits of the VIN of the truck they are used on. Rick
SSN is more important to protect than the password to your bank account. Same with DL# and even birth date to some degree. I wonder if you could etch a serial number into it by sand blasting with a mask or something. But how scratched up are they from rocks and such already.
I think I would mark them with your business name and phone # if you were going to try to mark them. Made up some new chains for tying down the Rt on the lowboy. The other hooks I had kept getting wedged in the tie down lugs. The old ones were the smaller crosby hooks, the new hooks are the big orange ones. I scrounged up the chain in my back room, ordered the hooks surplus off ebay. Even managed to find enough hammerlinks to attach the new hooks, I never throw anything out.
Popped up a couple of internet broadband towers last week. The first two pictures are a freestanding tripod tower, about 95' The second two pics are the first 90-100' of a cable stayed tower. I think they were going to go to 180' or so, they will build the rest with their little climber leg and rope and pulley's.
Some units over at the catholic church.
You can't put a price on those big hooks I use them on just about everything I also seem to us half inch chain on just about everything to but at least I dont break chains
My son called me a couple weeks after school started. He was at the gas station after school, with antifreeze tumbling out of the radiator of the camaro. Head gasket out again. I asked him when he got home if he's been out running the snot out of it. "Dad, I don't run it hard all the time...." Anyhow, he's been suffering riding the bus for a month or so, and I sprung him from that the other day. 1994 Ford f-150, 300 straight six and a five speed. $550 as a non running truck off craigslist. I took a battery with me to look at it, it had compression so I figured there couldn't be anything else too expensive to fix and brought it home. A new cap and rotor for the distributor did the trick. It was full of two year old gas, so we're getting that burned out. I told him the only way to really learn to drive stick it to drive it everyday, so we rode circles in the neighborhood and a big parking lot for a while last weekend. He had driven stick just around the yard, but not everyday. He managed to make it to school yesterday and today on his own, he takes the long way around to miss a uphill stop sign.
The chains on the lowboy are 5/8". I had two bigger hooks and two smaller ones, and the small ones would get wedged all the time. Made some forklift pockets for the fixed manbasket. We always load and unload with a forklift, and the base of the basket had tapered cross irons, and it just didn't work, so a couple pockets for guides and to keep it off the ground. Lots nicer to load now.
Some trusses
Couple wildlife pictures, everything is getting ready for fall. Look close at the first pic, he's kind of hard to see- but we do get some big spiders here, that's my size 13 in the pic for a reference, and I've seen quite a few bigger tarantula's here. The last pic is from this afternoon, I was down along the buffalo river and spotted this cow elk in the trees.
Nice drive down there this afternoon. Fall is in the air here, sycamores are just changing color, not much else yet.
Just for you boys out west that talk about the flat midwest: This is on the way down to the buffalo river in arkansas. Its not really 13 miles downhill, but the last 4-5 miles or so is all down. The first four or five miles kind of roll up and down.
Hey Dad! This is your long lost son up in New York any chance you could buy me truck like you bought your other son? I already know how to dive a stick and would even pay you back once I got it running It's been probably 15 years since I saw a 1994 F-150 that looked that nice around here! 300 Six with 5-speed would be my top choice for a nice basic pick-up. We did have a bunch of them for off-road trucks at the quarries around here and they seemed to take just about all abuse the guys could heap on them and keep going.
I'll keep my eye out for one, do I have to deliver it too? I could use a vacation. Its got a little rust over the rear wheel wells, where all the old body style fords rust. Other than that, and it needs snycro's in the transmission, it seems like a ok truck. Around 200,000 miles on it, but it had decent rubber on it, they will need replaced before it gets hot next summer (weather checked). At least I can open the hood on those style trucks and figure out what's going on, on some of this new stuff, I have trouble identifying what a lot of the stuff even does, let alone how to fix it. The 300 six has a nice torque curve, and it doesn't really like too high of rpm's- maybe he'll keep his foot out of it. We're in kind of a nice area for rust free. Far enough south not much salt on the roads, far enough north for no salt air from the gulf.
The first truck i ever bought was a 1968 f250 4x4 with a 300 six. The 300 was well beaten when i got so we rebuilt it ,they are great motors. Heres some elk we saw on the way to the bridge job. Its amazing how they just seem to melt into the woods .
Took down a video board the other day. It was old and heavy. My scale battery decided that was the morning to quit working, but I'm thinking the top was over 5 and the bottom was more. New one goes up next week.
Trusses on a church. Its a pile of wood for just a second story hallway. 10 or 12 common's in the middle and the rest were all built like gables, only vertical boards and all 2x4's, and getting shorter each way as we went up onto each roof.
Coil at the hospital
Got a adapter built to put my fixed basket on the end of the jib of my RT. I had a local shop cut the side plates from a template I made of what I needed. They cut it on their plasma table.
Put it to work on the christmas tree
Followed this truck out of the jobsite today. The sticker in the back window says "Locally Hated". What's that mean? Am I too old to understand?
More sheet rock.
One of my guys sent me this, they started setting trusses right in front of him, then worked to the back of the house.
A 300 six with 200,000 miles is just getting broken in. I read somewhere that it was originally intended to be a diesel engine but don't know if that's true. They even had them in 1 tons. The 4.3 litre V6 Chev put in 1/2 tons trucks was a gutless wonder.
Trusses on a condo/resort building. They add one building or so a year in this row.
The Rt is a little handier here than the 35, it gets really crowded if I have to back the 35 up to the building, leaves very little room to work. The main truss pile was off to the left of the pile of hats next to the portajohns. The power line is actually further away than it looks, but its not in a really handy spot, I try to leave the trusses low until I get them swung away a little, just so they don't get turned at the wrong time. The roof is actually two halves, with a firewall of densglass between the two half sections in the roof.
Trusses the other day on a true "log" cabin. Full logs. Unfortunately I had to go do a night job after this job, and the old 25 didn't make it. I was about 15 minutes away from the night job, and the air compressor let go. Went back to the shop and got the mack. It has a big boost leak in the air to air, and not much for lights for night work, but I got it done with it. The air leak is a big bad spot in the air cooler. I called Mack dealer, over $2,000 for a air to air from them, and can't get it for a couple days (like that matters at that price ). I've got one coming from the truck parts place for like $520.
Sheetrock, Sheet rock, oh how I love sheetrock.... Got to put all the stick out too and put some A/C condensers in the parapet roof.
Don't anybody get smart either about how the siding looks a little funny beside a couple of the upper floor windows. The trim guys did that with their manlift. Really. And I have no idea why its only beside the windows we've been putting sheetrock through.....
got a little wet this afternoon. I took the 35 over to remove these signs. The sign guys had a 135' manlift ordered from kansas city, and when I went and looked at the job this morning, I knew the manlift wouldn't reach it. Between too far away, and too crooked/ sloped of a parking lot, I could see what was coming. Sure enough, the manlift wouldn't do that much radius, so I had one of the guys bring out the Mack with the fixed basket, and we pulled the signs together.
I went and set a little A/C unit this morning, and when I got up on the roof, there were rocks scattered all over the roof. I'm thinking "where the dickens did those rocks all come from?" It was at the local boys and girls club, and when I walked over there, I could see that there was another playground around the back side of the building. You just know those little knuckleheads, are spending their playground time seeing who can throw rocks further onto the roof. And some of them were pretty good sized rocks. When the HVAC guy came up on the roof, he said he threw down 11 footballs, its going to be like christmas tomorrow at recess time.
Somebody left their Rt a little too close to the river. I think this is from the hurricane this summer in North Carolina.
Took a rigger/ signal man with me today. Powerlines, greasy on top of a slope, bunch of amish carpenters I haven't worked with before, I wanted someone I knew on the tag rope. 3 ridge beams on a new house.
My rigger didn't think I could reach the trailer for the second two beams, we picked and carried the first one in there, and I didn't feel like moving crane back over there. The old rusty eyeball said we were close enough.
Nice view from the deck of the house. We wiggled the crane over between the poles for the far beam, I had picked it off the trailer and set it beside the house before I moved the crane. I would have had enough chart to set all three from the driveway in front of the garage with my 35, but the driveway wasn't wide enough, and I couldn't get jib swung. Galion came through, did need the 4x4 though, and my rigger doesn't like it when tires come off the ground walking it on a slope.
That's some complicated roof line with crossing ridge beams.
They're amish boys, they'll figure it out. They did howl about the crane + rigger cost. I should have doubled it, because I know there's no one else who was going to do it- including who ever it is, that usually does their crane work, because they've never used me. Had to go lift a hopper at a concrete plant today. The upper hopper wasn't quite high enough above the lower scale hopper. They are going to automate, and the scale hopper couldn't quite hold enough, so we raised the top hopper and legs 2' or so. The hopper legs were welded to imbeds. I actually just used one spreader, and lifted it 1/2 at a time, to make sure each side was cut loose. Then I put on the upper bar and the second lower spreader, and picked the whole thing.
Christmas tree went up on Sunday. Its covered in LED lights, has speakers inside, there's a white star on top that has led's. Its a all day deal to take down a steel sunshade and then put this back up.
The local sewer plant had a filter line run off the rails, so I went and set it back on this afternoon.
Early this week- Installing pumps, leaves were a riot of oranges and browns early this week, we got a bunch of rain so they are past it now.
A little detroit special, I can get it through my Orielly's, have to order it and it takes a couple days. And for the honeymooner's crowd: Address please? "1175 who street"
Went for a ride saturday, down to Ponca Ar. Last 5 miles is all downhill, but it was a great ride, leaves were really pretty.
So they need to mill the surface of this old low water crossing. 10 ton weight limit on the two bridge decks. 10' wide. Milling machine weighs 60,000. They built a steel frame, on top of the deck, to put under the deck, and then shored it to the rock bottom (divers). The fun part is picking a 20' x 20' I-beam frame, from on top of the deck, and putting it under the deck. With one crane, without a second winch, and on a 10' wide deck. 2 hours from home in the middle of nowhere. I had a "plan", and it didn't work out quite exactly the way I had it figured, but we got them put in. They mill early this week and then the frames have to come back out.
I had to swing out over to the side, and start them under the bridge, so I set the crane off to one side of the crossing, and put the outriggers down over there. I blocked the other side front, I had enough chart on rubber, but with the other front side jack down, you make the crane kind of offset, so I stabilized the front that way. I just put down the offside outrigger for visibility. I had rigging from the one end of frame to one end of spreader bar. The other end I had the chain fall on, and cables on the outer points, and swapped between them. We've had some rain recently, so there was a pretty good current, I felt bad for the divers, they were young guys and working pretty hard. Ended up being a long day, I left just after 6 and got back around 8. But I had 4 hours of driving, and they weren't quite ready when I got there. Kind of a long day for 2 picks, but they had to fully shore the first one, so I could drive out on it to set the next one.
Upstream and downstream pics. People amaze me- We had signs and barricades up, but eventually the park ranger had to be there, to keep people from trying to walk around us on the bridge, to the hiking trail on the other side. I mean, there's I beams, welders, diver's, and a crane totally blocking the bridge, but there were all kinds of people walking right out on the bridge trying to cross.
I hear ya, I was putting bundles of roofing up on a library last week, we had our work area all taped of and cones up every where and a couple in an expensive little car drove between two cones and the front of there car was actually under the yellow danger ribbon. I very politely yelled at the to get to “ f “ outa there, they moved but seemed puzzled why the got yelled at
A lot of people with expensive cars seem to think they're entitled. Also having an expensive car doesn't usually translate into a higher IQ.
In many cases it is in an inverse ratio!
Pulling barges today, and it rained, rained, rained. The old dredge has a nice sounding 6-71 in it, but I could smell the ether when they lit it off, I don't think they even gave it a chance on its own, they just went right to the bottle. Unstacked trailers first, then set up on the ramp and pulled spuds, mini-ex, and the winch frame. Then pulled the barge apart. Had a boat moving friend come and pull the dredge out of the water, then we just transferred it to the other companies truck. I didn't think they could get it close enough to me to pull while on the ramp.
Boat mover has a sharp KW.
Sign says no engine brake, doesn't say anything about a 6-71 at full song.....
Why are they milling that deck? Looks like concrete to me and good concrete at that. Around here we have mini mills that fit on skid steers.
The deck is concrete, probably from the 30's, mixed on site from the river rock. ROCK all over in it, like you used to see in barn foundations. The bridge is in the buffalo river wilderness, which is federal. No improvements, modernization of anything, at all, no way no how. They are going to mill it and put some kind of expoxied concrete something on top of it, trying to save the surface because I know there's no way they would ever go in there and replace it. This resurfacing of the deck was probably a 5 year planning thing, and who knows how many environmental studies it took. You know when they originally built it they just went in there and did it. Because they needed a way across the river. Today it would take 10 years just for the studies of fish and salamander impact. And they would come back and say "there's no way the species here could survive the disruption, you can't build it. Go around." So a new deck. Just to get to the 100' x 100' parking area on the other side, and really for access to the walking trails from the bigger parking lot. Its a 10 ton weight limit, 10' wide, no through traffic.
It is truly incredible how beautiful some of those places are!!!
Back to ponca today to pull the frames out. The surface was milled, around 1" or so.
Rain over the weekend and early this week was kind of hard on some of the leaves, but the oaks are nice still.
Also went back and finished the sign at Imax with the 35 and the mack.
Man that Mack/National is one versatile machine.
Built a 60x100 flexi barge and put the ck1100 on it working on a railroad bridge
More pictures of the rail bridge
Looks like they have a small rust issue. Hot rivet bridge, what's the plan for fixing?
Thanks for pointing that out, I tend to forget, or have other opinions.......
Unistrut … By the looks of the pile of the stuff in first pic. A tad better than the timbers holding the stairway.
We are driving temporarily piles then jacking it up off those and replacing the broken members. That's all I know about it right now
Two more went off the curve at the shop last night. One left just his silver bumper, the other guy left the whole car, but the steer tires point in different directions. I called the sheriff, because I can't get the lowboy out of the driveway going left/uphill, with where they left their car. They just came and put a sticker on it. If it ain't gone tomorrow, its going to be gone tomorrow. We had rain last night, but I went two hours north this morning to load out a LP tank, and they had all this funny looking white stuff all over the roofs and grass, and the wind sure had a bite. They're saying 16 degrees tonight, got the antifreeze checked in everything.
Lp tank today. About 2 hours away, so I took the RT on the lowboy rather than the 35. Yes, that's a little skiff of snow on top of the tank. Truck came out of Kansas City, and he said he had to shovel several inches off the trailer. Leaves are gone on some of the trees, but the sunshine really makes what's left stand out.
It lives! It turned cold and snowy here, so I needed to put some of the cranes inside for tomorrow. That means we had to do a little quick work to the pete that has taken root in one of the shop bays. Its going to need some more work before its ready for a load. Only the air pressure and oil pressure gauges worked. Need to adjust brakes, seems the park cans aren't holding (or I don't remember backing them off or capturing them while we rolled it around with no engine in it- which is certainly possible). Brakes smakes- I needed it out of the shop. Anyhow, it at least starts and drives forwards and backwards. Driveline is in, exhaust is fixed. New air to air, and I've got some better rubber to mount on the rears. It's slowwwly becoming a runner.
Please keep the snow in MO.
Oh don't worry, I won't keep it all to myself, I'd send it to anyone that wants it. It was pretty cool here again this morning, usually we see lows in the 30's and highs in the 50's all winter, its been in the teens here the last couple mornings, so pretty unseasonable. Old 35 was nice and warm when I left the shop, but I did put some air line antifreeze in it, just as a precaution. I hate it when my upper air freezes and I don't have any throttle.
The best place for snow is on a Christmas Card IMHO .....
Someone needs to pull their head out their azz. I've been designing, inspecting and directing the maiantnece of 170+ county highway bridges of all size shapes and types for 40 years. That deck looks to be in good shape. If they wanted to seal it, a 2 part epoxy healer sealer broomed on would work. Like I said before a mill in a skid steer would work. As a professional engineer myself, it makes me totally disgusted when an engineer comes up with such nonsense.
But, You do have to realize that there are (Practical Engineers) and Professional Engineers!!!
No need to get real bent out of shape, you're paying their wages. and for the divers. And the mill machine. And the steel, and the crane guy . The divers also put a grout skin on the abutment. That was hilarious . They put a plywood form on the abutment, 10' wide, 2' tall or so, to put 1" to 2 1/2" of grout on the face. They had a grout pump. The pump died, so they were trying to take 5 gal buckets, and pour it into one side of the form, and beat on it with a hammer and get it to "flow" to the other side. I stood there for 4 hours while they struggled with the pump, and the buckets. My patience with the buckets was not great. I had a two hour trip back home, and really didn't want to make the run in the dark again. Got to take out the 35 earlier this week, and set a repeater tower for the county fire dept. They had their ladder truck to go up and unrig.
I guess they didn't want you taking pictures of their stupidity on the bridge???
I think it was mostly just trying to make the most of a bad situation. We were over a hour away from anywhere when their grout pump goes down. Probably 5 hours away from anywhere that might have a replacement pump(doubtful). No cell service. No real plan once the grout pump died, so they spent two hours trying to get the pump regoing. Prime, clean out, remix grout, pump. Plug up the lines, reprime, no pump, clean out- repeat, repeat, repeat. And no one likes to beat their head against the wall, so they tried finishing up the one they had started with the buckets and a hammer, sometimes it just takes someone else saying "I know what you guys are trying to do, but it isn't going to work, and you just as well quit now, it ain't going to get better". I'm sure they ended up taking that form back off, cleaning the grout all up with a hammer drill and chisel bit and starting over once they got a different pump. Its just no fun getting beat. I will admit I had some worries myself on that job. There was a inspector from the feds there the whole time. I could see a "natural disaster" of epic proportions if I lost a hyd. hose. Fortunately that didn't happen, but the thought goes through your mind, because the feds sure won't care that sometimes lines give out.
And the whole job isn't these guys idea either. It's just another federal job put up for bids, and they are trying to get it finished for less than the bid amount and make a little $ in the middle. Ours not to reason why....
Crane operator It’s not if something will fail because we know at some point it will, it is how you react to the failure. All the equipment working in our watersheds are equipped with spill kits incase a hose breaks (a 5 gal bucket filled with spill pads). Larger machines have bigger kits. They go so far as to park machines on plywood covered with spill pads if left unattended for any length of time. There are written procedures to wave around to asscover that include calling someone in charge right a way to report any incidents so more resources can be dispatched. This serves to spread any liability around and provides ready answers when the public starts to jump up and down. The bosses can say we had a plan. In my experience, having a plan that when tested is found to be flawed is much better than not having a plan. Cam
I consider myself a PPE, Practical Professional Engineer An 1-2 1/2 inch skin coat? How do they think that will stay?
I don't think the installers care if it stays on or not. That's what they are getting paid to do. I really think they should have just left the thing alone. What I really think is going to happen is this- 5 years from now, the repair is going to start flaking on the surface, and coming off the abutments. Then they can say "we did everything we could 5 years ago, but the structure is just too far gone to save. We'll have to tear it out and return the river to its original "wilderness" state". You have to think like a person that goes to work for the feds as a " park ranger". Nature undisturbed that no one has access too, is the best kind of nature- that's all they learn from their conservationist professors in college, and the sierra club. So anything they can do to tear stuff out or limit access is a good thing in their minds. Never mind that there's a highway bridge 200 yards downstream.
Shop day. I was a little shocked when the rebuild kit for the fan clutch was like $270, but it had all the bearings, new face plate and all the internals. I think I caught this one just in time. The little screws in the fiber ring were a pain, but they all came out, I was figuring on a couple having the heads rounded out. I do need to do a little head scratching on the solenoid. The old one was kind of intermittent, and so I replaced it, but the generic one they had as a replacement, I think I have it plumbed wrong. I don't know if the truck sends 12v to engage the fan, or if it pulls 12v away to engage the fan. I have 12v constant right now at the switch, and the fan is staying engaged all the time now, instead of shutting on and off. Just need to do a little wiring checking and playing around with it.
Tree job with the Mack and the fixed basket. They dropped the material straight down, then we took the basket off and picked the pieces out from the inside of the roller coaster track and set them on the outside.
Trusses with the rt. This is the next 1/2 of the resort/ condo I did a while back.
They cleared out a bunch of trees from around the helipad at the hospital. Its a bad hill with a deep bowl, so I had them just drop all the trees into the bowl, and then I came and picked them all out. Couldn't close the street I was setting one, because its all the deliveries for the hospital and the back ambulance drive. The bottom of the hole is probably 30' or so below the level that the crane is on. I think I filled 6 roll off dumpsters. They haul the roll offs to their mulching yard and dumped them there. It was mostly sycamore's. I think they tended to bounce the choppers with the branches waving up and down, you can see the corner of the helipad up by the building.
Had to take down a section of guardrail so we could leave a lane open for traffic. Even with flaggers is was like nascar, and everyone is really ticked if they have to wait 30 seconds for a loader. It was a jumbled up mess of trees where they dropped them all in there, but I just couldn't see a better way to get the brush out. They tried further up the draw to get their tak loader and grapple down in there, and they almost slid it off the bank.
Even had to give the guardrail a little nudge with the outrigger beam for the re-install.
CO I am going to look at a large hydraulic power unit retrofit and or replace in Russelville AR the middle of next month. Would this be two far for you to travel for work if we need crane work ?
I sure appreciate the offer. It would be out of my regular work area, but I got told a long time ago to never turn down work. I carry quite a bit of insurance, but probably not enough to work at the nuc plant. I'd sure buy you lunch if you're coming through my area though. I think the guys from ft. smith and little rock kind of split the work at the nuc. My crane inspector is from ft. smith, and I know some guys from little rock. i'll PM you and you can give me a call, thanks.
Well happy thanksgiving everyone. I have a lot to be thankful for, but mostly because of yesterday. Yesterday was the closest I've come to dumping one in a long, long time. Tree job. One sycamore and one oak tree. Both over a bank, one behind a deck roof that I couldn't see all of. I always keep some chart in my back pocket when doing trees, and I used it all up yesterday. We used the mack with the fixed basket and the 35 to take down the sycamore, and the oak they had most of it taken down, except the biggest part of the trunk. We had been doing great, until we got down to the one I couldn't see behind the roof. They got a little greedy and cut more than we had been, and it got a little head start on me when they cut it, usually I can see them and kind of anticipate it coming loose. Fortunately I get up on the throttle before they have them fully cut, and when it came , I just kept booming up and pulled it out of it, but it was really really close. Me and the old grove were talking to one another, that's for sure. First pictures are of the sycamore, it was dead to the point of brittle and not safe to climb. The oak, you can see the stub of it sticking up behind the deck roof. They kept saying "its going to get hollow" as we were going down the tree. There was one little hole where a branch had come off, but that thing was solid all the way down.
The oak behind the deck roof, we hauled most of it out with the skip box, it was stacked on the riverbank down below the tree.
Interesting as always. Glad you didn't dump your crane over. Hope you and your family have a great thanksgiving! Thanks for all the posts and pics!
Glad you made it out ok. How did the debriefing go with the fellow on the chain saw.
This happened recently about 60 miles from me. https://www.idahostatejournal.com/n...cle_2677b4f4-66e6-51ef-aefd-0dd3cdf35efe.html The company owner was quoted as saying they did it this way all the time, tieing limbs off to the bucket truck. Really?!
Picture looks like a ex power company bucket truck, with the little boom and winch up by the basket. I think those little booms by the basket are rated for like 500-600lbs. It doesn't take much tree to be over that amount. Buddy sent me this picture of a tree company with their own boom truck. I think its a altec 36 ton with 127' main, which isn't a bad size, they just aren't a truck crane.It looks like the top of quite a bit of tree in the second picture. Looks like they got a little greedy. If I'd have been in one of those instead of the old grove, this could have easily been me.
Here's how they got it upright... http://nullstowing.com/111118.html
Thanksgiving day I do the turkey- of course I have to do it outdoors.
Pulled motors and pumps on water ride at the amusement park today. It was brisk out this morning, and didn't warm up much. But they're talking 42 tomorrow, and 52 wednesday, so warmer weather coming.
My folks sent me a link to these pictures. This is a dam near where I grew up, they've had a multiyear project to make it hydroelectric. It was originally only for flood control. Anyways they dumped a rt and about lost a crawler. Tandem picking the piles from the cofferdams, and the current got the sheet and drug them back toward the dam pulling the rt over, and pulling the crawler up on its toes. Its a wonder they didn't loose them both. No one hurt fortunately.
Is that pic from that far away or is the et that small
Yowza. That ain’t good!
Dam, that was looks to be running swiftly!
Way to much pucker factor for me there. I am sure there will be a ton of paper work follow up with that. Thanks for sharing.
That’s a train wreck and a near miss all in one!
I'm sure it will be a paperwork nightmare. Army corps dam, I'm sure they will want to make sure the rt didn't damage the spillway wall in any way, or it will need to be repaired. I'm not sure how they went about getting the crawler cut loose of the pile, and they still would need to get the pile out, I suppose divers to get reattached and shut the water flow down. Anyways, some units from this week. Kind of a tight squeeze, they didn't leave much access between the transformer and the retaining wall. I had to also bring the rt to this job to do another unit around front. It was the job of many different units. The one on the ground I picked and carried to a new location with the gallion. Did 3 on the roof with the galion and the cart. One I set in place. The one with the rt I thought I'd have to do jib and offset, but I got set up in just the right spot, and got it on main-- Not that I'm too lazy to do jib, but I ain't doing it if I don't have to.
More sheet rock.
And there I was, nothing between me and the big bad world outside, except a dog's ass.............. Took the mack back down to ponca, and a whole spreader bar conglomeration to set some fancy erosion control / concrete block mats.
This is to keep the approach for the bridge from washing away when the river comes out. It has the fabric under the blocks, then they fill in between the blocks with gravel.
They did get the deck redone also, with their concrete polymer coating. Said they mixed it on site and put it down out of georgia buggies, and then kind of mopped it out. One of the concrete guys said it was the consitency of fiberglass.
Of course, every day down there is a pretty day. Today was about 62 degrees, partly cloudy. Water was crystal clear.
Crane Op, I was wondering if there are times when you have to swing the crane to the side to get positioned in tight areas and then worry about it tipping over on that side. Do you just have the outriggers out?
Not Crane Op, but I'm guessing it requires two things lots of experience and knowing how to read a tape measure! I could tell a story about some dummy who got in a hurry with a borrowed little Koehring Bantam crane one Friday night. Backed in between stack of trusses and new garage the trusses needed to go on then decided to do a quick check to see if it was an easy reach from stack of trusses and then far wall of garage without taking time to put out out riggers. Bantam made out okay but not so for the end wall of garage or the four or five trusses that had been set by hand before!
It all depends on the crane. My rough terrain crane and the little galion are made to swing the boom over the side as you are driving along. My 70 ton truck crane has a on rubber chart, and a 10' wide carrier, and you can swing it over the side without the outriggers out. I don't do it unless I really really have to , it really puts a lot of twist on the carrier on it and it leans pretty good. My 25 ton and 35 ton groves are really boom heavy cranes, and only 8' wide carriers. Neither one are made to swing over the side while driving around.
I thought I'd post up this picture, I had to go back saturday morning and pick up the truck and trailer. We had a 2-3inch rain the night before, and you can see the water comes up pretty fast down there. They still had 1/2 the steel that we had temp. installed under the bridge. He couldn't find anyone to drive down there and get it, and I had a truck and trailer there already, so I took the torch down and brought home some free I-beams.
Well I've been goofing off the last couple days. I buy a tag every year to deer hunt up in Iowa where I grew up. I go with a group that we've all hunted together for years, and I've missed it the last 4-5 years because I've been working. I had to go get the truck and beams back from ponca saturday, I took sunday off, and went up to iowa monday. I got to hunt tuesday and wednesday, and had a great time. I've got to quit skipping. Anyways heres some pics of what the ground up there is like. We hunt small stands of timber, and switchgrass. We don't sit in any stands or blinds. We walk and drive the deer - kind of like pushing cattle. I got a lot of ribbing, I've skipped several years, and I came up late this year (season opened on saturday). On my first drive, I parked my truck and walked about 50 yards, and posted a small creek and switchgrass patch. 10 minutes later I had a nice doe laying on the ground. It's nice to get lucky once in a while.
Back to work today though. Temp. unit from a building here in town. And then I went and got the galion put in front of a water park, to put a new water slide in. Part of it is inside the building, so we are going to put it in through the glass openings. The little mechanics truck boom, is really nice for putting jib in the galion. Had to drive through the existing pool area to get in there.
Been a little wet here today, and one of the local sign guys got a little too brave with his bucket truck. Its downhill all the way down in there, and I sure wouldn't have gone in there, but the wrecker guys have to make a living too.
That is why money is made to go around so people can screw up and pay for it.
How much more capacity did you get with that intermediate boom support on the gallion?HaHa
They so nicely stood up the outside column's with their forklift before we got there, and they are both right in the way for working. And the one I'm right on top of- they actually put on the wrong base, so it has to come off anyways.
Changed out some lights at local motel. They had a 135' manlift, but it wouldn't go enough radius for all of the building, and it wouldn't set up flat enough, the parking lot is pretty crooked. We just did the ones they couldn't get with the lift.
Like I said, some of the lot has got some slope.
We had a pretty good wind a week or so ago. This is a "flag" style billboard- the pole is on the end rather than the center of the sign. Well in the wind storm, it acted like a flag, it broke the welds and swiveled about 20 degrees. The wanted me on the side, and swing it back over. I talked them into letting me set in front of it, that way I could boom up on it to get it to swing back. I've got a lot more pull in booming up, than I would ever have in just trying to swing it. I had to get up on it pretty hard, with a lot of extra boom up to get it to move. When it came, it screeched right around. Took about 3 pulls on it to get it back in place, I just didn't want to go too far. They also put a pickup on it with a couple ropes, to help "pull". I really don't think they were helping much, but it made them feel useful. Just rewelded it back in place when we got it set.
Got to do another sign, this one just a swap out. Dixie cafe closed, now "Jamies resturant".
Going to be done for a little while at the water park. The erectors are on the road, and they're leaving Thursday, and won't be back until after the 1st of the year. This shows the structure inside that we built going through the two window openings. They're getting the tubes for outside all prepped for when they get back.
Any free passes for the water park? lol
Not yet, but we were supposed to get to work all last weekend, and then they wouldn't let us because the park needed to be open. The installers were not happy, but they didn't look at their contract real close, it specified mon. thru fri. work only, owner wants his park open for the motel guests on the weekend, and he did read the contract. When you want to bring the boys down, I'll see what I can get for you though.
Sweet, they’d have a blast!
Just got these pictures the other day, its a 80 ton terex crossover, was on its way to its first job. Supposedly rolled 2-3 times. Its a good thing they didn't get to the job, the way they had the block reeved it would have been a explosion of nylon sheaves with a load on. Not much left of the tri drive, twin steer kenworth either.
Yesterday was the work day of the week for us, everyone wanted that day. First was a VFD drive for a amusement drive. Its set outside since we installed it last spring, but the manufacturer says winter storage must be climate controlled. Next was a swim spa in a back yard. I was really close to being able to set in the front yard, but I was pushing chart with the 70 ton. With the rain we've had lately, I was worried we'd destroy the front yard. So we cut down a little tree, and put the rt beside the house to set the swim spa in the back yard.
Capped it all off with a little run up to springfield in the 25 to load out a LP tank. After I had the tank loaded, he had me pull one of the saddle abutments out of the ground, then decided they were too heavy and not worth hauling, so I set the abutment back in the hole. 40' x 5' diameter tank, around 14,000lbs. I was going to take the mack, but with the chain link fence around the tank, I just couldn't get close enough to do it with that crane.
Wow looks like the driver could of got banged up pretty badly. Hope he’s ok. The couple little scrapes I had a year ago has turned me into an old woman, pictures like that reaffirm the old saying s$it happens, and I want nothing to do with it!
Its a 2018, and probably a 400-500 hp engine, and that's right at a 100,000lb rig. They tend to be a lot more top heavy than a truck crane with a box fabricated frame. The boom truck outrigger frame is all on top of the truck frame, and then the boom has to be high enough up to clear the kenworth cab. Puts the center of gravity a lot higher up off the ground. If they were just coming from a 30 ton boom truck, I could see them easily trying to hang a corner at 70 mph, and then you're just along for the ride.
crane operator you explained it very well just what I was thinking. All so driver was a better crane operator than a truck driver.
Hey CO … Would you explain the issue with the reeving of the block for a non-crane person ? Was it the position of the connection to the boom? How would you have rigged it? TIA for the explanation.
I'm not a crane person either, but it looks like the block is rigged for 4 parts and the reeving is not symmetrical. There is some weirdness going on up at the boom tip too, but that might be from the crash. Am I close Crane Op?
Don't know if this picture will help. The cable that goes to the ball, should be on the middle one of the top sheaves (the one on the right in the picture), then straight down to the forward rooster sheave. Instead they have it on the left, and angled over to the front sheave. The first line to the block should be on the left, straight down into the lower sheave on the left then into the block. Instead they have it on the center, then angled way over to the right side of the bottom boom sheave. Then they've got the block first cable on the far right sheave, then on the middle left sheave. That makes the block unevenly loaded. It will hang crooked and eat on the sheaves of it and the cable- but the block has steel sheaves, and it ends up being quite a ways away from the boom tip, it isn't as big a deal, the top of the boom reaving is a accident waiting to happen. The danger with the mess on the boom tip, top to bottom cross running, those are nylon sheaves, not steel. If they get angle loaded like that with any kind of weight, it will pop the outer edges of the sheaves off, and probably totally crack the sheaves. Then you have a load in the air, with nylon pieces falling out of the boom tip, and you end up getting the cable all ruined, running in the cracks or dead sliding on the broken sheaves, if you can even get the load to the ground. You can't side load cable at all on nylon sheaves. The old steel style sheaves you can kind of get away with doing a little tugging around, but not a nylon. The operators manual always shows a drawing of how to rig the boom head for every possible set up. On a new rig, the dealer should have someone that knows what their doing go along and set it up. Its probably a $750,000 machine, you think they would do that at least. But a lot of the dealers don't have anyone that's actually a crane guy, and expect the customer to know what he's doing. Some of the buyers for these are a oilfield moving company sick of paying someone else, so just buy their own, and really don't know what they are doing either. I hate to see people out of their depth, and putting other people at risk.
I understand how to reeve a block, and you are correct. What I dont understand is how you see that in the photo.
Uprighted a tank at a tank manufacturer. Then off to a wood products plant. They are shut down from christmas to new year, so time to change out the cyclones on the sawdust silo's. We had 30mph wind and rain when we first got there, so we did a cyclone on the ground first. The other ones are way up in the air, and I wasn't much for 166' of boom out in that kind of wind. Wind let up to 20 or so, and I shot out the boom and at least got some piping down. I waited to pull the cyclone until the next morning.
Concrete portion of the silo is 100', then conveyor and airlock. Cyclone had to come all the way up out of the structure to change. Top of it was right at 130' or so, and then it had to come out of the structure, so I was kind of short sticked at 166'. I didn't really want to put stinger of the jib out, which would put me at 188' of boom, but I wanted the little more chart and less boom deflection with the shorter boom. I had at least a couple feet to spare coming out. Rusty eyeball wins again. Cyclone was right at 5,000lbs.
Had to do both cyclones on both tanks. The smaller one was a little bit shorter, but a little further away. A little lighter is never a bad thing.
Nothing is fast that far up. I did have to bail out the millwrights too. They were trying to come down in the lift in the afternoon, and they were 1/2 way down and it stopped working. I had to go over and run it from the ground controls, to get them down. It didn't inspire a lot of confidence in the lift. They kept waiting for it to quit working on them again. Finished up late Saturday. I decided late on saturday night, on a holiday weekend, wasn't the best time to travel home. Traffic would be busy and I'd be pushing dark to get back. I'll probably go get it after the first of the year, we're booked up with other stuff on monday.
One of the scariest things I ever saw involved a boom truck that was run from the ground. I worked at an oilfield tank shop and during a slow period was helping block off tanks for testing. A laborer and myself were lifted on top of a large tank in the boom truck to put covers on the top flanges. We climbed out of the basket on top of the tank. We were tightening bolts and a wrench slipped and fell to the ground. There was no one around and we didn't have a radio or anything to call someone. The laborer who was allowed to wear steel toed running shoes, because they weren't as slippery as work boots, ran down the narrow boom into the back of the truck. He got a ride back up and said if we drop something else, it's your turn to go down the boom. NOT A CHANCE!!! The boom truck was an older Dodge 3/5 ton in pretty good shape but still intimidating if you're not used to being up in the basket. Another worker was fired because he was running the boom from the ground and decided to have some fun with the laborer in the basket. He had the boom fully extended and was working it back and forth to shake the basket. Getting fired was probably a better option than the laborer beating him to death with piece of pipe.
Tree on new years eve. Also shop class has evidently only covered clean up on "environmentally friendly" water based paint, for my senior in high school. Somehow- I haven't covered oil base paint clean up with him yet. It is now on the list. Will acetone take 5 day old rustoleum off a sink? (asking for a friend). And no static about the vise grip on the hot water handle either- that vise grip is missing the spring anyways. (You guys that would give me static about it know who you are, Santa's naughty/ nice list has just started over- don't ruin next year for yourself this early.)
Stood up a tank this afternoon in the rain. 31,700lbs- the early estimate was 24,000, so we were a little over the pre pick #'s. Its probably around 10'dia, and 40-50' long.
Do you do anything different when you find out its heavier I could imagine it can cause some problems
Gasoline is equally flammable with acetone and cheaper and easier to get. Your friend should try that first.
That tank looks new so I'm surprised they were so much under in weight. I worked on a vessel that big but it was 2 1/2" thick with 2 3/4" thick heads so weighed over 50 tons.
Round jaw grips would not be as likely to slip as needle nose.
At least you’ll always know where to find a pair in an emergency
I've always got a number in the back of my mind. Its the "do not exceed" number. That may be the size of the rigging, or the size of the crane, or how much boom I've got out, or the parts of line I'm running. Maybe the capacity of the other crane if I'm tandem picking, or how far we have to be away from the item being lifted. Anyways, I've always got that in the back of my mind, and if we hit that number, we're stopping. Maybe we can get closer, put on some bigger rigging, put in some extra parts of line, or make the item weigh less. Doing a tank like this, it really isn't that hard to stop if you hit that #. Most of the accidents I see, are in situations where you can't really stop and regroup. When you're taking down a old concrete plant and are hooked onto a silo, if the demo boys want to cut the legs out, you better be sure you can handle it, and any old cement left in the tank. Same with taking down trees. You aren't going to "for sure" know what it weighs until they cut the tree, and then you better have it. Probably demo, trees, and poor ground conditions will cover 80% of the accidents I see.
I wish that was the sketchiest trailer I've seen chunks on. There was one on 435 that I could see the axles deflecting as it bounced up and down.
If you had seen the other side of the trailer- you wouldn't be so sure. It wasn't the best trailer in the world. The tree guy said they had just tore up their other trailer, and their little straight truck which has a dump bed and everything, they had their saws in the bed so didn't want the logs in there. Who am I to tell them where to put the logs.
Went and laid the big fiberglass tank back down. Also fixed a leaking outrigger jack on the Mack. This one had a multi-piece piston head, all the other crane jacks I've been into were 1 piece pistons.
Went and pulled my buddy Pete out of a muddy pasture with the winch truck. I was sliding all over even with my chocks down. He was all "just hook onto the trailer and we'll pop it right out". Ended up doing what we should have from the start- pulled bumper to get at tow hook, then I even had to use the trailer jacks to raise the back of the truck and get some blocks under the drives and get some dirt dug out from in front of the steers. I pulled him first straight on , then moved the truck up on the gravel and pulled him the rest of the way to the road. His truck isn't much of a "off road" machine. I always underestimate how long something like this takes.
Those rescue missions are always a treat aren't they.
Ummmmm I’m curious how he got in that spot to begin with.....
I hate to admit it, but I've actually pulled him at least 4 times on his 20 acre place. Twice with the winch truck, once with my dodge, once with the crane, and once with the mechanics truck- wait that's 5 times. Him and his dad get into it, on where the truck is parked, and I swear he has no rhyme or reason to where he goes to turn around. He's never been stuck in the same place twice. And I'm not the only one who has pulled him out. Sometimes it's great to help someone else out with their issues, makes your own problems seem smaller, or at least that you're not alone in having bad days. He actually backed down the lane, to turn around so I could get out with the winch truck, and backed it right in another mudhole - with the trailer jackknifed and stuck it again before I got off the yard, I don't know what he was thinking.
Grease line that greases turntable bearing on the National was broken/ rotted off. Was only a fabric type grease line. Only way to replace it was to pull the swivel. No other access. We had some time, and I don't like being able to not grease the turntable, so out it came. It's all steel now up through the top plate. I hope to not go back in there again for it.
That looks like a fair bit of work for a grease line you would think engineers would get smart about that stuff
I know Crane Op likes posting thrashed boom trucks, so I thought I would join in. Found a video of a boom truck on it's side that almost went very badly.
Sorry, I didn't mean to pick on the boom truck guys- I'll try to be more equal opportunity . Looks to me like they decided the lane closure wasn't wide enough for outriggers on both sides. Wrecker boys didn't mess around with firing that crane up as soon as it hit the ground. And in the interest of equality for all destroyed boom trucks and cranes (tears shed for all):
OUCH!!
Had a job road call as first started with Union Electric ESL IL. Was a Line crew for Transmission needed a Gas axe and a mechanic to help retrieve a crane. Drove from ESL IL down past the Rush Island plant back along the 345KV lines found the entrance to the access point and as instructed Called the crew boss. Soon enough a FWD F450 Ford came slip sliding to me at the gate, had a Case 855 behind him, the case cabled TO my truck as the FWD disappeared into the muck. Was dragged close to half mile in mud my front bumper was pushing, our shop FWD was IN NO WAY capable of getting thru that mess by itself, get into the open the tech points to a haul road up a sharp knob with a tower on top just stated 'Up There' and left for other things needed done. Crew was doing some weird crap, would climb one tower go to the static wire at top use their safety belts and basically Zip Line out to play Swing Set either to hand over hand back or slip down to the next tower and be hauled back(Yeh Yeh I know the high cost of energy). Get to top of hill, old Grove 84-something squirt boom on its side, boom crumpled, outriggers partly buried partly twisted, my understanding engine ran until toasted. Seems did not have adequate area nor matting to keep the outriggers from sinking and lost it at least NOBODY hurt. They had me cut away the mast, then the D8 showed up, uprighted where I could cut the outrigger retainer pins out and then it got dragged to the gate for disposal. I got to enjoy a ride BACK out behind the 855, heard years later the Boom was STILL sitting atop that knob did not care to remove it.
I love the "disposal" part of it the most! scrap, parting out etc
Water tank in a bad spot this week. Delivery truck couldn't make it around the corner, so I had to set up a couple extra times and transfer. Big power lines coming from our hydro dam pretty close by. I didn't want anything close to those bad boys. There was still some water in the tank, evidently the drain got a little plugged.
A little steep where it broke over backing down in there. It wasn't bad bringing the old tank out, I just lit up the old ford in low and walked it out. Backing the new one down was a little more interesting. Not much weight on the truck, so it just wanted to drag the truck, front tire wanted to lock up, but I got it down in there. Last picture shows where I was dragging the front when I backed the truck and new tank back over the hill.
Got the new tank set. Its always fun when the trailer is sitting on a side hill and the round tank kind of wants to roll coming off the trailer.
Screen at a quarry.
Log sign at a campground. They built it in the ditch under the trees. I had them swing one end out with their forklift, before I stood it up. There was a cross shaped steel piece in the concrete, and a carved hole in the bottom of the poles, one side fit pretty good, the other side they had to do a little carving on.
None of those picks looked very 'Handy'!!! Great work you get.
Man that guys face is in a bad place when the other guy is trimming the bottom of the post. I zoomed in on it to see if I could see the connection hardware and there’s the guys face 2 feet from the tip of the bar, yikes. Now having pointed it out I’m sure I’d do the same thing but I’d chew out any of my employees for doing it. Do as I say not as I do
The guy by the crane isn't in the best spot either if something decides to fly out.
my mothers warning to me was` boy if you can`t listen you`ll have to feel
Went to the hospital and changed out a big condenser. Had to have a lane closure, flaggers, signs and cones etc. They had it delivered to our yard a while back and then we hauled it over there, that tends to be a little easier when dealing with weather and access issues, it puts one more thing in my control. Kinda had to watch my swing and coming out of the rest, the powerlines cross the road right there, and they weren't any too far away.
Set a conex around a building yesterday. They couldn't get the trailer around the corner to drop it there, so we placed it with the crane.
Another one bites the dust... 2018 altec, 33,000 miles, 2,400 hours.
Picked up some parts for the Peterbilt we're slowly, slowly, slowly, fixing back up. One air bag was leaking, two other ones looked bad. Also one of the wheel hubs was ball seat and the rest of the truck is hub pilot, so I picked up some stuff to change that over also. I doesn't take much in parts to be over $600 either.
I was thinking about your pictures and one of my local competitors that rolled his on and icy hill two weeks ago. On my way to a job in Crappy weather this morning my 30 minute drive turned into 45 minutes because I was driving like an old lady.
But it would take a lot more than 15 extra minutes to buff the scratches if you ended up like post #1739.
OUCH!!
I 'm sure you know but I had to learn the hard way, about going down the road with the CraneSmart ATB transmitter NOT being held free. I broke a 2 or 3 before it occurred to me I needed to transport winched up enough to have slack in that expensive little box, no problems after I wised up, loved that unit, on my Manitex 101S
I just have the scale on that crane, no a2b. I've got a2b on the mack/national. I've always liked the cranesmart systems too. Simple and easy to read.
Falling like leaves: 2015 terex crossover 6000
Just asking other than the cable and maybe a winch there is not much useful?????
Maybe the internal retract cables and cylinder? Lot's of odds and ends I'd imagine. What a shame!
I always look at them thinking I could rebuild one. The big question is always whether the main structure is straight. If the boom, the upright turrent, bearing, outrigger structures are all straight, then you would have something. Put another truck under it and fix the cab. But there's always something bent. When you have main sturctural components bent, it just doesn't really work out $ wise. If just the cab and sheetmetal is bent up, then it could work. Anything is fixable, its just whether it makes sense to tie $ up for a year and all the labor to fix everything. Someday I'm going to rebuild one. I keep looking for the right one to remount and fix, but the right one just hasn't appeared yet. The manufacturers can also be a hold up on rebuilding. If they are informed/ find out about a severely damaged machine, they will actually flag that serial #, and then they won't sell parts for that #. .There's also the liability concern- if its ever in any kind of a incident the lawyers would have a field day If you bought one to just part out, and say the boom was good. How long would you have to wait until someone needed that exact boom, and you could sell it? Its not quite like car parts, there's just not the big demand out there. Natman brought up internal cables, if you went to the work to pull a boom apart to replace the cables, nobody is going to buy used cables, you're going to put in new ones, its just too much work to get at them. If someone needed a second winch, used would be way cheaper than factory, but it might take you 5 years to find a buyer. Someday though- I'm going to do one.
Working at the Utility Company wrenched a many ALTEC or TEREX Electric Utility machine. Limits of twist or tweak on any component was pretty slim margins, any that received a hard hit or dumped or been in ANY form of accident got scrutinized beyond reality but had to be for safety. We scrapped quite a few for as little as .080" off specs, too much liability. Seeing them assembled at ALTEC and TEREX showed a level of quality control I did not expect. Now on the other hand our old TEXOMA rigs were beat to a PULP and just kept kicking!! Most of ours were straight squirt booms, NOTHING as to cables internally, ugly part was the Cylinder tube extended with the boom, the ram was pinned at lower end.
It's not woth your safety, and if you hurt or killed someone is it saveing a few dollars
One more Question, seem to me like a lot of wrecked cranes are mounted on trucks. I am guessing that a high center of gravity could be some of the problem? As well as driver error. Are there as many wrecks on roads as there are in lifting accidents for this group of cranes? I do understand that there will always be accidents.
COG has some to do with it, some is inexperience or a taste arrogant knowing they could get it done. Soft ground, crust over mush, a slight tilt not corrected for, lack of adequate outrigger pads/cribbing, in that inevitable hurry, or not quite close enough to the work point and try to just cheat that least little bit and boom angle adjust just a little past safe. Only takes that one time you don't get away with it to contradict all the times had.
I think the large boom trucks- 50 ton and up, are a poor design. It ends up putting all the crane, and outriggers on top of the frame rails, and usually a extra heavy frame rail (tall). Then the boom is extra high just to clear the cab. And the really big ones are typically high horsepower, so the road speed can really get up there. Then it only takes one person doing something stupid in front of you, and over it goes. I would say more get wrecked driving than get wrecked on jobsites. Probably the biggest push in the industry away from dedicated crane carrier to the large boom trucks, is the constant redesign of engines for emissions demands. There's not the market in the Us for 80 ton cranes that there is for backhoes, so having to redesign the whole crane carrier around a different engine and emissions package every two years is hugely expensive. It's a whole different wiring package to run the engine/ gauge package from two locations. And to make everything fit for exhaust/ dpf regen stuff. In the boom truck scenario, the crane manufacturer just has to make the crane, a 5-8 year lifecycle design, maybe some new cab features now and then to update. But they can leave the whole emissions/ trans/ cab issues to Kenworth, Peterbilt, W Star, Freightliner. And the warranty issues. Plus some buyers then feel they can take it to their local truck dealer to get it worked on. My 70 ton truck crane the main rails are a fabricated box beam that the rear axles hook directly too. The outrigger box beams are all actually below the frame rails. The main boom sits much lower. It simply a more stable package.
Set some trusses with the 25. I don't know how well they are going to be able to get in and out of this garage, they better not buy a long bed crew cab because it will never make the corner, and there's no way to get more room with the big ditch bank, unless they build a huge retaining wall. The carpenters said its what they wanted, and they don't plan on changing the driveway.
Some more trusses. They are right up on top of the hill with this house.
Could be just a 'Stuff' storage place, the larger doors make it easier to get Crap in and out. I have been dealing with eliminating OUR Crap piles!! Want my WHOLE shop back!
Crane Op your 25 ton do they still build small dedicated crane carrier, or has the boom trucks taken over?? Thanks for your reply earlier. Hank
I see stupid driveways and garage access on acreages all the time. You have 3-5 acres but have to back out your 400' driveway. People can build a big fancy house and a nice shop but they don't put any thought into getting in and out.
The new cranes that pick what my old 25 does, are "40 ton capacity". Terex and Grove and link belt still make them, Terex is the cheapest and sells a lot more. Grove didn't make one for a while, their smallest dedicated carrier for a while was 60 ton, but I think there was a article this summer that they are going to start up again making the smaller ones. Most have 95' or 105/110' main booms, where my old 25 is only 80' main, so that's nice on the newer ones. But really the market has mostly been eaten up by the boom trucks. I haven't priced new, but in the used market the price is pretty well the same between a dedicated carrier and a boom truck. I drove our Mack home the other day from a jobsite, and it rides way nicer than a dedicated carrier crane, I think a lot of that is the fact that you're typically in front of the front axle in the truck crane , like a old cabover truck , vs the conventional cab that most boom trucks have. If you're doing a lot of traveling, its really nice in a boom truck because of the travel speed. I've been looking at updating, and while I have one 23 ton boom truck, if I get something else that size, it will likely be a 40 ton three axle dedicated carrier. Probably a link belt or a grove. I probably would already own a late 90's/ early 2000's grove ats540 if they had built them with a M11 cummins and manual trans in them instead of a 3126 CAT with a allison. The other option for the capacity I need is like a 18127 National boom truck (40 ton). But they all use a wider outrigger span (24') than the dedicated truck cranes, which are still only 20' wide in the 40 ton range. I tend to set up in hilly conditions, and the 24' outrigger span is a deal breaker for me. The boom trucks also tend to have a lot more frame flex, so its harder to set them up on a hilly site, because the frame isn't rigid enough to use a back jack to pick a front jack and walk them up into the air. They bend the frame around a lot when you're doing that. This is what a ATS 540 looks like, they were a all terrain version of the tms 540, 115' or 90' main, 54' or so of jib, and the big deal- all wheel drive and all wheel steer. That rear steer would be awful nice, and the ground clearance. The not so nice is the 3126- and a max road speed of 52mph (probably because of the road grader tires and the planetary axles). But they sure look like they would climb a tree. What I'll probably end up with is a link belt 8640. 3 axle 105' main, plus jib. They have a really good chart.
Crane op I always learn something on your thread you do a good job explaining to us crane illiterate people how your business works
That ATS 540 looks pretty awesome, having both AWD and rear wheel steer. But like you say, the 3126 (same as C-7 ?) is something to stay away from. But wow, I really like those big rear singles, a great looking rig. Been there/done that in my Manitex 101S. The head CAT mechanic in my area, their shop service manager, hated them and really put me off them. A "throwaway engine", is what he called them. Here's smaller version of the ATS 540:
Link belt 2015. 210 ton crane. Stacked all the weights on and only had outriggers out a little ways. With the boom at a high boom angle, when you swing over the side, they tend to go over backwards. 3,600 hours on it and 15,000 miles. Probably between 1.5 and 2 million $.
Not good hope no one on the ground got hurt.
First thing you do is get them on pads with full outriggers!
why would an operator of a machine that expensive NOT know that outriggers are the VERY first order of setting up
I’d bet they were moving that crane, and hit a soft spot. They want the boom dang near strait up when moving them with full weights. If you don’t have the swing pin locked in, the swing brake isn’t gonna keep it from swinging once the crane tilts. Hard to tell but it doesn’t look like the o/r’s were down. Most 200t and bigger cranes won’t let you boom up to max angle you have the boom fully retracted with full weights. Even with o/r’s extended all the way. Full weights with retracted boom structally overloads the back outriggers.
The contract operators at the Nuke would move our old Linkbelt 80T lattice boom assembled to where needed just boom down swing locked. The newer 100t Liebherr they did the same way as to leaving Jib installed and pointed rearward but set the counter weights to the frame support prior as they had seen this very concern occur, that was explained to me as I questioned dropping the weights.
What do you do when you've got to climb a steep hill with a 44,000lb crane and you're worried about marbling on the rocks and breaking a axle or sliding? Well you just hook up a 36,000lb telehandler so you've got it doing some of the work. Because you know- nothing parties like a rental. Wooden poles for a zip line ride, 1/2 way up a hill. Kind of funny- I was driving by and saw them setting the ones down at the bottom with the telehandler, and it was a sketchy deal. They said "boy are we glad you stopped by, we were ready to go home because we don't know how we're going to do the ones up the hill". Galion to the rescue.
40 and 50' poles, they usually just put them in the ground, but the city here requires a engineered solution, so they have to sit on concrete pads.
All poles set and back down the hill. I did hook the telehandler on the back end, and used it to go down the steep part. If you start rolling on top of the rocks (what I call marbling) you can have your brakes all locked up but it isn't going to stop, you end up just rolling on top of the rocks like a bunch of marbles. So I always try to hook something else on, dozer/ excavator/ telehandler etc, because both machines won't usually break loose at the same time. Glad you're enjoying it.
Billboard?
No its the start platform for a zip line ride. They will build a whole deck and stairway to get up on the poles, then ride it down the hill to another whole landing platform at the bottom.
If you look close in this picture, you can see 4 wood posts standing up at the bottom of the hill- that's where the landing platform will be. I don't know how they are getting the people to the top of the hill, I don't think its one that works like a ski lift where you can ride each way. I would imagine they will have little 4x4 6 seater gator's or something to haul them up there.
Your getting tons of use from the neck breaker, keeps you young great pictures.
I had pictures up earlier of a 200 ton link belt that went over backwards. I was looking through at cranes for sale, and came across this picture. I think this is how they had the crane set up that went over. They just pulled up and short beamed it to stack on the weights, then spun around with the boom up too high, so the boom weight and all the counterweights end up outside the jacks. I see a lot of guys that started out running RT's and then end up in a big all terrain. You can get by doing stuff like that in a 70 ton RT. Not in a 200 ton with 150,000 of ctw.
I have a better picture I could zoom in on, jacks were down.
hard lesson learned
Definitely a lesson that won’t be soon forgotten.
Always thought a crane would be a nice change. Sometimes I think it would be nice to look up for once.
What is the big building off to the right of the zip line
Its a old theater. A church was in it for a while, then they moved to a different building, and its been empty for at least 5-6 years. I doubt if anything goes back in it, the church doesn't have to worry about paying property taxes.
Had to pull the radiator assembly on railway engine. Only way to replace the blowers. Its too bad they had to core the blowers, I know somebody with a undersized detroit one on a car, he could really upgrade with one of these.
Some trusses with the galion. All the sheeting and flooring had frozen from the rain that morning, and it wasn't very nice out, it had rained through the night and then got colder as the day went along. Flurries, sleet, and slick, but we got done and scooted home. Had to drop the lowboy a mile or two away, so quick roaded it over there and loaded up. Only a couple slick spots on the way back, where it had snowed some further north.
Its like Christmas, with presents from the brown truck man. Only these presents are really expensive and you have to buy them for yourself. U joint bad on the pump drive on the mack/ national boom truck. I think the vibration from the bad u-joint, took out the pump bearings. Spit out oil seal on a job, and it held together enough to get torn down and back to the shop (how I don't know- interior of the pump wasn't very nice). Anyways new pump, new u-joints and coupler. Coupler wasn't drilled or tapped for set screws, so had to do a little custom work. Going to put on new filters and hope for the best. I see no way to drain the whole system out to look for debris. Filters and strainers in the tank are just going to have to catch it.
Imagine that same series EMD in a tow, then set them 3 abreast about two feet apart and weld the roof on!! Dealt with that a few times, had to get really ingenious as to dragging blowers out or in, life was SO Much Better then!!!! NOT!! Sweet work you do get though, no chance for boredom!
Those blowers look smaller than I would have expected them to be for such a large engine.
Did you happen to notice what that Morrison Knudsen data plate said next to one that you photographed? My dad ran loader for MK in the early 60's. Never knew they were into locomotives.
Was not their size but the gearing, they spun some faster than the ratio on the old Detroits as the engines ran slower, still made enough scavenge air to clean and fill cylinders properly. Later models had variable speed drives.
Even better- here's a picture. Rebuilt in Boise Id.
Some things in pictures its hard to get a idea for size, so I put my foot in there. That's my size 13 boot- they're pretty big. They dwarf a 6-71 or 6-92 blower.
Thanks for that! I got curious and in my zeal not to eat the plaster off the walls while we are laided off for weather I went Googling. In 1972 MK started MK rail and built railcars. in the 90's for a couple years they built and rebuilt locomotives. I just knew them as a civil heavy contractor, I was very surprised to see that logo in your image! Thanks!
There is/was a place in Jackson TN. that made radiators for locomotives. Also the rear two sections of the pump look reversed old pump vs new pump.
Took the pump to a local little hyd. shop, I try to throw a little business his way when I can. He dismantled the old pump, found the ruined shafts and bearings, and then just threw it back together. I went and picked up the remnants, and didn't think it looked like it was put back together in the right order. He had dimple marked the sections, but hadn't slid them back together like it was. I did a little testing around with some oil before I mounted the new pump making sure I had the intake and output right, with my fittings and such. I don't like it when things get put back together in the wrong order, I didn't think it would take any more time to put it back right. Makes it hard to know whether you have the new one orientated correctly.
I started taking pictures before I take stuff apart. I don't work on near as much equipment as you or others on here do and pictures help me a lot. I've found they really help speed up my assembly time and stop my second guessing. Especially after 4 or 5 months have passed during a project... I do agree about the hydraulic shop putting it back together in the right orientation. It wouldnt have taken him 2 more seconds to do it.
At our shop in Nashville you would have got it back unassembled in a box. Not saying that is the right thing at all, just the way it was.
Did you get a picture of the name tag for next time. You can source from Metaris in MS.
I'm going to replace the winch brake drum and shoes on the galion. So I find a part # on the shoes, and a rockwell # on the drum. Truck parts place could get me the drum, and a forklift place found me the shoes (they were used on a parking brake). Anyways I ordered the stuff, and the shoes showed up last friday, I told him I'd come pick it up when I went to the other store to get the drum. Drum is backordered and going to be a little while, so I sent a guy today to pick up the shoes before the send them back (some places do that if you don't come in to pick them up in time). My guy calls me from the forklift place. The shoes list a part # and come in a box- there's a (2) in parenthesis behind the part #. But guess how many shoes are in the box. That's right, there was only one shoe in the box. Because you know all kinds of people just replace one of the two shoes in a drum brake, so they sell them with only one in a box. I thought it was pretty funny, this is what happens when the bean counters at the manufacturer start running everything- lets sell brake shoes as individual items. The forklift guys are ordering the other one.
Had a busy morning, I had written up my 4th ticket for a job when I stopped at hardee's for lunch- I finished a job with the 70 ton first thing this morning, then three more little jobs with the mack/national. 9 set up and teardowns (4 set ups- 5 teardowns) and about two hours of driving in 5 hours. Rocking and rolling. Its so rare that all the jobs went off, everthing was right and just from job to job to job. Anyways, first pics are of the county culvert replacement. This was a old poured in place lid on wing walls and embankments. They wanted to put in a larger culvert because the water goes over the road on a hard rain. Of course it rains a bunch on the week they had scheduled to replace it. The power lines ran right on top of the centerline of the road- it crossed from on ditch to the other side right on top of the crossing, so we had to have the power company come drop those, the huge ones in the background up high stayed.
38,000lb boxes, I had to get snugged up on the hole. I actually set up twice, once kind of on each side of the road to reach the end boxes.
They spent quite a while hammering to drop the hole down far enough to get the new boxes in. It's all rock down in there, it makes it kind of nice, because you can set closer to a hole. Where I grew up in Iowa, its was all dirt all the way down, and there's no way you can get close to a hole with a crane, it will easily cave in. Not so much when they have to break out the rock. It was still a little dim when we got started this morning. And its always a little odd with big old powerlines like those in the background. I worked a couple years at a powerhouse, and I didn't care for running crane in there either. Big power is no fun.
Was that one of the trains they run for the Ozark Zephyr train ride out of Branson? We spent 5 days in Branson in 2017 and took that tour, and the train and area looked familiar. I really liked the area down there, but the mid August humidity was a bit too much for this northern boy
Yep, its a nice little ride they take here out of town. Mid summer you don't get to see much except leaves on the trees, its actually a prettier ride when the leaves are gone because you can see a little better. Late august can be warm, you learn to work early morning until early afternoon. The 2:00 until 6:00 can be warm.
Pump oil? Ha- gravity is my friend.
Little maintence at the local amusement park. Down with the christmas tree, last time for it too- they're putting up a 90' one next year (this one is about 65'), I'll have to take a bigger crane next year.
One of the guys was running the RT, working in another part of the park, I followed him in with the galion to do the water wheel. The old water wheel was pretty well shot, its just not in a easy place to get too. They are having a new one made, will be all steel, while this one was mostly wood around the steel center hub.
If you think that was a tricky job just think about the guys who had to install those things back when they were new!
Puts meaning to Millwright.
Maybe I spoke too soon, could it be that in his younger days Crane Operator had installed the original water wheel?
I work for our county highway department and we like those concrete boxes. A metal pipe salesman (also a degreed engineer) went to work for our local concrete pipe manufacturer back in 1987. He convinced his boss to invest in the forms for the boxes and off we went. We install 2-3 a year. Install them with a contractor but do some with our own crew. Did one with a contractor this summer, 25 feet deep to the flow line. The soil was sandy, the hole was big So one of the local crane companies estimator comes out to determine the crane needed. They come back the next morning with a pretty big crane and the operator sets up on the "flat spot". First truck with a couple boxes shows up. The operator looks at the bill of lading and says I can't reach the end pieces. The estimator shows up and says, "you guys (the contractor) moved the "flat spot" - "uh no we didn't". Downs comes the hydraulic boom, packs up and leaves "we be back with another one". About an hour later here comes a GMK7550 - 550 tons . It got the job done One question - what do they back fill with between the box and the rock? Looks to be not very wide.
Nope, but its not really "old, old". The amusement park here is built around a theme of days gone by. They have blacksmiths, glass blowers, spinning wheels, etc. The ride was probably installed in the 80's, and the wheel was part of the "look old". But I didn't install it originally. Probably 1" clean. Drop it down the edges and hope for the best. The only way I manage to get these boxes set, is the fact that we have such a rocky ground formation. Makes me able to set pretty close. I've actually been shopping pretty hard for a bigger crane, actually a great guy here on the forum has helped me find one of the ones I'm going to try to go look at, but we've been kind of busy so I haven't had time yet to go. It won't be a 7550 though, I don't have the manpower or the need for something that big. I don't have the metropolitan area to support one that big either. I'm looking at 100- 120 ton rigs. 1- 2 loads of counterweight. Probably the biggest 4 axle rig I can get- or the very smallest 5 axle. The 4 axle makes it tough for my axle load restrictions here in MO. The 5th axle makes it tough to get into some of the places I need to get to, more carrier length is not always good. I actually bid on a crane that sold at auction last week in houston. It was a little newer than I've been usually looking at, and it really didn't bring a lot of money for what it was, it just brought more money than I'm willing to put into one. In hindsight, I probably should have kept bidding, but I kind of have a range I'd like to stay in, and this went over that amount. It sold for $210,000. Which is a really good price, its just more than I really want to spend. 2005 LIEBHERR LTM1100-4.1 120 Ton 8x8x6 All Terrain Crane Viewing 1 of 5
We took about 4 shots at this hill behind the house, trying to back the mack up there. It just got too steep about 3/4 of the way up and we would spin out. I really wanted to back up there to put the turntable where I wanted it. But we ended up having to turn around and drive it up to get enough weight on the drives and off the steer.
Had to do a little bucket repair for one of the guys grandpa. The bucket wasn't really made for his tractor, and they had a cobbled up mess to pin it on. I just made some heavier brackets and reinforced them a little. We didn't have the tractor at the shop to measure off, so I just kind of used the old brackets placement- they had to grind just a little out of one corner to make it fit. We also found a picking eye to put in the middle of the bucket for a shackle. It was rainy cold here Friday so it was a good shop project.
Got to do a little trucking this morning too, moving a food shack to a different spot. He's got a full kitchen in there and we set it last spring for him. We just moved it to a storage yard, I don't think he knows where he's putting it this year.
Met the drilling boys out at a site this afternoon, they're making the hole for a billboard pole. They travel quite a ways with theirs, and they don't drive it, they just have a lowboy haul it.
That drills to be a very expensive rig when new
Cold morning start on a 6v92, unfortunately the wind was out of the east, I was trying to get the smell to khansen in New York. He's probably buried in snow. With the wind from the east, I'm surprised Calif. didn't send me a warning letter.
New pole for a billboard
I'm actually pretty spoiled, the sign builders reminded me of that- they don't get hydraulic outriggers, and I'm kinda fond of a cab and a chair.
Had to set some zip line tower's at a camp here in town. I kind of cheated and had them build me a rock ramp to set up on. Their asphalt road was really steep to try to get set up on. The powerlines are shut off.
It doesn’t look like your DEF system is working lol
This is the other tower on the other side of the lake. It was kind of narrow over there.
Under the bridge and through the river to work on a billboard.
It was muddy on the other bank, it took me about 4 tries to get up the other side.
I did get a pretty good picture of it from up on the bridge when I came back to tear it down and drive back out.
Unloaded a bunch of precast floor panels.
Changing top sprocket on roller coaster. I was a little worried about getting up the hill, but it walked right up in there. I didn't duck much walking under the back outrigger box. I did cheat and make a couple rock piles where the back jacks were. I still had to climb it up and back down in stages.
It actually clears up once it warms up. Its just a little smoky on cold start up. MMMmmm ---- smell of diesel in the morning...
2015 crossover, looks like dumped on its side driving. The second one is a 2014 manitex tc70. I don't know where the boom went, but I'm guessing it wasn't pretty. I don't think someone pulled it out to sell it on the black market or anything.
I recently was told that two of my competitors upset there cranes on the road, the first one was a link belt rt 30 ton, the driver blacked out while driving the float that it was on, he apparently is ok but he had his license suspended. The second was a boom truck similar to mine, it apparently slid off the road on the ice and rolled, I haven’t heard if the driver was hurt, hope not. As much as I appreciate the extra business there are too few good tradesmen around and we need them all.
I got the “ apocalypse now “ reference, well played Sir, well played.
One of the guys took this with his phone of the crossing to the billboard.
and without a paddle
That looks to be an LDH that’s had some hydraulics added to it. They’re good old rigs but it takes three arms to run it well! LDH was a Hughes company. At one time we had several, one was a truck mount converted to crawler mounted. Now we just have a truck mounted very similar to that one.
The driller said it had been his dad's (and was a LDH- a 1985 if I remember right), who just passed away in december. His dad had drove down to texas to pick up some parts for the rig, and didn't show up back home. Wouldn't answer his phone. Son said he tracked him down in a motel, where he had passed in his sleep on the way home with the parts. He said his dad had loved the drilling and the work, and was still running them- I think he was in his 70's. When its my time to go, I could think of a lot worse ways to have it happen.
Interesting foum, I operate 38 t ,Altec , will post some pic, once I figure this thing out ..
Looks like a typical Yukon car wash .
1980 Kenworth 3406DI 380 hp, at Naskup B.C. in 1981 at the truck wash
Hmm. What was that about swinging over the side with no outriggers out? not a good idea with the boom all the way up. This one was on a dock and it went over backwards, lucky for the operator it caught on a boat or he would have been in the water with the crane on top of him.
That's not bad I'm sure it will buff out! I would have to admit that I might never have thought about there being a problem swinging with boom all the way up with not outriggers in place. But then that is why I was a mechanic and not a crane operator! But for a crane operator to not be aware of some thing as basic as that is not a good thing
Scary. See it on the street where newbie operators get a little too big for their britches and just miss being an example of stupidity. Saw a fella with boom well extended decide not to boom back and winch up prior but to just boom down to move load out, raised his outer outriggers off the pads, managed to get the materials on the building just as started to tip and before met that tipple point and the crane settled back but certain he had to go change his shorts after. Heard the kid was year and a half out of Operator School. Cranes always instilled the fear or wrath of stupid in me, outriggers always at full out and tight down, on pads, and never exceed or even challenge any designated criteria the owner or true operator warned me of.
Pesky dock. We had a big wind storm in December that damaged this dock and a couple others, it kind of rammed it toward shore and bent up the leg connections. I brought the 70 ton down, to see if we could lift on section #1 enough to get the legs to fall down and get straight. After about 18,000 lbs, I was up about 12" out of the water, but I was out of chart and gaining a bunch of weight from section #2 which was coming out of the water with it. I did have them strip the concrete steps, but that only got another 4-5".
Called a guy I know to bring in a little help. Tandem pick with a barge. The barge was clear on the other side of the lake, so we met him the next afternoon back at the dock. With him picking on section #2, and me on #1, we were able to get the height we needed, drug the legs around square and loosened the cables on the dock enough to move it back to where it needed to be.
Got my billboard head set. It ended up being heavier than I thought it would be, 19,700lbs. I like a nice still morning for setting them with the faces on them, because they will catch a bunch of wind. I'm glad I didn't build it another 5' away from the pole, I had all I wanted getting it off the ground.
Trusses. I work for this framer a lot, and this is his own house. I get there, and its 84' deep, and no way to get on either side, have to start at the back and work toward the front. Jib and stinger to the rescue. I set the first third or so, and pulled jib and stinger out while they were bracing. I got there about 9:00, and was headed home before 12:00, he doesn't mess around. It was a mudhole beside the house on both sides, and I felt bad for the tag line man, he was a trooper though and slogged through it.
Been kind of cloudy rainy sleety here the last week or so. They're talking a little snow maybe sunday. This is the road out to the house we set trusses for, they can't afford yellow paint, and really the road isn't wide enough for two lanes anyways.
Oh yeah, I can reach that unit, and I wasn't feeling much like jib down in the spot I was in, the old grove don't mind laying down flat. I went and helped the operator tear down the Mack in the rain later that day. He'd been out building and setting this video board. I think it was like 7,800lbs.
A little more work at the big condo building. A couple of large countertops, and some kitchen equipment for the top floor.
That’s condo is the gift that just keeps giving.
Like the snatch blocks, I don’t think I’ve ever seen pictures of yours that showed you using them. I love them and use them every chance I get, they take a lot of stress off objects that need to be stood up, I learned fast when not to use them things go to **** real fast with an unbalanced load.
MODOT repainted some state road around Cameron and the white lines were in the grass.
I’ve posted this before but I can’t let this opportunity pass.
Modot has been pretty dumb or has some pretty dumb individuals working these days. Painted lines on a Section of MO 100, was paved too narrow so had been overpaved across the shoulder, painted lines accordingly and now the weak shoulder area is self destructing
As far as painting over dead animals/stuff in the road, I know a guy who does that, his comment is that painting lines is a "big picture" kind of job. You don't stop a $xxx,xxx truck travelling at 40+ mph costing $xxx per hour to operate, because of some dead raccoon that will make you miss 10" out of a 20 mile job. Likely being painted over a white line that is already present, the job of the day is just to improve it. Odds are the next time they paint in a couple years, the dead raccoon/cow pies will be in different spots, and the car drivers will still know what to do if a couple inches gets missed.
I would`nt bet on that last line
When I first read that comment I was thinking it was about a "line" Crane Operator had hooked to something he was lifting! Then I scrolled back to see what the problem with it was and saw the one about car drivers and then it made more sense! Not always good to jump to end of a long thread and start reading!
I've got a bunch at the shop. Its just really rare that I can't do the same thing by just putting a nylon or steel choker, basketed through a shackle. In this occasion, I needed to hook in two spots and knew the angle relation would be changing, as we went up and down a bunch of times. So snatch block it is. Most of the stuff I end up picking up doesn't have to change relation as its being picked. For trusses off the spreader in a 4 point, I'd rather do a nylon or steel through a shackle because then it isn't constantly rolling back and forth all the way, I hate it when they take one line off, and it rolls all the way over and smacks someone. And then its all the way up at the block and you have to pull it back over to hook the next one up. When you come off the load with a nylon basketed, it will kind of hang where it needs too for the next one. Most of the tanks I stand, I'll just 4 point pick them and let 2 carry it when starting up, they end up hanging level, where as if you have a block, if there's a ladder and hatches on one side they will hang all wonky. And for lifting skids and such, they are too often out of balance, so putting in snatch blocks may even out the tension on the cables, but you don't have any way to hold it level. 4 even sized chokers, and you can add and subtract shackles or even roundups and get a skid to hang halfway straight. They don't have to roll once you have them up. Mine mostly just lay at the shop. Probably the guys that use snatch blocks the most, are guys standing up tilt up concrete panels, that's the only way to keep from destroying them. But the pour in place tilt ups are really too big for the equipment I have, that's mostly crawler or truck lattice territory.
CLAYCO Tiltup uses old Mani's and FMC's here.
I posted a picture up a while back. I saw it was for sale again in a new listing. But it had two listings. Then I realized there were actually two of them, two years apart from each other. Both in the same non terex colors, both western stars, both in elk city oklahoma. I'm betting they were both built for the same company. I bet their insurance company is looking at taking a run at terex. Class action for poor design. They probably wouldn't have a prayer of proving it, but they might get some $. Depends on how good their staff lawyers are. I'm going to beat my drum again, the 50 ton and up boom trucks are too top heavy, they are a way for the crane manufacturer's to not have to deal with the emission constant redesigns, but the center of gravity ends up too high and they are a accident waiting to happen. https://www.ironplanet.com/for-sale...12,c|2089,mode|2&rr=0.0303&hitprm=&pnLink=yes https://www.ironplanet.com/jsp/s/it...expid=.QqfMYJEZQPO8yDupOk-LsQ.0&utm_referrer= The 2012: The 2014:
Can remember when Wheeled or truck chassis cranes were NOT that big, old Bantam 25 tonners, some Grove units where Big tonnage cranes were tracked or really HUGE wheeled lattice units then came along the actual Truck Chassis designs and I agree, sign hanger service cranes were about all they were good for, now they are the typical seen.
Judging by the colors I’d say those belonged to Cudd
City park with a bunch of big old cottonwoods. I trimmed up some of them a couple years back, they wanted some more dead wood cut out. Used the fixed basket on the rt, and managed to weave in and out of the tree branches and not take out the a2b wire. The old cottonwoods are kind of deceptive, they are big trees, but they don't look as tall as they actually are. I was running 32' of jib on top of 110' of main, and I had it all out several times, and wasn't to the tops.
Spent two days out there trimming trees.
Part of the back side is the old riverbed channel, and it sets kind of low. If its been raining any at all, its like a swamp in the old channel. I was glad it wasn't any wetter, I left pretty good ruts, lucky I just had to make one trip in and one trip out.
Had to tow the galion back up the mountain at the zip line. They were stretching cable, and broke two poles off. Their usual method is the poles sunk in the ground, but the city engineer wouldn't accept that, so they poured concrete pillars and bolted them to the pillars. Of course that makes a stress point right at the attach point to the concrete, and it broke right there. The installers weren't happy campers, and less than pleased with the engineer's. Of course it all works on paper- or should I say CAD drawing?
Had to do a little work to the winch brake on the rt, it was sticking. Its a spring loaded brake pack so I like to put them in the press to pull the keeper ring. I have a spare winch and went and got the overrunning clutch gear out of it to line up the one I was repairing, for installation. Thought I'd show off my new toolbox too, its a spicer brand.
Purty nice box ya gots ther!! You do some spectacular work bub, keep it up, and keep on the Enganear that came up with the job security!!
Delivered the galion to a job this morning for monday, and put in jib and offset, the little underslung A frame is a pain in the, well you know what. Then brought the lowboy back and loaded up the Rt for its monday job. Had a big rainstorm all night and part of the morning, and it was windy on the back side of that storm. We showed up on that jobsite just in time to see the north wall come down in the wind, and we tied the west wall to the crane. Spent a couple hours helping them try to reinforce their inadequate bracing, and the wind was fighting us the whole way. I don't know if it will make it through tonight. I know for sure they aren't going to be ready for monday to set trusses. They have to rebuild one wall, and the east and west ones are really tweaked. Its a big building, and they weren't letting them shoot any holes in the concrete to attach bracing. So the contractor wasn't doing the framers any favors.
Wind is STILL screaming here, likely be past midnite before settles down, has a tendency on our little knoll to throw all manner of stuff off my porches. Had to aid our renter as their cows got loose, were headed to the highway as we caught them, had my old ford in 4x4 Lo to get across the muck and slime in the pasture, got back out to the road, damn thing won't come back out(electric crap) have to delve into that tomorrow.
Had to go to the license office to turn in my medical card ($2 please- for them to punch the computer buttons), anyways, there was a mcdonalds bad laying right in the parking spot. I hate people littering, but I was kind of surprised at the litter, Big Mac and a opened pregnancy test. I don't know what the results were, but I guess I never thought of the shopping mall parking lot as the place to "find out the news". People are strange.
Had a great indoor job for a rainy nasty week here in town. We had to install all the precast I unloaded a couple weeks ago. Tandem pick and carry through the doorway, then set the second level up under the roof.
Had to make them cut the hole in the wall a little bigger. I had enough width, but they were only 10'6" tall, Galion needs 11'6" or so.
Took down the last of some christmas decorations also. Lit up globe at the amusement park.
Lost a gasket on the oil cooler on the rigger/mechanic ford. 2001 450 with a 7.3. Mechanic put in all the gaskets except the front on to the block, that was the one that was leaking. We pulled it back out, did that gasket and I helped him shove it back together. Unfortunately, on the second go around, I had the big o ring fall off the cooler. The radiator looked like a volcano when the oil started shooting out of the cap. Third time was charm though. A little dishwasher soap in the radiator should clean it back out. If you ain't doing something wrong, you probably aren't doing anything. And yes my shop bench always looks like that, except after I clean up, which hasn't been on the schedule yet this year.
Thanks, I thought about scrawling "snap on" with a sharpie on it, but then I couldn't afford it.
Also, in case anyone wasn't really paying attention, I got to run our galion, and one of my guys got to run the rental broderson. The galion has this nice little glass roof and doors, neither of which the brodie had. We had decided the day before who was going to run what, and I didn't complain or offer to switch the next day when we started in the rain. I did have to turn on the windshield wiper, and I did dig up a old mudflap to put on the broderson's cage as a roof of sorts, along with a trash bag for the seat, but offer to switch- I did not. The broderson is a stout little rig, with pretty nice controls, but there was something not right engine wise with it. LP version of what looked like a 4.3 GM (350 with 2 less cylinders). Anyways, this one ran terrible. And burned through 4 bottles of fuel in two days. I would have called the rental company, but I needed to set precast, not wait on their mechanic. So we just burned fuel.
rather soggy view out front
Can relate to the Med Card charge. Nasty way to set precast.
I could have probably avoided the whole thing. The contractor had bare rented the broderson. Called me to just unload the trucks. He was going to use one of his guys, who has never run a crane, and try to set all the precast with just the broderson, they were 14,500lb pieces. The broderson got delivered with just ball in it, and they were primed to unload like that. I installed block in it for them, and told them I could probably get the panel unloaded, but there's no way to set them with just it, no head height for rigging and its not enough crane to spin them. But they could do what they want. At that point, I could have just walked away- its really not my deal. But I could see a disaster coming, and did my best to explain how its really not enough machine to do what they wanted to do, even though the rental salesman told them it was- its a 18 ton machine, why couldn't it set 14,000lbs? "Well maybe we can have you come set them". I'm always glad to have work. I told them I would tandem pick them with my galion and the broderson, and was only going to do it with my operators. No way was I trying to set them up under that roof with a new guy. My operator is a really good hand, so we could just carry them in, and set them. No training required. Job went really well, considering the room constraints we had.
Roof trusses Friday morning. I got about 5 bundles set and had to quit- it was just too windy, leftover from the big wind thursday. I hate to cancel before leaving the shop, I like to go and give it a try, but as the morning went on, it just got worse.
Other operator had a tree Friday morning with the galion up in springfield, he got back in time to go load the rt and bring it out to the golf course so we could set this irrigation box. 12,000lbs floor section and 20,000lbs wall section. Old winch truck comes through for the jobsite hauling. No way to get the delivery semi back where we were going.
You have a mast anemometer? The newer Grove at the NUKE actually had one that worked. Some days just does NOT pay to take chances, too much that can go south in a heartbeat.
Had to have the excavator carve us out a little spot in the hill to get set up on.
Nope, have the older version, the a$$nemometer. Usually by the time I decide its too windy, they already want to quit. The old cranes are kind of like montana's old speed limit- "safe and prudent". The "wind chicken" is kind of a nice feature, but it may tell you wind speed, but it doesn't show you wind load from what you are picking. It gives the operator a nice out "its too windy, my alarm is going off", no guesswork involved.
Better two fresh cuts than two fresh Fills! That your Rigger?
We had a loads of wind at the Nuke, High spot for site, flat as a board, loads of short buildings to create ground turbulence and Square Concrete structures with flat roofs to accelerate winds already high.
Yep, he's a senior and off for spring break, I had him come along for help. I had my other operator to drive the ford, and this way we could get it all back home. Headed home on friday afternoon.
Finished up the roof trusses sat. morning. Was a lot nicer day. Two sets, one on top and one down in the hole. Was kind of crowded in the hole putting on jib, needed ladder to put in the pins.
The last of railway crane is gone. (it was really a dragline) The middle piece, the bottom swing box, was so heavy we had to bring a counterweighted forklift to lift from the other side, forklift on one side and crane on the other side, to put on a truck.
Well was it worth cutting up? You didn't have to give much for it, its just a lot of time and gas to cut it all, but there was a lot of weight there. First pic is a little air exchanger. Rest is from today's job. Sewer treatment plant and a bad section. They had to replace some of the little white panels.
We actually got the panels changed. Reinstalled. They had it running and I was mostly tore down, when they came over and said it had to come back out, something was wrong. So I set all back up again, and pulled it back out. A hose in the bottom of the active tank had broke loose when they unhooked it, so they are going to have to pump the tank all the way out to fix that.
Decided that the trailer deck was just too bad, so in the shop it went. We've got most of the screw heads off, and I've got some wood from the mill, its like its almost finished. We didn't even try to take out the old screws, the deck was pretty bad, and one of my guys and I each started in with some bars, and we had most of the deck pryed off by 10:00 or so. Cut off wheel takes care of the screw heads.
It was definitely worth the time. It did not take that many days, but we could not work in freezing weather because my crane does not work in freezing weather. I think that the air dryer is not functioning or something. So the project got delayed and my crane stayed there all winter. Nice redecking job.
Compliments on the redeck. Loads of detail work cutting away the old bolts but worth it. Curious on the nose joints, trailer deck flattens out?
Curious, what kind of wood you are using?
Looks to be Oak.
Its a traveling axle tilt bed trailer. Made for driving paving machines and rollers etc. Mine was originally from a asphalt company in Kansas. The rear axles have their own sub frame, they slide ahead, then the 5th wheel and neck stays stationary and the lower deck pivots and puts the tail on the ground, making the deck a wedge from the top of the neck, tapered to the ground. With the winch on the neck its real nice to drag a non running semi on the deck. Mine is a trail- eze brand, the most common ones of that type are landoll, but I don't like the older landolls, they pivot up on the 5th wheel, and the whole trailer goes up. The landoll is a lot lighter (no sub frame), which gets you more payload. But they aren't as stable as mine. Kind of like the difference between a frameless dump trailer and a frame type. I think the newer landoll's are more like mine.
White oak. From a local sawmill.
That’s beautiful wood. Can’t get anything like that around here.
Still prefer Cottonwood!! Nice trailers Trail-Eze, seen quite a few with the wrecker crowds around here had not had the pleasure of working on any as yet, Landolls are not garnered with much affection here either.
Flipping tanks upright so they can pressure check them before shipping them out.
Went back on Monday and laid them back down. Left the cranes sit there over the weekend.
Tire flap gave out, so I rasselled around with it yesterday afternoon. Needed it this morning to set a unit.
Right up on the hill, it was kinda clear first thing in the morning By the time we got the unit set, the fog had rolled in and I had to come back in a couple hours to take the crane home. It was too foggy to drive it home. Got a little start on putting some decking back down. Picked up a new cordless drill and impact driver at Lowe's. Of course I ended up having to get out the corded drill, there's some things that cordless just doesn't have the oomph for, like drilling a whole bunch of holes in stringers for a trailer deck. The little driver hammers the screws home pretty good though. I went with dewalt cordless because my grease gun uses that battery system. I stared pretty hard at a cordless 1/2" impact, but I just couldn't bring myself to drop another $175 on it. Maybe would use it more than the drill and screwgun.
If you had the impact you’d use the crap out of it. I have a 3/8 and 1/2”. The little 3/8 gets used almost daily.
I was thinking the smaller of the two 1/2" drive impacts, the "compact" one. The bigger one has more torque, but I was thinking more for swapping rears, trans, or other awkward places, that the little smaller package would be better. I did buy a new 3/8" adaptor for the impact driver I got. Those disappear more frequently than anything else. I will say that I wasn't very impressed with the battery life. I bought the "brushless" ones, they looked a little better built and are supposed to get better battery life. I ended up using my grease gun battery because its a lot bigger battery. The two batteries they sold with the drill/driver package were the smaller ones, and they aren't up for driving a bunch of holes.
Yeah the small ones don’t last long. My 1/2” is the bigger brushed motor. It’s kinda clunky and off balance but it hits hard. The smaller one would be a lot handier for balance and getting in tight spots. The bigger batteries are definitely the way to go with anytning like an impact. My grease gun does ok on the smaller ones. There also seems to be varying quality in the batteries too. If they don’t have the little charge indicator they’re junk based on my experience.
That a spare 3208 or an 1160 up on the shelf?
Was a accident report from W St Louis county on a job site yesterday. Was about a excavator operator had his ear buds in listening or jamming to tunes, repositioned and as could not hear the crew yelling stop swung counterweight into a deliver truck cab. Was on the news then Gone like never happened.
At least when you have a flat on a crane you don't have to worry about finding a jack.........
same thing for a backhoe … Can even use the hoe to load the flat into the pick-up like a crane.
I don't worry about flats on my backhoe. It's attached to a track loader, tough to get a flat on a steel track.
Can attest to having a flat on a crawler, is absolutely no fun to fix
3208T, but it smokes like a street hustler longing for a fix. Actually from a New holland combine, bought used to replace a blown one. After the work to get it installed, the "good runner" from a junkyard, was pulled right back out and set on the shelf. I think its mostly all there, its just not much use to anyone without some work. The exhaust manifold ports on the heads are all blown out, and I just wasn't going to put it in a 50,000lbs crane and expect it to last long. So if anyone needs a not real great 3208, just shoot me a message.
Went down to the local hydro dam this week. Evidently the engineers decided the old 12 1/2 ton rail crane that they've used since 1955 to maintain the tailwater gates, isn't big enough. So we placed two 10 ton chain hoist gantry's to use instead of it for maintence, until they can have a new rail crane built.
HVAC Unit with the 25 ton
Two pieces of plate steel. 6' x 24' x 3" thick. Will be the base plates for a new sign. 18,000lbs each
Old Chris Craft cruiser boat. Loaded up and moved to a farmers yard. Says he's going to plant it in his pond for the grandkids to play on if he can't get it water worthy.
The son's ford got some new brake rotor/ hubs and brake shoes, and I didn't even have to do them. I did give them a little check over, but it was all his project. Went to look at some generators at a resort that they are tearing out, they want me to load out the remnants to a buyer. The thieves have already been there. They sawzalled both the radiators above the lower tanks, and had been at the generator part of one of them. I had the local rural power rep out there to talk about covering power lines to remove the one, and he said they didn't stop at the generator. They actually stole the transformer that was sitting right in front of the generator also. The bigger one is some big v cummins. The smaller one is the cat one, its a 3412 if I remember right.
New video board. No where to sit, I think I could have got it with the 35 ton, but I didn't have anywhere to put jib and dead stick in at. So 70 ton and full main and reached over the close side and set the sign on the far side.
70 ton has a non rotation resistant cable on the main winch. Its been on there since I bought it, and I usually just run that winch with block, and run the rear winch with ball on. I put in my single sheave block with a two part, to set the sign, but it doesn't like it when you run out 127' main. It wants to unload itself and spool up/ twist up on itself. I tried giving the becket a couple turns, which will usually make it stop, but ended up having to resort to a old iron worker trick. I got the block low enough, and untwisted the line, and then tied the upper part of the block to the hook, so it couldn't spin up on itself. Essentially using the load to keep the cable from twisting up. You want to make sure then, that you don't have to spin the load, but I had like 12 twists in it when I tried to make the last pick, and then it wants to jump sheaves by the time you get the block up to the top. You can see it kind of spun up on itself in the last picture in the post above this one. It seems like it only gets worse once it starts to want to twist. I should just bite the bullet and put 700' of rotation resistant on the big front winch, but what's on it is still good cable.
Gaining on the trailer redeck, I get a hour or two here and there and get some more boards down. Its maybe just a little too much like work. I've had to order more screws, I can't estimate very well I guess. The Mack is getting all new bushings for the s cams. The mack hasn't had the best care in its previous homes. New bushings, shafts, and adjusters. The bushings were gone, the adjusters hadn't see much grease, and the shafts were grooved from the bushing issues. The shoes had been replaced, but the old owners didn't get any more ambitious than that. The main pivot bushings under the camel back is going to need replaced too. Its on the list, one step at a time- Work on it as it makes a little $.
Damn vandals, those generators don't look that old.
Vultures do tend to find the dead meat quickly. Local Hospital not far from here closed some two years ago, their generators(2) got hit four times before the skeletons got hauled off. When I worked ESL IL at Union Electric the thieves were pretty blatant. Got a call to road service for a bed spring wrapped around drive shaft, get there and the line crew were trying to align for new poles and transformers as the thieves had chain sawed the poles on a hot line, as the line fuses popped they sledge hammered the transformer lids and pulled the windings with the oil spread in the alley. They also grabbed as much wire as could cut away quick. Thinking was they were on scene less than 15 minutes.
At least the Dog has cam brakes, last mutt I enjoyed working on was Bendix Wedge brakes. When working work good, when not they can be all manner of screwed up. We ended up busting drums to get them off as had a 1/2" of wear in and could not get the adjusters to back off. Full set of kits all four drives. Odd part was steers were near to new, did apply when stepped on brakes but could get wheel to pull through, had a make shift throw limiter in the brake chambers kept them from doing much at all, we left them in and replaced diaphrams.
As a Mack driver, I had to laugh when I heard the term "mutt!" I had already heard the Mack joke about "how do you like driving around looking at a dogs butt hole all day?" I will heretofore refer to my 30 ton national as the Mutt.
Looks like that poor breaker bar has seen a cheater pipe or two. Had to point that out. I can’t get one to bend like that. I always seem to sheer the drive end clean off. The answer for me was a 1’ to 3/4 impact adaptor welded to an 8’ pipe. Heavy sob but it never even acted like it was come loose.
Must be something in the air....I’m doing brakes on the lowboy. Shoes, drums, seals, bearings, cam bushings you name it. Did I mention brakes aren’t my favorite thing to do.....
Must be them Brake lining and Iron termites or grease worms, do a hell of a job on S-cams and bushings too!!
I had the pleasure of meeting crane operator last night. He & Mrs crane operator were traveling through the area. We met them for supper (thats dinner for you yankees) and hung out a while. They followed me to the office this morning and we talked cranes a while and kicked some tires. Like me he married up. It was a nice visit. He is exactly the same in life as he is online. It was truly a pleasure. If you feel the need to fight him, bring backup. He is good size fella.
Couldn’t agree more! He’s handy in a bar fight! Haha
Shoot- you boys just stopped growing up. That, or my upbringing required a lot more positive reinforcement treatment, to my lower rear area, encouraging my upward growth. A big thank you to Impact for the hospitality. We had a wonderful time visiting, and I think I'm still full from supper. Its a pleasure putting faces and places to people you've met online. Its nice to converse with people in a similar situations to your own, and use as a sounding board for issues- and success and failures that we all face and have. Impact and Junkyard are both great guys that I've had the privilege of meeting. There's a lot to be said, for the pleasure of having strangers become friends.
A little ac unit the other day. 25 ton. The first one wasn't too bad. Needed jib for the second one.
Steel beams the afternoon after the AC unit. Jib twice a day makes me wish for a little more main boom. I was okay on main for the steel, but the framers wanted a beam set "just swing right over here". Jib and another 50' of radius .
Water valving protection concrete box. Just under the tree. 8400lbs. No boom trucks need apply. Laying flat and power scoping isn't for every rig.
Drug the galion back up the hill again to put in some cross beams for the boys building the platform at the zipline.
They gonna set concrete on all that steel?
I never like steel supported by wood
Yes, pan deck and then poured garage floor. All the sloping lots around here, its pretty common for a garage.
How thick are the basement walls under the steel? 2x8, 2x10, 2x12? Quite the design with the extra bracing in the walls.
I am also interested, typical for construct? Appear to be 2x6 or 8, nothing Steel inside wall boxes, that is some serious Concrete loading and still going to put a garage atop that?
If I'm seeing it right does look like the "studs" in the wall supporting the steel beams are on 12 inch centers?
Sorry boys, I didn't get any closer to the walls than from where I snapped that picture from. There is no steel in the far wall, just a wood "beam" made up of studs supporting the far end of the beam, the close side has a steel plate on the concrete wall.
Fair enough
Years ago I was hauling equipment for a large contractor in the area. They kept a 40 ton(ish) Link Belt in town (painted red and white, just like your Grove--which throws me off every time a see a picture) and that operator "power scoped" all the time. Sometimes I wondered if he knew how to raise or lower the boom. He would just suck it in and out. I thought he was scary, but he kept that job for years.
I rarely power telescope, its only in a situation like this where you don't have any choice. Its much easier to just boom up and down. New concrete plant unload. Needed both cranes for the two tall tanks, its easier to unload those with two cranes rather than one. But the tank was last, so we each unloaded two semi's of hoppers and leg stands first with the RT and the 35 ton.
They had the big split tank loaded with about two inches between the drop neck of the trailer and the rotary switches in the lid of the tank. I put blocks between the neck and the lid of the tank, so if it slid a little it would just be on the lid, not ripping off the switches.
Tandem unload of the taller tank.
They had the old drilling rig going again, making another hole for a billboard pole.
That's an old monster.
Put a lowboy support on brace on the peterbilt. The lower beam is just covering up the tail lights so I didn't melt them while welding the plate on. Its getting closer to hitting the road. I'm still planning on some of the mud flap brackets with the taillights mounted in the bracket, I've got them on a couple rigs and I like those, its like mid mount turn signals. Too many other irons in the fire, and I just haven't wanted to spend the $ yet. Unloaded the other cement plant silo. The lay down yard is right on top of the hill. I left the RT up there and one of the guys unloaded the last three loads Friday.
Yard full of stuff needing attention. They finished up the brakes on the mack, it went to one job and came back with all the wheel seals leaking. My mechanic guy lost it, he's like "I know I didn't put them all in wrong". I think the issue is the National seals seat in just a little deeper on the spindle, and the crud on the inner portion of the spindle kept the seals from holding on the spindle. That's my theory. He's thinking the seals are wrong. We'll see. The 35 ton had a antifreeze leak from a small hose. I just parked it boomed up and figured I'd fix it cold in the morning. I smelled it coming home and "I know what that smell is and its not gushing out, I'll fix it at the shop".
Got the billboard unloaded and the pole set. It was kind of a tight spot backing blind for the delivery truck to get in. It was the same lady delivery driver that we had last time, and she's a old interstate driver, and "I'm still getting used to getting into jobsites". I told her I would stand up in front of the truck, and show her which way to turn the wheel and put it right where it needed to be, and she was thrilled. Some guys won't take the help and its a pain getting them in there. Her eyes did get big when she set her park brakes and it just started sliding down the hill on the grass. We chocked the trailer and the truck.
Nice rainy day yesterday, so I quit dragging my feet and finished the trailer re-deck. I even had some wood left over, I think that makes up for ordering extra screws twice. I was down to the last three small sections when I broke my last new drill bit, so I had to sort through the trash for the best of the bad to finish. I did over half the trailer with two bits, and then I had troubles at the rear of the trailer where its been redone several times, I had a hard time not hitting old screws and that snaps bits in a hurry. That or I was just worn out and not doing as good of a job.
Looks like a nice tidy job on the decking. Better be careful not to get sawdust in your blood or you’ll be selling the cranes and start “ bending nails “ for a living. Is that a barbecue on the front of the float ?
There is always a little pucker factor, especially the first time, when you realize you are mostly a passenger in a 40 ton sled.
Yeah, I don't know where the grill came from, I think one of the guys drug it in. The trailer still needs parked out back and a good layer of used oil rolled into the wood, but I'd rather not have that mess in the shop. It was kind of fun to drag out the table saw and miter box, I haven't used them much in the last 15 years. I used to have a nice little woodshop in the basement of the house we used to have, but that was before kids. The lady driver was a hoot. I went and picked her up at the menards down the hill where she was parked. "Oh my, up there? what kind of a grade is that road?" "Pretty steep, but I got the crane in there." "Around here in the grass? And then back down through the trees down there?" "Yep, right down there by the crane." "THIS is going to take a while. You'll have to be a little patient while I back down there." "If you don't mind, I'll just stay in front of the truck and point which way to turn the wheel, once we start backing down there." "Oh my, that's the best thing I've heard all day. You wouldn't believe the places they want me to take this truck, the other day, they wanted me to DRIVE right through a ditch. My boss says to get the truck wherever the customer wants it, but don't tear up the truck. (which is the most boss like statement, do everything up to the point you tear something up, )" We were laughing the whole time and it was great fun.
Crane operator do you usually work 6 days a week or try for less??? but your the best so work comes first????
I'm pretty lucky hank, I enjoy my work. If someone would pay my bills, I'd do it for nothing. I'll run crane any day that a customer will pay me to. I do work most saturdays, its the easiest day for me to get something done without anyone bothering me. I've got some great employee's too, and that helps get things done during the week also. Sunday afternoon I usually have to work a hour or two to get things ready for the week. It helps the shop is less than 5 minutes from the house, to just run down there and put some equipment in the shop or load something up quick. I try not to work much past 5-6pm most days, unless I'm on a job. I spent probably 6+ years commuting to two different jobs over a hour away from the house when I was younger, and that racks up the hours gone in the week. I get more done in less time now.
And in case you didn't notice in the pictures, I don't spend a ton of time on shop clean up. I'm so jealous of some guy's spotless shops, I'm just too lazy. It seems like I'm fired up to go to my next project, and I'm never willing to take the time to clean up. My mechanic was off most of this winter with some health issues. I kind of created my own version of a toolbox, its a piece of plywood on a furniture dolly. I just move it from project to project, and add and subtract as necessary. It's slimmed down a little, I had to move some of the stuff to the bench after I dumped it all. My mechanic is still romping and stomping around the shop looking for tools and such and cranking around about everything being scattered and disorganized. The toolbox of shame: also- I can't be that busy, I still have time to post up pictures here.
if it gits the tools to where ya need em
I saw the biggest SnapOn tool box today, ever. At a large heavy equipment, mostly cranes, repair/maintenance facility in SLC. It was over 6' tall and at least 8' long, and assuming it was full of SnapOn tools, the whole shebang was probably worth 50K? Maybe more? The shop's labor rate is $135.00 per hour by the way. I've got a homemade roll around bench, the same height as my main workbench, and a mix of tools, maybe one or two SnapOn's, real nice stuff but I'm no pro and their price is hard to take.
A full Snap-On box full of Snap-On tools could easily be over 100K. The box alone could be 15K. I know a guy who probably had 100K worth of Snap-On tools and had most of them stolen from his former chicken farm when he decided to take some time off and go to Sturgis and just get away for awhile after selling all his chicken quota. He used to own an auto wrecking shop and then a busy mechanic shop. I don't think he had insurance on his tools at the farm. I think they were stolen by someone who knew he was away. I haven't talked to him in years but another friend says he doesn't like to talk about it. He also never bothered to winterize anything and had his pipes in the house burst. Broke up with his wife because she cheated on him (he didn't treat her very good), then a new much younger girlfriend got homesick and moved back to her home town in another province. I think he regrets breaking up with his wife.
All I can sy is the guy sure does have a problem with making poor choices in life!
At least he is consistent in his decision making
Got the head built for the billboard. It was kinda muddy after the rain, so I just took the galion down there.
Couple of units to set at the local mall. No room to swing jib in there, so we swung jib out in the parking lot, then down the center with jib over the nose. Pulled the stinger out on the jib once we got in there. Its tough this time of year, it doesn't get light real early, and you have to be in and out of there before 9:30 in the morning. About the time I get in there and set up, all I can think about is hurrying up and tearing down and getting back out again. About 100' over there to where the units set.
Roofing steel at the lumberyard sales center we put the trusses on a while back.
Had to skate this generator out from under the power lines. Couldn't pull the cover off without being in the lines, so we jacked up the cover, and put it on top of the skid and skated the whole thing. Winch truck is nice and slow for the tugging. I think they said it weighed 22-24,000lbs when they loaded it out the next day. Big v-16 cummins in the generator. All run off one PT fuel pump. 1470HP. Don't think I could shoehorn it into my 35 ton grove.
nice bar setup don`t believe that cummins would fit my pete either
Stacked up the last of a conex wall this morning. One of the other guys built the first three rows a week or two ago, the last three just came in. I took my raincoat with me when I left the shop, because then it usually stops raining, but instead I still got cold and wet. Not terrible, I still have a cab, but I never put on rain pants so it just runs off the coat onto my pants. I was at least thinking ahead enough to put block in yesterday afternoon while it was still dry.
What are they going to do with the conex wall?
I think they are going to sheath the other side, and its going to be a large panel to display/project images on- kind of like a old drive in theater screen. Its at a local amusement park. 12 conexes x $3,000 per is $36,000 wall. But you wouldn't buy much structural steel for that kind of $, that you could take down and resell in a couple years when you want to change things again.
But it would sure be cool if you could make it fit!
Sure looks fun and interesting.
I think a K50 might be just a tad heavy for the Pete's front axle! But before you go for that one be advised there is an 18 cylinder version if you need a bit more power for the hills!
Last Friday was my day. Went to my first job, set some steel plates. They weren't ready, so I skipped them across the wall and moved the crane, and went to do another job. Discovering in the process that I had leaking power steering line on the 35 ton. Then went to do a different job, with the 25 ton. On the way to the job, it sounded like a turbo boost leak on the crane, but I checked at the jobsite and couldn't see anything. Made the first set up, and went to tear down after my picks in that spot, and the winch wouldn't cable up. Cable had hopped the drum on the last wrap and got wedged. But in hopping out to find that, I discovered a huge gushing pile of engine oil growing under the crane. Quick broke the crane down to travel, and moved it to the corner of the parking lot. Went back to the shop and got the mack. Finished the job with it. Couldn't really see where the oil was coming out of the 8.3 in the 25. Somewhere behind the air compressor/ injector pump. It was running ok, just puking oil everywhere. Did find a bolt laying in the oil puddle. About a mile and a half or so back to the shop, so I poured some oil in it and went home. It made it, but it was leaving a pretty good spot, when I stopped and spun the boom over the rear before backing into the shop. Finished up the plates with the 35, and poured some atf in the power steering res. and just drove the 35 home too. But things go bad in three's, so I got mine all done in one day!
crane operator, Not wanting to wish bad weather on you but do hope you get some good steady rain soon to wash off the road from that leak! As a motorcyclist I can tell you those little drips can be very dangerous. I know it not wise to ride in the center of the lane but sometimes you have to when changing lanes or turning.
The plate job with the 35 ton was the plates I unloaded a while back. They are around 3" thick, 6-7' wide and around 24' long. Couldn't have rigging under the plates, because how it set on the stand, so I had the welder make up some picking plate brackets. Used some c- clamps to keep it from sliding, even though I didn't think it would. Worked like a charm.
In other news, parts and pieces are starting to show up for my next project.
We've had a little rain, so I think we are ok. I just would rather fix things at the shop if there's any way. If we had been any further away, I would have probably drug it up on my rollback trailer instead of driving, it was leaking pretty fast. The compressor had a mounting bolt work out, and the power steering pump hanging on it made it crack the housing of the air compressor.
I've made two trips to North Carolina/ Kentucky and back in the last two weeks. Two weeks ago we made a loop and looked at some cranes for sale. The ones I was most interested in were a grove gmk 150 ton, and a liebherr 100 ton. I really liked the grove, it was n14 down and 6bt upstairs. 151' main and 131' of jib. It was only a 4 section main boom 151', and full power, not a locking pin boom. Much less complicated than the locking pin booms. I ended up deciding that it was just going to be too big. 5 axle carrier, and being only a 4 section boom it stuck way out over the front cab in the rest, and wayyy out the back in boom dolly. It was also 28' wide on outrigger jacks, a real pain in my crowded jobsites. The 131' of jib sounds nice, but there's just not many jobsites I have the room to put together that much jib and get it off the ground. Every crane I went and looked at that had inserts, they were all stacked out in the weeds and hadn't been used in years. It was really a smooth operating crane, and they had kept up on the maintence.
And this is what's coming home, I finished loading it in North Carolina yesterday at 3:00. I made it home today by noon. He didn't get permits to leave North Carolina until this morning. I left Friday after my great productive day. Got it running Saturday, read the operators manual at the resturant and motel room that night. Went there Sunday morning and figured out how to undeck the weights and run boom in and out. It had been setting for over a year. Maybe a year and a half. I'm on my second set of fuel filters. And I've drained 2 gallons of water out of the fuel tank. Along with the bottom 3 gallons of fuel, that didn't smell great either. I'm going to just drain what's left of the fuel when it gets home. Its got some other issues, nothing major, I think its all related to not having moved for a long time. Anyways, 157' main boom, 62' of jib. Only 23' wide/ 27' long on jacks, so narrower but just longer than my rt- the compact package is probably what sold me on this rig more than anything else. 35,500 of counterweight.
All the weights and boom dolly I loaded up on a trailer Monday morning. I was sure glad I had the crane running. It would have been a big pain getting the weights off and loaded if it wouldn't have been. It wasn't able to operate the first time I went out there and looked at it.
Loaded up crane tuesday. I pulled out block and took the pads off and put them on my truck. Also took off all the front steps under the cab so that area was open to clear the trailer. Delivery driver thought he might make it here by Friday night. It was a heavy tall trailer. He said he was 60,000 gross empty, so with 90,000lbs of crane along, he probably isn't setting any speed records getting here.
Nice looking machine I hope it treats you well
Nice looking crane. You won't know yourself with that, they're certainly a step up in comfort, chart and maneuverability from the old truck mounts.
I don't know how much fuel is left, but it might be worth it to do an algaecide treatment instead of draining the tank(s).
Nice tool for lifting the plates. Just curious why they need such heavy plate on an entrance? Something real heavy going on top?
Nice looking crane! Ritchie Bros. has a huge 5 day sale in Nisku coming up with some nice looking cranes in it.
Very nice unit, should be pleased with that as is a small package. The mechanics/millwrights that used the Liebherr at the plant said it spoiled them. Only thing they screwed the pooch on first off on the plant crane was twin winches, two hooks, to stick out had to swap back and forth to lower both hooks as were independent and could not run both same time, they two blocked the sheeps head sheared cable and dropped the compound block. Had been a whole three weeks on site.
All this expert consulting and the first pics I see are on the forum.....? Lol Glad it worked out. I think it’ll be a good fit!
I dumped a container of that in the tank before it left N. Carolina. I figured it could agitate in the tank all the way here. I'll have to get it running to get it off the trailer, then I figured I could disconnect the fuel lines, and maybe blow back to the tanks any crud in the lines? Your consulting fee check is in the mail. Seriously though- thanks, I appreciate the help. Oh yeah, its going to be fun. Its pretty complicated machine. I studied the book pretty hard on Saturday night, and by sunday noon I think I could have made a pick. It helps I've been around AT's before, they are their own deal. Don't talk about messing up the machine either, that's in my head too.
Thanks guys. I've been looking for quite a while. I was really hot to buy one a year ago, and a lot of the projects I was looking at didn't happen last year, so I was glad I hadn't. Let's hope this works out. A big thank you to Impact too. He sent me a link to the crane I ended up with. We had been talking about what I wanted and he spotted the ad for it and sent me a link, so thank you to Impact. The lower cab has a pile of buttons on the control console. I feel a little like Captain Kirk, and say " engage warp drive" when I release the brakes and hit the "D" button. I hear Scotty in the background too "I'm giving her all she's got captain- she won't take much more!"
I take it has the air over hydraulic brakes.
All air.
Hope I didn't come across too harsh just had a close call one time and it was not even oil on the road. Was getting on the throttle coming up a hill near here with a curve in it half way up. When the bike slid about a foot sideways. Lucky did not highside. I was trying to understand what had happened when I started gaining on a truck up ahead and noticed the water tank valve was dripping just a bit of water on the road. That little bit of water along with the normal crud in the center of the lane is all it took! I do watch the road a lot closer now days!
Good on all air Have seen the mixed set ups not do so good Hansen First trip into CO on that Wolf Creek pass cross wife got to see her first snow tunnel Was really cool out and as we got to the entry Diamond sign “Caution May be Icy In Tunnel” had forgotten that and us on two wheels luckily only wet
Thought of you when I saw it for sale. Hopefully since we have the same basic crane we can help if you get stumped. But don’t see you getting stumped. I would suggest learning how to retract or extend the boom in emergency mode. It is a definate learning process. Our would have to retract in emergency mode monthly when we first got it. When the extend cylinder went out, we replaced all the prox switches while it was apart. It seldom happens now. I think you will be happy with it.
Shoot, I'm stuck already. It showed up late today, and it started on the trailer and built up air, but it won't go in gear. Just blinks on the pushbutton. No "R", No "D" just "N" which stands for a whole lot of "N"uthin. I rolled it off the trailer, and we drug it around back with the old winch truck (winch truck doesn't have any blinky lights, just shove the old lever in gear and go). Oh well, at least its here. The fun begins tomorrow, after I do a little crane work with one of the ones that works.
I've never had a tank get bad, but this stuff is supposed to help after putting in enough algaecide to kill it. https://powerservice.com/psp_product/clear-diesel-fuel-tank-cleaner/
Congrats man. Won’t be any time at all you’ll be wondering how you did it without that crane.
I'm just sitting here waiting for the next round of pictures with the new iron. Congrats on the purchase!
I hope it serves you well.
What manuals did you get with it? May have instructions to bring up codes for faults. Would hate to consider, and you may hate me, but sitting so long it may have copper cancer. Bad connection(s) or a bad inline diode that just decided to pop, Usually the only time these throw up is when one first moves a long time stored machine.
I've got more manuals than you could shake a stick at. The error code comes up as lost communication between the TCU (I'm assuming thats the transmission controller) and the transmission. Then the trans defaults to neutral. The book suggests a loose wire or connection between the two, or the TCU has failed. Tomorrow, if I have time, I'm going to do a little connection fiddling.
Crossing fingers to a loose connection and/or possible corrosion issue, TCU is an expensive beast.
Glad you found what you were looking for.It looks like a great crane, they all have a few bugs to work out when you first get them “ even the new ones” I’m sure this unit will open up a whole new market for you. You might have to learn to speak German, Good luck.
Well I guess I was on the news last night. One of the guys said his wife was listening to the "storm" coverage. " Whoever is working by the ferris wheel with a crane needs to get that boom down now . This is a serious storm rolling in." Anyways, we were holding one of the pieces and its like a 2 hour weld job to stick them in, and we were a hour into it. I kept thinking it was going to go west and north of us. It didn't. I shoved the 10k forklift underneath it, they had 2 sides welded out good. And I got unhooked and boom out of the air while the tornado sirens were going off. Just in time. It got a little rough here in town a little wind and a lot of rain, but nothing serious. Couple small towns got nailed with some wind damage.
Saw the news of the Tornados outside Lebanon and Miller MO. Must be nice to be famous now!!
Brave guy you are. Glad it worked out alright.
Set some more roof steel at the lumberyard building, then went to work on one of their outbuildings. I love it when the truss pile is 95' away. But I got by only setting up once, so that worked out.
Got the billboard head put on, those things are just a big kite. Had to sneak it in on Sunday morning. The weather has been so hit and miss we've been doing things when we can. It was dead still at 5 when I got up, but by the time we got the crane over there and all ready to go the wind had picked up. We had been delaying around for over a week and I was sick of waiting, so we roped it up to two trucks and the crane, dropped some spuds in the bolt holes and stuck that thing.
Boy I'd like to meet the guy that stickered up the liebherr. They had their name, phone number, website, and company info, on both sides of the boom (2' high letters!), windshield, back bumper, and every flat spot on the crane. I've got the ends of my fingers about wore off, and I still have three of the two foot high letters behind the jib on the boom to go.
Had to finish up a truss job. The Mack developed a leak and he brought it home. I took the 35 out the next morning and set the last two steel poles on the back side for the deck and a bundle of plywood up. He was really about out of reach anyways.
Took down the old sign at the theater remodel.
Building the new entry way to the building, on top of the big steel plates.
Plate bed sets sloped away from the building, so beam is angled in two directions.
Every piece is going to set at a different angle to the other ones.
We've been using the lights a little bit. I only turn them on when I need them, its tough for the guys to turn and look at the crane because they are too bright.
A little more tank work.
Back at the entryway. This day went into the dark too.
And back to tanks again. We had to wait a couple hours this morning for the rain to clear out, had to set the top on the base and it had to be dry to connect the two, I guess the resin and rain don't mix.
lot of bucks in that entryway
Get yourself a 3M wheel to remove the stickers. Once you try it, you'll wonder how you ever lived without it. Seriously. I get mine at a local NAPA store. https://www.summitracing.com/parts/...1596235374332&utm_content=GSAPI+5b9ad67255698
How goes the Liebherr, any headway on the issue not shifting?
Had a electrical guy I know come and work on it. His hobby is drones and he's big into circuit boards etc. He spent all one day clearing the code for the brake lights not working. Found a couple other issues also. Next day he found the transmission problem, something wrong in the tcu. He had my wife order the whatever it was that was wrong in the board, she brought it to his place and he soldered it in. I put the controller back in the crane yesterday, and we now have forward and reverse again. Last big item, which was already bad in N. Carolina, is it won't come out of low range. There's a electric over air switch that bypasses a bunch of air when you try to shift it out of low. I don't know if that's because the electric over air switch is bad, or that the piston that its trying to shift in the drop box is stuck. Low range isn't going to get me down the road very fast. That and a leaking steering cylinder.
Small ****, never sweat the small ****
Its a tough job , ive just been removing decals off my 75ton Lima. warming a putty knife with a propane torch was effective, still painstaking though and the glue was awful to remove. The old wheathered decals were the worst ,i finally grabbed the angle grinder with a wire wheel on it and ripped it off ,paint and all to elimate the shadow . Now im messing with bodyshop glaze to try and blend in with the existing paint.I guess pro body men would shudder. They also make a rubber eraser wheel you can use on a drill or die grinder it does a clean job but leaves the paint undamaged. Congratulations on the new crane !
I've never tried the eraser type wheel. The heat gun and my fingers have done the trick so far. Heat the letters- burning your fingers at the same time, because you are too impatient for the heat gun to do its work. etc. etc. The black letters get a little soft just in the sun, but the white ones on the windshield and the back bumper were the worst. They make plastic razor type blades too, that are supposed to help, I kind of like using my plastic window and trim remover/installer tools to get a corner started, then just peel them off. Too hot and they tear, not hot enough and the glue doesn't give. I've always just used acetone and a rag to get rid of the glue residue. Sometimes it just smears it around. Acetone kind of pulls some of the chalky paint, blending the faded under the stickers.
try one of the eraser wheels they work great. just don`t run em to fast
Warming the putty knife was actually not bad, cooler it got the slower you push it and it would peel off a fair chunk on the newer vinyl decals.The glue on mine turned into nasty sticky balls . No magic solution just hang in there and have a few cool ones waiting in the cooler at quitin time.
Thanks for that, and to everyone else for the encouragement also. Its a lot of $ and there's no "guaranteed" work for it out there. I just find a lot of the stuff we are setting just keeps getting bigger and bigger. So I guess bigger and bigger cranes. But man are they expensive to work on. I really want to get the thing stacked up with some counterweights and all the stick in the air and see what it will do. Get it to work- its got to pay for itself somehow.
Pool made out of a cut down conex. All pool or it has a removable divider that makes 1/2 of it a hot tub. They reused the doors cut down and latches as access to the hot tub pumps. Then the steps are on top of that area. I don't know what they put in the bottom, but the sides were still the corrugated steel with a sprayed on liner. Whatever they put in the bottom was heavy, this was made out of a cut down 20', and it was over 9,000lbs. A standard 20' conex is usually only 5,500-6,500lbs.
More work on the entryway.
This one was the heaviest one. I was over 16,000 with beams, bar and rigging. Its laying out the flattest also. Needed the lights by the time we got done with it too.
Sure is a LOT of steel for a sign. That CONEX appears to have a Lot of extra material welded on it and in it!!
In liebherr news. Finally got a chance to mess with the Hi/ lo range. Electrical worked. Air switch was working. Took the air nozzel and poofed some air to the air shift piston. Nothing. Then a little something. Then it started popping back and forth. Put a little air tool oil in the air lines, and shifted it back and forth a bunch. Reassembled all the air lines and electrical and it goes in and out of high like it should. Yeah. Tried climbing my shop driveway and it didn't want anything to do with it. Barely 1,000rpm with it loaded up. Drained off all the old diesel. Lots of algae/ slime snot in the bottom of the tank. Took the power washer to the interior of the tank. Warm halogen light on it for a couple hrs to dry it back out. I cut the fuel filters apart that I put on in N. Carolina to load it and unload it. They were black and nasty. Hopefully the killed algae and water. Filled it up new fuel, and put in some of the tank treatment that hvy 1 ton posted a link too. Also some of the "injector cleaner/ cetane booster/ fuel treatment" from powerserve too, under the "it can't hurt" system. New fuel filters again, and fired it up. Black smoke rolled as I got into it. I made a couple trips up and down my hill and it seems to be running pretty good. I've got one cylinder running about 40 degrees warmer than the other 5 on the exhaust manifold. I'm thinking maybe a valve carboned up a little from sitting and not seating quite right yet? Hoping a good warm up and run will fix that. It is the last one in line of the three on the exhaust manifold, but the other side didn't show that much temp difference (engine is a v-6). I'm showing around 160-180 degrees or so on the rest of them at the manifold, and that one is right at 200. Turbo mount bolts that were right beyond it were loose on the connection between turbo and exhaust manifold, and it was leaking exhaust right there too, don't think that would make that one run warm.
Likely not the loose bolts, may also have a little snot in that nozzle yet dribbling and adding a little extra fuel so I would expect to see that work thru.
I can see why 2" steel plates were needed. what a rig
I'm curious … What is the business or organization that's going to be using that entry way ? I can't think how "Caught", "Gossip", "Cover up" and "Explosive" relate to each other. But I'm a bit slow.
Sounds like a presidential campaign office?
No body I'd vote for. Spending other people's (taxpayer) money frivolously. Spending your own money … That's different and something I'm all for. I just thought of a "rag" newspaper … " All the news that's fit for a birdcage."
Its a "national enquirer museum".
Loaded out the big tank we stood up the other week. Its been sitting there for about 6 days now loaded, I'm guessing waiting on permits to leave.
Finished up the sign with the 35 ton. I left the 70 ton down at the tank place and the big beams were all done. I should have slid out dead stick though, I almost was short of tip height.
Maiden voyage Monday. I had a panic moment on Sunday though. I was test running at the shop and couldn't get the winch to cable down. It was locked out. Turns out the 3rd wrap indicator gets tripped by a series of cams, and if you spool the cable all the way on the drum, (like I did before having it hauled home) the winch will not cable down. Of course, its only mentioned in passing in the manual. "If cable is fully wrapped on the drum, the cam sensors will be tripped and must be reset". No mention of what the "cam sensors" are, or how to reset them, only after much digging in the manual, did I discover that they are on the winch. I did some tearing apart of the winch, and found the little "cams" and discovered how they "clock" and reset them. I have no idea if I reset them in the right direction, but the winch went to working, about 5 hours after discovering it wouldn't go down. Fun, fun, I tell you. Anyways, action pics. As far as a 1st job, we put up some steel platforms on the elevator shafts for them to pour the next section off of. I had 8,900lbs gross at 95' radius. Also put all the rebar and some forms up, and boomed down right up to chart/shutoff. Everything worked great and its pretty solid feeling even to max cap. I should have cleaned my top glass, the one picture from the cab didn't come out too good. Better yet, we picked up everything that needed picked up, and put it on the roof. I've got a list of things that need work, but I can't complain, we got through the first job without destroying anything.
Even got the real boss to working on Sunday, I was in 'hurry up and get the crane ready for the monday job", and needed a hand to install aux. winch. The aux counts as counterweight, and if you don't have it mounted, you're supposed to have a couple extra little cheek weights you install. I don't have the little cheek weights, and I knew we would be pushing chart, so I mounted aux. winch, and we also dismounted the jib. I didn't want the preload from the stowed jib. Made a test pick at the shop with some big steel plates I've got, and went ahead and laid it down with just hook on also.
In non work related news, we had kind of a busy weekend in addition to trying to get the liebherr ready to go. My second child graduated from high school friday night. GRADUATED. He's never been a big fan of school, but he made it through. He's going to the community college next year (he did 1/2 days there this year) and at the end of next year should have a associates degree, and then wants to transfer to a 4 year school and finish there. Thinks he can end up with a 4 year degree, with only 2 years at the 4 year school, 3 years out of high school. The community college doesn't cost him any tuition.
Feed mill. 151' to the bottom of the floor. 4,000lbs through the concrete windows.
Something is wrong with the old lattice truck, and its kinda in the way. But I think if it was working, we wouldn't have been there today.
Congrats on the crane, your son GRADUATING high school, and getting the "real Boss" out on the new rig to help....my boss would be afraid of getting a spot of grease on something.....
Dam that’s exciting, that is a beautiful machine. I like the work you’ve been doing, I swing a lot of trusses and enjoy it , but that commercial work is what gets the blood going and is almost always interesting. But the best thing is seeing your kids grow into young adults congratulations.
Have to add the congrats on all points!! Liebherr looks like will do you quite well. Son looks like you have taught him well! New feed mill is impressive on its own, adding the inside structure thru the windows is just as impressive.
Nice having that much live stick eh? Congratulations on the first job and your son graduating
I was running 148', and had the thought that its really only 12' longer than my old 35 ton with dead stick and jib out (136'). And I could have set up my old 35 and put jib and dead stick in, in a lot less time, than it took me to set pads, hang weights, and run all that stick out with only 1 telescope cylinder. But no way could I touch that kind of weight at 95' . Remember the big tank we laid down a couple days ago?, well its been sitting there ever since, waiting on permits. Today they finally figured out they aren't getting permits at 17' 6" tall, so we rolled it 180 degrees. Put the big flange on the bottom, making it 6" shorter. Tandem pick with a overhead crane? No problem, glad to do it- because I didn't have a second crane and operator available, and it must be a big rush job to get it wherever its going. Got the call at 10:00 and I was there by 12:00, sometimes it works out like that. First we unloaded it from the trailer, rolled it, then reloaded it on the trailer. Snuck in a couple big snatch blocks and some cables and rolled it with a pair of forklifts. One to lift and one to brake. When those big flanges came over the top they really took off.
I think of her that way too, thanks.
Hard to find good help these days, you got lucky!!
Liebherr uses about 8 little panels, all held on with body clips, to cover the engine area. They had all been taken off, and I've got them. They are a royal pain to take on and off. I think just two panels held on by a couple nuts sure looked a lot cleaner and easier to deal with. So a sheet of aluminum tread plate, some angle, a little self etching primer and grey paint, and we've got a properly modified engine cover. I'm going to make a couple access holes in the upper one for checking oil and adding oil. Also, a 3 sheave block is all that came with the crane. So I found a 5 sheave block. Sister hooks. And no it wasn't cheap, but it was cheaper than a new one.
I've got 2 mats built. Planing on 2 more. 4' x 6' x 6" tall. Smooth side down on the bottom tread plate, so I don't leave a nice diamond pattern in someones warm asphalt. I had the i-beam. Bought the rectangular off craigslist, and the tread plate from a guy that sells seconds/ rusty rejects. I don't care if its nice clean new metal or not, crank up the heat and burn it in. The first one I did the lifting lugs on the short side, but I'm switching that one and did the second one on the long side. Makes it easier to get the pads up on them. Engineered by the "that looks about right" method of construction.
Got a little more work done at the mill.
And sometimes, something catches your eye, and you know its just a message "slow down, life doesn't have to move so fast". This was under my truck yesterday morning.
They were just looking for some privacy! Maybe they'll name one of the kids after you!
Pretty funny As to the hatches enganears generally do not build or design to work on as too busy being ingeniass Work looks well thought out and easier on maintenance time A lot of the old machines I worked on and in had the access panels discarded years before I got to them
Had a little wind storm saturday, so this was sunday morning project.Sycamore broke off about 15' up, you can see the trunk in front of the porch. Laid the rest right on the roof, stuck through in a couple spots. I'm guessing the whole roof and trusses will come off to fix it, they were twisted every direction. They had all the little stuff off by the time I got there. I pulled off one leader sticking over to the side, and then took the rest in one shot.
Wall panels. 10' wide, 30' tall. Plywood and steel studs.
Part of the backside of this jobsite is clay under the rock. It gets pumpy when wet, and there's no good bottom in it.
Bad day for the homeowner for sure. We're just coming into winter here and there's been an influx of tree removals, usually sick trees that have already dropped a limb or 2. One was a poplar tree that dropped a limb in the sandpit of a pre-school. That had to be removed with a 220 ton crane, radius was around 160'.
The twin hooks are called "sister hooks". Glad to learn something new. CM calls them "Ramshorn hooks"
Glad you got to learn something hosspuller. The sister hooks (CM doesn't know what they are talking about) are kind of nice if you have 4 big cable chokers to put on, its less of a mess than on a single hook. Where they are a pain is if you have a 4 way cable spreader with a single lifting ring. I always try to have a big (blue 20k single- 40k basket) 4' endless round sling, that you can lay in both sister hooks and basket through the lifting ring. Then it all hangs straight from both hooks. See, now you learned what sister hooks are, and how to deal with them in the real world. Also, that "form B" hook they show with the center hole for single point lifting, are a real pain. A shackle big enough to throat that hook by that center hole, is more shackle than I want to deal with on a regular basis.
Interesting how different countries have their own terminology. We call them ramshorn hooks, but have seen them referred to as sister hooks by Americans on a couple of Facebook pages
So do we, I assume because it describes the shape of the hook perfectly. I'd never come across the expression sister hook before but then again I don't get out much.....
Noticed your Sister set up come with jaw throat latches. The Nuke required them on mobile cranes some years ago, do not know if any other sites do now or if just a general requirement.
Here's a hook ! Siamese sisters ! lol
Those boys better have eaten their wheaties. When cable chokers get that big, you need a crane to rig the crane. The way they are standing out off the hook, they about have to be steel, not nylon's. Not much for latches on those hooks either. Granted, the latch would be so heavy, no one could push it open to hang rigging anyways. That big ship stuff is just so big and heavy, its kind of neat to see.
Setting panels around the corner in the blind, and not much for a signal man. Then I looked over and just cheated, me and my shadow can boom down and hold a load, no spotter required. Also had to get a little creative, had two different spots on the building with panels under the overhang. The other ones they were able to just push in, these two we hung a chain fall and a beam clamp.
Got all the stick out on the liebherr today. 157' main, and it acted real solid.
Got another tank flipped and ready for shipment friday morning. This has been a great little gig this spring. I've done work on and off for the last couple years for these guys, usually their tanks are smaller and they just use their overhead hoists and telehandler. But this spring they have a contract for a bunch of larger tanks, and its kind of nice to have a once every week or two weeks job for two cranes. The nicest part was getting it flipped and the cranes back to town by 9:30 before the holiday traffic got even crazier. Everyone's in a hurry to get to their camping spot or the boat in the lake, and I am "IN THEIR WAY", moving way to slow. Also got another 1" plate fixed up for the liebherr. I'm going to try to take 2-1" plates, and 4 of the 7" tall plates with me all the time. The 4' x6' footprint seems to be working real well, the one jobsite we were on last week was pretty soft and they didn't push in much. I'm going to make a couple plates that are a little taller also, for more crooked locations. The 1" plates I bought from a scrapper guy, I have no idea what they came from, but the price was right compared to new steel, and I'm just going to shove them in the mud and leave them lay outside, so I don't need new. The steel plates are kind of expensive, but I shouldn't have to be replacing it all the time, the wood mats get kind of bad from laying around, damp and rot sets in.
And while messing around building plates, the allis forklift didn't want to turn , the damp looking gravel was my first sight of the spraying hyd. oil. A new steering line and we were back in business, plus it got me a chance to talk to my local hyd. hose guy about stocking in DIN heavy and light for the liebherr (He's going to look into it). So does anyone know if you get DIN hyd ends, do gates etc. then use metric hose also? Or do they sell the fittings that then fit on standard hose? I've been looking into a plug and cap kit, and I think I'm going to end up having to get light and heavy, plugs and caps, anyone got a good source? Also got some steel set at a local college for a new building
Just wondering how many cranes are in your fleet?? 5 or 6 in my mind and it is not sharp all the time.
For the soilmec we use standard -xx hose with the DIN fittings. If it’s -12 or whatever we use the same as JIC or O-ring face. I don’t have any plugs and caps for them and I don’t recall the differences between the two. We use Hyspeco for our stuff, I bet they can order some plugs etc. Get an o-ring assortment for them as well, you many have to piece them out in the sizes you need as I’ve yet to find a kit so I ordered what I needed. If your guy won’t stock them figure out what brand machine you think is most common and stock them yourself. Most shops with have the hose and the dies if you have fittings. Parker is what I see most.
Are the o-rings for din a special square/ size/ taper ring, or just standard o-rings? I think caps and plugs are going to be necessary, when I took off the steering cylinder to repack it, there's no way to shut off the oil flow from the hoses being off. I thought it would slow down, but it just kept right on running.
They’re a size all their own lol. I haven’t found anything that’s close to the same dimensions other than specific O-rings for the application.
Hank- right now there's a 15 ton galion- fa150, a 23 ton mack with a national boom truck mounted- 1295. 25 ton tms 250 grove, 35 ton tms 300 grove, 40 ton grove-rt740, P&H 70 ton -t650, and a 100 ton liebherr- LTM1080-1. Which is really one or two too many, but the work always varies. Lately its been all bigger stuff, in a month the bigger crane stuff may be dried up, and we may just be running around in the boom truck and 25 ton setting trusses. Who knows. Likely the P&H 70 ton is going to be looking for a new home. I can probably swing the new 100 ton without selling it, but it would make the new 100 ton a lot cheaper if I did sell it. If I can keep the 70 ton busy enough to justify keeping it, it can stay, we'll see how it goes. The other rigs I think will kind of stay. The last few weeks I've had cranes scattered all over working where its not raining, and just running around in pickups to where we can work, and then the extra numbers of cranes is kind of nice. If we get rained out we can just leave them set, and get a different rig to go somewhere else with. I'm really on the verge - actually past the verge- of needing another operator again. We've been getting it all done with the employees I have right now, but the right guy I would probably hire if he came through the door, I just don't know that I can keep him busy all the time. I hate to hire a good guy away from a job where he's secure, and then in six months have to tell him "sorry, the work kind of dried up for a while, I can't use you".
Gates DIN ends on standard inch size hoses. Look at Brennan Industries, or Adaptall for DIN plugs and caps.
New amusement ride.
Spent the last two days demo on a old ice plant. Torching out the old machines upstairs inside a partial wood structure was a water hose adventure. Between the wood and the sprayed on urethane foam, we had a couple roaring fires going at times. Not a lot of room to work in between the power lines down by the crane either.
Never a dull day keep you on your toes.
Pulled the jib off the 35 this morning, I didn't think I could make it around a corner, so removed it for clearance. Its like a jib forest in the yard right now, jib is off the 35, mack, rt and the 100 ton. All setting out back, two on trailers and two on blocks. Trees today. Took the 35 ton, it was tight getting in there, glad I took off the jib, it gave me the couple extra feet I needed coming into the driveway, and I needed the chart.
Got the first one done, and stopped at another one on the way home and got it off a trailer house.
While I was out playing with trees, the guys loaded up the counterweights for the liebherr on the old winch truck flatbed, and run to the quarry, just to see where we were at - weight wise. Its a little heavy. 15,500 on the front, 40,600 on the tandems, 56 + gross. It doesn't have enough wheel base to bridge that, even if I add a cheater axle. The old freightliner water truck I've got sittting out back, is a little longer wheelbase, and if I put a 20k cheater in there, I think that's where we are headed for a support truck. The semi is working for right now, but I really would like to get it down to just a straight truck. I think it will be much easier for jobsite access in the long run. I think the freightliner's extra axle, may end up behind the tandem's, just to get another 4' of bridge. I'd rather it was in front of the tandems, just to keep it from hanging up the drives in a ditch, but I'd like it to be legal too. I think even a straight truck and a pintle trailer with the top counterweight slab on the trailer, would be more convenient on a jobsite than the full semi. The hood up on the ford- radiator hose. Its used to just running around empty and some slow jobsite work.
I have an axle if you need one. It was built as a pusher but would work just fine as a tag axle. I’ve got plenty of 22.5 steel wheels if that’s the way you wanted to go. It’s on a truck now but a couple hours work and it’d be off.
Did that widow maker barber chaired when they tried to cut it, or someone cut the piece off of it after it split?
I've got a air down spring up 20k sitting out back, but I really appreciate the offer. I, for some reason, like the spring up ones better than air up. If I add 2 axles- one ahead and one behind, I'd get another 5,000 gross, and I do have room for it- I'm still thinking. What I would like some help on, is finding a decent flatbed. Everything I've looked at is off med. duty trucks and a little light for stacking 32,000 of counterweight on. 20' long or so. The freightliner was set up for a 15' dump bed, I think there's like 15'6" of frame from cab to end of frame. If I add axle behind tandems, I'm thinking 20' of bed or so. I'm probably going to build a heavy headache rack, and a removable tail rack if I need to haul a spreader bar longer than my bed length. I've even kicked around not even having a bed. Just a steel rack that the weights set in. Aluminum fenders. I know of a crane outfit that hauls their counterweight on homebuilt rail trailers, with just racks for their weights, no decks to save weight. You have to kind of pay attention when building the racks, to make sure you can get the counterweight out of the racks if the truck is setting sideways on a hill. I'm thinking a rack for the weights, and one for my adjustable spreader bars, and then some nice storage boxes. Something for the weights almost like a log bunk without the tall uprights, just guides.
Base of the tree had some dead area, wind blew it over onto the house. We had a pretty good storm roll through tuesday afternoon. Took out a lot of trees.
Was in Panama City last week, that place is still a mess! Good live trees broken like a matches! Half of the houses under blue tarps, lots without the roofs at all and several big piles of construction debris scattered around city!
Recent developments you and me talked about on the other thread definitely made me take an interest in cranes! I wasn’t that interested before, just looked through some of your pictures from time to time.
We have a multitude of trucks/semis set up without decks, if I get near them I'll post some pics (they're all in different parts of the country to me at the moment). Do you carry the base plate on the crane, or does it need to be carried on the truck?
For permits, we are supposed to have a "irreduceable" load. If it can come off, its supposed to come off. There are all different variations of interpretation of that rule. One company nearby pullls off jib, but leaves block in and has spreader bars on the dolly. Another one leaves jib on, and pulls off block. All the 500 ton, some of the 300 ton's have boom removal set ups and boom launch trailers. I'm planning on pulling all counterweight off, including base plate. Jib and block are staying on the crane, and my steel mats are going on the dolly. I can pick the mats off the dolly when I get out of it, and put them on the rear of the deck. The dolly is tri axle, and has a really nice spot to put the mats. I'll have to make a single stack lengthwise on the truck. The weights are 9'x 4 1/2' so theres no real way to put them in two different stacks like I do on the trailer.
Got a generator delivered this morning down at the railroad. Its a 17,000lb generator, and it rolls in on a 1 ton truck with a 35 or 40' gooseneck. And it is smoking, on fire smoking, and stinking to high heaven. The cloud in the one picture isn't a spot in the picture, its smoke rolling off it. I thought he cooked the brakes, the driver says "I don't know what's wrong, but something is messed up back there." Rear drivers side axle bearings, are gone, I mean steel on steel gone. " It happened a couple miles back, I just thought I'd get here and see what's wrong". Trailer is sway backed, bad. I'm sure its not rated for 17,000lbs in a 5' spot. Sway doesn't come out of the trailer when we unload the generator. i told the driver we'd pick up his trailer and pull some rims/ tires and chain up the back axle so he could get to springfield to get the axle fixed. He's busy on the phone and upset. Next thing I see is the taillights of him headed out the driveway. He made it about a 1/2 mile, and was on the side of the road. Its a wonder the tires and wheels didn't end up in oncoming traffic. Gravity was the only thing holding them on.
Hot Shot idiots, big money for less investment until it comes to repairs, and that trailer does NOT appear to be old in any sense of age. Just foolish and stupid at the same time. Old DC motive power generator. Looks like been rewound. Starting and brake air, air compressor is no light duty monster either.
The most dangerous thing, he didn't really realize what was wrong. If he would have made the 4 lane, he could have easily killed someone- when those tandems separated from the axle at 70 mph and headed for oncoming traffic.
Working in St Louis for Feld Rental, get a call from a wood hauler that ran from outside of Grenada MS to Des Moines for pressure treating heavy timbers, starts blathering on about needing a set of drive wheels, had no power and stopped pulling, was on Hwy 61 North of I-70 in MO. Called a local vendor as could not make sense of what he was saying as said the duals just came off, then kept adding had lost power. Contractor calls back, LHAO!! Says send a second truck AND on a hook as this one was dead for awhile, said MAY want to send a REAL driver this in 1977. Ran the bearings so hot so long it melted the axle nuts off, the spindle end of the housing was angled up 5-10 degrees and undercut a half inch, fire damage on the frame from the grease fire GINORMOUS, inside dual once they recovered them from the local farm pond was smoked and ruined, brake drum had EXPLODED, the drive axle was STILL in the hub. Had a full load of pressure treated heavy timbers on the trailer, just lucky did not torch the ENTIRE mess. This on a two year old PETE COE tandem with a 45' tandem Fruehauf flat behind it, BOTH our units.
And people say that the government has too many rules that cause problems for businesses? That SOB should be charged with reckless endangerment or attempted murder or at the least lost his drivers licence for 10 years! My wife or someone else share the road with people like that!
I was driving behind a loaded older Mack dump truck and could see the tandems moving side to side about 4 inches. I was thinking I don't want to stay behind this guy for too long. Sometimes the truck inspectors can be jerks and try to find something wrong when there isn't but on the other hand you want them to find the problem trucks and trailers.
Guys like this give a black eye to all the true talented operators out there Sad to say he is becoming the typical
Went on a little cruise in the white pete the other day, its about ready for the road, just needed a state inspection to get the plates. 3406 smoked like a bandit for the first little bit, cleared up nice by the end of the run. Everything works so far, need to get a load on it and see what it does.
100 ton top plate is balanced wrong, it is made to use to install aux. winch, and if you don't have aux, it has little weights that go on it. I don't have weights, and the winch is mounted, and its a pain to set it on there hanging crooked. I have enough troubles, I try to make things easy. I welded on a d-ring that doesn't hit the upper when the weight is mounted, and now it hangs straight with a third line. I've got a cable choker and hook the same length as the chain come along that we use for that plate, works great.
Got to do a bunch of hvac units down at the mall, on a new addition building. Had to set up in 2 locations to reach all of them.
It rained again this week, so yes, someone missed the corner at my shop again. No marks at all on my gravel driveway, he went off the corner before my driveway, dukes of hazzarded the whole drive way, and rolled her on over down to the trees.
Finally working the well known bugs out. Good looking machine. And OOPSIE!!
Flipping tanks for testing. Two down, two up. Putting the last two back down again on monday.
Had to shut down a little bit friday afternoon, while setting up the 100 ton for another job. This storm actually rolled in from the north east and was traveling south west, which is a super rare weather pattern here. Rained hard for a 1/2 hr or so, but cleared up after that.
Got to use the new block for the 100 ton, reeving up for picking heavy. 10 part, railroad wheel lathe. Customer said somewhere between 85-100,000lbs. It was on the low end of that range. The second picture shows how we first had it rigged, I didn't like how the cables closer to me were going to be pushing on those chuck covers, so we moved them in and chained the rigging back to keep the rigging from sliding in. I could just see those chokers cracking one of those covers, and I don't know where you would find one.
They have the wheels stacked up ready to go, this will be their second lathe. The second picture shows how we had the rigging changed up when we actually picked it. They loaded it down in a old railroad shop with a versa- lift 80 ton forklift, but one of those isn't going out into some pasture to set a lathe.
All decked out in the dolly. Installed the jib back on this morning, need it for a job monday.
They going to build the building around it? (The wheel lathe)
Yeah, its always a learning curve. I always want to get into a pattern/ order that I do things. Set it up and tear it down, in the same order every time, that way I don't forget stuff. And its making and fixing up all the little things to make it easy and fast. I've got some modifying we need to do to the dolly, and more stuff to the crane, but as long as its out working, we can take care of the little stuff as we go. That's the plan, he's got a couple other machines he's going to set there, and a overhead crane to use also. I'm going to try to talk him into letting me put the overhead crane in before they skin the building. Its a pain to put them in after the roof is on. I've done it with the roof on, but it's no fun.
Heres the next crane for you when the Liebherr gets too small ,as they always seem to. This was a 270 ton they brought in to set our girders. 2 nice new b trains all decked out with pockets for the counterweights and pads, It was rigged as a 200 ton for this job. The quick rig block had a permanent knob instead of a becket and all nylon sheaves. And then its back to the old technology.
That's some beautiful country Tuger a few years ago Mrs. Tradesman and I took a two day train ride through the mountains, then I went horse back riding with an old rodeo guy ( no city folks welcome ) I saw moose, bear, elk and some of the prettiest country I've ever seen. The train ride was nice but being out in the mountains and touching it like you do every day was fantastic. I live in the middle of the great lakes and have some nice scenery but nothing like the mountains in BC. and Alberta, I hope to get back before too long and go hunting with a horse pack in outfit. Sorry Crane op. I'm badly off topic.
Yes it sure beats working in the city,rather eat dust going to work than buck traffic jams.
Had the same thing happen up here last week. I thought it was on Wednesday, but it's been a long week and the days have been running together. The Liebherr seems to be earning it keep already.
That must have took some serious preheat to weld the D-ring on. Good to see you're getting work for the new crane.
The liebherr is that way. The aux cable has been cut off, so I'm trying to decide between the crosby epoxy spelter to replace it, or standard becket. Becket would be easy, except liebherr uses 17mm cable. crosby beckets run 9/16 and 5/8" and then skip to 3/4". There's a wedge from a 5/8 in the sidebox, but no becket, but the people I bought it from never used the aux. Never even had it mounted. I have done the epoxy spelter, but it was a lot of years ago, not on my crane. Fortunately, my d ring is just balance, the sides have the big cast in lugs and they carry all the weight. Yes, its been good to have some $ coming in for it. Makes fixing it easier cash flow wise, and also in finding out what needs fixed. Only by using it, can you really find out what's wrong.
So do they drop each trailer and back each one in, one at a time? What a pain that would be. - Getting paid by the hour though- so who cares how long it takes? I did find a heavy flatbed this week. Now to decide if I want to take the month of spare time fixing up my old freightliner, which I hate the cab of. Or just buy what I want.
Our larger cranes are all set up with b-trains, it's not that bad. Usually a sharp driver will be able to back the whole unit in, or if it's a bit tight it's not that time consuming to split the trailers. Certainly faster than going back to the yard for another trailer, especially when the yard is hours away
I'm sure it works, its great how different areas have different ways of doing the same thing. Here everyone runs spread axle flat deck or step deck 48-53'. We just unloaded the weights off the rollback trailer and transfered the weights to the old winch truck for a job tomorrow. I can't get the semi in where we have to go. Forget b train, I can't fit a short wheel base truck and a shorter trailer with set forward axles. I have the crane out of dolly 4- miles away, because there's no where else to leave the dolly.
For sure, we've had jobs where you can't get a semi near it, yet they want a 200+ ton crane in there. A b-train over here let's us carry 3 10 ton slabso counterweight, where we can only get 2 on a 40-50' semi. I think our b-trains are a lot shorter than yours, a whole combination can only be 70' long.
Dropped my youngest daughter at missouri state university last Sunday. She was selected from her school to attend missouri scholars academy, a three week college like experience for high school sophmores. They live in the dorms, have a major and a minor class, and a bunch of extra class like activities. I'm kind of cynical, so I think its partially a recruitment ad for the college, to get the brightest kids from all over the state to attend your school for a little while is a great recruitment, but I'm still thrilled for her. I talked to her yesterday and she's having a great time.
Back at the big feed mill, this time with the 100 ton. That's a 180' manlift, and they had a stepladder thrown in the basket because it wasn't quite tall enough for one or two bolts. It sways bad. I ran all of the main and short jib. I had to bring in a little main for a couple picks, the wind was howling pretty good, and it was the only way to get it up there.
Old crossing got washed out, new boxes. There's only like three houses on the other side of this creek, they've had to take a old forest road to get out while we fix the crossing.
County has a nice new excavator, with a pretty serious looking thumb. They said its not as powerful as the one they sold, but I imagine that's cat putting a little smaller engine to meet emissions.
Pair of muskrats came up and were checking out our work before we started, and I had to get into the far bank tree a little to set the far wing wall.
Been at this building twice this week at 5:00 am. They open at 9:30 so we need to be and out of there before then. They are covering the roof with solar panels, and we've put 90,000lbs of concrete blocks on the roof to hold the stands for the panels down. They said the payback on the solar was 4 1/2 years, and the power company paid a big portion of it, I don't know how much the power company gets from the gov't. Wait until we have a wet heavy snowstorm.
This is the inside of the building, its a kids adventure experience, we helped build it a few years back. I put the water tank and airplane and conexes in after the building was built. The plane was a tight fit.
White pete is on the road, made a run with the counterweights down to the feed mill and back, blew out a wheel seal, but everything else seems okay. A2b on the liebherr jib is 1/2 gone. Uses funky wire plugs, but I've seen 4 wire plugs that are much more readily available.
Back at the feed mill. All the jib in this time. If you turn the response speed all down in the computer settings, its really smooth with all the boom out.
Moved crane around to the other side Saturday morning. Left the weights on and swung 1/2 the jib in and walked it around the building. Had to sneak some fuel down there with us too, the liebherr is thirsty.
Going to have to do my dolly modification, and sooner rather than later. In changes of pitch in roadway, the dolly lifts the rear corner of the crane, and I'm chewing the dickens out of my rear tire. I'm going to put a extra pivot in the dolly stand, and hope that helps. Right now the dolly only pivots side to side, I'm going to add a forward/ aft pivot. This is in my shop driveway corner last night, where I stopped to unlock the gate. Its not like this all the time, it just pitches down and to the right coming into my driveway. That rear tire is 6" off the ground. When it drops back down, if I'm rolling, the differential has it spinning back wards, and its just knocking out chunks of the tire. The liebherr seems to be running better the more we drive it. Engine was really doggy at first, but it had been sitting for over a year. It black smokes real hard under a load in mid rpm, it clears out when running high rpm. I would like to get a boost gauge installed and temporary run to the cab and see what the turbo's are doing. I don't hear them at all, spooling up, but they aren't very big turbo's to begin with, and they are back behind me.
Cam lock cannon plug style typical for Euro built machines actually pretty weather tight when new but had a need for dielectric grease that always seemed to be seriously lacking
On thursday afternoon for a friday job, a boat trailer plug seemed like my best plug and play option.
Likely will not pick up on turbo spool up as is behind Engine will also be equipped with a waste gate bypass to limit boost may be stuck in a fixed semi open position
I have done worse as to junction plug fixes Old extension cords and replacement regular electrical plugs when needed
I need to look at the intake pipes, I think the boost side of the turbos feed back together and to a common intake. A double check of all the intake clamps wouldn't hurt either. It could be as simple as a loose clamp. I'm sure the pumps don't load it up enough to hear a boost leak. I sure don't hear much back pressure from the exhaust brakes either. Usually you can hear them when they come on, but I don't hear these. I don't think I can "activate" them electrically when I'm not going down the road. Its all through the computer, I'm sure it can be done, I just don't know how yet. I'll probably just go with a air line up to the brakes and hit the cylinders on each one and see what they do.
Looks like you hit the mark with the Liebherr. do you have someone running it or is it your baby?
I've been running it myself. Its hard to teach someone else how to run it if you haven't done it yourself. I could use another guy, but we've been getting everything done, we've just been doing a lot of hours and have cranes scattered everywhere. Right now I've just got me and another operator and a rigger/mechanic. I could really use another operator, if the right guy showed up, I'd probably hire him. But its hard in the constant up down cycle of rental to keep them paid. It seems like right now, its all bigger crane work. In a month the big ones will probably be setting and it will all be little crane work. The
I know what you mean with employees I could use a couple more carpenters right now but when I hire someone I feel I’ve made a long term commitment to keep the employed, so I won’t hire them away from someone else just to lay them off next fall. And any carpenter that’s not already working there’s not much chance I want him working for me.
Take out carpenter, put in mechanic, or driver, or shoot, just put in person...
Always gets me how people who have no idea of how to do your job are so ready to figure they can just reach in a pile of applications and pull out a name that will know how to do your job. And the problem is they will fall for the BS some people put in their resume. And ofcourse they will never admit they hired the wrong person!
Its kind of nice being a small operation. I don't have layers of people up or down, so I can keep a pretty good eye on things. I also really enjoy running crane. If I had 20 cranes in 3 different locations, I'd simply have to spend all my time managing. I really don't want to do that. A snow job doesn't really work if the boss/ hiring person knows what's going on. I can tell within about 10 minutes if someone really knows what they are doing running a crane.
I hate job interviews. Lots of people exaggerate their resumes which an intelligent interviewer will see right through but a lot of them don't. I figure if they are that good why aren't working? I'd much rather do a job test and show them what I can do than be a self proclaimed super hero on paper. Have seen a few people and wonder who they paid to do their welding tests for them.
When called on by Union Electric, had three face to face interviews, HR personnel mgr. then the Fleet department mgr. and finally a shop foreman. Had taken four written tests as to various skills levels for application acceptance that after renewing my app for seven years annually. Foreman had a box of old parts, had me ID to what purpose they were, I had seen enough of 99% of them to also ID the type machines they came off of. Final test two day practical at the shop I was to work in, given a tools to bring in list added a few of my own specialty pieces and went to work on a Monday. Met by a sub storeroom(Parts) man, a day shift working foreman and the line crew superintendent. Had coffee with all as was twenty minutes early, clocked in and set to the test jobs. At end of day of testing was explained I had completed BOTH days testing in one, had to come back the next day to NOT present a issue for the man I was going to be working with as took him five different tries and barely completed the tests in his two day trial, that and he had worked for UE for Twelve years prior to testing as a Mechanics Helper. Surprised everyone I could handle any posed issue with little grief if any, they were actually impressed. First month on crew had several line crews try to ask for ONLY myself to work on their machines but that was not allowed. Had several problematic machines got some well defined bugs worked out of then went to work just keeping busy. No one had ever expected self motivation, self direction from anyone off the street. Worked for one full year as a Temporary, No benefits full time employee agreed to by Union Contract then expected the lay off as was normal for that type employee, one week from my one year anniversary the shop super took vacation and did not return until I had passed thru a full year anniversary making me a full timer automatically. Hateful part was enjoyed the people I worked with in that headquarters. At 22 months the management for the department had a major rotation and retirement where the New guy coming in made the statement was not there to make our lives easy, was there to repair or fully kill that department. My day boss told me then and there to sign EVERY out bid sheet that came up and take the first one I got called on as this was looking bad he then retired. He was correct as after I took that bid in two months that shop as well three others were closed and those personnel either retired or laid off as were in the wrong locals to transfer elsewhere. I had moved from IBEW 309 into IUOE 148.
Hey C Op, your assistance may be needed at Lake Ozark!!! Two hours ago:
I haven't got the call yet, that's a little outside my regular area. Looks like a bad day for some boat hauler or marina's insurance company. I think he would have been fine - until he pulled the tandems down into the ditch. Sure unloaded it off the trailer fast though, it looked like he goosed the truck about when it went over and he just pulled the trailer right out from under it.
All I can say is wow. I’m not even sure where to start in all that’s done wrong there!!
Brother sent me that, he lives down that way. Seems that was a Starter Boat for the Lake Race or Shootout, is almost $3mil sitting on the dirt.
Had to kind of laugh at the "In God We Trust" on the stern! Maybe they should have got someone else to trust with that project?
It’ll buff out!
It fell over slow so might not have too much damage. Picking it up might be fun.
New concrete plant. We offloaded this earlier this spring, they have some of the concrete down, and the scale/mixer house built.
Trusses and some steel posts for the back deck for some amish framers. Their scaffold on the back was impressive. The steel poles were made wrong, so several went back and forth from the front side to the back side. Went back after the welder came and modified some of them.
Back at the concrete plant to set the big tanks. One is a single tank, the bigger one has a divider wall in it.
Finish setting poles and a big lam beam, then some of the trusses for the amish framers. It was kind of a poke back there, I was going to take the 35 because of the reach, but didn't think I could get it leveled up, so I just pulled stinger out on the 25.
you`re findin all sorts of uses for that liebherlifter
Spent friday and saturday setting steel back at the feed mill project. Building has some tall sidewalls. And of course, they set some of the tops of the columns 125' away. Liebherr will lay down though.
It was parents weekend where my youngest is in columbia on sunday. So we made a little run up there to see her, and I made it a business trip by looking at a truck. I'm thinking this ford set back axle 9000 as my support truck for the 100 ton. One more lift axle behind the drives, a little more frame, and a 22' flatbed. It would have enough bridge to haul all the ctw. and the rigging. Its heavy front, they don't have big steer rubber on it though- it does have the double steering boxes. 4.33 rears, 3406e with a jake. 10 speed eaton, hendrickson air ride. Nice tight truck and its got the wheelbase I need. Would need new float steers up front and all new drive rubber, they have tread, but they are all weather cracked. Youngest is done next weekend, and I think I'm going to pull the trigger on it and bring it home, when we go pick her up. Dmiller probably knows where this truck is setting at, its at a machinery yard right on I-70 by montgomery city/ danville. He's got trucks all over his yard, and some don't look too great, but this one seems to be okay. Finished up the 1st half of the building today, its eventually going over the top of the white tanks also. They helped me stack the weights on the trailer, and I managed to get it over in the dolly in the other lot by myself.
Thought you dirt digging guys might like the looks of this trench. I think the site was all excavated, then backfilled with this rock and compacted. The whole hillside to the left is a rock wall. All tied down and headed home.
I like the look of the Aeromax Fords. It's too bad Ford isn't still making heavy trucks. I knew a guy that had a trucking company back in the day and he swore the Fords were the best trucks.
I own one old ford, and have driven several others. They were a lot better trucks than the sterlings that came after, I think. Really with most trucks all you are buying is the cab- everything else is common- engine trans, rears. I have always liked the visibility of the ford cabs. For in and out of jobsites they are really nice. They are steel cabs, so they can tend to rust- and this one has some appearing at the rear window. They aren't a peterbilt, but I don't have a peterbilt budget. He had a quad mack that was double frame, the newer cab, etc and it was really nice. But it was a $50,000 truck, and that's way out of budget.
I love seeing that “LeapingBear” at work!
Finished up the house trusses. Note to self- "Don't leave hard hat out when its going to rain 2 inches over the weekend".
Set the big conveyor at the new concrete plant. And then platforms and ladders, and the bag houses on the tanks.
In other news, the Ford that will become a counterweight hauling flatbed, was purchased yesterday, and no- I don't have anymore pictures of it. I was driving it home yesterday, and blew one of the tires. It was hot, and the tires are weatherchecked, so it wasn't a total suprise. I plan on all new rubber. But, I figured they would make it home just bobtailing, and then I could replace them here. We were going up there anyways with the wife's car, and then I could just drive the truck home. One tire had different plans. So I'll have to go get it the first of the week, its probably two hours away. I think I'll just take the rollback trailer and drive it up on there, rather than replacing a tire and hoping the rest hold. Which is what I probably should have done to begin with, hindsight is 20/20 . I thought they were good enough and I was wrong. Shows what I know.
The Liebherr looks good on the job. I notice the Rt running a manbasket on the 2 part block. Ive run that way myself for years,but recently working with another crane outfit,they would drop the block to single part every time the basket was rigged. Whats your thoughts on that procedure? Seems to me theres no harm in more parts as long as you can tie the basket off and the mans harness off right.
Know the guy in Danville, does not sell many too fast, was the price right? A friend could not touch any of the older junk he had for any decent money. Tires are just a wear item anyway, weather will get them regardless.
Manbasket work is one of those area's that the regs are kind of vague, "no safer way" etc. We needed the basket to put the men on the top of the tanks for bag houses and the ladders. Is a self propelled manlift a "safer" way to get up there? I don't think its any "safer", its just different. We had the cranes there, and the basket was just a pickup truck away, so we did manbasket work. You could make the case that building a scaffold to the top of the tanks is just as safe also . I'll run basket on a multipart, if we have a two part in and are going back and forth, but I'm not going to throw stones at how someone else wants to do it. If running ball, I like to tie the guys off on a cable and shackle to above the becket, but you can't do that on a block, so then they just tie off to the basket. I gave $10,000 for the truck. I would have really liked to spend a little less, but I couldn't really find what I wanted, and if I did, they were $25,000- 38,000, and I'm just not spending that much $. So, not a super great deal, but I'm happy. I thought it was priced right for what it was and what it needs to fix it. Its odometer says like 580,000 some miles, and I think that's legit. Its a really tight truck and runs really well. With the 4.33 rears and the short 22.5's on it- it runs real nice at about 57 mph, its no speed machine. It has enough wheelbase, heavy front, and 3406e, which I think should be a good engine. I like the low geared - it should creep around jobsites real well. I think the a/c was even trying to work a little- might just need a charge. The jakes have something up with them, they come on, but they flicker on and off- I'm wondering if their solenoids are bad- that or the floormat is kind of shoved up around the throttle pedal, and it could be just pushing enough on the the pedal to make them go on and off. New drives (probably go to 11r225 open lug) and either 315 or 385/425 float fronts. I think I'll test fit the floats (I've got a set of rims and tires around) and see what it does to turning radius. I'm going back and forth between big flatbed and custom rack just for the weight. I think I can get the weight if I have just a rack on with its current configuration, depending on what the truck weighs. To do the flatbed - I'll add 5' of frame and a rear lift axle to get some more bridge. I need to first run the truck over the scale, and see where its at empty, and go from there. But to do that, I've first got to get it home.
$10K was pretty much a bargain Tractor, even if was a out dated Ford needing tires, should last your type service until you no longer need it. Will likely only manage 315s on front.
I do the same tie off with a ball. The single sheave block i run has a solid lug for 3 parting,which i use for the safety strap.
Mounted up a 385 I had around,on the shallow offset steel rims I took off the mack. 385's fit easy, I think 425's will also clear. I think I'll just mount them on the steel rims I have left over from re-doing the mack's steering, I'll save up for aluminums. Got started stripping off stuff, 5th wheel plate is off, toolbox and wet kit is next. Flatbed is coming home friday, and I hope a rear lift axle and some extra frame rail too. Weighed it this week, 20,800 empty. 12,500 on the front. Going to go full flatbed and another axle behind the drives. Shooting for 25' bridge. Should get me 63,500 gross.
Irrigation pump box at the golf course. Getting buried under 6' of dirt or so. I'm going to bet its going to be a super pain to get at it when the course is finished, to change out either a pump or a motor when they go bad, but nobody thinks about that when they are building the course. That and I'd like a private word with the engineers that think 6 point pick lugs are the way to go on boxes. Its a pain.
I would consider saving the Wet Kit, plumb to the rear as can use that for OTHER applications unless just need the weight off.
We had to offload the box first, because the hole wasn't ready, they broke rock all weekend, and weren't ready monday when the box got there. They weren't ready tuesday either, they called and said 2-3:00 tuesday afternoon, I said I wasn't starting on it that late in the day- good thing too, because they weren't ready yet on wed. morning either. Transferred it over to the pete and rollback trailer to go down by the pond. First fit didn't quite work, seems the drawings didn't show the extra c channel iron on the walls of the box, and the hole in the rock was too shallow by 5". Back out of the hole and waited while they broke some more rock.
I was taking up the good spot to set in with the crane, and I was a little far away, so they had to sneak down the other side with the excavator to do the breaking.
After they got the hole enlarged, I put it back down in there and it was 2" too high, they decided they could "push" it down into the rock, and I knew that wasn't going to work, they ended up raising one of the valves.
Have to love Golf Courses!! Irrigations supply?
That is stupid to put it in the ground. I've worked on a few golf courses and the irrigation system requires constant maintenance and repairs. Most have a roomy pump house with easy access to everything. Lots of electronics for computer controlled systems too. Being in that box wouldn't make repairs or maintenance easy either. Would almost have to pull the whole thing out if a pump or motor needed service. Don't know how big the pump(s) are but 50 HP+ isn't uncommon.
Oh you guys are smarter than the golf course designers, they dont' want to see ugly things like pumps and motors, so lets hide them in the ground. There are three access trunks/ hatches going into the tops of the tank, that's to drop the irrigation motors and pumps into it when they go bad. How exactly they are getting equipment over there to drop the motors and pumps in the hole- no one knows the answer to that one yet. I did see some picking eyes welded into the roof of the box, so you could hand over hand the motor or pump to the access trunk. They at least thought that far, but as near as I can tell, there isn't going to be anything bigger than a cart path, and it doesn't go close to this pump. There's also a transformer back there, so I don't know how the power company is going to get at it either.
I'm guessing the golf course thinks they will be exempt from confined space regulations?
You cant beat that for a crane job,watching them break rock while you hold the load.
Golf course, cannot be 'Unsightly' ever the pretty presentation of grounds even as all the machinery still has to function!
Oh my, those are dirty words. I doubt they even gave it a second thought. I installed a separate system at this course a couple years ago, I think it is buried also, we haven't had to work on it yet. I replaced a different pump at their other course, I had to rent a tracked skidloader, a bunch of plywood, and hung a chain fall from my forklift pole- on the forks of the tracked skidloader. It was a ball of fun. I let the groundskeeper crew place my plywood.
Got to go set trusses yesterday. I think they had quite a party on the 4th, because the volunteer barn crew was suffering really hard on friday morning. Waited for a thunderstorm before leaving shop, got out there and it was slow. It clouded up in the afternoon and we went through a couple rain showers, then it started to get ugly looking. I had them just cut some short boards to throw up the last 4 trusses. I no more than got the boom in the rest to go home, and the lightning moved in, really close. It's nice to get done just in time.
Tipovers on the road don't just happen to the boom trucks, they can get the truck cranes too. This one was down in arkansas. Looks like he was all loaded up with the counterweight.
If he is roading that with all 3 slabs on the back...
I take it that machine did not tip square over or with the boom up otherwise the boom would not be down
The listing says he swerved to avoid a car and laid it on its side in the ditch. The bent hyd cylinders on the slabs tells me he was roading it with all the slabs on the back.
TOP Heavy and added MORE weight, WHEW! What a ride!! Recoverable or junk?
Probably junk. Unless you find a jib someone took off a rt, the jib new would be 40,000+ from grove. A company I used to work for bought a new jib for a 80 ton rt, after it fell off the crane when they were installing it, and it was over $80,000. If the main boom is damaged at all, its not cost effective to repair it, plus all the other repairs. A used one like it , depending on years and hours- $150,000-300,000, so if you have to spend $150,000 fixing it, you could have just as well gone and bought one and gone to work. Doesn't look hit hard enough to have damaged the turntable bearing, most likely there is main boom damage where the jib stow brackets jammed into the side of the main boom. The cab and panel stuff isn't expensive to fix, it would be the boom, jib, and if there is any engine damage, running and laid on its side. Likely the suspension mounts would be tweaked also. Everything that is wrong with it is probably fixable, its just whether you can afford to fix it, compared with buying a running one. I'm sure its just a listing for the insurance company to try to recoup some costs.
We used to road ours with 2 on the deck and 1 swinging. Kept having problems with front tires so now we road with 2 swinging, 1 on the deck. Now we have problems with all the tires. Lol.
It rained last week after I finished the trusses, so of course someone missed the corner again, they had it gone before I got back. You can see their tracks, they got right between the signs, I bet the rock around my culvert is costing someone a oil pan. Set some units Monday morning down at a resort. I tend to grade hills by what gear it takes to get out, most steeper hills in my old 35 are 3rd gear hills, this one is a third gear hill until the last little curve, and right there its a first gear hill. If you don't get into first gear, before that curve point, its a ugly experience. And you're going slow enough already in third, you ain't making a third to first shift. Not that I've rolled back down that hill or anything to get to first.
Junkyard haul, flatbed for the ford straight truck, a rear lift axle, and some 24.5 aluminum budds. Some frame rail to extend the frame. Had to have them dig up a old junk tire because of a rack they didn't cut out of the bottom of the bed, but I still broke out a board on the trailer. The conex wall headache rack is coming off, its pretty flimsy. The rest of the bed is pretty solid.
New concrete precast sign for the local college entrance sign. 17,000lbs.
Had plenty time to take some pictures, they had to weld it to a bunch of imbeds before I cut loose.
Coming down the straightaway, and working it through turn three. Just like nascar, floor it and turn left. Actually setting light poles at a football field. 70- 95' tall, furthest was 60' away. They didn't want anything on the track, they've been fighting mud and rain all spring and summer. Nowhere else wide enough to set the crane, so on the track it was.
The block has always been attached to the dolly with a cable choker, to the d- rings on each side. It can bounce all around back there, and for the previous owners, who knows how many lights they knocked out. I pulled the cable and we're trying a prototype block retainer. Should keep it from slapping the dolly so hard.
Pulling a large old air handler unit. We pulled the old one down today, they are redoing the roof and curb tomorrow, going to put up the multipiece new unit saturday morning. Gambled and took the old unit down in one piece, but we had to fly up the welder and trailer first.
Unit was right on the other side of the stair tower. I could have got off to the side and not have to go over it, but I had plenty of height/ boom length, and less radius= more chart, so I just got close and went right over the stair tower. Running 125' main, 53' radius, 19,800lbs. (once we got it broke loose of the roof). Probably 12-14' wide- 30' long. Glad I could get it in one piece, it would have been a pain to get it into smaller pieces to fly them down, now they can scrap it out on the ground.
That Pete is looking sharp Crane Op. I'm looking forward to seeing how your new Ford project turns out.
Thank you, it probably looks better in the pics than it does up close. How do the car guys put it? "its a 20 footer". The pete is 50mph er' Looks pretty good going by at 50. The pete has been earning its keep right now, until we get the straight truck done. Today's job was a pain to get the truck and trailer in, it would have been slick to have the straight truck. All it takes is time....
I'm guessing the counterweights should be carried separately like you're doing with the new crane?
Depends all on how your state laws and weight permits are. It is made to be removable on that crane and trailered seperately, but its really not any heavier than my old 35 ton and way lighter than my 70 ton which both have non removable counterweight. It is a little better weight distribution wise to put some of the weight on the deck, like impact does with his. So really, its no different going down the road axle weight wise than my 35, although I have a rear air lift axle on mine- my state weight laws are pretty strict. I don't think very many crane companies would be trailering that load separately, its just not that big of crane. Probably the biggest difference between my old 35 and that newer 50 ton, is that mine won't run near as fast down the road. Bad things at 60mph being heavy, is much worse than bad things at 40 mph.
I guess newer technology makes things lighter and faster. I had a woman do my taxes a few years ago that her and her husband had an old BE crawler dragline they had to move. Told the truck not to go 30 MPH or it would pound out the rollers in the swing circle. They were following behind. They made a 5 minute pit stop and it seemed to take a while to catch up to truck. The truck was doing 65! I think she said it was a 10 or $15,000 repair to the swing. The normal mover they used wasn't available for that move. I don't think the trucking company contributed anything to repair claiming there's no proof driving faster caused the damage. When they moved the 820 tonne vessel here a few month's ago, I think the average speed was 2 MPH.
Well that sucks....
Swing wasn't locked?
WHOOOWEE!!
He had the boom in a trailering dolly, and the tower/ stand that the boom attaches too- it broke off the dolly. Tower stayed attached to the crane boom. The turntable brake is in free swing. Dolly's are dangerous. Canada did a study on them, and their hazards, I know of several really bad accidents because of them. I actually came close to getting it myself with one. But boom dolly is the only way to comply with the federal bridge laws here in the U.S. In europe, they don't use the boom dolly's, they have higher allowable axle weights. So there they just put the boom in the rest and down the road they go.
Looks like it somehow pulled the rest off the dolly. I saw a boomlift on a rental truck swing as it went across an overpass and knock a sign off the overpass onto traffic below....
I've never pulled that type of dolly. That style has a pintle hitch, and the boom pins to a "traveling" rest. The tower will roll back and forth on a bearing track to deal with the difference in corner movement. I would guess something in the bearing/ track assembly let loose by the picture. All the ones I've driven have only been attached to the dolly by the boom, no pintle hitch.
Can hauler hit him. How do you manage that?
That explains it all better. Crane was slowing down to make the corner, can hauler was in a hurry. Knocked the boom and tower right off the dolly, then there's nothing to keep that boom from swinging free. If it does it on the drivers side, usually the driver doesn't make it, the boom swings around and crushes the lower cab. luckily there was a pole there to stop it. Opened the can hauler like a tin can.
I for one could never get my head round why permitted axle weights in the US are so low compared to the rest of the World..? One lucky thing was that the power pole right on the street corner probably prevented the boom from shaving the roof off the nearest house at ceiling level.
I got a workout friday morning. Supposed to go lift a unit about 10:00, I called them and they were ready, about 8:00. I told them I'd head that way, then I did my walkaround. Looks like the hot weather we've had lately got to this tire. If you can't see it in the picture, its got about a 6" zipper forming about a inch off the bead. Nasty nasty. I wasn't too late for the original 10:00 time, but I certainly wasn't early.
Got the units changed out. Set on one side of the church, units are on the other side. One of my guys was finished with his first job, close to where I was at, he stopped by and helped me do jib and dead section, and then did the radio work from the far side. In the blind between a retaining wall and the building, its nice to have someone who knows what they are doing on the radio on the other side.
70' long wall, heavy fire wall rocked, steel studs, also all mudded fire board. foreman did the math, and told me it was a 8,000lbs wall. First had one of my guys with the mack try it with just the 30' bar, and the wall couldn't take the strain, couldn't keep it straight. We moved some chokers around, and I went and got the 25 ton, and we set it together. Architect demanded that the wall be built and stood as 1 wall, no joints. The builder is barely on speaking terms with him "I ain't ever using that architect again" is the phrase I heard several times while I was there.
Finished up the big unit at the college this morning. They had to build a whole new steel curb to hold this unit, and somewhere the drawings were wrong, so I had to hold on for a hour or two while they redid the curb. Fit great when they got it changed.
You are a BUSY Cuss!!
Some Congress Critters found the levers back in the 70's and It's been downhill from there. Part of the original interstate design specification was a 129,500 pound gross weight.
Not mention every state has there own set of rules and certain countys have different rules it's a convoluted mess
Europe goes more on axle weights. Drive axle - 25,350 pounds; non-drive axle - 22,050 pounds. The original numbers are in metric (11.5 tonnes/10 tonnes) which makes more sense. Articulated truck (equivalent to US Class 8.?) - max GVW 97k pounds (44 tonnes) on 6 axles, three of which must be on the tractor, the other three on the trailer, and must have "road-friendly" suspension which pretty much everything has these days. Basic rules that apply as a minimum pretty much across the EU. Some countries (e.g. Holland, Denmark, & Scandinavia) allow higher gross weights but with caveats, usually more axles required.
In the US Commercial Zones as I am aware the total Gross weight is not bothered with so long as can meet axle weights and DO NOT access the Interstate system. Bridge law still remains to dampen to free spirited. Most EU style multi axles would not fare well in the US as to Bridge Formula.
Great thing over the other side of the Pond - no bridge laws............
Lucky sh!ts
In South Carolina, all vocational type trucks and vehicles are exempt from worrying about axle spacing, as long as they stay off the interstate. We go by gross allowed by number of axles, and no more than 20,000 lbs per axle without a permit. Divisible load, no permits available. Permitted load is still generally restricted to 20k per axle.
That seems counter-intuitive. If the major highways are the ones that are better-designed, constructed, and maintained (at least you'd hope so) it would seem logical to apply any stricter limits to secondary highways not primary ones. Or am I missing something..?
Yeah, well, politicians make the rules, so... South Carolina was one of the states that already had weight laws of a certain type, so we were allowed to keep them when the feds came out with bridge laws.
See quite a few Oversize Overweight units on the interstates so long as stay below 14' or 15' depending on the road, Junkyard has dragged His share around MO. One of my First ever Mack STL road calls was for Gateway Ready Mix Maryland Heights MO. Had a Brandy New 1977 DM800(Found my notes) with a V8 someone noted was Uprated to 560 hp, had tootsie rolled the forward drive shaft. Saw the truck delivered but had not seen it close up until that day. Tri-Drive on rubber ride, 20K steer axle dual steer, 24? yard dump box could have been 30 as was at least 18 if not 20' long bed. Behind that a tandem Joe Dog to a tri axle 34 or 36' frame style dump trailer. Average Gross weight coming out of West Lake Quarry was 167,000. Drove Under I-70 but never on it to climb Creve Coeur Park Hill and hang a left onto Dorsett Road, NEVER did the driver achieve 45mph before had to slow for a stop. Had to have a shaft made for the New truck on its third DAY at work, that one made by Plaza Fleet Parts, it lasted two weeks and was BACK twisted like a bread tie. Next one to go in was either Schedule 80 or 120 Pipe cut and lathe fitted by Nooter Boiler Works STL took TWO of us to wrestle into and out of the service truck and BOTH to hang ONE end at a time, had the massive Rockwell bolted Cap U-joints. Far as I know a few busted joints but NEVER ever a shaft again. Bridge Law, who needs bridge law when never cross one!!
crane op. Im coming out to your part of the world in the next few days, coming to dover ark. to pick up another truck we bought there then up to kc kans.for an air compressor, looks like branson is due north of dover so i`m thinkin about coming up that way and look branson over, have been to every other big town in mo. except branson . maybe if timing works out might stop and say hello
Sounds great. I'll send you a private message with my number, call when you'll be around. What did you end up with for a second truck?
actually we bought 3, 2 2006 petes and a2008 t-300 kw with a service body
Was really hot here last week, got a little rain sunday night and its been really nice the last 2 days. Which means its going to turn around and get hot again, but I'm going to enjoy it while its here. Removed some really poor plastic enclosed tailights off the ford flatbed. It had some ground issues, and some wiring hanging issues. The hazards would kind of alternate flashing, like a patrol car.
What do you do with a bunch of snaked up cable chokers? Why if you are a tight cheapskate like me, straighten them back out and go back to work. This is my cable straightner, its just a flat bar into a angle iron with a foot pedal to push it down. Mounted to a couple of rims and a heavy top plate. Grab the cable on each side of the bar, and bend it back opposite of the kinks and you can get them pretty decent. I can straighten up to 5/8" cable, any heavier cable and you can't hold it or get enough pressure on it to straighten it. I've always been going to build a bigger unit that used hydraulic or a air bag to straighten the bigger ones, but I haven't gotten around to it yet.
Flipped tanks again the other day, I've been leaving the 70 ton down at the tank facility, with the 100 ton I haven't needed it back in town for a while. After I flipped the 1st one, I had to move crane, and after I got pulled away, everyone was scurrying around. A 5' black snake had made a home up in the frame rail of the crane, and decided to leave about the time I moved the crane. Probably better than me climbing underneath and mistaking him for a hyd hose. I haven't told my mechanic about it, if he knew he would never climb under it again. He does not like snakes, at all, not even a little, he whistles to himself in the weeds in the back yard, and swishes a stick around as he's walking.
Off to set some trusses.
I had to set trusses sunday morning, it was hot. I used the mack, cause the 25 ton truck crane isn't running quite right. Did I mention it was hot out? It was really hot. We haven't got around to putting the a/c window unit in, I asked the regular operator, and he said he likes his back window. But sunday I was wishing for the A/C. He's always commenting on how squirrelly it is over the side, I was warm enough I didn't care and just boomed it down to set the 1st gable. It gets light but it will do chart.
Pre built stair towers. Customer called and said "4-5,000 lbs, just 30-40' over there". Well I gave him my 35 ton crane rates, and then went and looked at the job. After looking at it, I gave him the 100 ton crane rates. 87' to the far one, and I was grossing 9,200lbs. 50' tall tower over the top of a 60' tall building.
The closer of the two towers was touching both buildings when we finally got it where it went. The far one had big cantilever decks for the A/C units.
Set some small units today at wal-mart. I had the truck dock blocked, so no time for pictures except from the seat. Had just enough main to get them there and stay off the wall, the milk man was in a pretty big hurry to get out of the dock, so I'm glad we didn't have to take the time to put on jib. Got back and had two deliveries, it was like christmas. Tires and rigging. Tires are regrooves, a casing buyer I know regrooves the better cases he gets, and resells them. Some are just really good used, and he doesn't regroove them. I got some 11r24.5 drives for the ford counterweight truck, some 425's for the steers (with a couple extra's as spares- Mack has floats up front also). And the rest are 255's for the dolly of the 100 ton and the lift axles of the ford counterweight truck project. The rigging is all nylons, 1/2 round ups and 1/2 eye to eye flat straps. Reds, blue and orange round ups. 2 and 4 ply flat straps.
Did you break that 2x4 on the building swing that tower around Looks like their keeping you busy, good work!
Ha- I wish the tower would have fit between the building there. The two buildings sit on a angle to each other, so unfortunately I had to take both towers over the top and to the far side, and then bring them back in. It looked to me like they hooked the board with their manlift. Also- you'd think a former carpenter would know that's bigger than a 2x4.
Tail Lights appear to be the Old Style Betts explosion proof they installed on Propane, Bottle Gases or Gasoline haulers. Most are switching to Peterson style LEDs now, just requires a different flasher.
I’ve lost my carpenters eye this is the best I can do anymore
Good eye, it was a propane delivery truck in its former life.
In other news that makes me smile, I've been having soft white bimbo this week: I think my endless comments (imagine all the juvenile comments you can think of, and apply a multiplier) about it around the house, have meant that it is the last time we will see "soft white bimbo" at our house. So I'm making the most of it.
I have nothing wise to add
This could end up in a VERY Deep ditch!!
Well thursday we got to have a little fun. This is a water tank replacement I originally looked at 2 years ago. I actually thought someone else did it a year ago, and I was kind of glad because I didn't want to do the job anyways. No such luck. They called this winter again, and had the tank bought, and wanted to install it in march or so. They weren't quite ready then, so we put it off, and have actually been scheduling it every week or two for the past few months. I told them we weren't going up that hill if it had rained, and its rained about every week since then. This week worked out. Rt crane to set the tank, two 10k forklifts to carry the tank a 1/4 mile to the crane. No place close to drop the lowboy, so I got to road the RT a ways down there. I told the rental house to drop the forklifts where I unloaded the crane, but their delivery driver "I go down all kinds of bad roads, blah blah blah." Whatever buddy. He got hung up with his trailer dropping the first one and had to use the forklift to spin his trailer around, I get the call "where can I drop this other forklift? I got the one down there but I'm not going down there again."
Took the crane up the hill first and played tetertotter and got it set up first. I held off on all the rain days because its kind of steep where the roads meet and I was worried about not being able to get up the hill. Walked right up it. Then we went back down below, and unloaded the tank off the delivery driver.
Up the hill and around a couple corners with the tank. Had to go get a pole to push up on the one telephone line, not quite enough clearance.
Stood upright and in place, then just getting everything back down the hill and hauled away. Ended up being a full day at it, but didn't have to get a wrecker to pull anything up the hill. I think the original tank they set from the other side, and just bulldozed a path through the trees to get it set. 40 years ago they didn't care about the trees, they had a tank to set. We had to be a little more careful.
Back down the hill and headed home.
Prefab wall panels, this is the second story on top of the first story we set a while back.
You sure get your share of Pains in the butt!!!
Well, I'm usually a pretty mellow kind of person, but today I kind of had a moment. As you can see, I'm boomed down pretty tight to the building, right by that opening. Where do you think the fireproofing guys decided they wanted to work this morning? That's right, right beside that opening, absolutely covering #2 section side and top of the boom with fireproofing spray in about 2 minutes time, when it came drifting out of the opening. The whole time the fireproofer is spraying, I'm on the horn and yelling, in addition to the guys I'm working with. English isn't the fireproofers first language, except for their foreman. He comes over and kind of says its no big deal- its just grey fuzzy stuff. He takes another look at me, and starts backpedaling and talking about how it won't stick on- it sticks to the I-beams they are spraying it on, so I don't know why he thinks it won't stick on the boom. Ever see a lift that they've used spraying fireproofing? They are a grey mess. If he thinks it won't stick, how about we just pull your pickup down here and we cover it with that c#&p. He doesn't care- it ain't his crane. Anyways- (I'm getting all stirred up again about it ). 85' Manlift- garden hose- and a bunch of rags. I went up in the lift and cleaned it all off. No way to get at it except for a manlift. Can't suck boom in without smearing it all into the wear pads and everything. Wait till the fireproofers get a back charge for the crane time cleaning it all up.
Can feel for you Had similar run in at a UE headquarters with a basket truck fiberglass and dielectric coded boom Jerks at a chemical plant spraying some kind of insulation got the **** all over it They paid for two days of polishing and removal then the retest for dielectric safe margin. Arms were sore two weeks
Friend of mine got a bunch of paint overspray on his brand new Triumph Daytona T595 sport bike because the painters left the man door outside the parking lot open when they were spray painting inside the shop. Of course the company denied it was their fault but I think when he showed them pictures and started talking about court they decided to do the right thing and paid to get it fixed. Apparently body shops can remove overspray without having to repaint everything. Sounds like the guy fireproofing isn't too bright. Doesn't speak English but can't he see there's a very expensive crane boom right where he's spraying? Should they even be working in the vicinity of the crane boom? You should charge them double time for having to clean everything.
Unfortunately this type of madness happens all the time on the jobs I'm on too. The building trades see all equipment as a piece of rental equipment to use and abuse. We've had to threaten burying them alive on the site before to get them to understand that this is OUR equipment that puts food on OUR table. Even the no speak the English workers understand that. Crane Op stick to your guns on the back charge. I don't know what Missouri lien laws are but what I've found out here in AL is the threat of a lien to the owner gets GC's to writing checks like a politician spending tax dollars.
I went after the layout crew of a concrete company one day with a shovel they left 2 full paint cand on the pad I didn't see ran over them in the backhoe boy does that ruin your day fortunately I was there for the concrete company so I charged them for stopping to clean up to this day the helper on that crew wont talk or look at me
Well the fireproofers got to give my international truck a bath this morning. I showed up to the job, and they evidently got it yesterday afternoon. I didn't even talk to them about it, I just told the general contractor that they better get it cleaned up. They washed it all up first thing this morning. I should park the ford flatbed winch truck where they could get it, because it needs a bath too.
HOLY CRAP!! Are they even getting any INSIDE the Building??
Maybe they get paid by the pound they apply, not the square footage.
Gather round children, time for a walk down crane operator's memory lane. I grew up building grain bins in central Iowa. At one time the company was owned by my father and a business partner, I worked both for them and the former owner before them (they both worked for the company before they bought it). 8 or so years after I left there, my dad and his business partner sold out, and the guy that bought them out, is selling out. Dad called me and sent me the listing of the online auction of some of the remnants, its really hard for him, and he hasn't owned it for 15 years or so. But he spent a majority of his working life there, and its where I grew up working. Anyways, memory lane time. Item #1 The hobart gas welder that I learned to weld with. Fine heat control by throttle. Learned what points are and what they do. On wisconsin! Learned if you run out of gas for the torch, you can crank up a stick welder enough to cut something off. Learned to back a 5' long welder behind a 20' wheelbase crew cab, long bed, utility box 1 ton truck (You can just see that little round muffler above the tailgate, but its offset- just thought you all should know). Learned how to reweld the tongue of the welder after learning how not to back it up. Notice the jack on the tongue, that's right, its just a piece of pipe with two holes, up and down. And it aint balanced either, its tongue heavy. Really tongue heavy. And oh the joys of pouring gas out of a metal gas can, spilling it all over that square lid, and watching it run toward the hot exhaust. All while Whitey (real name Duane- which I learned 3 years later when I saw his paycheck) stood back smoking a cigarette and laughing at me- "You're going to die young kid!" I haven't talked to dad if its run recently, but I bet I could get it running. It looks like it has the same tires on it. Item #2 A ancient stand grinder, that was old way back when I was working there. Its welded up out of some kind of old pickup axle- one of my coworkers claimed it was a model T. No guards, no shields, and it ain't stopping. I know there are dents in the wall behind it, where it grabbed whatever I had in my hands and it wanted it more than I did. It would take quite a while to wind down after shutting it off. There's probably still DNA from my hands in the wire wheel. Be careful around machinery kids, it can hurt you. Its a wonder I'm still here. Item #3 Manual tire changer. We sold lots of portable augers, and bought used pickup tires from the local coop tire shop (back when all pickups ran 15 and 16" tires), and mounted them on the ag rims. Of course being used tires, 1/2 of them had a nail or something in them, so you got to remount some of them multiple times. The tire machine was much older than me, but I didn't wear it out, I don't think anyone could wear one out. That bar leaning up to the left has no paint on it due to lots of hands struggling on some old stiff wall sidewall pickup tire. Michelin's were the best to mount- soft flexible sidewalls. Item #4 A old wells metal bandsaw We made up a lot of standard equipment in the winter, and I cut pipe and pipe and pipe on that old saw. Smooth hand wheel. Cuts fast with a new blade, cuts crooked if you don't have it adjusted right. Learned how to adjust guide wheels to make a saw blade run and cut straight. The length stop cast piece is cracked from where its been tightened down too hard on the stop arm (I know nothing about that event ). I know every one of those items was purchased by the owner before my dad, probably in the late 60's or early 70's, and probably already used when he bought it. I used the equipment in the late 80's to mid 90's. It was all serviceable then, and in fact, each one of them is probably simple enough that you could get any one of them to do the same job today, that they were doing in the late 60's. I think very little of the harbor freight chinesium stuff of today will be serviceable in 2080. Don't any of you bid on the old welder at the auction either- I need more projects around my place! I'd love to have the old saw and the tire changer, but I don't know how I would justify the grinder to a safety inspector.
I have the same welder fits nice in the back of my pickup with the toolbox and fuel tank. I was burning rod with it today sounds like an old flathead ford v8.Hope you can win it back.
I found a picture of mine.
Tugger- you're being a enabler here, I was hoping for words of wisdom like "You're too young to be nostalgic- it was a hard starting noisy sob back then- what makes you think it will be any different 30 years later!" I think your welder might be one size up, this one was just 200 amp with a two cylinder, yours looks like a 4cyl ? 300 amp?
Yes you are right Crane operator it is the 300. I just sense your bitten with the bug of appreciation for older things ,sorry to be supporting impractical decisions .
Isn't the small wheel in the middle of the "steering" wheel for fine adjustment? Hobart made good welders. I had a 200 amp Hobart generator from the 40's. It was hooked up to a 6 cylinder Chrysler industrial engine but also had a 10 HP 3 phase motor on the opposite end of the welder. Way more engine than it needed but had a really smooth arc. The small fine adjustment wheel came out and you could use an extension cord to have a remote current control. Hobart also had water cooled welders with a full enclosure that also had 3 phase motors to run them. Run it on 3 phase in shop or bolt the engine up to run in the field. https://books.google.ca/books?id=te...nepage&q=hobart simplified arc welder&f=false
You're making invalid assumptions here Dave. Yes the small wheel is for fine adjustment. No- not everything works the way it is supposed to on 40 year old hand me down equipment, and if you can do the same thing by adjusting the throttle, why would you fix the fine control? You evidently don't have enough poor farmer blood in you.
I was going by how most older Hobart welders are set up but the fine adjustment rheostat can go bad on any machine. Turning it while welding isn't recommended but a lot of people do. I also had an older Miller welder with plugs for different heat ranges that used the throttle for fine adjustment. A lot of newbies to welding ask about what amps to use but it's pointless because every machine is different. All the dial does is give you a reference point once you figure out the right heat. The best way to set your heat (other than doing critical code work where they actually hook meters to the cables) is to run some beads on a piece of scrap till it burns how you want it. I currently have a 1961 SA200 that started without much fuss yesterday after sitting for over a year. It doesn't idle down until after you used it for about 1/2 an hour. It's not a big deal because I don't use it very often. I'll play with it when I when I get caught up with everything else. A welder is one of those things that you want to have around when you need it. A welder on a trailer would be super handy.
You can see the rheostat windings when you remove the remote from the housing. Don't call the remote cord an extension cord, as it is only 2 wire. Original would be round black hard rubber cord ends. I've got a 25hp motor drive version, 9 speed unit, 350 amp. Very noisy brushes.
I don't think all of them had the rheostat that could be used as a remote. Back when they were new extension cords were only 2 wire. Didn't have the 3 pring prong plug ins yet. I still remember the commercials for 3 pring prong lug ins from the early 70's.
Who has this one?
I'm telling you- this crane stuff is all glamor, bright lights big city, hiiigghh class work. "Say- while you're here, can you set this little amusement ride on the second floor?" "Say- while you're here, can you set this genset over on the pad?" I'm on the clock, I don't care what we are picking up. Only bad thing with the oddball extra stuff is we've been using the old winch truck on site to move around the weights, and I don't have all the "standard" rigging that I've got set up in all the other cranes. No room on the deck for a rigging box. So every time they show up with something else, I've got to make a phone call to have one of the guys bring me some rigging/ spreader bar/ extra shackles, or something from the shop. But we're working on that problem. We've got the flatbed headache rack cut off, and have flipped it and cut all the old racks out of the bottom. It needs some welding on the bottom side also. I'm thinking of adding some large square tubing or c channel right where the weights are going to set.
Got the second floor wall panels all set.
Airborne rock drilling. Yes, we do that too. Overhanging ledge on a cliff face at a resort/ golf course. No way to set the drill rig on what's left of the rock so they can drill it and blast it off. There's a clay line behind the rock face and they were concerned that it will eventually break off and go tumbling down the hill into one of the ponds or be on the golf course. I had around 29,000lbs with drill rig and rigging. We had to skip the furthest hole they had marked out, I just couldn't get the drill rig all the way over there. Drilled a total of 9 holes on the face. They were going to blast it yet this afternoon. Had to do a little playing around with shackles and rigging and the placement of the drill head to get it to hang halfway straight.
Had a nice view from up on the hill. They had to break me out a spot for the one side outrigger. Flew over the skip box with the tamping rock and the rest of the hardware for the blasters.
Ahh, I see you have the same amusement rides as we do
Flying rebar, forms and a couple manlifts. And I'd like to talk to the engineer that came up with the lifting points for the manlifts. 18" higher on one side than the other? Yeah, that's real convenient. At least its marked.
Big timber trusses. Middle ones are 50' and just under 6,000lbs each.
The outside two trusses were around 2,400, I think it was 120' or so to the far one on each side.
definitely no shortage of rock in branson & surrounding areas
Log cabin. Two semi loads of logs per cabin, I've built these before, just not from 120' away. Usually you can set in the front of the house and back the truck right up. Too many trees on this one. These two are side by side at a local resort.
Its like lincoln logs but bigger. The cabins are actually preassembled in montana, disassembled right onto the truck, and then rebuilt on site, so no fitting on the jobsite. They go pretty fast. The first one I did in one big day, but they kind of messed around the first two hours. The second one the trucks showed up a day apart from one another, so each day was about 1-2pm when we got done, because I had to move in and move out, the resort wouldn't let me leave the crane in place.
Many years ago I helped build a log cabin from a kit … By hand... One log got away from us and ended up in the lake. Sure would have been nice to have a crane lifting the logs. It was hard to set the logs on the spline between logs. Lifting, turning, holding... all at the same time. Did they have a come-along on the diagonal to square up the cabin ? or did the initial build have enough precision?
It seems like your new crane is spoiling you It's kinda like an extendahoe on a backhoe once you have one you dont know how you got anything done without it
No come a long. Just string lines on the first plate, and cross measured the diagonal after the first row, and screwed those down. Each row got staked to the last, and there were two that went all the way across the long walls, in the center in the last row, they had to pull a little on the long wall to get that top log on. No cutting or notching of anything, except the intial porch logs, two of those got cut for length.
Its strange, this year has been a lot of bigger crane work. Its been good though, can't afford to have it around if its not working. It will change, its always kind of a cycle, in two months it will probably be 25 ton truss jobs all the time. I've got a job coming up that I need both my 70 ton and the 100 ton for. If it wasn't for it coming up, I think the 70 ton would be for sale. I've been kind of dragging my feet on selling it, hoping that a project would come up for it, and as a "fall back" if I had a bunch of trouble with the 100 ton. We used the 70 ton a bunch this spring down at the tank building factory, but they haven't done any more big tanks since that spring order. And we haven't used it in many other places.
Early in my trucking career I hauled cabins like that out of MT. They would stack logs on you until you were maxed out and then throw a couple more on!
Just a picture off a site where I was looking at some rigging. Glad I don't have to drag those chokers around all day.
and just because I like our Canadian viewers, this photo came from edmonton. Looks expensive. No one was injured, just some pride. News article says ground gave way.
That's close to home. Good thing they weren't lifting something and no one was hurt. It's a new school so I wonder if the ground wasn't properly compacted. It looks like they had everything set up properly. Do you normally have to check ground compaction when setting up a crane? A 360 ton crane has to weigh a few pounds. Says an engineering firm is figuring out the best way to right it.
It looks to me like they had mats under the outriggers and big mud mats under the whole area. The only way to stand them back up is two cranes. One to lift it, one to catch it. My old boss in iowa had a 360 ton liebherr about like this one, and if I remember right it was over 400,000lbs with counterweights on.
On those log cabins, I would have to use binoculars to see where the logs were going. I have hauled lots of log houses like that. Would drop trailers at the log home yard and then, live unload at the site. Have been in some pretty fun places.
Well I took a couple days off, thursday we flew to portland, Or. Drove out to the coast and rented a house and stayed with my wife's parents and her brothers and sisters and their spouses. Flew back late monday. First class each way- which was a first for me. The last time I flew we took a booster seat with us, and our youngest is a junior in college, so its been a while since I've been on a plane. The extra width and leg room (booked 1st row on both flights) made a big difference for me. So I haven't been in oregon since I was just out of high school. Of course I'm a little older, and I notice a lot different things than I did back then. I should have known what I was in for, before boarding the portland flight. There was a skinny girl with pink hair in a combat coat and a stocking hat (but no shoes?) , that sat on the floor in front of the united boarding gate desk, during the whole time before the flight. Never got up, just stared at every person that walked up to the desk and everyone just stepped around her. Right in front of the counter. But airports are goofy places anyways, so I didn't think that much of it. Get the rental car, and head for the coast, about a three hour drive. First off- I don't know what kind of revenue stream they are generating, but there's a weigh scale/ inspection station about every 10 miles all through the state, and on thursday, they were all open. Even the little side of the road ones that barely hold two trucks were open, with trucks lined up to get in. I didn't see as many open ones later through the week, but the scales are everywhere. So we drive for a couple hours and decide to get lunch. Halfway to the coast, see a little town cafe, advertising BBQ. We park and I notice something odd on the door. Gluten free? What the? How do you have a bbq sandwich for lunch with no gluten. Wife stands in line for a table, I go out to use the phone, and she comes out about 10 minutes later. Still doesn't have a table, no one really in the diner. Says the only person working only brought out one meal the whole time she stood there, and it got sent back to the kitchen, because it was raw. Not undercooked, raw. So back in the car we go. Next place is a McDonalds. Which I generally don't eat at, but with the luck we're having, I'm looking for safe, how can they screw up a mcdonalds? It was like a episode of the twilight zone. The one person working there, was right off the carnival circuit. It was a lady, (I think) about 4' 4" tall, with a darker, fuller mustache than anything I've ever grown between my mouth and my nose. I get our food, and sit down, and on the other side are two guys, kind of look like regular people, except the young guy in carpenter pants, has a purse over his shoulder. A honest to goodness purse. It was just weird. We got our lunch and took off for the coast. Had a great time with the wife's siblings. Ran up and down the coast, had some seafood, walked the beach, rented some 4 wheelers and rode the dunes. Last day was just the wife and I and we toured the falls on the columbia east of portland, and had a great time with just the two of us. But I was beginning to wonder at the start of things.
Of course I did spend 15 minutes on the side of the road watching these guys stand a wall with a link belt 40 ton. They had some big timbers to set too, and my wife was giving me the "we're on vacation" look, so I didn't get to see how they were going to rig them.
a huge % of the california fruits &nuts have moved up the coast
Seattle, Portland, S. Fransisco not fit for humans
Can relate to the Above, fast becoming a place not fit for man and much of the time nor beast in the Great NW. Uncle has actually stated regret for moving down from Anchorage to Bend then CdA.
CdA has went down the tubes in the last 10 years. I had not been down there in about 10 years, hard to believe the change Will stay in Bonners Fery, population around 3000-3500. I am 7 miles from town so miss The hubbub of town. LOL
Well this might be OT for Crane Operators work but it's a little project going on near me. They are starting the project of replacing an air suspended roof on a sports with a ridged roof of some kind and they have a live stream of the project showing the big crane being used. Not much going on right now but might be interesting when they get really working on it!
Traffic signs are a little different in oregon too. I've never seen a traffic calming zone. The funniest sign though was at a construction site. It listed all the things not allowed, drugs,alcohol, no PPE, No tobacco, No vaping (which was a new one for me to see), no discrimination on basis of sex, color, orientation, gender status, etc. , and then the newest addition, - NO bullying. Never in my life have I seen a sign that listed "no bullying", but I'm wondering, who gets to decide what bullying is? You know it when you see it? So if two of my employees are standing there doing nothing, and I chew them out, I ain't paying for standing around time, am I then "bullying" and they can turn me in? It was just a interesting trip.
I guess there still is a Wild West. LOL
Finished up the big wooden beam building before I left for vacation.
First day back, set steel all day, just beat out a thunderstorm finishing up, I had boom back in, but did ctw. and mats as the wind hit. Hit hard rain about a mile from the jobsite.
Trusses.
Don't let the Portland effect give us Oregonians all a bad name lol. There's more than a few of us "normal" folks outside the big cities, and we can't stand the weirdos and their shenanigans just as much as you.
gtermini is right we all not crazy in oregon
I didn't figure everyone out there was crazy. There's several of you guys on the forum from oregon, and most of you seem on the sane side. I did see several logging outfits and some of the boat repair yards full of equipment, and figured they weren't all wearing tutu's. From what I read and see on the news, you guys really have a mess of two distinct groups, a super liberal large city group, and a much more conservative business minded rural area. From what I read in the local papers while I was there, a lot of the planning and zoning and business processes can be a real headache. It seems the state politics is even more divided, than the country as a whole is right now, with probably a larger divide between the two sides than in a lot of other areas. Seems like not much middle ground. But a lot of times, the news just wants to show the extremes, not the middle of the road people either. (Sorry if any of that seemed political leaning toward anyone, I'm not trying to push one side or the other here, just a outsiders weekend view). I was surprised at the number of scales and how many were open. Maybe I just hit the wrong days. But that would make it tough to get a lot of work done, if you have to mess around in the scales all the time. The limited number of roads between the coast highway and I-5 kind of funnels most of the east west traffic down to just a few routes, so they kind of have you guys in a box. Where I am, there's only two scales that are within a two hour drive from me. One in Joplin on I-44 and one in west plains on 60 highway. I've only had a crane through the one on 60 highway, I've never been through the one in Joplin. They are both out of my regular travel area.
we have a super liberal large city group, and a much more conservative business minded rural area and it is in the Portland metro area and the rest of the state cant out vote them.
Youngest daughter got her drivers licsense a couple weeks ago, so I had to give up the 1997 3/4 ton red ford truck, so she would have wheels. I really like that truck, but its reliable, and with her rolling around in a nice big steel machine, she's probably going to come out on the good side of a accident with a plastic car. I'm keeping my eye out though for something else for her, I kinda want the old body style truck back. So with her taking the red ford, I needed another set of wheels. 2001 f450, 7.3 manual, two wheel drive. Odometer says 168,000. 11' bed, and it has grout or something stuck all to the flatbed. A/C works like a champ! Bought it at a auction with 3 aux. fuel tanks. One of the guys went and picked it up, and said it was missing badly, but the old owners say its a new crate motor with only 30,000 miles on it. It looks new, new radiator, new or reman transmission too. Bed has been bumped around with the forklift a few times. Owner said it has been setting for at least a year- company got bought out and is selling all the old trucks. The fuel cap was replaced by a 80-90 jug lid with a paper towel folded up in it, instead of replacing the fuel cap, so I think contaminated fuel is part of the poor running issues. I got new fuel in it today, and it smoked a little at start up, but cleared up and is running a lot better now. The tanks don't look too bad either, except someone took one of the hoses, and the auto fill nozzels off, and one was missing its cap too. I think they scavenged some items before they hit the auction. At least they left the pumps on all of them, those 12v pumps are getting $$$$. It seems like tanks have gone up in price too, I think the new one I was looking at was over $400. New bumper was online for under $200, so I think I'll splurge for that, I don't mind a dent here or there, but I don't like a torn up front bumper, makes people think you can't drive.
Ritchie Bros got a little of my $ also. A hydraulic dumping roofers hopper. A hyd. clamshell. 50 ton cap. lifting bracket. And a job box with some rigging hooks and shackles in it. I'm going to convert the dumping hopper to electric remote dump, I don't want to put a hyd. reel on a crane, I want to be able to use the box with any crane. The clam and lifting bracket were both pretty cheap. I don't know if I'll ever use either, but they were "one job will pay for them" priced.
Liebherr got some of my $ too. I kind figured the black smoke/ over fueling on the liebherr was a boost issue. The turbo's were supposedly not very old when I bought it. Evidently they were self installed, SAE bolts in metric threads leads to loose turbo's. New gaskets, and one of the turbo's is bypassing oil, so a new turbo too. Found a gasket in the air to air piping connections that leaking a little too. I'll say this though, I emailed about the gaskets around 3-4pm, and the same with the turbo, and I had both my items at my door the next morning before 10:30. If I give a description/ location on the machine, the parts guy will confirm from his parts breakdowns, and the parts came out of their california warehouse. Parts man is factory support employee in virginia. Overnight shipping is about double the regular ups. But if its $50 for 3 day, and $80 for overnight, I'm all for overnight so I can get the machine back together. I did check, the turbo's were not available aftermarket, liebherr only. I think garrett makes it for them by the part # and online searching, but they only make it for liebherr. New turbo only available, but they will offer 0 to 30% core refund if I send my old one to them. But they don't sell reman's?
New one for me. A timber frame pool pavilion, with walnut timber frame beams. I didn't ask what they cost, but they were twisted every which direction, hard to drill and chisel to fit, and a general pain to work with. I don't think it will stand the pool dampness without warping all over, and I'm afraid it will eat up the mount plates and screws, but it isn't my $ Put it right under a tree too, so I pushed the galion through the branches to set them.
HVAC units down at the mall with the 35. I managed to change two different units, for two different HVAC companies, on two different stores, and only set the crane up once. Changed out one and then the other. I'll never get to do that again down there.
Big chiller units. 16,000 lbs or so. I felt a little bad, they paid for a 70 ton crane to load them where they got shipped from, and I set them both with my 35 ton. No iron like old iron.
Local church had a outdoor evening event for their kids. 4 to 12 year olds I'm guessing in age. Buddy brought a dump truck and backhoe. Concrete mixer truck and concrete pumper truck. Local fire dept, ambulance and sheriff task force van and volunteer fire dept brush buggy. I told the guy that was arranging it- I wasn't spending any time washing up the crane, it was coming straight from the jobsite. The concrete mixer truck guy looked like he spent 3 days cleaning his truck. And the firefighter boys don't have anything else to do most of the time but clean their trucks. But mine was all muddy and greasy, I'm sure there's some moms looking at their kids clothes tonight "WHAT did you get on your pants?" I set up the 35 and the kids had a ball climbing in and out and wobbling the levers around. Maybe a future crane operator in the group, who knows?
Had the same with some big Cat turbos. They were Switzer but only made for Cat, the local Switzer dealer wouldn't even entertain overhauling them. Regarding your particular turbo. Would you rather buy a Reman part of unknown provenance that's been rebuilt, or a new one where after you ship your old one back you can potentially get up to 30% Core Credit.? Sometimes when you buy a Reman unit but end up getting no Core Credit because of damage to the old one you've effectively paid new price for a rebuilt unit. That always stuck in my craw a bit. At least this way you've paid new price for a new unit with the chance of getting some money back. Let us know how it goes.
If we are talking about what I would really rather do, I'd really rather not have to buy it at all. I should start up a gofundme page for parts expenses... But, I was actually pleasantly shocked at the price for the turbo, just over $2,000 usd delivered to my door. I thought that was a very reasonable price for a captured part, they could charge twice that if they wanted too, its not like you could shop them around. I was kind of thinking it would be $3,000-$3,500, so the $2,000 was a nice surprise.
So how does it make sense to offer a core value to me for my old turbo, but the special turbo isn't offered as a reman replacement? Where's the value in the old turbo if they aren't rebuilding them and reselling them?
May be they are rebuilding them but only putting the rebuilds on Reman engines.? Or even cheekier. Rebuilding and selling the rebuilds as new ones.
Maybe keep them from being rebuilt by somebody else. d.d.
I have always wondered how the rebuilt/core parts store system works. Say you are an aftermarket rebuilder who wants to supply rebuilt alternators for a 1990 Ford, do you run around to every junkyard to get enough cores to start up a system? And then as people buy them and don't return or return unusable cores, do you have to keep junkyarding around to keep the core supply up? Maybe that's what they are trying to do here, build up a core supply so they can supply rebuilts in the future. You can't exactly cruise the country for junk Liebherr cranes.
I’ve heard people say that liebherr is really funny about wanting old parts back. As in it doesn’t matter what part it is, if they sell you a new one they want the old back. I was told they want the old parts back to see exactly how they failed so they can improve the design. If that’s the case they’re a very noble company.
Turbo's are back in the liebherr, black smoke under load is greatly reduced. No boost gauge's so I don't know where I'm at exactly, but you can tell its getting more air. Worked saturday and labor day monday , both with the mack. Just a unit on saturday morning at the community college, kinda nice with a empty parking lot. The monday job was trusses. Had to move the whole pile of trusses and a bunk of sheeting by hand, just to get a place to set the crane in the trees. Had to do a little side of the road repair on the mack, park brake can diaphragm went bad so I had to pull air line and cage the brake to get home. But two more jobs in the books, so who am I to complain.
Got to do a fun one on Friday. 15,000lbs transformer at a new mechanical building for the local hospital. I unloaded the transformer last week, and we went to put it in this week. Used the 130ton terex rt they have on site to put it between the floors, I was going to do that part with the 35 ton, but they didn't want to move their crane. It was a pain because the boom and the block were too tall for working under a roof, but we made it work. It would have been easier with my 35. Once in on the floor, it was a air skating job to put it in up on a 4" tall concrete pad 40' away from the opening. We used steel tubing to span the pad that the transformer would set on, and skated it across the floor. Jacks to get the tubing out. Then off the jacks onto dry ice blocks, transformer had to sit tight on the pad, and no jacking spots on the transformers. Originally the building was to have overhead cranes built into it for moving the tranformers, chillers and boilers, but that got taken out of the budget. They are going to have fun when the transformers have to come back out. The power company made the hospital buy the transformers themselves when the engineers decided the transformers had to be inside the building, the power company said if they can't get at them to service them, they weren't putting them in, so the hospital owns their own transformers. Worst news is this is one of two transformers. Other one somehow didn't get ordered, 12 weeks to get it. By then they are supposed to have the interior walls up and a bunch of other stuff in the building. Going to have to do that one through a 8' wide opening. Should be fun.
Typically I'll just use bag ice under something like this, but the transformer was supposed to have a flat solid bottom. It had support rails instead. The rails just cut down through the bag ice, so we had to make a run to the grocery store for some dry ice. Had to pull the jacks fast when setting it down, because the transformer was heavy enough it just cut right through the dry ice too. The runway for the air skates is made of masonite with taped joints, the air skates would lose their cushion/ airflow on the cracks in the concrete, so we make a "false floor" out of the smooth side of the masonite. Its a lot of prep work, laying it out and taping the joints, but the air skates are really nice moving heavy stuff by hand. No big bars or tugging winches, just a nice even push across the floor, with a couple extra hands to steady the load.
Trusses with the mack/national. Saw two different fields of sunflowers in full bloom on the way over there, didn't know they even grew them around here. We are going to have to go finish this job later, it was really hot that day, and it was a older guy and two helpers, a DIY project build house. These were the garage trusses, the house will finish this week.
Big LP tank. I had room to load it by myself with the 100 ton. Needed the 70 ton to tandem pick and set it at the new site. I had a new experience with this one. I rigged up on it, and would lift it pretty balanced, then it would start to lean a little one way, and just get worse. Thinking it was a little heavy at one end, I set it back in the saddles, and repicked. Same thing in the opposite direction. After one more try, I got on the phone with the gas company. Tank was emptied, but not burned off. But they had pumped it off over three weeks ago. The left over vapor in the tank had been making liquid for the three weeks since they pumped it off, and/or they hadn't gotten it totally empty. Waited for a hour for a truck to pump the liquid off, and after they removed over 1000 gallons of liquid (4,000lbs weight), it loaded a lot better. The liquid was rolling from one end to the other of tank on me. I usually use steel chokers on the tanks and no spreader bar, but this tank had just been painted, and it was kinda long. I used the roundslings so they wouldn't scar up the tank, and then used spreader bar to keep the nylons from sliding in. Good thing I had the bar, because with the liquid rolling around, it probably would have slid the straps on me.
Setting it on the other site. I actually removed a set of tanks from this site probably 7-8 years ago when natural gas came to town. We had to use the further in set of saddles, so we had the 70 ton there to take the far side. Last picture shows us "rolling" the tank. I always do that in the saddles, by just swinging the rigging offset, and putting some weight on it and then sliding it to where the valves and fittings are straight up and down.
Had to have a little help this week. New/ used asphalt tank getting added to asphalt plant. We unloaded it a week or two ago, and I knew once the legs were on I wouldn't be able to lift it in place with the 100 ton. I do some work back and forth with large general contractor, they have a 210 ton gmk that was just the ticket for setting the tank. I tailed it with the 100ton.
Placing the new fill conveyor for the tank. They told me 20,000lbs for the new conveyor, I looked at it and knew there was no way it weighed that much, It wasn't much over 10-12' long. It ended up being around 8,000lbs. I never mind less weight than more weight, but I was glad I set it myself, if it was 20,000 I would have had to move crane or have the 210 ton set it while they were there.
Sewer treatment plant. Bearing is bad in the center pivot. Pull catwalk and bearing.
Traction motor bad. Lift one end of the locomotive, roll out the truck. Split the truck off the traction motor, then replace. We didn't get done, the new motor didn't want to slide back in the truck. Going to finish up Sunday morning.
Is that a Cactus Tank truck? I know those guys.
Yes, I've loaded and unloaded for them on quite a few sites, their last couple "new" trucks have been gliders, and this driver says they have one more glider on order. Most of the time if I move a big LP tank local it is them hauling it. I don't know if that's because of insurance, or if they are the guys buying and selling them.
They’ve been in the propane tank business a long time. It’s a subsidiary of Acord which has hauled hazmat tanker stuff for an even longer time.
I have a 5,000 us gallon tank to load and unload next week and the propane company is having a hard time finding a truck with the proper hazardess goods permits to transport it. I’m looking forward to it the same company has several to move this fall. Ps. It is a fairly large company with their own trucks but they are all busy on contract moving for a very large company.
Those would be a nice size to load and unload. Sometimes they come in and burn off the vapor, and then they are hauled with no caps or valves installed. Otherwise they haul them with the plugs in, and I don't know the regs, to know if its been burned off then it is no longer a hazmat load. At just a 5,000 gal tank, it wouldn't take a very big truck to haul it. Might be cheaper to have the guys come to burn off the excess, then it may no longer be hazmat, just a steel tank. I know even after the burn them off, they still stink like Lp if your standing by a opening, I don't encourage smoking. See- here's a great opportunity, crane and hazmat trucking business. Money will just roll in. You'll have the canadian market cornered.
Tell me about the left over stink! I had a couple old 20 lb. tanks to scrap. Called the scrap yard near me and they said if I could remove the valves they would take them. So I managed to remove the valves and let them sit outside over night to vent out. Next morning I had a full trailer of scrap and no room left for the two propane tanks so tossed then in back of Rave4 and headed to the scrap yard. It took several weeks many days with all windows down to get ride of the stink! Would have been ahead of the game if I had picked up a couple road kill skunks!
How did you roll the headered truss?
Are you talking about this one where they have the short trusses all nailed in already? I'll have them nail in a 2x4 under the short trusses, and I will pick it in 4 spots, basket the top chord, and choke 1/2 way down the short truss on the 2x4 so it will hang pretty level. I usually have them kind of hold it by hand with a couple guys and help walk it over, otherwise you can ding the tails when it breaks over center. It helps if you lift it until it just about comes over center then kind of back swing and hold it, to come over slow. You can kind of push them around with several guys. Last picture shows me setting a similar truss group, after I've stood it up.
Got the traction motor reinstalled last sunday.
Flying the last floor of wall panels on the new kids museum. The overhang makes it a little more difficult than the first two floors.
Had to go look at this after work monday. They were running it boomed clear up, on a bad slope, with a dozer on it with a chain. It still flipped over backwards, and almost flipped the dozer. At least no one was hurt. I told them to just cut the boom out of it where it was laying, and have a wrecker drag up the house, and then the boom. Its a total loss.
The power company came up with a different transformer, so we didn't have to wait another 10 weeks to install the 2nd transformer at the hospital project. There was a hump in the floor, and we ended up having to put the back half on standard alligator skates and push it with a forklift, I kept losing the air cushion on my air skates on the high spot in the floor. I knew the first one went too easy. But at least we got to put it in before they blocked up the wall and built the interior walls around the transformers. The interior walls will have only a 8' wide doorway opening in front of each transformer, with the walls only 3' off the transformers. The transformers are 7' 11 1/2" wide. Should be fun when one of them doesn't work. They will only have a 10' door onto a loading dock on the outside.
West side wall panels.
The back side had scaffold built on it. 2" below the floor where the panel sits, so a 1" on each side between the bar joists overhanging on the top, and the top of the scaffold poles on the lower floor. It was a pain.
They forgot to make one of the panels, so I'll get to go back monday afternoon after they build and ship out the one they missed.
Whaddya mean total loss..? It's still got four good wheels & tyres on it, even if the rest is junk....
Like you would save those tires. Smuggle them home in your suitcase? I felt kind of bad, I think they were hoping I would just swing by with the crane, pick up the whole lift and plant it on its wheels and everything would be fine. I was there at the same time the rental house owner of the lift showed up. He and I pretty much agreed it would be a total write off and the contractor should have called his insurance man 5 hours before, to go ahead and get the paperwork started. Rental house man said 3 year old machine, and over six figures for replacement. And we wonder why insurance is expensive.
Glad the rental house guy agreed on the write off. If they tried to put it back in service and down the road there was an accident and a lawyer learned of this one I don't think that rental place would be around much longer!
Looks like they're building an oven. Don't see much ventilation. Those transformers put off a bunch of heat. Note the radiator fins on them. You're gonna have some fun sooner than later. Heat kills transformers.
The mason's were snapping chalk lines for the other two walls. Looked like it was going to be about 3' off the cabinet doors (probably so close that you can't walk around the door if its open- its that kind of a set up ). So it will have block walls all the way around (4 walls), concrete ceiling and floor, no ventilation. The power company went round and round with the building designers that it was a bad idea, and finally just threw their hands up and told them to do what they wanted, power company washed their hands of it. Hospital owns the transformers and its going to be really expensive to pull them in and out. Probably have to shore the ceiling/ build a a-frame/ gantry just to get them off the floor, and then its going to be a slow process to skate them out. And who knows how much other equipment is going to be in the way. This is basically going to be a new mechanical / boiler building for the whole facility, when its up and running. They are going to tear out the other three mechanical buildings that are scattered around the property, once the new building is online.
What collateral damage will there be if one of these tx fails explosively with lots of sparks and fire and flaming oil?
Don't go and get all common sensey about stuff like that birken. THESE particular transformers will never fail, or get overloaded by lightning and blast like bright lights on the horizon, meanwhile taking out the other transformer right beside it too. I do think they no longer have the really nasty PCB's that they used to have in transformers, so at least it won't be hazmat. You want to get all realistic about things, right now they have multiple systems scattered throughout the facility, and if any part goes down, they can kind of reroute things around. Now, they are replacing all that stuff, in one single building and one single system, soooooo, if it happens to go down, the whole facility goes down. How's that for a reliable, redundancy built in, system. Nothing like having all your apples in one basket.
Classic case of the engineers and architects knowing better than us common folk..."if I can draw it, you can build it!!" Thanks guys, we are all aware your designs ar perfect and WE are the ones that didn't build it correctly....
And we wonder why the cost of healthcare is so high. Or the building designers along with the project managers have really good liability insurance. Too bad someone is going to die because of the power interruption when the trans blows. I'll wager the designers will be long gone when the problem happens. Just like the public leaders giving away unsustainable pensions & goodies. They're long gone when the bills come due. I was in a forum with the designers of a FEDEX sorting facility. Their design was all about redundancy. Example. The building lighting was divided into multiple circuits. (nothing unusual) BUT... The individual fixtures were then alternated between the circuits. Lose one circuit, just lose every other light. Same with conveyors and equipment... multiples of back-ups. Fedex's product was reliable delivery service.
I love these kinds of designs. Problem is, none of my customers want to pay for them.
Do they have Gensets for emergency's? BUT since this is the perfect layout/system no need for them!
I'm sure they do have gensets but hospital generators are notorious for failing to perform as expected because it is so difficult to test them in real world conditions.
Yes, we are putting in new generators also. Of course, they are putting them so far from any road access, I have to bring in a 300 ton crane to set them. AND, that access is coming out when the building is done. Who knows how they will eventually get changed. I did make a case early on, they wanted to put in one huge generator. I said "what if it doesn't start?" I pushed hard for 2 slightly smaller generators, and evidently someone else heard the plea and took up the charge, because they got two generators. But the other three/ four existing generators on site, I'm sure are coming out. I would leave them there for redundancy, but they want everything consolidated.
"They" always know better.....until something fails years later and "they" are nowhere to be found......
HVAC Units with the 100 ton.
Reinstalling outrigger jack on 70 ton. Sign at the truck stop, the led's don't last 8 years if the covers aren't on the cabinet and the rain burns the wiring up.
Tree. It was steep and pretty narrow coming off the city street, I don't know that I could have got in there with a truck crane, so galion to the rescue.
Doing trees is good until you see water coming out of the cut on the stump while your holding it. Good job !
Must have been a pretty experienced arborist to take that tree down.
Did you lift down the limbs on that tree too, or just the stem? Trees make me nervous, but also give a good feeling of accomplishment when they're sitting on the ground
Great pictures! I enjoyed looking at them and wish that soon I'll own some crane units for my business.
The tree climber already had the top and most of the small stuff down. He just wanted me for the big stuff because it was so close to the garage and with the house and power and cable lines everywhere, there really wasn't a place to just drop it. It was solid all the way down, just had root rot real bad, so it was only a matter of time. I've seen sycamores in the spring be running with water tugger, they are real heavy then. This afternoon, we had to work about a hour by radio, because the sun was right where we were working.
Our "fix it" list is getting kind of long. We've been kinda busy, and I've kept my mechanic/ rigger working as rigger so much, he hasn't had any time to be mechaniking. I've been running crane too much to really look at anything, let alone fix something. So right now- the old ford flatbed tandem that we've been using for counterweight hauling in bad conditions, just chucked something in the front diff. The western star lowboy puller has been limping along, with a problem with the top gear in the 13 speed (probably bearing related) Its going to need a reman trans, and sooner rather than later. The peterbilt project we got running this spring to pull the rollback/ counterweight trailer, has something leaking oil into the antifreeze. I'm suspecting oil cooler, I'm worried its liner o-ring, its parked until we sort that out. Small grove 25 ton has a 8.3 cummins that's down on power. I'm not sure if its fuel related, or possibly something in the inj. pump. (diaphragm?) Its turbo spools up, no strange smoke, doesn't rattle or miss, its just low on power. A "barely get down the road" kind of low on power. Grove 35 ton has sprung a leak in the but telescope section, its going to need a re seal before it goes to another job. That's a 3 man for 2 days deal to pull boom, reseal, and reinstall. We just got a outrigger jack rebuilt on the 70 ton, and left it on jacks overnight while greasing, etc. and now a different jack is wet. 40 ton rt was puking oil out the boom also, but it turned out to be a hose in the upper section. So its back operational. Baby steps, baby steps. Galion has a wheel seal leaking, so there's a planetary that's going to need pulled apart to get at that seal. Right now its just going to have to live with leaking a little. Mack with the National boom truck has a outrigger leaking on retract, and a control spool leaking also. Its going to need its camelback rebushed also. The liebherr has two steering cylinders leaking, and one of the counterweight cylinders is damp on retract. The newer ford flatbed counterweight truck, is still in pieces, and is on the back back beyond of back burner until I get some other things fixed. Its been great to be busy, but I've got some catching up to do.
sounds normal
In other news, got into the trees a little earlier this week, setting trusses on a house. Set in the street, reach over one tree to the truss pile, pick the truss over a 60' tall tree, then boom down through these to lay them down. This kind of nonsense is what I like about wireless A2B. Even worse- I had to take the mack , no room to put jib in the 25 ton, not to mention that its not running right.
Finishing out the parapet wall with the 100 ton.
There's a bad clay mudhole on this project, the general won't dig it out and put in some 6" rock, so everyone keeps sticking manlifts and forklifts through it. Of course the more you drive in it, the worse it gets. That is what probably happened with this cable choker, it isn't mine, it was laying there when I showed up this week, I think its the iron workers, and it looks ugly.
Removal of a old concrete deck scale. Unfortunately, someone built a bunch of hopper bottoms on top of it. I drove by on saturday, and kinda wondered how we were going to get them out on monday. Turns out, the construction crew figured the crane outfit would know how to get them out. I had them split the scale in 1/2, they had requested my 70 ton crane, fortunately the 100 ton was just 3 miles down the road, so I went and got it. I needed to set back far enough to pull out the deck from underneath.
The other half wasn't quite as easy, it didn't have enough of it sticking out from under the hopper bottoms to get ahold of. I tried to kind of slide it out, but at 30,000lbs, it wasn't doing much sliding. I sent one of the guys to the local metal supply house to get a 15' piece of pipe. I picked it up, we slid the pipe in over 1/2 way, set it down on the pipe, and used it to roll it out. Egyptian style.
Units with the 70 ton.
Church steeple removal. They howled about the cost of the 70 ton, but it was a pretty good distance away, and I knew there was more weight there than they thought. The cap wasn't bad. it was just a metal pyramid. It was the framing cap that was going to be heavy. Carpenters- "there's only 1,200lbs there". Me- " there's 1000 lbs of shingles on that piece, not counting sheeting or the 2x12 stud framing, or the fire proof sheet rock interior lining." I guessed 3,000 lbs. I was good for around 4,000, and I had to have them demo off the bottom 3' of sheeting and shingles, and then throw out the fire rock from inside, before I got it off the roof at around 3,500lbs. So I was under on weight too.
Stuck manlift in the alley, so lets not hook onto the frame of the forklift to pull it, lets hook to the mast and let the retract chains take it. This is why we don't buy used rental machines. The other side of the machine is a clay bog, and we've had some rain recently. They throw rock on top, but there's no bottom to it.
Setting some more wall panels, this is the top parapet wall. And the mudhole keeps getting worse, I guess its where the grease trap for the kitchen is going, so they don't want to put a bunch of rock into it, and then have to dig it back out. It doesn't have a name, but when talking about the jobsite, you can just say "its over by the mudhole" and everyone knows where you're talking about.
Got a little stormy on us at the end of the one day. We had just moved the crane when it hit, I didn't have it on jacks yet, and when the wind hit, I saw a pallet go tumbling by, and the whole crane was kind of rocking in the wind. I took the rainy pic after it let up. It really came down sideways for a little while, glad I didn't have boom in the air.
Had to have a little help. Couldn't quite get over the building to set a couple panels, and it was either the Mack from the neighbor's parking lot, or the 100 ton from the mudhole. I knew the mudhole wasn't happening, and they wanted the panels set.
Took the Mack out monday morning for some trusses. Still haven't got my old 25 up and running well, I think the aneroid/ diaphragm in the fuel pump is bad, so I'm stuck taking the mack if its a job out of town.
Had a job this week at a hospital setting some generators. I went and looked and it was kind of a crooked spot, with a bunch of left over dirt from the foundation work. Told them to clean it up, and have some rock there and I think we could make it work. Of course, I think in the back of my mind, "we're going to get there and they will have half a skid loader bucket of rock, and none of the dirt will be moved". Need more cribbing for the 100 ton to set the generators, and I don't like jacking it up high on wood. I've had my eye on some I beam we brought back from a jobsite, so I made two more pads before we went down there, "be prepared" and all that. Its about a two and a half hour car ride to where these generators are, and I don't like not having everything I might need with us. Use the left over I beam and slid them together, and bought some c channel to cap the ends, welded the uprights as I went.
Well we got down there, and lo and behold, they had the dirt moved, a load of rock there and a skid loader waiting on us. Didn't end up using the new mats, but it was close.
Took a little while to get set up, with digging a little dirt and building up some rock for under the outriggers, but managed to get both generators set. 22,000 lbs each.
Units at a school. This site was about two hours away in the other direction down in arkansas also, so we drove everything over there in the afternoon after setting the generators. Left it all in Walmart parking lot overnight, because there's no room by the school. 8 or 9 units, biggest was the furthest away (of course ) 3,500lbs or so, 110' away.
Shingles with the rt. I think we may take back the 70 ton when I do the other side. Didn't have hardly enough main boom. And I don't like doing shingles on jib, I'll do it if I have to, I just don't like to.
Prepping some christmas decorations. Its getting closer to that time of year, seems like we just took them down. Square frame for the top, 8 point pick for the bottom section. This one is new, and we were kind of experimenting with how to pick it, and not damage it.
You do luck into some of the strangest picks
House trusses yesterday. It seems like we've been doing a lot of weekend work, I was at a processing plant last weekend with the 100 ton, and this weekend I had to get some house trusses taken care of, and next weekend I've already got booked. Been averaging 3 of the 4 weekends a month lately, everyone's getting a little worn out. But one plant by us, has only gotten 1 weekend off in the last 3 months, and this is sure better than no work to do.
Those are deceiving pics. Looks like the crane is tipping over in 3 of them.
Its kind of a crooked parking lot. They couldn't get their manlift leveled up enough to run well either. Level beeper going off all the time.
Glad when you showed up and it was "as promised".....There is nothing more I hate than showing up to a job and what was supposed to be done isn't, especially after a 2 hour ride...."what's the big deal, we'll get it done now, it'll only take an hour or two" that's right, a BILLABLE hour or two...and then when it bleeds into the next day or takes more than 8 hours they get upset at the cost.... .....and as always, real interesting stuff, thanks for taking the time to post the pics!
I had someone else refer me to a used car lot to clear snow. Said the guy was really good. I went to talk to him and made it very clear that I would only clear the lot that is emptied and would not be moving dead cars around or waiting while he moves cars. I show up at the agreed time a couple days later and nothing is moved. He said to give him half an hour to move the cars and then he wants me to help move some dead cars. He said he'd pay me an extra hour but I should have just drove away. Not worth the extra $40 I was charging at the time. Was worse than apartments where some idiots ask if you can clean their stall first so they can park. NO, your car will be in the way. Some jobs it's not worth the BS.
Was offered a job as a snow pusher, guy kept eyeing MY 4x4 to fit a plow on, his were all busted to hell and gone from doing that. Told him thanks but no thanks, he bought a couple skid loaders for his landscape business set them up with big snow buckets, two years dry winters, then Katie Bar the Door massive snowfalls, his hired help destroyed three cars a small truck and bundles of landscaping before the contracting people said enough and he went OOB.
A little work at the local charcoal plant. Last time I pulled pipes, I used my 35 ton grove. It was a absolute pain to get jib and deadstick put together, and then I was scratching chart. 100 ton on main boom, no muss no fuss.
Roofing materials. Wind blew 20mph here early this week, I got the insulation and rubber roofing up there on wednesday morning before the wind picked up. Good thing too, because all its done since then is rain. They also had a trash/roofers bag, and the dumpster was a poke away. 138' of poke to be exact, but it was all just light insulation and scraps in the bag, so I just laid the boom down easy.
They still have a Kiln on site? The two at Salem MO may have to shut down under EPA garbage.
Here's what that building looks like from a distance, its got goofy angles every which way. The liebherr is the crane sticking up on the left behind the building. The lattice boom is working on a new aquarium building just down the street.
Yes, the plant has been here a long time. Only real manufacturing here in town.
Built a new christmas tree at the amusement park this year. 80' tall. Supposed to have over a million LED lights in the tree and other decorations around the square. Says it should have enough resolution to watch a movie displayed on it. The lights are daisy chained in groups, and each light is only 2 wire. They send power and signal/function down the same wire. Had my Rt in there to pull out the summer shade structure and build the base, we built the upper portions on the other street, and then set the whole upper on the base section.
Loaded some rocks out, I don't use nylons on rocks, but these guys had their own straps, and that's what they wanted to use. At least they had some softener material to protect the edges.
Traction motor we installed a while back at the railroad went back out. After tandem picking it last time with my 70 ton and the 100 ton, decided we could probably get it with just the 100 ton if we could get close enough and lift off the coupler. The first time when we tandem picked it, we were going off the weights they gave us for lifting, and it didn't weigh as much as they said it would.
Units at a 3 screen movie theatre. 3 units to change out, one on each end of the building, and the center one. I kind of stepped it off, and it was raining pretty good, so I gambled and just set up in the middle of the building, hoping I could reach each end. Of course if I guessed wrong- we were going to get to move the 100 ton three times in the rain. But the chicken way out was to set up for 2 units and move for the last one. One set up if we were lucky, two set ups would have been a sure thing, three set ups if I gambled and went "big pig" and tried to do them all, and couldn't reach either outside one. But I'm lazy and willing to take a chance, worked out fine this time, could have made another 10' away easy.
Cell phone tower. 260' tall, said they could stack the rest with their climbing pole if I could stack 200'. Went the day before and set up, water setting all over the site in the rock and out in the trees. Must have a rock shelf bottom with clay on top and all the water seals up on it. Crane sunk pretty good even with the fresh big rock on top.
Railroad had a new traction motor by Friday morning, so we went back and got it put in.
Finished up the week out at the kids museum with the roofers again. Trash bags and some more TPO rolls. I think I'm done on the mudhole side, they are getting ready to put in their greenspace and curb and gutter, and I don't think I'll be able to get into that side any more. I'll find out Monday though, they called this afternoon (saturday) and they ran out of insulation, so I'll be back monday afternoon. The dumpster was a little further away friday afternoon also. This is 144' radius (with 157' of boom), Lmi says good for 2,400 lbs yet. I'm going to have to set it up at the shop, with something on the end to catch, and see just how far it will boom down with all of the main out. The book only shows 140', and I thought the computer would stop there, but it let me go right through that.
Excursion boat, it's getting a paint job, and probably a hull inspection.
One last wall panel at the kids museum, after I put up some insulation for the roofers. A latching lock boom, is not handy for telescoping in and out under a overhang.
Fuel tanks for the new generators at the hospital. Came in clocked on its side for height issues with the valves. Installer says they usually just set them on the ground and roll them, no room on this site for that, and it slopes hard toward the trees and powerlines, so no setting it down to roll it. Two winches and two lines on the RT did the trick. Rolled it in the air.
What does the boat weigh? The trailer looks lacking in the axle and wheel/tire department.
One of my guys finishing up shingles at the motel. Took the 70 ton over there to have a little more main boom than the RT. This side is flatter so not as much set up issues either.
Just under 70,000. Its a special boat hauling trailer, custom built. We are in his lot about 1/4 mile from the boat launch. Had to have it that far back on the trailer because of the prop/ rudder and keel. I think he hauls some pretty big house boats on it. I would guess they are 20,000 lb axles.
Loaded up and moved a amusement ride to a storage area. I'd been putting this one off for a while because we've been pretty busy, rained this week so we went over and moved it.
Offloaded the two new generators for the hospital project. Tier 2, limited to under 500 hrs a year, unless there is a catastrophic event, then they can run them all they want, and the epa doesn't care. (per the cat salesman)
Wrecker dragged the flipped manlift up to the road, but he wouldn't load it. It was on a steep road, I decided I probably couldn't get anything bigger set up on the hillside and just took the old 25 ton grove. I got snuggled up close to it. Boom gears are stripped, so its in "free swing" with the counterweight and boom. No room and no fun. Dumpster, retaining wall, electrical box and all the brick for the house in the way. It took all morning, but between the winch on the trailer, chains and binders, come a longs, and some creative crane work, we got it loaded. We ended up not getting it picked like it is in the first two pictures, had to run some lines back to the counterweight also to get it to pick level.
Pretty much Scrap Iron now.
Yes, I'm sure that's where its headed. But first the insurance guys need to fight over it. Early word was that it needed to be hauled to a authorized JLG repair center for a accurate assessment of its damage and value. Houston or maybe Kansas City. But I think that has changed. Home builder/ contractor needed it out of his way, and I've been putting off because we've been so busy. But it was 60 degrees today and supposed to be 20 degrees and rain/ snow next week, so saturday morning sounded better. In other news, this showed up this week too, because I need more projects . Its a 2003, Grove tms 500e with a myriad of issues. Hopefully none of them will be terribly expensive. Gotta be optimistic. 95' main, one winch, c7 with a allison trans. No jib (I'm looking for one if anyone knows where there's one laying- a rt 530e jib will also fit it). Current issues - various body panels dinged and dented, no swing brake, outriggers not working, multiple engine oil leaks, rusted solid 1/2 outrigger pins (thank you northern New York road salt dept.). Got some rust under a repaint. Hyd. oil cooler leaking, tool box ratchet strapped to the frame. Air bags not inflating on the drivers side- I think that one might be leveling valve. Exhaust brake isn't working either. Does run and drive, and the pumps engage. I tried to set it up in the yard for a quick trial run, and promptly blew a hyd. hose. I think there's another hyd. leak back in the swivel area, I can't tell yet where its coming from. Going to need tires, brakes, and drums. So far- nothing I don't think we can't fix. The rust is a big pain, I just cut off the bolts and brackets when replacing the blown hyd line. The only thing nice about the various oil leaks, its kinda protected some of the stuff from rust. It's the heavy counterweight version, and looks like it will have a good chart for a lot of the small work we do.
Outriggers likely Electrical associated to the Salt Cancer. Should be solenoid operated on that.
Hope it was at a Decently LOW price. A little sand blasting get down to Steel, rust converter/inhibitor under prime and good for REAL paint job
It was cheap enough that I figured "why not?" It showed up on ironplanet probably 6-8 months ago at $90,000. They kept dropping the price all summer long, and when it went under 1/2 of the original asking price this fall, I pulled the trigger. I guess when I get it running right, I'll know if it was still a good deal or not. Most of the ones like it in age/ hours, are listed for sale from $100-150,000. The outriggers are electrical issues. Weatherproof switches on the fenders were replaced with dash type. Rust has got them ate up. I think the bones are good, its just a bunch of little stuff wrong, and that snowballs if no one is fixing them. I was pretty concerned about the c7 not being enough engine, but I ran it around the loop at my shop after unloading, and I was pleasantly surprised at how well it pulled for no bigger motor than it is.
7L is not exactly Dainty!! Is a Six cylinder and electronic, should do well for your motive power.
I like it. I will say I still don’t know what the difference is between a 3126 and a C7 cat. Does the C7 still have the heui injectors. Those little cats make good power. It’s just the fact that they can’t make full power for long. They will neuter themselves on a hard climb. Those allison transmissions are nice. If it was my choice I’d never drive a manual anything again.
Genset engines always amaze me. That engine in the photo was dyno tested @ a hair over 1500 BHP. Same model engine in a machine would make under a 1000.
Pulling a Generator is a lot different than shoving a machine. Environment stays a tad more stable and less throttle adjustments much as Marine apps.
Like RVs, fire trucks, and military vehicles, they know it will likely never see much more than a couple thousand hours in its lifetime, before it is pulled and made into paper clips.
7.3 may be fine for your ford pickup, but we're talking about moving 60,000lbs around. Double digits ahead of the L, would be a whole lot nicer. But nobody makes the 3 axle truck cranes, with a real engine in them. Like a 10l mack or a m11 or even a detroit 11.1 or 12.7. Terex, Grove or Link belt, they all are small cat's or 8.3 cummins. If I wanted big power, I've got to go to a boom truck, and that's a trade off I didn't want. I've already looked, there is all kinds of room in this ones engine compartment. If I can sort out the electrical, a engine swap won't be too difficult. But I'll give the little cat a whirl for a while first. Fix what's broke and get it running. Hyd. oil cooler is coming out tomorrow. Its been leaking around the bottom for a while lots of dirt buildup around it, and I see no reason to not just pull it out and get it fixed before going any further. Its aluminum, doesn't leak setting in the shop, must take warm oil to make it leak. I think a radiator shop should be able to fix it, there's no pressure there, just flow. I asked the cat man about california gensets, he says they don't comply with the CARB board standards either. He did say they "earthquake" test them. 3G's worth of shaking for 3 hours, then a full load run for a hour with nothing falling off, before they get certified for gimbal mounts. He said it usually takes several tries on new designs to keep them from shaking themselves to pieces.
Aluminum should be relatively easy to repair for an experienced TIG welder but I'd take it to an experienced aluminum welder who works on radiators and/or aluminum fuel tanks. Someone who works on race cars may be another option. The nice thing with aluminum is if there is dirt in the weld, you can grind the dirty weld out and reweld it. On steel it's a lot more of a hassle.
We had 7.3s at the Utility in Corn Queen S Series chassis, five speed and two speed differentials with a Man basket boom, did just fine in those. Inline six C7 should be a strong little engine for just roading or running the hydraulics as not so much a Tractor Trailer running 80k down the highway at speed all day. Can still see the 1160/3208 powered machines running everyday along with the Ford 6.6 and 7.8 inline's, Ran a LONG time old school technology. Many old truck cranes out there were Detroit 4/71 and 6v53 powered so I would not discount this one just yet.
Tandem pick and carry on rubber, around the backside of a indoor pool facility to set some big air handler/ dehumidifier units. Had to have the power co. come put on some sleeves, power lines were a little close for comfort, and no other way to do it. I rented the 10k telehandler and used the galion. 10,000lbs units, and it seemed like most of the weight was in one end. Back around and in the lean to building, then skates and the forklift to push. We had to do the second one in the dark because the trucks showed up so late.
Was a little cool here early in the week 13-15 degrees or so. Warmed up though, last couple days have been in the 50's. Got a little sleet and snow also. Western star sends out smoke signals on a cold start.
Old amvets closed down, so moving the display to a different location. The plan is for a paint/refurbish and then back on display. 12' wide on the trailer, but I would have been over 16' and overheight also if we hadn't taken the rotor off.
Got my glue on kit, for my liebherr winch line spelter socket. Glue has a use by date of dec/2019, so I better get going on it. It looks like I better read the instructions twice.
What is the cure time on that? They put a lot of faith in it.
The glue compound gels in about 20 minutes, within a temperature range. Then its ready for service 60 minutes after that. They recommend a proof test, which we can do with a test weight. With the relatively low winch pull, the most it should see is 13,600 lbs. Must be some hot rod stuff. After you mix the two parts its flammable, use in a well ventilated area, no skin contact, wear a mask, etc. etc. The replacement end I bought is supposed to be reusable. I suppose you cut off the cable again, and then drill out/ carbide bur bit the compound and cable inside, and you can reuse the end. The factory one is mechanical swage. Which is fine until you damage the cable, which is usually 5' from the end where it gets up against some iron or concrete. No reason to replace 700' of cable for a 5' bad spot. The one on the aux. has been cut off, and it looks like they used a 5/8" becket on it. The owners before me, actually never mounted the aux., so the becket they used is gone, I have the factory second becket, and would like to be able to use that when doing 2 line work.
Likely will be seriously Exothermic so be cautious when handling that until done setting. Not seen that before but heard of the use, good luck. As to the haul in photos, not seen many jobs the Enganears thought out as to placement positioning being a workable solutions that did not require Millwrights to accomplish. Architects not asking Enga's opinions are even worse.
Those modern epoxies work very well. I've actually seen it used on hydraulic cranes in the past and it is gaining in popularity. Never have seen anything reused, but this setup makes field repair a lot easier. We always in later years mounted equipment, (especially in seismic areas) with epoxy anchor adhesive and all thread rod rather than conventional "Red Head" fasteners. So much easier to use as anchor studs would not need to be "spot on" in some cases.
Interesting stuff . It sure beats melting babitt
Good luck! Looks scary, I don’t think I’d have the nearest to try it.
See, we were on this crooked jobsite, and we got jib mounted, big pain of a jobsite. It was late, and I was going to lay the block down on the truck before we tied it down, shut crane off too soon. Not far to the shop, it will ride. Steel block, steel deck, what could go wrong? Well it did, just down the hill from the shop, it slid just a little on the corner before, and I thought "I'll just take it easy, its just two corners- through the S- curve, and down the hill to the shop, it will be fine." We ended up taking the galion down there and picking it up out of the ditch. It was about 5' from being 30' down in the creek, so it could have been worse, or in the oncoming lane. I'd make silly comments about improperly secured loads, taking time and doing it right every time, etc. etc. I'd love to blame it on everyone else on the jobsite too, but I know the guy that was driving the truck, and he even stopped to tighten it down once on the way back because it was looking a little sketchy. A old mudflap between the block and the deck, or a wood block and having it laid down, and it would have ridden to wyoming. Cutting corners is how it all goes downhill. And I know better .
The old say of not enough time to do it right, but time enough to fix it, kind of comes to mind. Yes steel to steel is not good, it's amazing how we get by at times. I hauled 40 sheets of roof steel on a wood pallet, and had two straps over the top. I only had 6 miles to go to the the shop. When I got there not a sheet on the pallet. I should of wrapped a couple straps around the pallet, but thought oh that will ride, wrong.
It especially burns when you can't blame anybody but yourself..... True stories make for the best comedy when nobody gets hurt.
As I wrote on another thread - bindair dundat ........
I had a contractor hauling 300 feet of 1 inch schedule 80 seamless pipe to an out of town job the evening before starting. The next morning I get a call that some one has stolen all the pipe off the trailer. I get my other trailer and go buy 300 more feet of pipe. While hauling it to the job i look to the right of the exit ramp and there lays all the original order of pipe. It was about 95 degrees that day, but I did manage to get it all picked up, loaded, strapped, and delivered to the job. The contractor asked why I brought so much pipe. He was rather red faced when I told him where the "extra" pipe came from.
The standard i shoot for when tying my loads is that its my wife and kids in opposing traffic . Makes me put the extra strap or chain on no matter how miserable it might be late on a Friday night.
CO check out Moxley Industrial Auction. Cranes and rigging. 5 day sale
Looks like a lot of big iron, very poorly presented. 6.5% buyers premium isn't a good way to try to sell million dollar cranes either. But the heavy duty spreader bars and rigging is always fun to look at, thanks. The real boss has the brakes on things right now, she thinks two cranes this year is enough, especially when one is in the shop in pieces. Put some roofing materials up with the 70 ton, and a bunch of package units with the 100 ton.
Cell phone tower site. Had to have them pull the fence out. I also called the highway patrol, and had them come out when we backed in there. Its in a bad spot on the highway between two s-curves, and everyone flies on that road and its busy. I could just see someone plowing us trying to back in there. When I loaded the counterweights back up, I had to use the hand throttle a little to get rolling coming out of there, between the brakes and clutch, I didn't have another foot for the throttle. It was steep enough that the park brakes were creeping a little when I stopped the counterweights to unload them too. Put a block under the tires for extra security.
The new little 40 ton crane has a air bag walking beam set up. Only bad thing about it, is if you forget to dump the bags, when it goes up on jacks, I think it puts a lot of strain on the retainer. Both sides were all torn up, I've got the passenger side fixed now, and I boxed in the bottom of the square tubing also, thinking that would make it a little stronger. That and I may interlock the pto, so if it gets engaged, the bags automatically deflate.
Fuel tanks at a new gas station.
The second tank was even longer, and it came with two pic lugs on each end. I asked the fuel guys why two lugs, so they called the factory. "If its going to hang for very long, you should use both lugs on each end, but if its just off the trailer and into the hole, you should be fine just using one lug on each end." That's just nonsense- it either needs all the lugs or it doesn't, so we used all four lugs. Its really nice when they put the lugs clear on the outside ends, so you have to drag out 100' of rigging also.
Gussets on the clevis ears?
I was going to make all new clevis ears, and just make them with a long gusset in them, or just weld on gussets. Either would work, but really, the damage is all just from not dumping the air in the bags, I think the boxed in base should make this work, if not, I can always add the gussets. Its kind of a poor design.
The original design looked weak
This was my sunday morning sunrise. Sitting and waiting on the cell tower climbers to show up. I was onsite at 7:00, they rolled in about 10 minutes before 10:00.
Never fails as to contract worker hours. Most likely had a meet at the office, then a safety meeting then a organized what we gonna do today brief, all of which could have happened at the site rather than over coffee and donuts at the office. Hope you charge by the hour on that!!
I sure would bill for the three hours.
That goes without saying. Obviously they never told you what time they planned on showing up otherwise you would have also rocked up at 10am. Bill 'em, and if they squeal, bill 'em double for "time & trouble".
They are certainly on the clock, and extra for sunday. They told me they would be there at 7:30 ready to go, so I like to show up a little early to get the crane ready to go. The real deal is the company sent them to nebraska for a string of 14 hour days climbing a big tower, in a wintery 20-30mph wind, and after getting home late saturday, sunday morning didn't sound like much fun. Crew of 4 young guys (climbing cell towers is a young man's game), and I think they've been pushed just a little too hard the last while. You can tell them when and where they need to be, but the reality is they are going to show up when they want to. The boss can fire them, or realize he's pushing a little too hard and eat some extra crane time. I'm sure the boss is just going to eat some extra crane time. They were a good crew, just not gung ho on a sunday morning after a big week, and I can understand that. Cell tower companies use cranes all the time, they know they are getting billed.
Young guys willing to climb towers, poles, tall scaffold is leaning out pretty fast, most bosses will not fire them may lay them off to catch some rest awhile but are generally right back at it in a short time. Most crazier than a pet Coon.
What did those tanks weigh ? I had a guy try to get me to set some tanks last week. The bigger of the two was just under 14,000 lbs. on paper I could have done it but everything would have to be perfect, and I’ve been on this earth too long to think that’s going to happen, then I sit there saying I can’t do it, with a truck driver and a contractor mad at me for what was in their control. So I gave him a competitors number and went on my merry way. And as luck would have it on my way home I got a call wanting the crane for the same time slot, I call that a win.
Small tank was 14,000, large tank was 26,500. The biggest problem with setting tanks is what the hole looks like, and what the ground is like. If they have too much over dig, you are in trouble. If they have to be set from the end instead of beside the tank, you run out of chart fast. If you have to spin the tank, because they have it loaded the wrong way on the truck, that can cause issues. Its tough to get far enough away from the hole, so you aren't sliding into it, and yet be close enough to the edge, to have enough chart to set it. Minimum for me for most tanks is my old tms 300, which charts like most 50 ton new cranes. I hardly ever set them with my 25 ton, which would chart out real similar to your boom truck. I find that by the time I'm far enough from the hole to not slide into it, I am out of chart. In rare occasions, you may be setting on poured concrete replacing a old tank, but even that I don't like to be setting on the edge of. I have tandem set tanks with a big excavator also, you need a good excavator hand though, they aren't made for precision setting, but for cycle speed. I was probably 45-50' from the far tank, and around 30-35' from the close one. I usually figure 1' away from the edge, for every 1' of depth of the hole, I don't mind being closer if I'm setting on solid rock (which can happen in my area), but I've been on some really loose soil before, that the 1:1 wasn't enough. Years ago I had ground opening up around the outriggers, when I got a big fiberglass water tank in the hole. THAT's a really bad feeling when you start seeing the cracks appear. They wanted to move that water tank a 1 1/2" to the west after I got it set down, and I informed them it was staying where it was, or they were getting a bigger crane. It was on black dirt, with a huge overdig. I got as far away from the hole as I could, for what I had for crane, and the soil conditions barely held up enough to get it in the hole. I was living in Iowa yet, and their good black dirt grows great crops, but it sure won't hold up weight. Usually the tanks don't have the picking lugs clear at the ends either, that can mess you up with not being able to put out enough boom also. Most holes are at least 10' deep, so 10' away, plus 12' to your outriggers, plus 10' - 15' to the center of the tank depending on overdig. So you're looking at 30-35' radius most of the time, and that's what you have to be to spin most 45-50' tanks. Or to get them off the truck if the truck has to back them up to you. And you would be at least 50' away if you had to set it from the end in the hole. Like you said, it would take perfect conditions to make it work.
I would have been squeamish on buckling those tanks with the lifting eye spread, but a Enganear figured it was good. Do not like wide spread on straps or running out of lift length to get those angles down.
from the size of those i`d say their hoping for a high volume sta.
Those lifting points spread lengthways is odd. You'da thunk that they'd be side by side, further down the sides of the tank. Or just one reinforced eye at each end. I've done a few gas station tanks lately, some of them like to do everything the most complicated way possible.
I got a call last week to set rebar bundles down in a big excavation. 50' deep, with about 10 guys down there tying. The bundles were up to 2800 lbs., and I was putting them about 85-90% of my chart away. The crew stayed clear during the picks, they weren't stupid. So I had to make that decision, how close can I set up to the hole? It went fine, but there is something different about looking down when craning, then the usual looking up! This was the first time I almost needed my lower cab op window, which I replaced with aluminum deckplate last year after it got broke parked overnight at a truck stop.
Soulee steel in SLC would deliver Steel Spaghetti to downtown construction projects back in My day, Watched a few times as worked on the truck or trailer(Expandable flatbed) trying to get it back to the shop for better repairs when cranes were picking that stuff, always limp wristed, hard to balance COG, weight shifting with every breeze, My Hat is off to ya working that crap!!
Working on the edge of a 50 ft deep hole does open up questions thats a serious excavation. I would assume its either hard rock or shored , hopefully then theres an engineer involved that can answer those questions. I go with the the 1 to 1 slope rule most of the time but that has limitations to. It might not have worked so well for you setting back 50 ft.
Kinda a expensive week for me, I haven't paid the full bill yet, but I know its coming. Tandem pick of a large houseboat, truck driver came over and said "you have a leak". Of course we had finally just got the boat picked up to transfer from one trailer to another. Can't leave it hanging on the crane. Set the boat down, swung over and set down spreader bar. Oil filters are remote mounted, and it had a engine oil line blown. Line was really bad to access, we got the line changed, but I think the damage was already done. Engine did fire back up, and we got the boat transferred, unloaded counterweights and torn down, and made it about 3 miles toward home when the engine started knocking hard. I managed to get it into a quarry we do some work for, and we've about got the engine out.
Ouch.....right on Xmas too. Hope it's not too painful.
Sounds as you are having the same week I am, sorry to say these come in groups anymore. Hope it isn't as severe as expect, at least you have positions available to pull it and machines TO pull it.
That sucks...hope you get it repaired as efficiently as possible, I’m not sure there’s a worse feeling than having an engine let go on a piece of equipment, especially THAT piece of equipment....
I am so sorry for your misfortune. I know it how bad it hurts. I just picked up my Mack tri axle dump ffrom the repair shop from wreck damage. 20K in insurance, 5k out of pocket, 30 days of lost income 15 to 18K. And tags are due next week.
Liebherr is $63,000 for a all new engine, I've found 1 rebuilt engine here at a crane company that has their own engine shop, that company wanted $54,000 plus $20,000 possible core charge if mine is damaged. That's not worth taking the chance on the core charge, for the extra $10,000, I'll buy the new engine. I'm trying right now to find a engine rebuilder to take it on. Two guys told me no. One guy says he is going to think about it. I just don't know where the liebherr parts rebuilding kit is going to end up $ wise, and it is probably going to make a big difference if I've spun a main bearing or damaged the block, because then I'm stuck going new engine. And if I'll need a new crank or not. One guy I talked to, suggested looking for one from a john deere application, liebherr was building john deere big track loaders and dozers for a while, but I don't know if any of those used my exact engine or not yet. My engine is a liebherr D9406-TI-E. I'm being hopeful, and thinking if mine is rebuildable, that we could end up being around $30-35,000, but I really just need to sit down with the parts book and make a list and see where it ends up $ wise. And guess at the labor. At least if we rebuild mine, I'll be sure I have the right configuration engine. I've thought about trying to rebuild it myself, but I'm just going to be honest, and say that I don't think I'm comfortable doing it. I could probably muddle through the book and maybe figure it all out, but its out of my everyday skill set. My mechanic guy that works for me, is a old race car guy and had his own repair shop for years, but he's never done diesels. I'm not sure this one should be our test run.
90% sure the LiebDeere 1050C used the same model engine. No idea on how much difference there would be, but I'd figured at minimum swapping the injection system.
That news is absolutely crushing to hear. I’m kinda surprised it doesn’t have a low oil pressure shut down, or is that just wishful thinking on my part and not really a thing? Again, sorry you have to go through this, after following your posts though I have no doubt that you’ll get it sorted, hopefully for less than some of the numbers you posted.....
Dammmm! This is one of those times I wish there was a "That sucks button" option instead of just the "Like" one! Besides the price what is the availability of that Liebherr engine?
Rereading all the info from liebherr, the engine they are offering me, isn't new, its a rebuild also. They didn't mention a core charge, but I'm sure there is one for it. The engine from them, is not in the states, and they haven't given me the availability.
Thanks also for the sympathy guys, its not a nice Christmas present, but its part of the deal, big equipment can have big repair costs. At least we have the capability to pull the motor and reinstall a new one. I'd hate to have to call a liebherr tech for all of that. I've got a pretty full week of crane work this week, but I'm hoping to get the pan off at least and see what the damage is.
That sucks man! Wish I could give you helpful advice but I’m no help and this no time for smart *** remarks. I’ll save them for another time. Good luck and best wishes, if you think a good carpenter would help I’m there.
fwiw. that sure looks like a mercedes eng. to me
Yes, they have the same single cylinder per head, injector pump arrangement, but they are slightly different. The liebherr engines are actually made in switzerland by bulle. Of course bulle is a wholly owned subsidiary of Liebherr. I wouldn't be shocked if there is some cross engineering done between liebherr and mercedes, but from everyone I've talked to, it looks like a mercedes, but it isn't a mercedes.
Thanks tradesman, if I run across some trim work inside the motor, I'll give you a buzz. I'm going to try to do a little more research this week, and come up with a game plan, one day at a time. It would help if I had more cranes that size, like I do with my smaller cranes, because I had work scheduled for it between now and the end of the year. Some of the jobs will probably wait, the other ones I'll try to steer to someone who can help them.
Well I don’t know what your waiting on. I’d buy two more that size, money’s cheap. They print more everyday. It’s nice that you have that much work for it. Better to replace an engine in a busy crane then just have it sit in the yard.
A friend of a friend had to get a new Liebherr engine. There was an additional charge for a rather useless Liebherr mechanic to accompany the engine. Liebherr mechanic was not optional. Before you decide on rebuilding, you better check on part availability. If you have work for the crane, I'll wager the least costly route is the rebuilt engine from Liebherr.
you could smoke their shorts a bit by repowering it with something like this
Might just need the crank ground ,new bearings and a turbo. How long was it run without oil pressure? I'm sure your old mechanic could rebuilt it with a good book. I think diesels are easier and more straightforward to work on.
Any peeks inside it yet CO?
No pictures of the inside. It went to a engine man today. I didn't even pull the pan off. I decided that whoever pulls it apart is going to be the guy that puts it back together. Big question is going to be parts availability and time frame, with the holidays. He's hoping to get it apart starting monday, so we can get parts ordered. I had considered the repowering with something domestic petepilot, but its just too complicated of a setup. I think by the time I made all that stuff work, I would be better off to fix what I have. I have pictures somewhere of a krupp 4070 all terrain, that had been mercedes from the factory, that had a 6v92 in it. It looked like the most cobbled together mess. Almost like something I would do.
That would be fabricobble
I`m sure it would be a project
Local rental house got a new trailer. Said they didn't ask for it, corporate just sent it. Driver is not pleased. Its a 53' tri axle, which in missouri doesn't help you at all without buying permits. And they never buy permits. I was kind of laughing about it with the manager (about what a pain that trailer will be and how unhandy), and she said "come with me". Regional manager was in a back office, she said "tell him what you just told me". Driver had been already complaining about it, and she wanted the regional guy to hear it from someone without any vested interest. My rollback is a landoll style, with set in axles and 43', because otherwise you'll never get around with it. He's thinking of sending the 53' to a different store that doesn't have our terrain issues, or a state where they can have a annual for overweight and not buy daily permits. Oh, and its a heavy trailer too, my scale said around 23,000 lbs.
Big Hvac unit at the college, 9,800lbs.
Barges down at the dam. Their old ones are shot and leak all the time. It was frosty that morning, crane kept wanting to slide down the dock when coming off the tires.
Was a pretty drive down to the barges that morning, its always nice down by the park.
New water tank, was supposed to be a 10'x20', but on the truck was a 12' x 26'. Made it work, but I was wishing for a little more crane.
They tried to set these deck posts with a telehandler, when the first one fell off the deck, they called me. You can see it laying on the ground, down and to the left in the first picture, its a wonder someone didn't get smacked with it. All's well that ends well though, we got them set.
Youngest daughter has been making and selling pastries for a fundraiser at school, so our house smelled like a bakery all week in the morning. It's a wonder I don't weigh 500 lbs.
New hot water boiler at the concrete plant we built this spring.
Tank must have been a Inside Measure!! Big floats pin together? to make a larger surface? Old barge going to be dragged out and cut up I presume. Have to say you do end up with some of the strangest lifts!! Also guessing that all the culls from baking become house eats!
I don't know what happened with the water tank. The big floats were a little different, the sides of the float weren't male/female like a flexifloat. They had double female fittings, so all the float sides were the same. Then a double barrel/ pin that would lock them together. The individuals were like 10x20's, they put 4 together to make a 20' x 40' work barge. Old barge was purchased by a boat dock builder, he's going to use it as his work barge. And I will admit to taste testing a few of the culls.
MMMMM fresh home made pastries! This one doesn't look right---- nom-nom-nom This one here isn't perfect----- nom-nom-nom You could add a carry deck to the fleet when you hit that 500lbs to lift you out of the pickup, carry you across the job site, and set you in the crane cab.
Have to admit I am the failure disposal for cookies making here!!
It's your duty. The family's honor is at stake.
Those barge tanks, Steel?
Steel with a dimpled top deck. I've seen a lot of guys put mud mats or timber mats on the top, especially if they are rental barges to keep from chewing up the tops with tracked equipment.
Here's that 6v92 in a Krupp. The engine sits in a aluminum doghouse about 5" off your right elbow. Right on the other side of those gauges. They've got a nice 2x4 and plywood cover for it, I'm sure that toned down the noise level in the cab. Probably from 151 Db to 146 Db.
That one is a tad rough!!
Didn't just look rough, it had a rough life too: "The unit sustained damage on 01/30/2019. It has been reported that while being driven to a job site, the crane failed to make it across the peak of a levy and rolled back down the hill resulting in the operator losing control and the crane exiting through a side barrier, off a bridge, and into the bank of the canal." I think if I had to drive it with that 6v92 in my lap, driving it in the canal might not seem like such a bad idea.
Dang crane op, I spit my drink out on your comment. But I do agree, if I was stuck it that cab it may have went into a canal as well.
Any word from the engine builder as to an inspection of internals?
Unfortunately no. I stopped by their shop today, to get injection pump and injector numbers and checking progress. When I drove up, it was on their back pad by the pressure washer. It had a bath. And that's it. When I brought it last week, they said they were going to start on it monday, and I thought that sounded optimistic. When I went inside, they said they were starting on it in a hour. Never mind monday, tuesday, and wednesday, and most of thursday. If they had told me upfront they wouldn't start until today (thursday), I can understand that. Don't tell me monday and not start on it until friday. My first thought was to tell them to just set it on my truck bed, and I'd deal with it myself. Temper, temper. I told them to just uncover the bottom end, get a idea of the damage, and then we can make a decision. Its just the fact that I wasted a week, that parts could have been on their way. It's good for my patience building.
Sorry for stirring bad Milk there CO!! Most shops that do know what they are doing are inundated these days, he likely meant well then got side tracked by other calls. He will get after just PATIENCE, Patience and Yes I noted you are working on that!!
I agree to be upfront with the customer. If they can't get to it in a few days or even a week be honest with the customer. If they haven't worked on something similar before also inform the customer. I got flack because I questioned why I being charged $160 for a 10 minute job. On top I had pay upfront while they had my parts. 24 hours later it hadn't even moved from their counter. I had no problem if the shop had a 1 hour minimum charge or couldn't get to it right away but I had to pay upfront so I think it should have been ready when I went back the next day. I would have been fine if they would have just told me there's a 1 hour minimum instead making it seem like some big complicated job. By the time we take it to the back and then set it up the press, blah, blah. It's not like it was shop that would take 1/2 an hour to walk to the back.
Changed out a downspout at a feed mill Sunday. It was a misty/rain all day, right at the freezing point. The whole time I was thinking its going to freeze and be all black ice, and I'm a hour and a half from home on a weekend. But it stayed 2 degrees warm enough, I made it home fine. Monday we didn't go to any of our jobs, right at the icing temp with steady rain/sleet.
Looks rough
Just letting you know, the Liebherr has that much live boom w\o the jib.
No pictures, but not good news. Two rod bearings hammered out. Crank is heavily damaged. Main bearing spun in the block. I'm sure the bearings were bad enough that there is probably head damage from the pistons hitting them as well, but I told them to not even pull it down any further. Would likely have to line bore the block. With all the steel in the system, who knows what damage there is to the cam/ geartrain. Engine builder would go further if I wanted him to, but is really concerned with all the damage. Reman engine is probably going to come from liebherr, just have to sort out the paperwork. Air freight from Germany. Liebherr doesn't core charge, they offer a up to 30% refund off the price of the new engine, depending on the condition of the engine I send to them. Most likely it won't be worth the freight to send mine to virginia. But who knows? So- Merry Christmas everyone, we've had a great year, and I've got all kinds of work stacked up for the 100 ton next year when I get it back together. I'm really thankful that the motor didn't go down two weeks after I owned it. At least this way it has made enough to pay for its repairs, though I'll admit its going to sting a little. As long as the phone keeps ringing, we'll keep going!
Well like you said it ain’t good news but at least you’ve got a direction to head now and can just bear down and start paying for it. Merry Christmas to all.
Sorry about the bad news. Like you said, nothing to do but fix it, and keep earning more bucks.
That really sucks! I'm guessing the new engine will have some Murphy gauges or something to shut the engine off in case of low oil pressure or overheating. Really surprised it didn't have something from the factory. Good thing you have lots of work lined up and it's not your only crane. There are some horror stories where an owner/operator had their only machine go down through no vault of their own and took a long time to get sorted out.
One more dam it! from here in NY.
Hated to hear that major bad news, but life goes on and ones has to accept the good along with the bad. Hope 2020 is an awesome year for you and lots of work for 100 T makes it all the worth owning the machine.
Damn bud, hate ABSOLUTELY hate to hear of a big loss as that.
Bad news alright, but t!ts and tyres, right?
Or Tracks Hiya Kiwi!! Merry Christmas
Merry Christmas!
Well it was about 70 deg here on christmas day. Here's the whole clan, and I and the kids are all currently driving the same series of Ford trucks, so what better than a group picture. Left to right 1992 Superduty 460, 5speed 2 wheel drive, flatbed 1994 f150 300 six, 5 speed 2 wheel drive shortbox (my son, freshman in college) 1997 f250 351, auto, 4 wheel drive longbox (youngest daughter, junior in high school) 1995 f150, 302. auto, 2 wheel drive longbox (oldest daughter, junior in college) Wife doesn't get her own wheels in the picture, she drives a honda built in canada, so- no foreign built allowed .
Nice looking group, Congrats on a Good family!
The problem with a shutdown is that it’s taking control away from the operator if it tries to shut off the engine (for good reason or not) while the crane is barrelling down the road. That’s not too clever imho, could land in the canal just like the other one did. Although it would be nice if it had warning lights and a siren in the cab(s) to warn of impending disaster. The fact it apparently doesn’t kinda surprises me.
Well when it rains it pours... 70 ton on my way to a job yesterday, I think cracked a head. Fortunately, I've got a 6v92 hid away in the back corner of the shop. Its just with the 100 ton down, and no engine delivered for it yet, and now the 70 ton down . Still have to rebuild the telescope cylinder in my 35 ton and the new little 40 ton isn't ready yet. The stack of things needing fixed is piling up.
That would drive an old mare to bite her colt. Good luck with it. You could be spending more quality time with your boom truck.
WTH big guy, you do not need all this BS. You pizz off the Engine Gods sometime last month??
Man oh man. This run of misfortune you are having could drive a fellow to alcohol abuse and a generally disagreeable disposition.
"abuse"? Not sure what that means, leave the "ab" out and then that makes more sense! Not sure if I'm glad or happy to be a bit over 1,000 miles away! If I was too close I might be tempted to stop in and see if I could help!
Yikes. Sorry for your luck
Getting kicked when you are down, but his is crazy. One problem usually leads to having another but you are way past that now. Hope it is just a cracked head a somewhat easy fix, and not so very expensive. If you own machines you know that their can be problems, drinking and screaming doesn't repair anything. Get them sorted out and fixed and back to work making money as soon as possible. Start using some of that good luck, you seem to have stored, because all you have been having is bad luck!
OK so no one else has said it, I will stick it out there. Ever think Someone in real charge is trying to tell you SLOW DOWN? Might just be a fluke but could be a warning shot across the bow. May want to have a discussion with him as to making with a little assistance.
Its going to be okay. We haven't touched a engine at my shop in probably 4-5 years, so I know it was due. Things always happen in 3's though, so I'm waiting for number 3 . Well, so far the big man upstairs has been nothing but good to me. I've got a great wife, and 3 healthy and great kids. A roof over my head, a job I love, and pay my bills. Having a couple engines down isn't the end of the world, I try to keep things in perspective. I did take a day last week and go look at this- a liebherr ltm 1120. Its a couple years older than my ltm1080. But its only 5 hours car drive away, and its in my price range. I really don't think I'm going to do it though, its got a couple issues, and I really don't have the manpower to run it. I really don't know if I would be so fired up to buy it, if my 100 ton wasn't down either. Its really like a 165 ton, 184' main, 69' jib and a insert for 92' of total jib, 77,000lbs counterweight. Its really a little bit heavy to scale in missouri. I would have to do some playing around with the weights. Its only a single winch machine. The counterweights are kind of goofy, you have to mount and bolt the top weight, and redrop the tray and bottom weight to put all the counterweights on, which is a real pain. It would gain me a little tip height, and the control system is all the same as my other liebherr. The two cranes would also be able to hook hydraulic systems to one another, so if either one went down, a set of jumper hoses or two and you could use the one crane to bring the boom out of the air on the other crane. Which would be really really nice if you had a hydraulic pump or engine failure with 250' of boom in the air. The crane looked better in pictures than it did up close.
Thanks everyone for the encouragement also, the breakdowns are all part of the deal with equipment. The 70 ton I had some suspicions the last time I ran it by the looks of the dipstick. It had a trace of condensation built up at the top of the dipstick. I had the guys drop the oil in it, and no antifreeze, so I thought it could just be from setting and the cold to hot weather we've been having. But evidently it was getting the oil warm enough to burn off any excess antifreeze so it wasn't in the bottom of the pan, or we were burning it off in the chamber. Either way, I've got a different motor, that ran when I bought it, supposedly a recent rebuild, we will see.
1000 miles isn't that far of a drive, ya know. You could be there in 12 hours if ya wanted to. Stay safe CraneOp, easy to get distracted when troubling things pass our way. Sounds like you've got the right attitude though. Like my grandpa told me, keep plugging along and doing what's right. It will all work out in the end.
Well at least when you get done with this round you will know what wont be a problem in the near future
Two detroits in a truck, headed for town to get the jakes swapped from one to another. I'll have them set the overhead also, then we'll swap all the extra stuff around from one to another and install.
New lightpoles at a new ballfield, this one is getting astroturfed in a month or so, only access was from the field so we wanted done first. Galion walked across some plywood in a church yard, HVAC units were a little too far away, for anything I currently have running from the parking lot. So we needed to get a little closer.
Taking down some quarry and concrete plant equipment. Screen deck, old tank, and some conveyors. Concrete plant is coming apart in a couple weeks.
Just a heads up .That 6-92 that I pictured is for sale in grantsville md. 1200.00 I blve. Don't know anything about it
I'm a idiot sometimes (well, a lot of the time- but don't tell anyone). Got a new to us 40 ton grove a while back, and we have some of the issues sorted, so yesterday I pulled it outside and put it up on jacks, I haven't had time to even set the thing up to see how it runs/operates. So I ask one of the other guys, (they set it up earlier) where the swing brake is. He points to the pedal on the floor, it isn't a swing brake, its a 360 house lock. I tell him that isn't it, it should have a electric switch brake also. Set the crane all up, and the boom is good, winch, outrigger controls are still messed up upstairs, but the worst thing is the swing. Rough, won't start and stop easy, swings worse than the mack/ national we have. I get out and mumble grumble kick around about it. Piece of junk crane etc. etc. The other guys are like "don't give up on it, its just probably something wrong". Well the problem is operator error, I found the electric swing lock switch this morning, and with the swing brake switched off, the crane swings like a grove should, smooth and easy to control. I'm just dumb sometimes.
Been there done that
Happened in spain. Looks like a underground garage or basement they drove across and dropped into. Note all the counterweights on the deck, they sure didn't try to make the crane any lighter.
Tadano RT dumped off a trailer in Florida. According to the report, they had it on the trailer and the operator for some reason boomed it up to 45-55 degrees. Then it probably shifted on the 5th wheel, and right off the trailer it came.
What is wrong with these people, like they never ran one of these before, or maybe pushed a little too far and got away with often.
Big RT's belong on beams IMO. Not much deck to work with and if one site drops off, well....
What would posses an operator to do anything without the trailer on the ground and air dumped is beyond me. Probably the driver that didn’t know any better. RT’s are why I always had a 9’ or 10’ wide trailer. We moved so many short distances it wasn’t worth the time and effort to load em on a beam. Hauled every size there was on a deck up to and including 130 ton Terex and the big 9130 Grove. That was plain and simple a colossal ***k up!
You said that well JY.
Little foggy here the other day, it usually clears up about 8-9:00, but this hung on to almost noon. New water tank up the hill from my shop. The tank builders crane was a little short for the next ring up.
Trusses on a shop/ living space building. They green sawed the inside concrete, but it had a new apron and sidewalk all the way around the outside, not a saw mark on it and it had some ugly cracks in it.
Customer needed a truck to move a screen onto a transport trailer. I had a spare hour this morning so I said sure. I spent all day. Needed a ramp built, because instead of getting a stretch RGN, lets try to put it up on a stepdeck. Ramp was built too short, so they proceeded to put another 2' of wet clay on the ramp. I told them it wouldn't hold up, and it didn't . Then he spent another hour trying to put rock on top of the soaking wet clay, and of course that didn't help either. He kept asking what he should do - "dig all the wet clay out that I told you not to put in there and build it up with rock". Then he would say "it will firm up", and keep on working it up. nope - sorry but it isn't going to firm up no matter how often you drive your tracked skid loader over it buddy. I was on the hourly clock, so I shouldn't care, but I was ticked by the end. I had a bunch of other stuff scheduled for the day, and this was a mess. DON"T ask me for advice, if you don't want to listen and just do whatever you want. We did end up getting it loaded, and not through the clay. I finally got him to cut another ramp into a existing rock pile he had. It was a little sketchy with all the mud and backing it onto the trailer. Driver was overheight also.
Liebherr sent me a little something also. About got all the accessory/ sensors mounted up at the shop. Just have to swap motor mounts and spin the oil fill hole yet. Hopefully we can at least get it over to where the crane is tomorrow and set in the hole.
I may be out of order here, but are better quality filters than Wix available in your area, especially based on the $ value of what's sitting on that stand..?
They ask your opinion hoping you agree. That way if it doesn’t work they can blame you
I can order anything, including liebherr branded ones if I want. The best I can get local is wix. I don't know who builds liebherr's filters. What's everyone's favorite? Baldwin, donaldson, napa, fleetguard? We did get it in the hole today. Starter and rear driveline, alternator, motor mounts hooked up. Still need a belt for the front, put front driveline on to the main pump, another hyd. pump that mounts to the engine, then wiring. Then radiator and hyd. cooler and air to air and all those connections. Weather is supposed to turn to sleet and cold tomorrow though, so I don't think we'll get much done. We were talking about start up, I thought about not hooking up fuel, and just cranking starter first to build up some oil pressure, before putting fuel to it. I did have engine oil come out of the oil cooler lines, so I think its been run on a dyno after rebuilding. It was shipped with no oil in the pan. Should I just put regular engine oil in, or some kind of "break in" oil. ' I was surprised that liebherr didn't send a "start up" procedure with the motor. They probably have one, but its a "tech" only application.
As a suggestion to protect your investment initially - OEM filters if you can get them. If anything goes t1ts-up nobody can point a finger at you for trying to save a few cents, or simply using what you could get locally. Out of your list above I’d personally pick Donaldson. No experience with Baldwin, never been impressed with Fleetguard and I wouldn’t put Parts house filters in my pickup, let alone something with that price tag in it. Pre-start. Make sure the turbo has plenty oil in it and if you can crank it over with the fuel off until you see about 5psi or so on a mechanical pressure gauge plumbed into the main oil gallery would also be a good idea. I’m sure others will chime in with suggestions.
Plumbing a pressure gauge into the oil gallery is probably not going to happen. If I find a place to tap in, it will probably be some super strange thread size or fitting connection. I think I'll just watch the oil pressure gauge in the cab. I spent two days trying to get two bolts that would fit in two large tapped holes in the top of the block to lift the engine by. I don't know what kind of threads or size they are, but they aren't metric fine or metric coarse thread (and not SAE fine or coarse either). I gave up and made different lifting brackets that attached in a different place. I really like this crane, but it is kind of a pain simply because of how liebherr builds some of their stuff. I read somone's post a while back about getting a C9 for a grader, and it was a $55,000, motor from the cat store. I was thinking "I can find all kinds of C9 cats, for 8-15,000, aint no way I would give that kind of $ to the CAT man". But you can find CAT, detroit, cummins engines all over in the U.S. With this being liebherr, its only going to come from liebherr. I even looked pretty hard for a John Deere dozer engine block (a liebherr in john deere colors) as a base for rebuilding my engine, and it just wasn't feasible, $ or time wise. I kind of half looked at repowering, but the way they drive different pumps directly off the engine (kind of like a old detroit rear gear set up) makes it about impossible. They gear drive air compressor and one hyd. pump off the rear of the engine, and another one off a gear drive on the front. Then drive the large hydro pumps from a driveline off the front crank. Trying to attach up all that stuff was just going to be too far out of the box.
Built Proprietary so nothing else can be modded easily into it. Typical of what I have seen of Liebherr ANY machine. Looks and sounds good so far, I too have lost much appreciation for WIX as well a number of other makes filters. Fleetrite from Corn Queen USED to be decent as was Fleetguard from Cummins but times have changed, I have to use Baldwin on the old Allis as no one produces the obsolete filters for it any longer, are will fits from WIX and NAPA(Also WIX) yet I do not use those.
As far as the Concrete, Excessive Calcium to get it to rock up in the cold will cause to shrink too fast where produce shrinkage cracks much as the one in the photo, cracks to weakest point(corners).
Well, I'm gaining slowly, but it seems like two steps forward and one step back right now. Engine is in the liebherr, got it running Monday, and home to shop. Ran good on the way home. I've got a issue with the oil pressure sending unit, I'm actually thinking the sender is fine, but that we've pinched a wire. I've got a manual gauge plumbed in, and making great oil pressure. So we got the crane set up, and it won't telescope boom. All question marks on the gauges. Called tech, they walked me through it all, and I had a proximity sensor in the boom go bad. New sensor showed up this morning. Installed, called tech and got it "confirmed" in the computer. Boom scopes in and out. Ran crane for a while after putting in switch, and it starts losing power while running hydraulics, I was thinking its just cold, but it got worse. Shut it down and everything looks good, just low on power. Pulled fuel filters, and the primary looked really dirty, they were new filters when engine installed. Thinking in setting for a month and a half through the monsoon season we've been having, plus I have fought slime before in the crane. New filters installed, tank is drained of fuel and fresh fuel in it, and then batteries didn't have enough left to crank it over enough to get it going. We had done a bunch of cranking to get it going back on monday and saturday, and had to recharge them several times, so I'm guessing one of them isn't much good. New batteries are showing up in the morning, and I guess tomorrow we will see what happens. At least its at my shop.
While it isn't right at least you have it back to your shop, it will be much easier to work on it there. Hopefully you get the things ironed out and it starts making money for you soon.
Damn cannot catch a break on this That sucks At least is home and can negotiate at the shop
I'm the project manager for the design and construction of a 120 foot long replica Brown Truss timber covered bridge. It's a 2nd in a lifetime. I was PM for a replica 100 foot long Brown Truss in Ada Mi back in 1980. Wiki is wrong, it has a 25 foot steel beam approach span on the west end. I'll post photos this weekend of the cranes and trusses. I have some neat lift photos for posting later. I forgot to say we set the 2 trusses in place today. https://www.facebook.com/RebuildWhitesBridge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_Covered_Bridge .
Spent yesterday and this morning early, beating my head against the liebherr, and hallelujah- it went out and made a little $ today. 1,000lbs unit, 140' radius. Only another 40 or so jobs, and I'll have the motor paid for. Second picture is the top side of the telescope cylinder, it has prox switches where every boom section sits, and for locking and unlocking pins. The lower left hand side one was bad, one of 8 in this area. I think there are 12 prox switches total, that control boom telescope function.
We have enough stuff around now that's metric, I decided to break down and get a metric tap and die set. Found a nice looking Vermont American set on Zoro, web site said made in Germany, a little over $100. m3 to m12 Well it showed up today, opened the box and the stuff didn't look too good. Looked at the box. Hecho de China. Well I got news for Zoro. If I had wanted a Chinese set, I could have got a Tekton off Amazon for about $40. Return UPS slip is already printed, its going back.
I recently started buying drill bits bolts taps and hardware from a little mom and pop place about 5 minutes from our yard it's been there forever but the local nut and bolt supply chain is 1200 feet from the gate but I have learned the 5 minute drive gets me a better tool at about or little cheaper rate The small hardware store is independent of any brand and pretty much everything they sell for tools is American made On another note harbor freight is about 10 minutes away and when I need things that are to be disposable it fits the bill
At least it's making money again, that's something. Those scope cylinders can be a nightmare when they play up. I had a locking pin seize recently in a GMK6220L, took 2 days for the dealer tech to be able to access it to unstick it..... Pin was jammed in T2 and the cylinder won't unlock until the section is locked to the next one. Luckily I only had 3 50% sections out. Have you noticed a drop in power with the new motor?
It may be just me, but is the cover plate supposed to be sealed to prevent water getting into it.? Looks in the photo as though there are traces of silicone around it. With that much value in the crane and all the electrical/electronic connections your Liebherr would seem to be a prime candidate for the application of Senson grease & protection tape to electrical connectors (at least the ones associated with the LMI and the boom telescoping function) to prevent the possibility of condensation in connectors causing you headaches. I know it works, we use it on all our kit that gets rained on heavily 365 days a year.
There are remnants of silicone on it. The cover plates have huge slots in the bolt holes, and one of the lock pins attaches in the cover. There's no way to seal the end of the boom either, so water is getting in there no matter what. I think if you siliconed the lid, it would just get moved by the pin locking and unlocking in it. I think the silicone isn't factory, but later in its life. I think if you really wanted to try to seal it, a cork type gasket would handle the slight movement better. I've used dielectric grease before Runs great so far. "New" motor is a liebherr reman. New engine data plate said 2005, so its a quite a bit newer block, my crane is a 1999/2000.
Here's a drone shot from Facebook The original bridge stood almost 150 years. This one is designed for today's codes. You can see the black steel wind bracing we had to add to the ends LOL. The steel will be covered by the wood siding so it will look the same . I have some photos of the picks and we'll have some professional video and time lapse stuff when its finished.
Glad to hear your Liebherr is back in action. I can only imagine the pain of investing that much into a machine, only to lose the engine less than a year later. I've had engines and transmissions go out before, but always in worn out junk that was domestic and cheap. Keep up the good work Crane Operator. How's the Aeromax project truck coming? I had forgotten about it until i saw it in your pic.
That timber truss bridge is really nice, I've been involved in a couple smaller ones of those. I don't think that any county or the state road dept. would rebuild such a thing here in Mo, it would be steel and concrete. Aeromax is on the back burner. Still splitting the hauling between the old winch truck (that doesn't have enough wheelbase for bridge) here in town, and the semi and trailer for going out of town. As for the engine: I'm just thankful that I got a year out of the liebherr before the engine went, at least I had some profits to work with. It could have happened 10 days after I owned it. Not that this isn't going to hurt for a little while, but its not like you can just give up and park it in the weeds, because its expensive to fix. Too much invested. Its the extra bonus that comes from being able to buy 20 year old $200,000 equipment instead of brand new million+ dollar equipment, there may be some expensive repairs. The liebherr crane is great when its all working right. Its a pain in the *** when its not.
Glad to see the girl working again. Remember newer cranes also have engines and transmissions go out
And all the DPF and electronic stuff that is a constant pain.
Do you use the vapaguard cubes in your electrical panels also- that they talk about in the cat book? Looks like some kind of dessicant and a "vapor" that is supposed to inhibit corrosion?
Cat apparently also had some kind of coating they put inside dry steering clutch cases (from the factory) to inhibit corrosion. Don't know what it was but is mentioned in the brochure.
Not seen much of anything stop Electrical Corrosion on HE.
Senson stops it - dead in its tracks. My experience based in numerous places, the latest of which gets 300" of rainfall in an average year along with ambient temps that never drop below 70DegF. Perfect breeding ground for corrosion. We apply it to new machines as part of the assembly/commissioning process. Yes we do, and your interpretation of how it works is correct. I must admit when I was first introduced to it my thoughts were that it was just another snake oil. I will happily admit that I was wrong. If that Liebherr was mine I would be using Senson on all the electrical connections related to the LMI & the controls for boom hydraulics in a heartbeat.
Learned a new aspect again Not heard of Senson will have to look that up
Apparently it was initially developed for military equipment operating in the tropics IIRC.
I don't see senson on goggle. Can you post a link? Thanks
http://sensontek.com.au/ It looks like the grease is just a dielectric grease, available from any auto parts store, not under their name. The unique thing to me is the little paks.
Try this. Works for me - http://sensontek.com.au/
Their other trick is the amalgamating tape (probably available over the counter) that gets wrapped over every harness connector. It's mentioned in the file I posted above. That's the 2nd line of defence to keep condensation out of connectors.
Yeah. I love that: The old one worked for 150 yrs, but it wasn't done right. My brother built his house on a hill in the edge of the swamp on brick piers. The county heard about it after it was built and an inspector told him he had to jack it up and build new a foundation because it didn't meet hurricane standards. My brother said they were an exact copy of the foundations under most of the 250 yr old houses on the edge of Winyah Bay, 30 miles closer to the ocean. The inspector said it didn't matter. My brother ended the discussion by pointing out how many alligators he had on his property, and how hungry they were. I wish you would start a new thread for this bridge project so we could see it all together.
What's that stuff like when you have to take it off? Residue? Super sticky? Rubbery impossible mess to remove?
Not at all. It certainly doesn't leave a rubbery mess. Best way I've found is to slice the tape lengthwise with a sharp craft/hobby knife then peel it off from the cut line as shown below.
Apparently the Senson Grease has a vapor anti-corrosion property. From their site FAQ: …" It is impregnated with vapour phase corrosion inhibitors" … It has a 60 month shelf life from manufacture date. Any US sources or equivalents ?
Co. Put a pad lock on your check book then check out Rb auction in Orlando. Coming up in a few days
Would it sound weird to say while at the Zoo yesterday with grandkid and his parents I thought of crane operator and had to get a picture? Color is almost a match to the Liebherr engine!
It contains the same inhibitor as VCI oil that is used to protect the insides of engines, etc, for long-term storage. We buy ours out of Australia but I've asked the question if they have a US-based distributor. Stay tuned.
Forgot to mention when we went to the Zoo with six year old grandkid they made us take him back home with us! Guess there are only so many wild animals they can handle at a time! Just don't tell stepdaughter I said that!
I thought it would be so cold up there, that all you would have at the zoo would be polar bears and penguins.
Well no polar bears but they do have penguins and most of them were inside! Only two were out swimming in the pool. Then again these are Humboldt penguins which make their home on the coast of Chile and even get as far north as Peru so not the ones that you associate with Antarctica.
I contacted Senson and they told me that they don't have a distribution network outside Australia. However they said that they ship the product worldwide from Oz and were quite familiar with international orders. I have a contact name and an email address. If anyone wants it they can PM me.
No need to put a pad lock on my checkbook, isn't enough left there to be worth stealing. Cobwebs and dust bunnies. Lot of stuff, but like anything else, its a pain to get it home. There's a couple blown out wood boxes full of shackles I wouldn't mind buying, but I know they'd never last getting shipped. So then I have to find someone to transfer them to a metal crate or something, guess on weight and get them hauled. Big pain.
For LTL freight, never guess on the weight. Leave it empty on the BOL and they will weigh for free. Guess more than 50# off, and you will get charged for a reweigh fee.
Three jobs under my belt with the liebherr with its new engine in it. I'm nervous as a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. I'm imagining sounds and smells as I'm driving and running it. Fired it up this morning in the cold, and of course it smokes a little from unburnt fuel, but the dollar signs scroll in the front of my mind until it smooths out. I'm not totally convinced the electrical oil pressure gauge is working correctly. We originally hooked in a manual gauge, and it won't run right without the electrical gauge in. Electrical gauge shows pressure instantly when it turns over, and doesn't seem to move between high and low throttle like it should. I'm waiting on a adapter block so I can plumb the manual gauge to the cab. Big christmas tree tear down.
Balloon ride inspection.
New serpentine belt and idler/ tensioner pulley for the liebherr. We had put a new gates belt on when reinstalling motor, but the idler pulley was growly. I blew the new belt out on the way to the first job after engine install, but fortunately had the old belt yet. We reinstalled it, and I ordered a idler and belt. New liebherr belt, the back side is actually textured about like sandpaper or bedliner spray. Has like sparkly bits that show on both sides in it also. No idea what's in it, but its different than any belt I've been around. Idler is a little different design with a better tensioner arrangement also. Old engine is crated up and headed back to liebherr monday. They have offered zero to possible thirty percent of the cost of the new engine, as a core value for my old engine. I may have just paid for a shipping loss, we will see.
Better to try for a discount than just sell for scrap. May make a little less painful knowing they will need to inspect it once receive it. Always something sneaks out when least expect it.
I will do a thread on this project eventually. The contractor is a bit skittish about "action" photos. This photo was taken by the design engineer on Saturday morning, fresh snow and sun - a rare commodity in MI this time of year LOL
CO … What happened with the RT and the CAT ? Did it go over when booming down ? Why didn't he use the hoist to lower ? Looked like there was enough clearance.
I'm not sure, he starts getting on the horn early, like he knows he's going over. Of course no one listens and just stays under it throwing blocks. I think, he may have been so close on chart, that every time he tried to boom up, that the rear end just kept getting lighter. Then he really went for booming up, and it just got away from him. The crawler in the first one was fine until he tried to swing, he was OK over the tip of his tracks, but bumping the wall didn't help, and as soon as he wasn't over the toes of the tracks, he was gone. That guy on the wall had his guardian angel watching him. As well as the last guy throwing blocks on the rt.
Well the 100 ton has been running great. Notice I used the past tense. Its throwing a code for the mass charge air sensor, and when it goes whacky it runs like crap. Of course I was on a job with it and trying to get done. Which I did get done with the job, code disappeared, and I rolled the dice and drove it home. Ran great the whole way home. Nothing like intermittent troubles. Set the timber trusses for bathroom, beside the big pavilion we built last year for a church. They really like their pavilion, they had a big celebration in it this fall.
Grease trap at a buffet here in town. They had natural gas, electric for the light poles, and big main power coming in, all beside the old trap. And of course, the new trap was bigger. First tank was fine. Second tank the wall kept falling in under the conduit. Third time the trench wall fell, it took out the main power conduit- cracked it at a joint. Power company came and patched it. Its been raining all the time here right now and they just couldn't hold the bank, and with all the utilities, not much chance to overdig and bench it back. Smaller tank was 10,000, bigger one was like 18,000. It was a muddy mess around the hole with all the rain we've had.
Had to go to the basketball game at school last weekend, youngest daughter was on the homecoming court, she's a junior. Baby of the family is about out of school. Empty nest here we come. She's the one with the black shirt/ flowered skirt trying not to laugh because her dad is waving at her.
Fancy cutting saw I unloaded at a machine shop monday. Was supposed to be 12,000lbs. They were planning on using a pallet jack and a forklift to put it in place in the building. I had my old 25 ton grove (its about the only thing I have running right now ), good thing I had it instead of the mack/ national, it was 21,500lbs. I set it down and told them they were going to have to rethink the whole pallet jack plan. They had asked me to bring my machinery skates, so we put them under one end, and two pallet jacks on the other end, and pushed and pulled with the forklift to get it in the building. Also got my block stowage rack built for the 40 ton. I've been going round and round with the parts guys for the bad pressure transducer to make the LMI work. I think I've got the right parts on the way now for it. . New pac brake showed up for it today also, the old one was rusted tight, I got it freed up, but the cylinder was bad as well as the spring, so I just bit the bullet and got a new one. Actually, I think this one is military surplus, it was $550 off ebay, new ones are more like $1500. The new one is the "improved" model. My old one didn't have the extra arm and spring, I think its to control so it doesn't do too much back pressure.
I think this is where my problem is in the 100 ton. The wiring is 20 years old, and it has a black outer cover that is super hard, it cracks instead of bends. This area with the blue wire coating gone, had a break in the black cover and it could have been touching on the block or the injection pump. I peeled back all the black part, and I'm going to splice in a section, if I can figure out where it goes to in the lower cab, its getting a whole new wire. There are a lot of small hairline cracks in the insulation of the wiring. I hate the thought of replacing a wire at a time, but a new harness is big $. I think I may just end up going that route, it may save time in the end. Its so hard and brittle, it seems like the more you touch it and mess with it, the worse it is. I'm sure we didn't do it any favors when we unplugged it all and laid it out of the way when we swapped engines.
That looks like it is way too close to letting all the magic smoke out!
I'm thinking fire extinguishers mounted close to hand. My new machines have a ton more wiring than the 20 year old veterans.
Looks as should have back wound the sensors another four to five turns, WOW!! I see they can plug in. Wiring in a high heat load area CO? brittling the insulation?
I think its a combination of heat and age, as well as the type of insulation. It really only had a small crack and area exposed. By the time I got it unwound, and the black outer layer off, I had a lot more insulation falling off. The outer black shield is like a heat shrink, its hard to remove and very brittle, I got it off with a combination of razor knife and bending it to where it would crack. There are numerous other small spots in other wires with cracks in the insulation, which makes me think pretty hard about a new harness. When they have three wires going to a sensor, its like they were machine wound together, then a heat shrink outer over them. I've got wiring in 40 year old stuff with wiring in better shape.
Pretty common on High density heavily obstructed air flow machines as these. Some of the harness sheathing I have seen last thirty years brittles out pretty easily quickly and badly.
Typically when wire is wound like that it’s data transmission and not analog/digital signals. Some form of canbus. It’s to prevent outside frequencies from interfering with the data transfer.
The machine is canbus (at least that's what the tech says), the mass air flow sensor I'm dealing with right now is 5 volts DC , then the blue wire is signal to the ecm.
Knepptune- I did have a question for you on a 500e check your messages.
Liquid electrical tape is your friend!
Try scoring the outer jacket with a razor knife and then hit it with a heat gun. If it is heat shrink, it will split along the score line and you should be able to pull the covering right off. Cam
CANBUS/signal/data transmission wires such as the one in your photos should have approximately one twist per inch of length to prevent outside interference with the signal that is being transmitted along the twisted wires.
Trusses with the 25 on Saturday.
First job with the 40 ton. I got the pacbrake installed, but its got something up with the wiring, so its installed but doesn't work. Went to stand a tank monday, it runs well, the C7 engine really surprised me. I hate to admit it, but the allison is pretty nice also. Need to get the pacbrake working though, or we're going to eat those new brake shoes right up, takes a lot of brake to slow it down. Its got a pretty good engine oil leak, coming from behind a bracket on the top rear of the motor. It looks suspiciously like the rear of the head gasket, but I'm going to have to pull some things apart just to see where its coming from. LMI isn't working properly yet either. I've got a new pressure transducer to put in, and I think the boom length is messed up also. But at least its out and running. Of course a maiden voyage wouldn't be complete without troubles, fortunately it was only a flat tire. I made it to the job and finished it, then went to the tire shop before driving home.
Old concrete plant tear down. The portland silo had a extra 10,000lbs of old material still in it. The worst one was the fly ash silo. I got attached to it, and it didn't even want to move. "oh- it still has some in it- maybe 20 ton or so".... Well I was the bearer of bad news, and they ended up in the air nozzle holes with rebar trying to get it to run out. I pulled it off the leg stand, at 42,000lbs. I knew there was no way it weighed that much, so I made them go back to work getting more material out. It ended up only weighing around 12,000lbs by the time we got all the fly ash out. Its a wonder that we didn't rip the roof or the picking eyes off the tank. What a dusty mess. The wind was somewhat favorable, but I still have it all over the crane. We blew as much of it as we could off with a air nozzle, and I swapped air filters too.
Flying steel on the back side of a lake home for a deck. Had kind of a steep driveway, so now I know the power divider works.
Pump station and wet well at a golf course. Was down a big old hill, and we've been waiting for it to dry up to get down in there.
Had to load the base of the wet well. Flatbed tandem is great for this kind of stuff. They carried the risers down the hill with excavator, but they couldn't pick up the base. Took the 40 ton out there to load base, about 22,000lbs.
How many golf courses are there in Branson now? And are they all cut out of solid rock?
I think there are 9 courses within 10 miles of me. And yes, most anything done here involves a hammer on the excavator.
I think that c7 has a big oil plug at the back of the head. Allen plug, I think it’s about 1.5” diameter. You should keep spare orings on hand for that plug. When that o ring actually blows it’ll really dump some oil.
That's good news, and a easy fix. There's a big bracket holding up the muffler in the way right now, I need to get it out of the way to see where the oil is even coming from, but a leaky plug is great compared to a head gasket.
If you have a S/N for the engine I could take a look in SIS and see if I can see something. Just a quick look on a C-7 over the road engine shows this:
This thread might shed some light. With the oil pressure behind that plug it needs the correct type of high-temperature O-Ring installed. HeavyEquipmentForums
Big old sycamore, other side of the clubhouse building. Insurance company inspector said they wouldn't cover the dock insurance, unless the tree came down.
I don't know anything about sycamore trees but I would be worried about that one if near any structure! Reminds me about something said about some dogs, "All Bark No Bite" in this case it would be "All Bark No wood"!
Interesting note. Been struggling yet with the oil pressure sending unit/ wiring on the liebherr. Called in a guy who is better with electrical than I am. I have the old sending unit and the new one, and guess what- neither of them work correctly, according to him/ liebherr support. So when the original engine lost the remote oil filter line, I was probably still getting the "stuck" inaccurate reading from the sending unit. I have a manual gauge now plumbed into the lower cab, but neither sending unit I currently have will work correctly. New sending unit is on the way from liebherr.
Saw this on Friday in downtown Gladeville, TN just before the 4 way stop and thought of CO
That's a lovely shade of green isn't it?
So the youngest daughter is in her third year of french class in high school. And they have to do some kind of video presentation, so what does my lovely daughter want to do for the presentation? Guillotine. For kids play toys. That's my girl. (This was our saturday father daughter project)
The guy always like Terex green.
Like they say "the apple don't fall far from the tree!"
So awhile back I bought a hydraulic dumping skip box. Its set up to run off a reel unit on a boom truck with a "roofers package", where they have a spring unroll, twin hose set up. I'd like to be able to use the box with any of my cranes, and don't want to be plumbing into all of them for hydraulic. So I bought a 12v dump trailer two way pump, and have got it kind of set up (of course it got damaged in shipping- the solenoid was broken off). I'm wondering if I'll need to go to deep cycle batteries. I plan on installing a 12v charger in the box right beside the batteries so I could plug it in if the batteries need charged up. Right now I just have a pair of 12v that are good that we pulled out of a crane. I'm curious how many cycles I'll get before needing a charge. I went with the corded control, I debated on remote and decided to keep it simple for right now, I can always add on the remote.
May need ballast to opposite side when empty.
Batteries should do several cycles before get weak, not like pulling a full starter on a engine. If can set up a trailer plug charge when in transport(Aux Circuit).
Is it a power up/power down or gravity down system? I ask because I have a dump trailer with power up/power down. It makes 4 full dump cycles on a fresh deep cycle battery and is depleted enough that it can't raise a load a fifth time. This is charging from auxilliary circuit on truck as well. It doesn't charge back up as fast as it depletes. I usually just plan around this, limit my loads per day and use a regular car charger the night before I need the trailer.
Its power up power down. I put two batteries in series in it, hoping to have a little more kick. I shouldn't have the loads that even a dump trailer has, because the load in the box is helping open the doors, and then they shut empty. I even thought about putting a solar charger on it, like a cattle fencer system, but I'm afraid it would get broke in and out of a dumpster. One of the doors doesn't shut - its been tweaked and rewelded, so I'm going to fix that first. I think I may have to use some angle iron to get it to seal a little better. It would hold shingle debris right now, but I think I have a rock roof tear off coming up, and I don't think it will seal smaller rock.
It has to be power both ways because it has a holding valve in it (I think) keeping the doors shut while loading and flying it. If it wasn't power down, you wouldn't get past the holding valve to dump it.
ahh, I understand that. If my pump ever goes on the trailer, I'm just going to replace it with a power up/gravity down. It would work just fine like a regular dump truck if it was gravity down in my application.
Yeah, lately all the little stuff I have been seeing, (p'up pulled trailers, and f350 sized dumptrucks), have been power down. Why?! Do they really think congress is going to repeal the law of gravity anytime soon?
They'll find a way to tax it.
Old scissors lift on my Grain wagon is a 'Semi' power down, can aid it but seals do not support pressure down, the added Cylinder fluid volume is for smaller reservoir size.
If the bed has to much sticking past the hinge point( small dump trailer) if it has no oil on the top of the cyl. The front of the bed will rasie up as fast as the load is falling once the back of the box becomes the heavy side of the lever. Think backing a wheeled skidsteer out of the trailer. Comical..... but could make a mess.
Trash box is done. Had to adjust one door that wouldn't shut, it had been repaired before, and rewelded on crooked. One of the guys got that done and a lid built so the battery and pump doesn't get covered with debris. The box hangs about 2" low on the pump side, close enough to level that I'm not counterweighting it. I bet we opened and shut the doors 40 times on it, and the batteries were still good. I don't know how many cycles we will get. Battery charger has the alligator clamps removed, is wired right to batteries and bolted to the box, otherwise I'll be tempted to steal it out.
New scale at the transfer station. You can see the other one I set a year or two behind this one. Now they will have separate scales for incoming and outgoing. Trusses on the bathrooms that I set the timber trusses on a few weeks ago.
Loading out the old concrete plant we took down a while back.
House trusses. Cribbing stacks are like big boy Jenga....
Roofing materials at a hospital. Its about a three hour drive away, and we've got to go back like 4 more times. They had the worst looking cable set up on the porta john to fly onto the roof. The little pulleys were just bolted to the plastic wall, and the bottom was all busted up from the walls. I think it might have been okay empty, but I don't think I would have flown it anywhere full. I rigged the bottom of it instead. Funny thing- all the roofing materials had to get unloaded in a different lot, the semi drivers couldn't get in the lot by the crane. Which we all discussed, while we were standing by the 100 ton in boom dolly, beside the peterbilt with the counterweights on the trailer. Yep- no way they can get semi's in here. So we got to wait everytime they went over to the other lot, to reload the materials onto a gooseneck trailer behind a pickup....
30' away and 1200lbs in a church asphalt parking lot, that was dead flat. They don't get easier than that. Second and last picture is one I didn't get done. Its the bottom of the concrete plant we've been loading out, and we couldn't get it picked up. Had a lot of material left in it. We gave up that day, and they removed a bunch of material. We quit at 60,000, and didn't have it picked up.
Some tires on the boom dolly. Had to carry it up from the back yard with the RT, so I just used it as a jack also. I'm liking the blue bar tire removing tool. It kinda has its own quirks, but its great on those lo profile tires.
Not good when you drive into the yard and the cranes are all huddled up. They're supposed to be out working.
It could be worse... they could all be waiting on repairs. You've already had enough repairs to last a lifetime.
No doubt! Weather should break in a few weeks and good old summer be back for long days in a greenhouse cab!!
Got the bottom of the concrete plant loaded up, after they removed all the excess material. Also note the 70 ton on a jobsite- engine back in and running. We used the 70 and 100 ton to load it because of where it was sitting and access. Just took the 40 ton and 70 ton to offload it, we could sit right next to it, and its easier to move the 40 than the 100 ton.
Had a interesting truck driver for the move, where we had to unload was up a hill at a quarry site. Of course "I've driven for years- I know how to get up there!" Supertrucker proceeds to try speed shifting down in the flat- to "get a run for it". Of course he starts hopping in 3rd on the way up the hill. He manages to back it back down. And instead of just dropping it in low, and staying steady, gives a repeat performance of full throttle speed run, and ruins a axle or 3rd member when it starts hopping again and he stays on the throttle. We sit around for 3 hours, waiting on the towing service to bring him another truck, swap trailer, and he does the same thing. I figured we were going to watch another axle get it, but by a miracle- he made it up the hill. Of course, then we got to unload in the fading daylight, with it raining, and had to leave the cranes there because it was too dark to bring them home. If the driver was the one having to change the axle out- I think he'd learn how to drive. Then again, he didn't seem the learning type. The quarry / concrete boys were kinda mad, they're on the hook for the crane time, because the driver wouldn't just stick it in low, and let it walk at 3/4 throttle. We had a loader and excavator if we needed to pull him up. We got to stand up at the top of the hill and watch the whole show.
Show up to set some steel beams over a indoor pool. No room, dumpster and all the wood piles in the way. And the beams setting out in the cul-de sac. Set up once, all the wood out, move the dumpster, swing/ skip the beams around to get them close. Move the crane, all the wood out again, and set the beams. 38' beams, 3800lbs View attachment 213284
Insulated roof panels on a log cabin.
Chain and steel bucket elevator change out. Ended up having to take out the head pulley for ruined bearings, so put it all back in in one shot. About 6,000 lbs worth of buckets and chain.
Some times sight conditions don’t allow for proper placement of materials, but most of the time it’s just someone not thinking, I just console myself with the knowledge that it’s costing them money and making me money, but I do a lot of muttering under my breath.
We haven’t seen the old Mack for awhile, good to see your still a boom truck guy. I had to re-roof over those insulated roof panels,they can cook a shingle roof of in 5 years. The one we re-shingled, we strapped vertically, put on 1/2” plywood sheathing, membrane and shingled. I have seen the roof recently and 10 years later it looks like the day we put it on.
Mack is still around, I just never run it, so not much chance to get action pics. I took my son over to see the panels set, he had learned about them in school, but never seen them installed. It was close by my shop, and I got some pictures while I was there. Right now I have the operating split between me and another operator. I run the old 25 and have gradually been using the newer 40 ton grove, to replace it for my small truss/ hvac jobs- and I take the 100 ton. My other guy will run the mack and the 70 ton. We kind of split the jobs with the two rough terrains, my 40 and 15 ton. He's a great operator, and we both can split to any of the machines. He's probably least comfortable with the 100 ton, if I've got it set up though- he'll run it too. I have a full time mechanic/ rigger that will go out with either of us when we need a hand. I've also been having my son go along when we need more help. He's at a community college that has no school right now, and this semester he has had tues, thursday till 2:00 and all day friday off. He's getting old enough now, and been around it enough to be good help. I wish either he or my mechanic had a CDL, it would ease the lack of a truck driver at times. I'd really rather hire another operator, as just hire a truck driver, who can't do anything unless the 100 ton is going to a job.
I may have missed it but did you get the oil leak fixed on your new 40t yet. How are you liking that crane so far?
I have the oil leak slowed down- 1/2 was coming from a sensor up on the top of the engine. The other half I think is coming out of rear main, and exiting through the bell housing. So tranny move back or engine ahead and rear main. I've just been letting it leak. I really like the upper on the 40 ton, pleased with the chart and how it runs. Pleasantly surprised with the power of the little cat, really liking the allison- its great at a uphill stoplight. Still need to fix the swing brake. I took it apart the other day and resealed it all, the electrical works right now, the foot applied does not. Its like it either doesn't move the piston far enough, or the plates are worn too much- or the springs worn off that the clearance is too much, and it won't grab it. It doesn't move that piston very far at all when you apply the foot brake. I have the Lmi mostly fixed, need one more transducer installed.
Hey crane op is your mechanic full time
I guess my observation is that seems like a lot of overhead for only 2 operators out billing time every day or is there that much maintenance in the crane business I never been around cranes more curious than anything
He probably is out in the field 1/2 the time. Delivering spreader bars, manbasket, signal man, moving loads, etc. I actually had 3 operators most of the time until last year, and I went to two and we got most of the jobs done, but worked a lot of hours. My mechanic guy is a good jack of all trades, and we get into a lot of different things. I really could have made another operator work and pay his way last year, but I guess I decided I'd make do with what we had. I actually own 7 cranes for two operators also. Some jobs take a big crane, some take a little crane, some jobs take two cranes. I actually could stand to sell a couple, but the older iron isn't worth a bunch, and its pretty reliable. For me it works the best having a lot of different types of equipment, but not a lot of manpower- I couldn't keep all my cranes busy 30 hours a week with a operator for each crane. Some guys would say then I probably shouldn't own it if its not out making $$$ every day, but it works for me.
Makes sense there is nothing wrong with old iron at all it will still charge as much an hour as new iron I was just curious I would have to have 5 machines running to have a mechanic around even if he played truck driver part of the time
It's always nice to have a backup machine(s).
Lack of a backup rig is my big worry, I have all my marbles in the Mack! But every time I think of buying something additional, I think of it just sitting there, outside, sucking up money, and not being worked. Then I think of hiring my first employee, and having to pay him (or her) even after a slow week, or training them and then having them move on to a bigger operation that can pay more. I think of all that and just keep doing my one man/one rig operation, which is real cost effective as long as nothing breaks down. I can afford to baby the National, keep it inside the heated shop, etc., so far so good. If I was 40 years old instead of 70 I'd be more ambitious, but I really don't need more income, I just want what is coming in now to continue, and like having a lot of free time to fly. Being semi retired is frigging perfect, seriously. Typical issues with a small operation, how to grow without going broke, not growing is my solution I guess.
Just my two cents Natman, but at your age keep it simple like it is now. Even if you have a breakdown it is never the end of the world so to speak.
Being the same age as you Natman, I understand. I haven't flown a plane in 20 years, and miss it a lot. Still enjoy working but need to find more time to do what I enjoy, besides working. Working is enjoyable for me, and I do a large variety which sure helps. I also like to hunt fish and ride my motorcycle, but keep putting work ahead of those things. Maybe this year I can learn to say no a little more often. I set trusses with a boom on my skidsteer, on really big jobs I hire a crane. The operator is 81 or 82 the crane is worn out, but he is so smooth and good that is what matters. Three of us plus the crane operator set a 254' building in 6 hours which isn't bad I thought.
I fly about 200 hours a year, and run the boom truck about 1000 hours annually. Both activities compliment each other, it's all about hand/eye coordination! Snowboarding and mountain biking really helps keep my balance good, and limber enough to scamper around on the National. Occasionally I get asked how long am I going to do this, and just tell them, "when I can't find the keys, or can't climb into the cab anymore."
Changed out some fiberglass slide pieces at a local water park. It was sunny the one afternoon when we tried to install a piece, and it wouldn't fit- too tight. I suggested jacking, boards, pulling on the lower section, etc. Installer said we just need to wait until the morning. Next morning it was cloudy and maybe 15 degrees cooler, and we had a 1" gap on each side when we went to fit it up. He had to wait until the sun came out and it warmed up a little, before he could put the bolts in across the bottom. Its probably 250-300' long, and I guess it moves that much in expansion and contraction. I've seen it on large bridge work that they need a temperature range to join in the center, and I've actually seen crane booms curve from setting still with the sun only on one side, but I guess I didn't think the water slide would move that much, with only a 15 degree temp change. The park employee's said afterward that the whole thing pops and creaks all summer long with the hot sun and clouds going past.
Trusses, at a community building at a resort.
Pulled two older generators out of the local hospital. They brought in a large semi trailer mounted temporary gen set, while we removed these two. Tomorrow we will install some new vaults and transformer, and I think some switchgear. They had a pile of high dollar power leads run all over. The semi trailer is actually on the other side of one of the buildings, and they had to run the power over the roof of it to get to the old site.
One genset was a 3406B, the other I believe a KT cummins. I helped change the radiator out of the cat I think 7-8 years ago. They both had full enclosures that we hauled out first, then the gensets on their skids.
So are you going to adopt the 3406 to a happy home
It's the electrician's to deal with. Tag says 515hp. I think some governor and plumbing changes, and it could be a truck engine. But I think the electricians are going to make a trailer and mount it up as a portable genset. I need more projects like I need another hole in my head, so I didn't even ask. I already have 1 3406 in the back yard in a freightliner, and a core in the corner of the shop, so I'm not really in the market. The kt is kinda interesting looking, but I hear parts for them are $$$$$.
HVAC unit with the 25 ton. Swapping out a water tank for a housing development to be refurbished. We did the first one about a year ago.
The truck almost made it out of the development. The hauler's stretch trailer is a fixed neck mechanical detach, and he got high centered. The last one we did, we had to set the crane up twice more in the development to get around the corners, but they sent a short wheelbase tractor this time. We just hooked the counterweight truck and pulled him off the high center and got him down the road.
Internal corrosion finally get to them?
They have to pass a inspection, state mandate, and I think the inspections have gotten a little more rigorous. I think they sandblast them and paint them. I've seen old ones that were fiberglass relined, but I don't think they do that anymore, they just paint them.
Off to bed with hydraulic cylinder parts in the freezer. The two white outer backers were really standing out after I installed them. The hydraulic shop that last rebuilt this cylinder rolled one on install. So trying to get them to shrink up good so I can put it back together in the morning.
Acetone & dry ice does a better job of cooling parts.
Quick glance at the last pic. looks like big oil spill in the freezer.
I don't think I want it super duper cold, the seals still have to slide past the walls and not be brittle. I was just having a hard time to get the backers shrunk back up. Its not a bushing. And sorry to worry you dave, its just a black rag...
I’m surprised there are 2 backup rings on that seal. I wouldn’t think that seal would have pressure in both directions on it.
I have no idea why it has two backers either, its only pressure on one side.
Well then I would just engineer that extra ring right outta there. But that’s just my 2cents without actually seeing it.
If supplied in a kit and matches what comes out for me it goes back in generally.
I'm with DM. It goes back exactly the same way that it came apart unless the manufacturer has a service bulletin that says different.
Doing a add on inside a tourist attraction. Its going to be a theater type ride, seats mounted on a movable table and a large screen. Got a pretty small doorway to work through, mainly been setting iron for the seat platforms to fit onto. Going to set the seat platforms next week.
Installing some steel platforms, 100' away with 20,000 lbs. Tandem pick with a link belt 100 ton rt. The first section we handed off to a carry deck and chain falls inside the little building, the second piece was outside the building. I took jib off before we went, just for a little extra chart.
That is some Piddlin poor enganearing to get those structures in with the process as it was. Would be asking WHO was the Enga of note that came up with that installation point and required such a low pick angle. My Arse would been sucking the seat cushion cover off or pinching multiple new buttonholes in it!!
Looking back I wish I took some pics. of when they brought a 30 ton P&H crane into West Edmonton Mall to install the new spinning roller coaster. They had to put cribbing in the bottom floor to support the floor above where the crane was parked. They ribboned the crane off and put a sign on it to make it another attraction because the amusement stayed open during the day. The coaster was assembled in the evening and overnight.
I can't think of a project that I have done, where the engineers specifically came up with a procedure to install something. Usually the engineers design something, and hand it to the contractors and have them figure out installation. I have had engineers speak to how something could be rigged, what kind of ground pressure, load moments and rigging, but never one that came up with a install procedure. On the tandem pick project- the liebherr had its best chart at 100' with only 114' of boom out. The more boom I put out, the less chart I have. The link belt had a better chart at 126' of boom than 114', but the chart fell off if more than 126' of boom was put out. Sometimes I have to study the boom configurations a little to find the best spot. We are going to have to open up the wall a little higher on the job where I'm using my galion in the building. I'll have to put my 40 ton Rt boom through the wall from all outside, and I'm going to need some more boom up area. So the wall is going to have to be cut up higher.
Really surprised not getting a little FWD Broderson unit and drop in thru doorway with a bigger crane, would save wear tear and fear of running out of chart.
The engineers that design mining shovels and draglines likely consider installation and assembly. The rest of stuff forget it. Used to get blueprints for skids for gas plants and they want something welded in and there is no access to weld it. Then you have to send it back to be modified.
Saw this wacky rigging fixture on another site and thought you appreciate it. Comment said they stuck a little Broderson deck crane in the hole after the forklift. I'm curious how the thing moves to balance after the load is off?
Can see the Broderson down in front of delivery truck.
That's a slick little set up. They are using something similar now to install replacement wind turbine blades. My guess is the upper counterweight has a moveable track guide on it, and they can move the counterweight back and forth on the upper beam/ rail as they add and subtract weight. I've seen some have like a acme screw and track and have it be driven, or else just a chain and sprocket drive to turn the gear, kind of like the old overhead cranes have for moving the rail. The ones they use on the windmill blade replacements, are all remote run, and they can slide the blades back and forth and rotate them to bolt the blade to the drive hub. The job probably got billed for the whole cost to build the beam assembly, when they figured out where they had to put the carry deck and the forklift, looks like one of those "cost plus" type of jobs. It has to be a pretty stout beam- the forklift isn't that heavy, but the little broderson is 16,000lbs if its a 8ton, the 15 ton ones are like 36,000lbs.
I actually made a test lift of something similar for Greenfield products. They called it a cantilever beam. It had a small gas engine on it, hydraulics etc. seems like there was 6,000-8,000# of c/w that moved laterally to keep the load balanced. I wasn’t sure of the unit’s capacity, but I do remember it was awfully heavy in comparison to its capacity. This unit was built to hang glass curtain walls on high rises. We used a 165 ton to make the test lift. Can only imagine one designed to lift a forklift
Saw this picture the other day- its from a Grove rt75s, that supposedly got stuck, and both axles are damaged.
It looks like the center gear got pretty hot in the process of stripping it's teeth.
The center gear had induction hardened teeth. That is the cause of the heat color you see.
Had to put the Rt in the door at the theater remodel. Couldn't reach with the galion. The little decks we were setting were 3,500, which isn't that heavy, but its a pain when you have to run it in and out flat under a ceiling, the crane isn't really designed to do that well. I did give the boom a good greasing before we went so it would slide nice when flat with a load.
Concrete Gang forms. Wind was cruising and we were up on a hill, gang forms are a pain in the wind.
The peterbilt had a leak in the radiator. Its got what looks like a pretty new bottom tank, but its got a crack in it. Previous owners evidently believed in stop leak, because its all over in the cores and the tank. Cleaned it all up and used the torch to try to cook the antfreeze and stop leak out, then welded it up. The crack wasn't hardly visible after it was cleaned up, until I heated it up and cooled it, then it was readily apparent. New tank bottom was kinda spendy, and I own a welder so I gave it a shot, we'll see if it holds up.
Trusses with the 40 ton. The crane is coming around, now that I have the lmi all working, and the swing brake and all the other kinks. As we run it, the list gets longer of stuff that still needs fixed. The most glaring issue is the rear main engine oil leak.
Crusher work at the quarry. Got rained out and going to try to finish tomorrow.
So I found a couple things on a auction a few weeks ago. I made a run over to tulsa yesterday and picked them up. One is a pallet from a rigging supplier. Its full of boxes of chain end fittings. No chain, just all the fittings, I'll get it sorted out and then buy some chain to make up some rigging chains. The other item was a pallet with unknown working condition chainfalls. 1 1/2 ton to 5 ton. Supposedly 25 of them on the pallet, but they were all in a pile on the pallet. Do any of you realize how much fun it is to untangle 27 chain falls? That means 54 chains with 1/2 of them being continuous loops, and they are all snarled together. Its one huge ball of chain. We have 2 of them pulled out. I haven't gotten out the cut off wheel yet, but I was thinking about it this afternoon. Its a good rain out project, but I'm glad I've got a crane job to finish tomorrow morning, maybe the guys will have them untangled before I get back.
Man I wouldn’t wish the untangling of those chain falls on my worst enemy. That picture did make chuckle. Looks like a massive headache.
Sweet Jesus what a MESS!!!!
As OCR used to say: Just Damb!
They could all be good though and just thrown in a heap for the auction.
there` s a guy who could use a couple of those on another site` he`s wanting to pull a 335 out of a mack & is wondering if a one ton crane will do it
Looks like "fun" !
Progress has been poor. I've got 4 chain falls totally out of the pile, and have most of the load chains out. The control chains are still all in the pile, but its less of a ball and more spread out. I'm spending time gazing at the cut off wheel on the grinder. Surely I can weld control chain back together.
What would look cool is if you got them untangled and made it look like you were using all of the them for a complicated heavy lift.
Don't envy you the separation but do the number of hoists!!
After staring at that mess for about 10 minutes I wou be reaching for a "metal Cutting Device. Or, an ad: "chain falls, heavily discounted, you pick and carry"
Just saw on the news the operator, Ripley Entertainment was charged for not relaying pertinent weather info to the captain. Captain was not held responsible.
Sad as to the accident still.
Very sad and could have been prevented.
About what post number was this story from? I thought I've read all our post but I missed the one about the Duck recovery thanks
Post 1382.
I only read a summary of the report. It read like they threw quite a bit over onto the Coast Guard, for not implementing some changes, making requirements for the canopy removals, and adding some more bouyancy to a vehicle without a very high side board. Its still a sad event. If you look at the accident report, the lake was dead calm and with no wind when they went into the water. They are in the lake for only like 15 minutes or so, and its pretty unusual for the lake to get that rough that fast. My personal take on the whole event has been - that if I'm 80 feet from shore in 80 degree water, and the ship is taking on water- you don't have to tell me to abandon ship. I sure wouldn't ride it down. My buddy says "life jackets would have been shooting our of that duck like a skeet thrower- and I'd have been right behind them" if he was on the boat. But if you're 70 years old, climbing over the side- at shoulder height - from a school bus seat- in a hurry with waves braking over the side in a sudden storm, isn't on everyone's agenda. The ducks in historical accident numbers are really really safe. Far safer than your car, or greyhound, or a tour bus, or probably bicycles. But likely they will never run again on the lake, because I don't know who would insure them.
The one thing I could not understand, I do not believe the banks in that area are severely steep below water, it is a truck with wheels and tires underneath so the pilot could have made for shallow and beached or at least settled into less depth anyway. Know the storm blew up quick, knew the operator was not fore warned, but the first consideration is not to get back to a ramp but to maximize safety of the passengers.
The duck boat company in this area had a horrible accident a couple years ago that killed several people in a traffic accident. The issue was a broken steering axle while on a high bridge that pulled the duck into the opposing lane of traffic hitting a couple of cars. After all the stuff has settled the company went out of business. The vehicles were made for war time activities with projected lives in use being a matter of days before being lost in war time adventures. They were never designed for decades of heavy use and maintenance would have needed to be critical for safe operation. I never saw any reason for their use in a for profit civilian business. I don't understand how they got insured for civilian use in the first place.
Actually, while a lot of them are surplus, a lot of them nowadays were built just for that. One company builds them on F550 chassis.
It actually gets pretty deep pretty quick in that area of the lake. They launched right by where the branson belle showboat docks, it drafts quite a bit of water. One of the deepest parts of the lake is just off that point, I think its over 200' in there. The duck was in over 80' of water, not real far off shore, but I think it rolled down the floor of the lake a ways. As far as the age of the ducks they were using- The only thing left of the original ducks is the title. They were essentially a whole new vehicle for the current tours. New hulls, big block GM's and allison transmissions. The axles were from newer surplus army trucks that they would buy and part out for the running gear. Would I feel safe in one? Yes, their safety record is still amazing. They ran for over 30 years here in town without a incident. Would I ride one to the bottom in a storm? Nope- I know how to put on a lifejacket and climb over the side. I tend to believe yet in some measure of personal responsibility. They had three really bad incidents in a short period of time, the seattle accident, one went down in Philly when it got struck by a barge, and the accident here in Branson. But right around the same time as the duck went down, a tour bus or greyhound went down with a bunch of people killed, and no one bats a eye at their safety record. I spent a while looking at their records, and the worst ones are church vans. They get in accidents all the time and nobody says a word- those things just happen. The way the report read, if they want to redesign them a little, the NTSB would have no problem with the ducks being recertified. I just don't know who would insure them. I think in a year or two they may be back running here in town. On the axle that went bad in seattle. The front axles were prone to breaking in those things from the weight and the constant launching and coming back out of the water. I think when they would hit the ramp too hard coming out of the water is when they would tend to crack. They actually had a reinforcing ring they would weld to the axle housings- to keep them from stress cracking. I think it was kind of a issue when that steering axle broke. The duck boats there and san fransico and philly were all built here in town, the tour groups were all affliated with one another- some of them were "franchisee's" of the one here in town. My mechanic used to work at their shop here in town.
Still remember the DUKW on Display at Knox when I was there some decades ago, was not near as big as these and had often wondered where/when these were built as could not remember ever seeing later Ducks in Military dress,
The accident in Seattle was not the first. Only the most publicized. They had been having issues for years and still stayed in business. The lawsuits on the big accident was the straw that broke the camel's back.
Just to back up a bit on chain blocks ,i bought a couple of pallets of them last fall 5 and 10 tonners along with this 25 ton monster.
That's a beauty. Of course its only useful for that one job in your lifetime when you don't have any other options. I think I'd be interested, if it came with the two guys to hang it and two young bucks to pull the chain. I bet that sucker would wear you out. Mine haven't moved, I've been kinda busy with some other stuff, that and they kinda wore me out.
I like how that 25 ton one has two little lifting eyes. That way you can use chain falls to hang your chain fall.
I think it would need 8 of todays young guys .
What would you hang a 25 ton chain hoist from? It would have to be something pretty substantial to support 25 tons.
I bought it from a ship repair outfit,they would use that removing big props and shafts
That would make sense and the ship would be designed for it.
Tugger … How did that 25 ton hoist work with TWO control chains ? One up and one down ?
Both appear to work the same way ,it allows 2 men to run it
Gonna need more than two to run it, more like a set of hand off crews as slow as it would move!! We had a couple of 15 tonners at the nuke, used when NOTHING Else would work and Not often.
Mention of ships and chain blocks always reminds me of this ........... where there's a will there's always a way...!!
I lifted some generator ends into the the engine module of a 24 cyl Lng genset on the hook of a 125 ton P&H some years ago ,i wish id had that 25 ton chain block to level things up, in the end It all went well any how. But lining 55000lbs up on a bell housing with a conventional crane always makes you think of that itchy foot on the brake pedal for the hour or so them take to get it right.
Where there is a way, always!
Yes ,when you are up in the yukon and you ask has anyone got some big chain blocks and you just get blank looks its like well we ll just git er done Million dollar parts or not
Where was that used at back in the day never would of guessed that there would be a 25 ton chain Block
7,900 lbs chillers, and a 27,000lbs generator. I don't know who the engineers are that love 6 point pics, but I'm telling you its a pain in the - well, you know what.
Extreme Equalization!! I always worry about the load dumping when the basket is upside down. I guess 6 points has covered that.
I was actually scheduled for the chillers, the generator was a "while you're here, the electricians want to set this monday". Like a quarter million generator just "shows up". I scrambled a little to come up with enough rigging with what I had with me, and got it rigged. Shop air compressor has developed a strange sound. Torn down, the front and rear bearings are pretty rough. We don't use it enough- it develops a lot of moisture in the crankcase, which is the "root" cause. I found the gasket set and have it ordered. Using the smaller compressor right now till this one is back up. Had to weld a bar to the rear bearing and use that to beat it out of the aluminum plate. The hardest was getting the pulley off the crank. Took a lot of heat and puller. Interestingly enough, its the first time I've seen specs on the compressor. I bought it used 8-10 years back, and its been a good compressor. I had to contact the factory for gasket set, and then got the specs. Made in 1996. Supposed to put out 45cfm or so at 150psi. Its 10hp 3 phase, and while that's not sand blasting levels, its sure nice when I have the 1" gun hammering away on something. Hopefully new bearings and a gasket set will make it good as new.
Nothing that 4 - 12' roundups, 4 - 16' nylons, 8-1/2" cable chokers and 22 shackles can't fix. Because I've always got that just riding around in the cab.
workbench looks like mine
Hydraulic power pack on the dumping hopper works nice. Reroofing two condo's and its super slick.
Trusses with the 40 ton. Could probably have reached it with the mack, but they wanted bunks of plywood too, and that's a little too much radius for the mack with plywood. I went along and helped set up, my other operator got to set them. Its nice to have a little help setting up when its crooked.
Went down the cliff face again this week, this time with the RT. This is the same location I held the drill rig with the 100 ton a while back. They are installing a golf cart bridge over the opening. We've been waiting for it to dry up.
The guy in the brown shirt and black jeans is the owner- checking out the project. He also owns a couple little stores- Bass Pro shops and Cabela's. He's a super nice guy.
Bridge deck and some fancy ironwork railings.
Golf course here are turning into housing tracks and he is building a shrine to golf.
There's railings on the bridge. I'm guessing there's going to be railings on the rock path as well?
I take it to be added is stairs and landings to get Down to the walkways.
Setting some steel with the 100 ton at a local college. Campus is sure quiet with no students.
This side of campus comes right up on the bluff. Nice view of the other side.
Well pulling truck had a little trouble earlier this week. Story I got is his outrigger control lever stuck. Fortunately no one hurt. It just missed a huge trailer mounted air compressor. They called a towing company in springfield first. Its only a 1/2 mile from my shop, so I just roaded the RT up there and beat the wreckers there. I had the boom shoved back in by the time they got there with two wreckers. They just kind of anchored it, while I stood it up, then the well drillers pulled the hyd. lines loose on the mast, and I laid it back in the travel rest. The pulling unit itself didn't look hurt from what I could see. The truck had some dings in the cab/ tanks/ exhaust, I don't know if the pulling unit frame would be stout enough that it didn't twist the truck frame. I felt kind of undermanned, each wrecker company brought like 3 guys. Of course all I had to do was stand it up, I didn't have to drop drivelines or axles to tow it anywhere. The driller was really lucky, if the other side outrigger failed, he would have rolled it down a 40' embankment, then it would have been a real mess. This was at least right in the parking lot.
The bigger wreckers these days are well over rate for the chassis as I can see. Rotary Booms and dead line winches with all the support structure to handle recoveries and do not do it better than calling a REAL Crane service. Many of the Kids I have spoken with driving these get seat of the pants trained at best then stuck out on jobs. SCARY!!!
Its interesting they rate the recovery trucks by what the winches will pull, not what they will lift. And the "pull" rating is kinda amusing too. It may be a "60 ton", but they just add up the winch pulls and multiply. If the truck only weighs 50,000, and you hook onto 60 tons, and the 60 tons is really stuck, those winches are just going to drag that wrecker all over. 60 tons my ***. I did find it kind of amusing, the first wrecker company on site- kept talking about "we'll decide what we want to do when the 60 ton rotater gets here". "We need to have all our assets on site before coming up with a recovery plan" etc. etc. What it really amounted to- the 60 ton rotater operator (and their company) really know what they're doing, the other company didn't want to make a plan, or have any idea how to stand it back up. I'd hate to see the bill they handed the drilling outfit. I'm sure they charged for every man they sent, plus environmental clean up, plus this plus that. But that's how they buy $600,000 wreckers. And they can have their 2 am snowstorm recovery jobs too I think. I'm glad they are willing too. I like my sleep. I'm also glad I don't have to work on a shoulder with cars whizzing by 80 mph with a angry state trooper asking why his road isn't open yet. The wrecker outfits didn't offer me a cut of their bill for doing most of the work either.
I know there are good tow guys in the heavy business but I dont think I met one Back in my silage days we had a truck lay over we unloaded the trailer and tried to convince them to unhook to flip everything but they refused they bowed a silage trailer and foled up the cab it went from probably a 10 grand insurance job to a total out on the truck I think towing companies are the biggest RIP off most of the time on that roll over I had cops tell me we couldn't touch our rig the towing company was in charge I asked the cop who owned the rig him or me he informed me he owned the road so it was his decision on who was in charge
Miller rotators are rated at what they can pick at 30° boom angle off the back. There is a SAE or ISO standard for tators that is more in depth than that, but I don't know the specs. They definitely aren't cranes though.
I know a guy that owned two millers. His first one was a beast and he liked it a lot. He traded for a new one a few years back. It was on its third boom when he sold it. I've seen the ratings on the booms. Typically they have a retracted and extended. I've seen some rotaters that have their own lmi system just like a crane. Then a tow rating and a wheel lift extended and retracted rating. Pretty complicated compared to the old Holmes units. The new ones sure are pretty. My son was with me when we uprighted the drill rig, and commented on how nice the wreckers were compared to my crane. I didn't feel bad enough to break out the wax and armor all though. And here I was giving the wrecker guys static about extra help, and I brought along help too....
I have a heavy duty rollback, and am a member of a towing forum. The way some of these guys bill the insurance companies will make your head spin. The reason they wouldn't touch anything til the rotator got there is that you might stand it up too quick and they wouldn't be able to bill for it. I guarantee the wrecker bill was 5 figures. A friend of mine had a driver lay a tractor-trailer dump on it's side in a field. A local wrecker co came and looked at it and said it would take both heavy wreckers and one medium duty, wouldn't give a price til the job was done. With some ingenuity and extra rigging I had it back on it's wheels on the lowboy in about 4 hrs with only a 580sK!
wrecker co.s as a rule are exactly what their name implies
Rainy weather here, so I piled into the chain fall mess on the shop floor. I had managed to separate 4 or 5 by hand. Yesterday I just fired up the grinder and cut off wheel. I had most of the load chains out, I just couldn't get the control chains out, the continuous loop is a big pain. I ended up cutting and rewelding the control chains on probably 14 or so of them. I got the last 10 sorted out without cutting any of the chains. They are now all in buckets in the back room. I ended up with 29 total chain falls and one lever chain ratchet.
Air compressor is back together and purring like a kitten. The pistons and rods had to mount to the crank, then drop the jugs on. I bought a OTC piston ring compressor set, the pliers and band set. It helped a bunch to install the cylinders.
This is the piston ring compressor set I went with, its the only one I could find that went small enough for the small piston. https://www.summitracing.com/parts/...nomYSjArfuIikPKtPJhN902BZlia9WhhoCpSsQAvD_BwE
Set some steel in a house basement. Of course the carpenters left their job trailer in the flat level spot in the driveway. Next one is a vacation rental by the lake. Three big stories tall. Set in one spot to do the house trusses. Moved around to the cul de sac to set the deck beam truss. I'm not working this weekend either. I've been out working 3 of the last four weekends, and the days were kind of starting to run together. We've had a lot of rain here also. So the dry days on the weekends get used up.
Deck post beam truss. They didn't have any of the right beams, and were a month out to get the right ones. Temporary braces and joints on every vertical post. They will have to do the rest in the air. Also made it back to the hospital roofing job. Our insurance companies weren't playing nice with each other, so I missed out on two trips. We finally got the right paperwork sorted out so our insurance company and theirs are happy, so we made the last trip over there.
I'm not a architect, but I'm telling you, this is the ugliest new house I've seen in a while. Dormers with no windows and no overhang on the roof. Shake type siding and then a spanish trellis on the garage? No need to stick with a theme. Must have looked nice in the drawings. The huge electrical meter box in the middle of the stone front of the lower level is a nice touch also.
Some people have NO CLUE!! This is evidence! Had a similar home near us when lived Warren County, guy and gal had really No Clue as to what they wanted so added as they built and made a royal mess of the place, arguing led to a divorce and eventually the whole exterior was ripped off/replaced to sell it. Near to here a Chiro and his wife built new, had to have special brick bought, did NOT buy the extra 10% the contractor asked for so have a mix match of upper layer brick that does not match when get close in. Also she wanted Copper roof over bay windows, has a Grey Shingle roof and red brick exterior. Featureless front with the same carpenter we had as a sub contractor noted the Kitchen and two of three baths were ripped out four times to revert BACK to first pattern and he is not sure the walls will ever hold still due to repeat set/remove damage.
Our exterior is Plain, was preferred when we built as to two aspects, Costs for added 'Show' features did not need and no time for myself to do them personally, spent extra to get Garage upscaled and the siding upgraded. I only see our house as drive up, or walk across from the shop, it is and forever will be a 'Farm House' except for the back and that is my off weather Relaxation escape point.
The shortest roof overhang on my house, is 4'. Look at the 60-100 year old homes in your area, I bet they have large overhangs. Protects the structure, plus the foundation, done right, you can still get solar gain in the winter.
Wife really wanted a Full Wrap around porch then add a Breezeway to a disconnected garage. Could not find a floor plan that worked for out here so went with this. I too would like the full wrapped porch designs if could get one laid out to what we like just do not want to build again nor invest into Architect time.
I see you have a profiled boom crane in this photo! I am not well versed enough in different crane options to tell the manufacturer, but I recommend checking out Palfinger USA for your next crane truck. We pack a lot of features and customization into our crane builds. They pack a lot of punch in a small package! ------ Testing one of our newest and most popular crane packages; PK65 equipped with a rear facing telescopic outrigger. This truck is extremely compact. The chassis handles similarly to that of a large pickup due to its short wheelbase. The new design maintains full crane capacity throughout it's entire range of motion. Need to pick 1800#'s @ a straight horizontal distance of 96 feet? No problem!
The big knucklebooms have their place. They are nice to deliver something on the flatbed(drywall/ sewer boxes etc.) and then you can unload the truck. They don't work as well as a actual crane, in repetitive cycles. They are horribly slow. We set a lot of trusses and steel. If you have a good crew and they're moving you can set a truss every 3-5 minutes, and most of that time is them nailing it, and hooking up the next truss. With the crane, you can pick a truss at 20', and set it at 80', and cycle back and forth. You can't do that efficiently, fast and smooth, with a knuckleboom. Also, their outrigger spans are a pain, the one you have pictured is too wide to set in a standard driveway. Some of the new boom trucks are that way too, its a cheap way to engineer it to gain radius, it just doesn't work in the real world. A knuckleboom is handy to reach under a overhang or in a door. They are kind of nice in a mechanics truck. But for real world lifting, and placement, knucklebooms aren't a ideal choice. One of the real pushes behind some of the large knucklebooms, is the certifications required for crane operation. They aren't usually required for knucklebooms, so its a way to place items, but not need to have the operators certified.
I think Crane Operator knows better than anybody what type of equipment is best suited for the types of jobs he does.
I've actually looked at some smaller knucklebooms that I may mount on one of my straight trucks. It would be nice for putting offset in the larger cranes, and once in a while on a goofy job (under a overhang- through a door etc.) where only a knuckleboom will work. I'm not in the market for a new one. It wouldn't do what we normally do with our cranes. The knuckleboom packages that I am really drawn to, are the ones with a grapple and saw for the tree trimming guys. THOSE make sense, and I think if I was in the tree business, I would be all over one. No climbing and no handling the logs, one or two guys and on to the next job.
The small crane shown above is actually a tree care package. It is equipped with a grapple saw and is regularly used in residential applications. The tree care businesses really put these trucks to work. A skilled operator can shave a full day's job down into mere hours. We sell crane packages regularly for: drywall contractors, poured concrete wall forms, tree care, pre-cast concrete and general construction applications. I can't comment on the speed of them versus a stick boom, but several customers have sold their old stick boom cranes for a knuckle boom truck. A really cool application is a bull dozer with a palfinger knuckle boom mounted on the back. It looks awesome! It used to be called Line-Cat because it was used for line work, but they got into copyright issues with CAT. We can't build them because the idea is patented, but it sure would be fun to build one.
I spent years operating truck loader cranes before moving into mobile cranes, and can't disagree with any of this. They have their place for sure, but they're not really interchangable with cranes. Each can do tasks that the other can't, with a bit of crossover in the middle. If I were to start my own business though, it would probably be with a truck loader over a mobile. For the simple reason that if there's no lifting to be done, there's always general transport, and it's more work around for a one man band with a loader crane than there is for one man with a 25 or 50 ton crane. (Not that I'm planning on doing that)
Local building materials yard has mid mount truck boom equipment on flatbeds, they use them to deliver where can offload into a pile or as with sheetrock slip the load to/thru a opening to contractors to offload but admits are not cranes. They use same equipment to deliver to sites where cranes take the loads off and swing to where needed as with truss or roofing or bunks of materials to a more difficult access site.
I know they had a name change, but I thought they were still building them. The Linecats were based off the 527, but Cat quit building those awhile ago. http://linetracinc.com/ I had some pics of a Volvo dump truck with a giant knuckleboom setup for powerline work. Had a detachable manbasket, auger, and some other stuff stored away. Can't seem to find them right now. It's not unusual to see a palfinger hung off the front of a Huddig in scandinavia.
I am surprise they let them get that close in a metal basket. I have not seen them mounted in this fashion previously. It is a really cool setup.
Ummm- when they grab the whole line later with the loader and lay it down, and are handling the wires out of the basket with a chain fall- the lines are not live.
I didn't catch that part....Those Scandinavians have some cool pieces of machinery! When I was in Helsingborg, I noticed the backhoes had rotatory units on the end to manipulate the buckets. It makes the end rather large, but it was cool to seem them in action.
I've seen something similar to that line machine built on a FMC skidder. It used a long boom that was carried over the top of the roll over structure.
That's about as close as I wanted to get to a live circuit. My loader crane (the red one) was inside the switchyard, from memory it was "only" a 55 kVa, but that's enough to leave a mark Somewhere I have photos of transmission line work with a bucket mancage, but I can't seem to find it.
The field strength is the Killer, literally. A 7200 line as typical for service around here only has around a 1-2' field around the cable that if you as a ground enter will Arc TO You(Easiest source to ground), where I worked was 345kv, had a SEVEN Foot Circumferential Field where anything got within seven feet it would be incorporated into that field, that is why birds do not fly close to the big Hi Lines as they can Feel that field. Grounding only does so much as generally is done at both ends of a dead cable, anything metal in contact or close proximity will still build static charges that have to be dissipated or can be life threatening. We lost a Electrician at my previous employer to that, he grabbed a recently Ungrounded cable that had built a static charge(DC) popped him and killed him wile still grounded at the Other end. The Earth magnetic field can build a charge in long lays of cable, to the level can be Several HUNDREDS of DC Volts and will still kill you if you are grounded.
We've experienced that before, piling 8 metres from a 220kVa circuit. The reo cage hanging from the crane built up a static charge that was released when the guys on the ground touched it to guide it into the ground.... We got representatives out from the transmission company to tell us why it was happening and how to prevent it.
Only thing can do is hard Ground EVERYTHING. We would use Hot Sticks to connect grounding lanyards to Scaffolding or machines sitting long term in the switchyards, could build enough capacitant charge to light one up.
We had a repair come in last year. A high power transmission line arced to one of the cylinders on the loader. I asked the service tech to send me a photo. If I ever get one I will post it. The amount of damage was impressive /scary depending on how you think about it. Good thing no one got injured it, but it did leave the operator with his crane stuck in a tree.
Since we were talking manbasket work, these boys should have quit a hour sooner. https://www.instagram.com/p/B_nnMsPFe0r/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=embed_video_watch_again
no stuff
Quite a ride! Windy, would presume they could have been warned
This is a cylinder that got a little too close to high voltage. It vaporized the steel! Now that is scary high power arcing!
Just like arc gouging with a welder!!
I thought the same thing! Glad I wasn't the one operating the crane! Luckily no one was injured, but it developed into an expensive day on the job.
Moved around the last of the seats in the theater ride. Chain fall work. Good thing I know some one that has a few. I was wishing for a little more head height for handing them in and out under the upper deck.
Had to pull a sign off while they reshingled the roof. I had thought about taking the 40 ton truck crane, but I was concerned about boom length. Took the RT and needed the 110' main, I wouldn't have reached it with the 95' on the truck crane.
They installed the wrong beam for a overhead hoist in this building. 26' long, 12" x 5 1/2" beam, in a 12" x 5" hole. They did a little sawzall work on the opening. Old beam out and new beam in.
All lined up for a job at a old Kmart store. Changing out HVAC units for new. Making the store into a hobby lobby. I brought the allis forklift along so we could leave counterweights on and move mats with the forklift, we had several set ups around the building. Contractor had a telehandler onsite so we didn't even unload it. Didn't get started until 11:00 and customer was thinking two days. It was friday, and no one wanted to work saturday. We made 15 or so picks and three different set up and tear downs, and were done by 3:30, which I thought was making great time.
One of the guys dropped the 1" impact, breaking off the threaded adapter into the trigger group end. Then tried to fix it with a ez out, swelling the nipple into the threads. Its ruined. Its a old chicago pneumatic gun, with a external trigger. Anyone have any idea what model number this could be? I haven't found pictures of any gun's with the external trigger like mine to even try to get parts. The spring for the trigger was bad inside also, with the remains of some kind of a filter in it. I think a trigger group parts kit would get it back up running again, if I could come up with a model # for the gun.
Looks like a CP0610 https://www.toolpartsdirect.com/chicago-pneumatic-cp0610-galed-1-impact-wrench-t018046.html
Thanks pushbroom, I've got a distributor for cp parts somewhat local, I'll look into it. You can buy a whole new gun for less than a lot of those parts cost.
The external trigger group was found less than 'Safe' back in the 1980s, they discontinued the parts groups opting to replace the handle head end on guns I used in 82-84. The last old gun we had (Short Nosed) that still had a 'Palm Trigger' guy got gamey pulling lower rollers off a 750 Deere and tried to jack the tractor up off his hand as could not get away from the trigger to stop it. Only broke two bones but was off four weeks healing. That gun was cut up to non usable and scrapped a New one bought.
Well a long anvil mac gun showed up for sale. Sent one of my guys to go pick it up, and it works. But the trigger was broken. Found a parts breakdown for it (its a CP gun also with mac name on it). It was missing a little nylon looking ball that shuts the air off on the trigger. Shows as no longer available part on a couple parts sites. Stared at it for a little, stole a ball bearing out of a bearing from the air compressor we fixed, and what do you know, the trigger works with that in place of the lost nylon piece. I think the old nylon one disintegrated/ split, and fell out the air port. The steel one should last forever.
I've even found a little time for a honey do project. Old railroad tie retaining wall that holds up the mailbox was going to pieces. Two bunks of used ties from lowes and a little elbow grease. I hate working around the house. Even found a old lawnmower engine in the backfill. Need a project anyone?
Will appreciate and hate tge long anvil Great on tires difficult on much else but would not trade mine. Have a good 3/4” for fasteners
UGHH - I hate cross ties. Had a bad experience as a teenager on a landscape crew..
Roads? Roads? Where we're going we don't need roads! https://www.ironplanet.com/for-sale...,pstart|60,**|1&rr=0.00971&hitprm=&pnLink=yes
Easy way to drop the outrigger jack out the bottom for a reseal. We just stand the jack on a pallet on the forklift. I've had troubles with this cylinder before. Dropped a manlift over a fence into a pool area for some painters.
Prefab wall and floor panels. Contractor has their own little portable tower crane, and it isn't working right. So we rolled in with the rt to help them out until its fixed. Of course its broke down right in the nice spot to set up crane, so I have to set up on the far side of it, and reach over it. Another operator is on this job, but he wanted saturday off, so I took the overtime.
One side of the building isn't bad, the otherside is a mudhole, that they can't get telehandlers through. The general said any rock they put on it just disappears.
It was saturday, and its right across the road from a grocery store that smokes outside. It was ribs for lunch...
Guy moving in from out of state (california). Loaded 3 conexes full of his stuff out there, then shipped them here. Over the retaining wall, side by side. 27,000lbs was the heavy one. I looked at it a couple months ago, and told him he needed to widen the driveway for the road trucks. Of course he knew better and didn't widen it. Bellied out trailers. Stuck trucks. Bent bumpers. Pissed truck drivers. Unhappy motorists with the road being blocked. Highway patrol showed up. It was a rodeo.
One of the drivers gave up on backing in. So after unloading, we unhooked him from his trailer, spun it with the crane, and got him headed back the other way.
Well pump at a golf course. Billboard pole at a new gas station.
Conveyor chain at a asphalt plant. Steel on a lake home back in the sticks.
never a dull moment
Wonder what’s going on with that ma21. Not much to those cranes. Potain does a good job of stocking parts for those. Are they waiting on parts or do they not know what the issue is.
I've heard two different things, one story was it needs all new cable. Other story is a cylinder is blowing hydraulic oil. I think there isn't much hydraulic on it except to stand it up, so I'm not sure what cylinder they are talking about. The one guy keeps telling my operator that he wants them to get rid of the tower and get a RT or truck crane. They say its horribly slow. Can't make any time setting panels. They don't own their own truck to move it around the jobsite. They've buried it and the hired semi on this project. My guess is they don't know what they are doing.
It’s got two cylinders. One to stand the mast up, and one to unfold the jib. Could be either one. I’d bet money all the cables for that crane are on a shelf in Jeffersonville Indiana. A lot of those smaller cranes run on either 480v or 230v, but a lot of them run at a slower speed in power saving mode when on 230v. Sales guy tells customer he only needs 230v, then customer gripes that the crane is to slow to do anything with. Don’t know that that’s the case but be worth a check. I’m a firm believer in those little self erectors. Hurts me to see them abused/misused.
At the Utility used to use a Digger Derrick to drop a hole then run out rigger cylinders into that for R&R. A little overhang ledge works as well as shown!!
Glad to see the guy that is rigging up the manlift is wearing the appropriate work boots… But I guess you did say you were moving it for painters… Kind of makes sense....
Almost guarantee if a harness is even present won't get used.
4 conex boxes? WOW, if I needed that many to move would have been selling crap!!!
I could fix that mud hole easily. Muck some of it out, put down some wire mesh reinforcing sheets and a 1' of #24 stone. Actually prefer the wire over geo-grid for temp. roads that need to be removed. The geo-grid rips into thousands of pieces but the wire stays together better allowing you to wad it up with a trackhoe.
It’s way cheaper to pay for the tow truck, man hours lost due to stuck equipment, and all the damages to equipment on that jobsite. Seems the bean counters have that figured out.
Old chain link fencing works good, too
Dealt with Missouri Red Clay 'Holes' as this before, BOTTOMLESS or seems so. We tried everything under the sun for years, most fail in a few hours as this crap liquifies as is worked wet, dry is like concrete. Mats, Sheeting, Netting along with MOUNTAINS of rock all failed as we used over two decades ago.
Well, today I replaced the scissor lift with a trailer mounted lift. I didn't think the scissor lift was going to work to paint a 40' tall motel, when the lift is 15' away- stuck inside the fence around the pool. Those boys are going to get a work out rolling that trailer mounted lift around by hand, on the pool deck- trailer lift weighs 5,000lbs. I don't think its going to have enough reach either. They are going to wish they had a 60' self propelled, but nobody asked me.
Got the floor trusses set on the house we set steel on a while back.
Big HVAC units with the 100 ton.
Had to do the last one by pulling down the jobsite chain link fence, and pulling the unit off the road. Big ones were 10,000lb units.
Roll up doors for the amusement ride. Nothing like a 2x4 wood spreader bar.
Old cell phone building to be loaded out. In the middle of a 20 acre pasture, and where do you think the cell boys left their truck and trailer parked? That's right- in the only place it would be in the way to set up the crane. Could have parked anywhere else in the pasture- but no- leave it right in the way. They showed up 45 minutes later. 50,000 lb building.
I think I've said it a bunch of times on here, but your work is always interesting to me… How's the 100 ton running?
Glad you enjoy the pictures. I feel very fortunate in that I enjoy what i do. As far as the 100 ton. Runs fine. A few little nagging codes pop up and disappear etc. Its more of a case that - I feel its really too complicated and expensive for me to maintain and keep operational. I really like the machine, its amazing what it can do. Its a super stable, capable machine. Really happy with its compact size and it fits well in my business. I have enough work for it that it is paying its way. But----- I feel like I'm either not wealthy enough, or smart enough to keep it running. I just don't fully trust it to not have problems, that I can't figure out on the fly, and fix with locally available parts. But if I want to have a 100 ton crane, I'm kind of stuck with those problems, no matter what I get from any of the manufacturers.
Maybe it'll be like when I bought my first CH Mack. I really was leery of them, I didn't think they would be as reliable as the R-Models, and I figured I would have to have a dealer tech move in with me. After a while I realized I was fixing everything, and after another while, it wasn't even uncomfortable. About the 2x4 spreader bar, at least they didn't drive the nail through the strap.
PLUS a two car garage half full of stuff ...
No kidding- that's where the first nail went before I could get them stopped. You must know carpenters. There's another two car garage attached to the house. All the vehicles were in the yard when I showed up, so I'm assuming its got stuff in it too. But to be fair- I've got a shop packed with junk, and park my truck in the driveway because I've got other stuff in my garage too.
I only have a barn, shed, workshop and the oversize two car on the house full. Still cannot get my old pickup inside either but would not fill four conex boxes and still have the sheds filled!!
EASY! As for the collecting of stuff I’m the opposite, I’m a purger but it bites me in the azz once in a while when I could use what I’ve thrown out. But on the up side when I want something I don’t have to look through the clutter. Lol
I can't park any of our three cars inside, but I've got a place set aside in the barn for my bobcat
Should oughta build at least a lean to so the wife can park in the dry!
Hey Colson Weren’t working Kruse energy were you? Big Iron is selling off most of their inventory
Schlumberger. They're selling assets too. Lots of oilfield companies are trying to sell what they can just to keep their doors open. One thing about it, the solution to low oil prices is low oil prices.
Current Glut in supply is around a four month refining schedule according to family in Wood River IL. Product has once again begun moving in volumes and growing
I have been working at the local tank farm off and on the last 2 months it's a lot busier now than a month and half ago but still a fair bit less than this time last year There is only one aviation fuel pump there a month ago it was dead now its seeing a handful of trucks a day so I would say that's a good sign
Oh- you know carpenters too?
Precast floor panels. This project is going on hold because of the travel and vacation shutdown's. Its a worldwide vacation company and they decided to only build the first floor and then wait and see. Largest panel I had around 10,500lbs gross. Around 95' away. I don't think I will be able to do the whole building, just the first three floors and I will be boom bound for the far pieces.
Porches on the rear of the building and the walkway's on the front are solid slabs, the interior floors are hollow core.
Those photos remind me of the erector set I had as a kid. Next thing will be using Legos for buildings.
ICF anyone?
Work great until have a blowout, usually to the Inside, that and termites here love the stuff for invisible access. Tried to find that as a Conventional Outer form ICF Interior but nobody as yet making such.
I've been working on a hotel project that will be entirely precast - walls, beams, floors, etc. If we end up getting it I'm interested to see how it all goes together. In the contract docs is prepping 5 crane pads around the hotel as it's a sloping site. DMiller - same here on the ICF's. ICF's are a no-go due to termites.
Little vermin LOVE that stuff, know two fairly recent homes ruined as could not tell they were engorging on the framing above the ICF.
Haven't seen this in a long long time- home built trusses. Lumber- and glued and stapled on plywood- for splice plates. Heavy and flimsy.
Roofing materials at a community college. Tree was a little in the way, but I didn't want to get out in the grass any more than I had to.
Generator offload. They weren't ready for it where it goes (across the street in new building), so we unloaded it in a secured locked lot.
Hot tub over a house, and a not so great gas station lunch.
Craneop I am not familiar with cranes. How does that green, yellow, red light bar work? I get what it's there for just interested in the inner workings.
Steel beams in a basement. Lowrider framermobile with no exhaust- straight out the headers. And in the last picture you can see all the tapered wedges they had to make to even out the concrete. I bet the framers had great words about the concrete boys.
Concrete former using plastic bags for forms? Pour it too dry to flow it out?? That's pretty well unacceptable.
The "christmas tree" is hooked into the LMI (Load Moment Indicator). The crane has a pressure transducer on the boom cylinder that shows/ calculates weight, a boom length from the reel, and boom angle from a angle sensor. It calculates out the "load moment" - i.e. weight on the hook vs capacity. It displays it as a scaling green lights as the load increases, yellow is in the "warning" area- typically after 85-90% of capacity. Red is limit- no go area. At the red it will lock out the following functions- boom down, telescope out, and winch up. It will allow you to telescope in, winch down, and boom up which will all should gain you more chart or get rid of weight. The boom up being allowed is the dangerous one - it can get a guy in trouble because you may actually be gaining weight when standing a tank or such in boom up.
Thanks for the explanation. Always enjoy learning how other equipment operates.
Momma and the fawn in spots on the way to another hot tub job. It was my week for tubs I guess. And nothing like staring at a dog's a--
Video billboard work with the fixed basket.
Bunch of hvac units with the 100 ton to finish out the week.
Went and pulled the two manlifts from the pool at the motel also before quitting time.
Who knows. As a old coworker once told me, "either finish school or finish concrete". Unacceptable or not, they get one shot at it when pouring- then its the framers problem.
Group that poured our foundations were good, Awesome Level No shims needed, spoke with contractors of needs and what was expected. Also spoke with me on what was going on, how they were going to do, nit-picky!! but also NOT cheap not really expensive either.
So guess who got chosen for a random DOT? That way I can get told by myself to go take a totally random drug test, to prove to my employer that me myself and I aren't using. Anyways, the clinic had a locked door, phone them from the parking lot and they come open the door. And I'm mentioning all this (by the way I passed the test) because of the amazing flourescent light installation in their ceiling. And I thought I was the only one that half a$$ed stuff. And while we are talking about recent fails- not me the light installation- I passed- I passed - I passed.. I installed a irrigation pump the other day, they got it wired up about 15 minutes after I left- no worky. They ordered a second new pump. and had me back to pull it. After a little testing, discovered a wire pulled from the crimp and heat shrink, it looked good from the outside.
You know owners should be exempt from drug test cause I swear a guy has to be high to own a buissness
It's a natural high though.
Reseal tele cylinder
Stacking up some conexes
Sign on the new gas station. Almost didn't have enough boom.
Out in the weeds pulling a irrigation/ golf course pump.
85' wide by 160-170' long horse riding arena. Clear span arch frames that get one of those white tarp tops.
My July 3 job- moving a old trailer. They asked "are you working?" I asked- "are the tires up and are the brakes released, and are we not going on the road?" I told the truth and went to work, they lied about the tires and the brakes. I moved the better of the two old trailers, I'm not sure the other one will take being hooked onto.
How many times did you have to move the crane on the 85 foot arch job? That gas station sign doesnt look like its gonna survive one of your big wind storms. The cheesey looking riding arena might not either.
BUTTT!!!! the tires were only flat on the bottom tun them half a turn and they are not flat any more! ducking and running!!
Need to cut that one up where sits, death trap.
Once the fabric goes on and the Magic Spray on sealant gets set they are good structures, until Baseball sized hail storms.
There were 9 trusses, so I set 3 times, just enough to reach the far one, and I had to retract a little bit of boom to set the close one to me. I know the guy, and that's why I asked the questions I did before I went. I had a pretty good idea of what I would find when I got there, he was super apologetic, I think he could see the steam starting up. He was just wanting to move them around the yard, none of them are hitting the road with my truck hooked on.
He was just wanting to move them around the yard, none of them are hitting the road with my truck hooked on. Would still consider that one scrapper bait rather than try to move ever again. Old Fruehauf or Hobbs?
handful of pop rivets n some air in th tires . good to go
co. we have a truss structure similar to that for sale 84x110 complete frame work but will need a cover. if you hear of someone looking for one yell at me
Who would stack trusses all over in the street- I would that's who.... Set up first in the street and pulled the stacks out of the driveway, laid the stacks all out in the street. It takes a long time setting on 16" centers. The whole center run from the back deck to the front was on 16's and I was thoroughly sick of them. All day with a chopped up house. The vaults through the middle on 16's also only hold up the interior sheetrock- the roof gets stick built over top of it all.
Motel project has been slowly coming along. I think we are going to get it all with the RT. Just keep working round and round the building. I think we have walls on the 5th floor and then we'll be done there.
They built the truss section for our back deck in living room floor Crane sat the entire assembly one shot next day sat the main floor trusses All 16 OC as well a few extra at exterior walls
Well for all my snarkyness about "home built farmer modifications" to equipment- guess who was using a homebuilt attachment yesterday? 25-30' long beams- being installed in the ceiling between the main girder trusses to hang projector lights. 500lbs. 1' of headroom (between ceiling and top of new beam), 50-60' of radius to the far one and then working back toward the door. 6' long "alternative" jib required Had to lift the beams up with the forklift to hang them on the jib before walking in the building, the galion doesn't boom down very far.
Watched millwrights do that kind of installs in the Nuke inside the buildings could not get anything but a small manlift into. They would set up some of the strangest mechanisms but always managed without hurting anyone or dropping the beams.
I don't care for dragging my boom dolly around, but I think if they handed the keys to this rig to me, I'd just hand those keys right back. Mammoet engineer : "Here- if we put in a second 5th wheel and some more frame- we can haul all the counterweight with us in one trip." Operator :" What if I have to go around a corner from a two lane road to a two lane road?" Engineer :" Don't do that- go a different route" Operator : "What if I have to back up?" Engineer: " Don't do that- go around the block" Operator : "What if I have to go up a hill dragging +140,000 lbs?" Engineer : "Put your hazards on" Operator : "There's a chain rack and chains on the back of the carrier- who in their right mind would even think about taking that thing out when you would need chains?" Engineer : (Handing operator the keys) "Have fun- there's only a small chance of snow- HE HE HAWW" Its a 2013 crane- so some poor ba$#%^ has been driving that mess around BC since then. Its only got 29,000 miles on it- I bet they hated every minute of it...
It wouldn’t take me very long to have all the counterweights on the deck to hold the nose down. You load that boom dolly up with all the weights and that front end will jackhammer itself to death. Gotta be from the oil fields.
There's a 90 ton crane running around here with a dolly that carries the bulk of it's counterweights on it. At least it's a "simple" trailer though, as opposed to the full trailer you have pictured.
Only one thought in my head Just Why? No need
I ran a 70 ton for a while that we hauled most of its counterweight on the dolly. If I remember right we had 15,000lbs of counterweight between the upright supports. It was a tandem axle dolly. It wasn't bad to get around in, it would get a little twisted up on soft gravel, I never went offroad in dolly. I think the 90 ton here with the long dolly has a pintle on the back of the carrier. The first set of tandems has a 5th wheel for the second half of the dolly trailer to pivot on. The boom rest tower is on a slider. I've never driven one with a sliding tower and pintle hitch.
HVAC unit, a typical scrapper load, and standing a prebuilt wall.
New hvac at a condo, and some work at the treatment plant. The last picture shows a MTU generator, which I always thought was mercedes. In writing it says "A ROLLS ROYCE Solution"- which sounds like a expensive solution to me...
Pick and carry and close quarters meant a galion job. Snuck it in right under the power lines.
Trusses. The walls are evidently built a little far apart compared to the drawings. So the premade trusses were a little narrow. So instead of just notching each truss in the stack with a circular saw, lets just take our claw hammer and whale on every truss with the claw until we've removed enough wood to make it fit. Split the whole tails off on most of them. These boys are framers, not cabinet makers. Of course I was a little peeved already in the morning, because they left me a 12' wide space to set the crane up in, so I got to set up twice and move stacks of wood first to have a place to set the crane. Pleased I was.
60' tall 17,000lbs tank. Another wall, and a garage with 11' interior ceilings, with a 8' tall door . Its got a whole pile of beams up in it, for a little attic room upstairs.
Architects Not sure I would trust most of them as to drawing accuracy And then framers hoowiee!!
Architects, cartoonists of the construction industry in my experience. You gotta work on time and materials for those guys ,then its ok. You better watch that Mammoet machine closely Crane Operator you might be tempted anyhow, cranes always seem to go dirt cheap at Ritchies in Chilliwack .
Somebody hacked the trusses like that on my house they sure would see my temper. I don't care whose fault it was, I'd would absolutely insist on new trusses.
Agreed. That would never pass code here. If one just cuts a truss you have to get an engineer involved..
Couldn't make my last monday job. They called before I got there- "houston- we have a problem" Blown out on inner sidewall, tire shop had me a tire on wed. morning. Scheduled to do the job on Thursday instead of monday. One of my guys went and helped the tire man with installing new tire, when he got back to the shop "Why did you have them put a bias ply on?" Houston- we have another problem. Tire man got a Radial in on the thursday truck, tree trimmers don't work on friday- so job ended put off a week. Sometimes it's like that. Second job is some shingles on a house, the regular shingle delivery truck was down, and they had a trailer in the way in the driveway. The roofer wanted the shingles all over on the house, I informed him that he wasn't getting that with the crane I brought (Have I mentioned how weak boom trucks are?) Anyways, he complained about carrying them, I cranked that the house was too far away from the road and the yard was super soft. Nobody was happy.
Beams on a deck / and a ridge beam. Its a big house, 10-12,000 sq ft. or so. 4 story tower in the one corner. The foundation was put in in 2007 or so, and the original house was framed but never finished when 2008 recession came. That house rotted away and was torn down, and new house on the old foundation.
New chillers at a school. Had to sneak across some sidewalks and through the playground, so took the galion.
Last picture shows all the christmas lights lit up, but it was just the lmi being wonky.
Around two 90 deg corners down a 10' sidewalk, galion with rear steer comes in handy. Addition to a school cafeteria, push is on- supposed to be done when school starts and I was hanging bar joists....
Big old oak tree. Cabin has been there a long long time. It won't be in the shade any more. Old tree was solid all the way down.
Had to get a little creative setting up. Took some steel mats and some extra wood along to get set up. We've actually been putting this job off since march. It rained every time we tried to do it this spring, and I told them it had to be dry to get on the hill. Then the RT was off on another job for a month in June, then the flat tire lost me a week. Didn't think I was ever going to get that tree down. Last one is a momma and bambi in the shop yard. Little one is really small yet, still in all its spots.
Sidewall on that tire did not look so flexible anymore, may want to check the rest of them if have gotten so less than flexible as could leave you stranded somewhere!! Always something with crane service, expect the world from you in mud muck mire or steep cliffs!!!
Crane Operator could easily win contests for optical illusions with his pics. Whether it looks like the boom is sitting on a building or the RT looks ready to topple over.
Is the generator on the RT only there for the window AC? and the propane for a heater?
Yes- Generator for the a/c, and the propane does the heater and the generator. I'll never own a gas generator again, LP is the only way to go.
Getting a little work done on the counterweight truck. Front tag axle had been shifted off center, so old u-bolts out and pushed back, new u-bolts. Got a little frame added on to hold the flatbed, now just need the back axle mounted. Went back to the school job and installed the HVAC units with the galion.
Got three concrete boxes set, one under the power lines, one in a ditch, the last one across the creek and through the trees. Galion and the old ford flatbed to haul them.
Remember the framers that destroyed the rafter tails? They can't read plans either. Garage walls were 2' too short. Trusses all on and valleys filled, most of the sheeting on. Two girders and roof running two directions. Sure I can pick the whole garage roof off- it might all turn to matchsticks, but I can pick it up. Had them do a bunch of bracing inside, and sawzall the perimeter before I showed up. Picked better than I thought it would. I brought the gooseneck so I'd have something to set it on while they added the pony walls on.
Got to spin 6-8 trusses that they had in backwards also. Because, Front of house- back of house well- I guess there isn't any excuse.
Man that foundation is something to be proud of. They get their forms out of the dump?
Nice that you had all those chain falls. Lol.
Got lucky- I brought 4 chain falls with me and we started like that. One of the chain falls has a bad brake, as soon as it got weight on it, it would just free wheel the control chain. I was going to just wire the control chain, but decided that wasn't the safest option- I could just see that wire coming loose and losing the whole roof. So I pulled that chain fall out and made that a fixed point with a 16' nylon basketed. Did all the adjusting on the other 3. This is the house they also had to shim all over due to the foundation being out. I wouldn't be too proud of it, but you only get one shot at the concrete. If its getting a stone or brick fascia I wouldn't mind, but I don't know if this one gets that or not.
Sounds like the builder is trying to save money on the construction portion instead of using the most qualified people. I know a guy who used to work for a large builder. Their last project was a fancy 235 room hotel. It used a lot of precast concrete. The engineer from Quebec messed up and almost none of the walls were square and straight. He was fired and they had to reengineer a lot of the project at great cost. They got it done and it was a great accomplishment. Then they got greedy. They had the opportunity to make a million profit on the job but that wasn't enough and they ended up going into receivership. The owners were pretty well off though. It's called the Radisson Hotel Edmonton south now but was originally called the Terrace Inn after the company, Terrace construction. Coast hotels bought it and it was the Coast Terrace Inn for many years before being sold again in 2005.
The engineer from Quebec probably designed it in french, and built it in english!
Well- I'm evidently moving up in the world- new truck! Well, not really new, just new to me. 2006, 85,000 miles, 5.4, 3/4ton, 4x4. Like the red 1997 one my youngest is now driving, this one came from a resort maintenance dept. It has sat for at least a year- maybe 2. Doesn't run right, drained all the fuel, and have new plugs, coils, phasers, mass air flow, and all four o2 sensors now installed. Its running way better now, still has a hesitation on first starting up, when you go to take off (low throttle). Once it gets warm, if you get on it, it runs good. Had to replace a bad track bar to deal with a bad shimmy under braking.
And it's a longbed! Everytime I go to buy a truck, it frustrates me that all I can find are shortbeds.
I'm all for longbed too. If I have a extended cab or crewcab, I just fill it with junk. A regular cab limits my mess. I know my limitations. Actually, one of my guys bought this truck from the resort because it was cheap, and decided he didn't want to put all the $$ in it to get it running. I bought it from him.
Around here that is a rare truck! Do once in a while see one but not everyday! And a 2006 white truck that isn't brown from rust on the lower half is even rarer around here! Just for giggles what does something like that go for in your neighborhood?
$2,500 when it wasn't running. I've probably got another $1,500 in it to get it going. It needed a new ignition barrel and tumbler/keys, a brake caliper was locked up. A alignment at a local shop after we put the track bar in. All the electrical/ emissions sensors etc. that I listed. I've still got a little issue, but its 95% better than what it was. I didn't get the snow plow, but I got the mount. It has a little rust in the bottom of the bed in the U channel that forms the bottoms of the bed. But not much. Its got a lot of little dents up and down the bed, and one place it looks like they bondo over a slit. But I should be around $4,000 in it. I should be able to get some good miles out of it. I'm just not interested in a payment on a pickup. I'll put $60,000 in a crane that I would only run a couple times a month, but won't spend that on a pickup I'd drive every day. I look at the cranes as a profit center, the pickups are overhead expenses.
Be careful changing the plugs. Looks like a nice upgrade when you get finished with it. I bought just nice enough of a truck to not have to work on it constantly. I upgraded from a 1989 f350 4x4 srw long bed 460 zf5 to a 2001 f250 7.3 zf6. I tow a 16 ft trailer a lot with a mini skid steer so the 7.3 is nice. Going from 9mpg to 16mpg has been nice as well. I do miss my dual tanks.
Plugs are changed. No broken ones.
Use Antiseize on them or will be.
Good deal! Don't wait 100k to change them, again. 50k or less and use antiseize.
What I've read is half and half on the antiseize. Some say no antiseize or they will blow out, other half say use antiseize or they lock to the head. Old ones didn't have antisieze and Jim told me he didn't put any on them when he put the new ones in. Do I need to pull them back out and coat them or am I too late?
for the 5.4/6.8L engines I've done, the new plugs were a welded design instead of the crimp design that Ford used stock. I sent my V10 into the shop for plugs and 9 out of 10 broke off. I was told not to worry, the new plugs can't break off the same way.
Never had a plug blow out. Been using antiseize for lots of years. I actually use a torque wrench on them unless I can't reach it. I think most of the blowing a plug out are because folks didn't get them properly tight.
Usually the cause of plugs blowing out is changing them while hot and people not realizing that those are aluminum heads not cast iron they don’t hold up to heavy hands on the ratchet
So my drivers license was up for renewal in July. Dept of revenue sent me a nice letter saying I was eligible for a through the mail or online renewal. My wife spent over a hour the last time in line at DMV, so I'm all over not having to go in. Copies of old license,certified birth cert., voter registration, social sec. card. electric bill sent in to DOR by email, with a credit card # to pay for it. Of course I'm thinking I just fell for some scammer and sent him every form of ID that I could possibly have, and probably just borrowed 4 million dollars to buy *******. But whatever- if I save standing in line for a hour, I'll put all my personal info over the interwebs. DOR said 7-10 days processing, I wait and wait. I'm a month later and haven't seen anything. I really didn't want my CDL, motorcycle, tanker endorsments all lost, so I break down and call Jefferson City. "Your estimated wait time is 9 minutes 53 seconds etc. etc." According to nice lady,it had been mailed August 5. On august 14 I'm on the phone with them, and the nice lady tells me "you can go to the license bureau and get a temporary license until it shows up" . It showed up yesterday afternoon. Stood up a tank earlier this week. Had to drag lowboy and tank up the hill with track loader. Have to set a second tank in a month or so.
Got done just in time too. It rolled in like this as we were setting the tank, we went back to the shop for a couple hours and came back and broke it down after it quit raining.
Pumps this week. One is at golf course, the second is a big temporary pump at a resort for waterfalls.
We had the 40 all set up to transfer this pump to a shorter trailer for access, but the delivery driver thought he could make it, so we didn't have to use it. Truck wasn't showing up until 5:30 on Friday night, so I just went ahead and staged everything I thought I might need. I don't like scrambling around late on Friday. No good place to drop lowboy anywhere close for the RT, so I just took the 100 ton. Didn't bring ctw. but was glad I had the 100 ton because I had to set it a little further away by the pond.
It was just like being on Gold Rush- hooking up water pumps and hoses.
This temporary puts out the water for the waterfall under the bridge we helped build several years ago. Their electric pumps are both down, so this is the solution until they either rebuild them, or put something different in. It was dark last night, so we only took the 40 ton home, went and got the 100 this morning. Pegged out in 2nd gear in the low range coming out of the bottom.
No problems with the new engine in the 100 ton?
Runs great, and interesting that you bring it up. I just got notice this week that liebherr has finally inspected my old engine (which I sent them in February), and I have received a core credit of $20,251.54. That's twenty thousand two hundred fifty one dollars and FIFTY FOUR CENTS. . I swear its the first time in my life that I've gotten a full core credit for anything .
That is enough to make you swoon! Geez, what was the engine price?
How many double takes did you do? Still expensive but getting a little over a 1/3rd back has to feel pretty good. Engine must not have been real bad.
It was $65,000 with shipping and tax. Shipped from Germany. They told me up to 1/3 of the old engine would be core value, so they came through on that. They wanted 1/2 the $$$ up front when I ordered it, and the other 1/2 on delivery. They would then credit me back the core when they looked at my old engine. I didn't pay them the last $20,000 out of the last 1/2. I like to pay my bills, but I told them I would pay it when they told me what my core was worth. They were a little pi$$y about it, "it has to go all the way to germany, they are staying home for covid, they might not look at it for a while, etc. etc". I just didn't feel like giving them all the $$ with that kind of core value.
My engine guy here said bearings were spun in the block, liebherr has the ability to line bore the whole thing, they own the engine company in switzerland that builds their engines. My other option was a large crane company here in the us that has their own engine shop. They quoted me $50,000 for exchange, and they would charge me whatever extra was required to bring my core up to rebuildable. Which they said could be up to $25,000. So they were really $75,000 total if they junked my motor, so I went with the factory reman.
I find it hard to belive that anything you do is laced with false drama and staged situations with awful equipment and truck sound effects added....so I'd imagine it was nothing like gold rush Great news on the core credit too, nice to hear about a company that follows through.
On Gold Rush the mechanic came along and deleted the DEF in a couple hours like it was routine maintainence. Still a lot money but nice to get full credit for the core.
I got turned out of a location this afternoon. I was there to look at a little project, and they temp check everyone before entering the facility. I call the guy I'm meeting, he comes out and IR temp guns my forehead. 101.3 He asks if I've been in the sun. Yes, all day. Checks me again, still 101. I can't be let in. He says "look" and temp checks his own forehead- to show me that the gun is working. 101. He laughs, and shakes his head. Goes inside to find another temp gun, which we both test OK on, and into the facility we go.
We did sticker of the day at a couple jobs it's kinda a joke after 2 weeks they all look the same
Plant where I load the employees get one with the date when they get their temp checked me as a driver I don’t get checked for anything lol
I got checked on a job at the local Indian Reservation the other day, a guy with a clip board came towards me, always a bad sign! I thought I was going to have to sketch out a lift plan (to set 4 wood trusses, 30' away, 40' span), but he just had a series of questions about how I felt, and then he temp checked me and we were good to go.
So late on Friday, some guy calls and needs help on Saturday. Pulling a debris box for replacement. He calls the first time at 6:00, discuss rates, what crane, has to be saturday, truck isn't driveable very far b/c it has head gasket out, its at his mechanic shop, got to go get his lowboy from arkansas to haul it- the whole life drama- but he doesn't want to commit to do it on saturday , 10:00pm Friday night- he calls, "lets do Saturday". I'm busy in the morning getting 100 ton moved, and other stuff, so we set it up for 1:30. I call him before I leave town, the problems don't stop: "do you have a torch and electric on your truck? I can't find any power and need to get the mudflaps and mount bolts out. I've got most of them." No buddy, this isn't a mechanic truck, its a crane, but I can bring another guy and equipment if you need it. "No- no- I about got it, I'll meet you there" I should have just stayed home. Of course I get there- no grapple truck, but the lowboy is there. He was all worried about price, and I told him its by the hour OT, etc. and he's not there. 1/2 hr later he rolls in. Guess how many u-bolts were out. Whatever number you guessed was too high. I have to crawl around and help unbolt all the u-bolts, and it was hot hot out at 3:00 on a blacktop parking lot. Got box off, of course there's like 1" of clearance total between the cab and the grapple, I can't see either end, and he stands there and doesn't give any signals. I also needed to explain my crane doesn't have a rotater like his grapple to spin the box to set it on the lowboy. Break down crane- write ticket and hand it to him- "Do you give a discount if I pay in cash?" Yeah buddy, I just crawled all over under your truck and unbolted it on my saturday afternoon on blazing asphalt- and I'm just in a great mood for giving out discounts. I should have just added another $300 to the ticket.
So I've been out on a truss and wood beam job for a couple days,and I get to the shop this morning. Guys have been busy prepping the counterweight truck for flatbed, I had them cut some oak for spacers between the frame and flatbed. They got a little carried away though- they had drilled and trailer deck screwed the oak to the top flanges of the frame rail. Never mind the "Do not drill or weld to flanges" Fortunately, they are just 1/4" holes, centered in the flange. And what's done is done. The oak was cut too narrow also, wouldn't catch the upright of the flatbed. But I guess at least they were trying. With u-bolts holding down the bed, I don't know where they thought the wood was going to go to. I could weld the holes shut, but that might make more problems than just the hole with a hard trailer deck screw in it. I think I'm just going to have them cut new wood and screw it back down. If it cracks I'll deal with it then. Not much else I can do now. Everyone now has learned not to drill flanges.....
House trusses and beams
1/4 holes will never cause a problem
1/4 holes will never cause a problem
So we had gotten a call to load a conex , weighs around 50,000 for some guy from florida. Its about 8 miles from where I was working at, in the little town of Golden, mo. Guy had called a week or so ago and gotten prices, I finally got a address this week of where it was actually at, so I could go look at the job. Got address on Wednesday, supposed to load on Friday. Turns out the conex isn't in Golden mo, its in Golden City, mo. Which is about 98 miles from my shop. Not the 8 miles from where I was working on Tuesday and Wednesday and where the crane is still setting. I referenced him to some guys I know that are a lot closer to the job than I am. If there wasn't someone close I would go, but I'm not driving that kind of miles, and passing other crane outfits that are only 15 miles away from him, just to get the work for 1 hour to load a conex. Even though I'm billing, there's some things that aren't worth it.
I'm hoping not. Junkyard and I were talking, and if the screws are still in it, the top flange should all be compression with minor twisting, not quite like the bottom flange. I guess we'll see, because its drilled now. At least they weren't 3/4" or 1" holes right on the edge.
Another example of the importance of actually laying eyes on a job before committing to it. I was considering buying equipment sight unseen, (very attractive price but distant) This example made my choice easy.... I lay eyes on it or pass it by.
GM had a habit of punching holes in frame flanges for a LONG time, not Lower Flanges just the top, can see it being alright. We used to set the rear cross members on the old road tractor dovetails with countersunk bolts, drilled to 5/8" then counterbored for the bolt heads, not one ever ripped, that and a few suspension hanger set ups are bolted thru bottom flanges.
Got my 425's and 11r24.5 drives all mounted up and 4 22.5 lowpro's for the tag axles all swapped around and mounted up. Had to cut off 4 budd inner's that wouldn't come off. And some of the ones that came off weren't much good. So all new inner's and outers for the drives. Those and the replacement studs was over $600, so that kind of hurt. But I'm glad I fought them in the shop rather than the side of the road. \ I even managed to torch out the bad inners and not wreck the aluminum rims, which surprised me.
Bar joists at a school project. They are removing the old tennis court, so we parked the rt right on it. Good thing, because there wasn't really anywhere else to set.
Removing concrete forms from a basement pour. Just over 110' to the back wall from the street. Hill was steep enough, we placed the forms with the 25 a week before, they just kept moving them down the hill as they poured. Then stacked them and we brought them back up.
Lifted tank up into some taller cradles inside the building.
Got passed by a airplane the other day on the way to do some HVAC units. The props were all bent up on another trailer and the wings cut down for transport.
In missouri the landfill will take tires if the sidewalls are cut out or the tire is all pie cut up. If the sidewall's aren't cut, my local place charges $25 per tire to get rid of old ones. I'm getting to have way too big of a collection of them, so I've set out to cure my problem. Commercial cutters are over $4,000, so that's kind of out of the question. I saw video's on youtube of some guy in india or pakistan cutting sidewalls out with a hatchet, but they must be bias ply's, no way is he cutting radials by hand. That, and even if they are bias ply's, he's way tougher than me, no way am I working without boots. Anyways, if I take my worm drive circular saw, I can plunge cut the sidewall, then a sawzall with demo blade will cut out the walls. I did 11 of them today, and I'm wore plumb out. I've probably got another 20 or more still laying around. But I can get rid of them like this for $40/ ton.
If anyone has a better/ cheaper way to cut them, I'm all ears. I've got plenty to practice with. And if anyone wants to come show me how to cut them up, I'm really all over that idea.
Seems like you are trying to be Tom Sawyer, having someone show you how, about 20 times. Sure enjoy your pictures of the jobs and countryside in the back ground of some. A big lake in the back ground of the one it appears.
never tried this but i am told that just a fine mist of water soluable oil such as used in lathes&milling machines does wonders for cutting tires with a sawzall
Crane op ... Instead of paying to be rid of the sidewall, there're people that'll pay for them. Farmers use them to weight down tarps over silage piles. Road crews used them as weights on traffic cones. Even giving them away is better than paying. see at link >> http://www.tiresidewalldepot.com/tire-sidewall-products
I did wet down the sidewall but just with soapy water, seems to help a little. I may try a little of that. I have seen the sidewalls used for holding down the traffic barrels. I just don't have any traffic barrels. In that link, those guys are selling all bias ply. I don't know where they are getting all the bias ply tires from, must be ag use, not much but radials used by me. If somebody wants my sidewalls they are more than welcome to come get them. I'll even make a better deal and leave them in their original condition....
Table Rock lake is just over the hill from my shop.
we have a couple tons of those things scattered some where. barrels and tire sides
Looking at a site job, they've been breaking rock. A little stormy last week, so of course someone missed the corner again. One of my guys pulled him out of the trees, he heard him go in. Front end was all messed up so he wasn't going anywhere.
24.5's all mounted up, and the low pro's on the tag axles. Attached a little piece of deck plate we had around to seal up the back bottom of the cab. Going to give the cab a coat of paint before mounting the bed. Going to have to make a tank strap for the drivers side, it has one broken then repaired, and its about falling off.
Railroad engine to replace bearings on traction motor. Had to lift the rear to get the rear motor. Had about all I wanted when the nose hit the rails and it came off the front truck. We used the 40 ton to disassemble the motor.
Wish I had taken some picture of the Railroad museum I visited a few years back down in Penn. They had a repair shop that would have been handy for that kind of work. As I recall they could pull a locomotive in the shop and block under the frame of the locomotive with the drive motor on a lift. Just unbolt the drive assembly and lower it down on the lift and slide it out from under the locomotive then lift it up again and roll it out to the work area.
Does the wheel truck just pull out when you have it lifted ? OR does someone have to get under it to get it out. I would be nervous to be under 87,000 pounds of anything. Story: I was in a cave sitting on a large block of rock with several other people. When I looked up, there was a place in the cave roof that was the exact shape of the rock we were sitting on. Didn't take a detective to deduce the source of the block.
We just hook a chain to the truck and pull it out with a telehandler. They do slide a temporary stand under it so I can touch it down a little while they fix the bearings in the track motor. They do have to get in there and put in the side bolster wear plates, as I put it back on the truck, but it really can't go very far at that point. The old railroad shops have some pretty slick equipment. I enjoy the black and white photo's from the old repair shops, everything is big and heavy.
Got my butt thoroughly kicked today. By a german no less. My 100ton has started leaking from a outrigger on the retract side. I've got a few days until the next job for it, so we set to taking the front passenger side one out. Dinked around all afternoon yesterday trying to get it out of the beam. Sledgehammer, rocking the crane over on the suspension with blocks under it. Torch heat. Penetrating fluid. Rocking back and forth with the jack on blocks, by FNR on the trans. Got the top loose in the beam, but the bottom wouldn't wiggle. Left it sit overnight. Hoping it might fall out. It didn't fall out. Ended up building a pushing frame with a 30 ton jack. Took a pretty good push, but it finally BAnged, and came loose. It sits in two tapered shoulders. It didn't give up easy from there either. Ended up welding a bar to both the gland nut and the piston head to get them off also. It fought the whole way, but its finally apart. Took all the pieces to the hyd shop this afternoon, and looks like its liebherr only for the seal kit, its got a really small wiper in it that's a odd dimension. I've got two seal kits on the way, because the front one on the other side is going to need it also.
I hate working on German built stuff. You have reminded my why.
Most times when i buy spare kits the others never fail ,at least as long as they are really expensive kits . I hope that prevails for your other three outriggers.
As long as the seals aren't 65K you should be OK. Are the seals available fairly close or have to come from Germany?
Craneop whatcha think about this? Demo contractor last Friday taking down some pre-cast panels that weren't shown on the demo drawings but had to come out for the new addition.
Well that's mildly terrifying.
Nothing parties like a rental? It would be kinda hard on the load line. Looks like those panels are back under the panels that are above them? Not a fun problem, but there are ways to get around that. They look like solid panels too, so probably not real light either.
Yeah it was a rental. The pre-cast is around 6" thick on the facing with a picture frame beam inset 1-2' from the edges. In the pic the side chains are against the beams. All in all they had 6 panels to remove. They got them all down yesterday safely... now the condition of the crane who knows.
Just for discussion: Could they have used a winch/come-a-long on the top and bottom of the precast to hold the panel back, thus keeping the crane out from the overhang? Then as crane starts to lift panel, let out the winch lines to slowly bring panel underneath the blocks? They would certainly need a heavy counterweight inside to hold back the panel if anchoring to the building isn't an option.
Curious if the rental outfit checked the load line and found it damaged, would they charge the customer to replace it or keep the rental deposit? Seems like a crane rental, more than other rentals, would have to be fully inspected before it went out again. Seems like they could have used a longer chain or something so the cable wasn't in contact with the panels?
Generally if we can cut a little off the end, we only charge for the labor, but if the crane needs a whole new cable the customer pays for the new cable and labor to install. Every time a crane comes off rent it gets a full inspection. I don’t believe there’s a deposit, the crane just doesn’t come off rent until it’s been inspected and put back into service. And yes, if you tear the crane up and we have to wait for parts to repair the crane, the crane is on rent until it’s repaired. I know a guy that buckled the boom on a crane, it was out of service for 6 months waiting on the boom repair shop. 6 months of rent on top of the parts and labor. He tended to be a little more cautious after that.
Its back together. It was a pain in the a**, but its back together. The gland nut has a outer o ring that not only has a groove in the nut, but it has a groove cut into the barrel where it sets when its threaded all the way in. BUT- you have to squeeze the o ring past a shoulder on the barrel before the groove to get it there. It was tight tight tight, and I was sure that I was going to tear it. But lots of lube and it went. Had to modify my new spanner too. I've always just "primitive pete" and used a hammer and a punch, but I never would have got this back together that way. Adjustable spanner saved the day (OTC- about a $100). https://www.amazon.com/OTC-1266-Adj...MDQ7CWGFSV1&psc=1&refRID=W434SJGQQMDQ7CWGFSV1 The new "cylinder seal kit" was kind of expensive. But it included a new piston, with a different type seal. The original was a stacked u cup with the brown looking fiber material, which I always think holds up pretty good over time. New style is a v type seal.
My first time posting in this thread, here's one I took of a load test we did on our 400ton GMK. 220k lbs if I recall.
D Did you allow for the bottle of water?
I did not! Overloaded it
Dang you guys gots better eyes than me had to save image and zoom in to find the water bottle!
I zoomed in STILL did not pick it up!! Blind as a BAT!!
Reinstalling a refurbished water tank. Methinks they are going to have to do some cleaning, about 3 gallons of sandblasting sand came out of the overflow pipe when we stood it up, somebody missed the clean up.
Preparation for a special golf tournament. Emergency call- they couldn't carry a 4,000lbs pontoon boat across a fresh sod tee area- by hand to launch it into the pond. They about killed themselves launching the little bass boat, they called me when they showed up with the pontoon.
Well the boats went in the pond on Saturday morning. By saturday afternoon, the head honcho's had decided they actually didn't want the boats in the pond, could we come take them back out- on Sunday morning.....
Say- while you're here, maybe lets stage the bass boat and a side by side on the lower tee box. We'll take pictures of that and see if they like that better. So we put the bass boat on the trailer, flew it to the tee box, then rigged up the side by side, and flew it out there and hooked it to the bass boat. No one important liked that either- so it all came back out. And we tore the crane down and went home to enjoy the last of sunday afternoon. The pro's show up on tuesday or wednesday. NBC golf had all their semi's on site for broadcasting already, I had one of the guys out there today and he said it was a zoo. Couple more pics from the course:
hmm` wonder if I could afford a round or two on that one
You get tiger to partner up with you, they pay you to play. https://press.basspro.com/big-cedar...-thomas-against-rory-mcilroy-and-justin-rose/
Never understood the grand design of Golf. See the money they spend courses and equipment where seems no object to send a small ball into orbit repeatedly. After witnessing some of the more angered of the sport can see it as a blood pressure release valve.
Not sure about the release valve more of a cause of high blood pressure! Just another waste of time better spent other ways. But at least it got CO some work doing stupid stuff for stupid people so it not all bad!
Didn't get the best day for it, its spitting rain.
Golf is for people that do not know how to do real work.
I like to play once in awhile. I get together with old friends and people I've worked with over the years and catch up on who has survived the industry. It's a nice walk and better than sitting in a chair drinking booze and waiting to die.
We live with that kind of nonsense all the time. 4pm on the day before the tournament, the tv show director or producer or a PGA Tour official does not like the position of a camera scaffold and wants it moved NOW!!!! Remove the camera, the fiberoptic cable feeding it, the audio hub and the fiber feeding it and probably an RF receive site and it's fiber all to move the scaffold 10 feet because it's in a camera shot or is perceived to be and interference to play. Hopefully there is enough slack in all those fiber runs to reach the new location. All usually after it's placement has been approved for weeks.
really?
Sorry if I cuased offence, it was tongue in cheek.
Golf is what people who have money do.
I grew up playing golf. Dad had me and my brother swinging clubs as soon as we could walk. He was a union bricklayer and later, a residential builder. I'm not a tiger woods, not even close (though my brother has become quite good). We are very much blue collar, hard working and certainly not made of money. We golf in a league one night after work that is filled with blue collar guys, looking for some fresh air and a little friendly competition. If you only golf one night a week in league for the 22 week season, it's under $400 for the year. Golf is neither expensive, nor exclusive. With my travels for work, I've golfed all over the country, but I don't pour money down the drain doing it. I travel with a set of 1986 BeCu Ping Eye II's that I bought off eBay for $200. I play municipal courses, or small private owned courses, and shop around for specials so I don't have to give away my paycheck to enjoy a round. Golf is certainly a game for everyone and can be enjoyed most anywhere quite reasonably.
It's entertainment. How much does it cost to go to a hockey game, football game, basket ball game? How much does it cost to go target practicing or hunting? How about fishing? Even a motor cycle ride will cost you some money. Have any other hobbies? How much do any of those cost? Golf is also a test of personality. Want to hire someone for a sensitive position? Play golf with them once and you will know what to expect for their future employment. Do they cheat on scores? Do they get mad and throw a fit when they make an errant shot or miss a putt? Do they observe good etiquette to others when playing, do they take big chances on shots with little odds of happening? Do they spent a lot of time looking at shots and hold up play for everyone else. All these questions shine a light on personality traits that can't be hidden when the stress of this "game" takes hold.
Many people of different backgrounds golf. It's enjoyable and frustrating at the same time. Don't know why so many able bodied people feel they need a golf cart. It's great exercise. It's too bad so many of the courses are private. This is where there's a disconnect and people feel it's an elitist sport that you basically have to be pretty well off to afford shares and membership. The 2nd oldest club here had some people not wanting the lease from the city extended. Their argument was it's city owned land so should be available to everyone in the city not just members of the club. The clubs argument was that it pays about $2,500,000.00 in taxes and leases every year. The lease was extended. Most of the private clubs have no shortage of funds. I like golf but don't have time to get back into it with running and working at my track. My dad sold equipment to golf courses for 40 years and was friends with most of the superintendents. He was fortunate that he could have played just about any course he wanted for free as a guest or with the superintendent. He was very respected in the industry and went out of his way for his customers. He was on the board of directors for the turf grass college and used to teach reel sharpening which was an art back in the day. New spin grinders basically do all the work for you now.
Courses here are dying every day now. Private courses can't bring in new members when the initiation fees are in the stratosphere and there are rules requiring a minimum amount of money be spend in the restaurant and tee times are set. Many of the private owned courses have been converted to housing developments. The game is still popular here but you have to book tee times about a week in advance on most of the courses. The rainy season started today so only the hard core will be out through the monsoons. Golfers will start dressing like steel head fishermen pretty soon.
There was a lot of stink when golf courses were allowed to open with Covid shutting down pretty much every other type of sporting/social activity. This only fuels the elitist moniker. Have a friend who's worked at a private course for over 50 years (started at 14) and he said they're riding 2 up in carts when should be 1 per cart and not following any social distancing guidelines. My dad figured there wouldn't be enough new members for all the courses being built in the 90's but new courses were still popping up everywhere. One course that was started by a numbered company wanted to have a men's only club but that idea got shut down. The numbered company was basically the same group of politician's who started Kananaskis. My dad was good friends with the person who was supposed to be the superintendent. He was the most educated superintendent in the province. He was also the original superintendent at Kananaskis but got out when he learned who all the politicians were that were basically using gov't. connections to fund their golf courses. Interesting that California has more golf courses than all of Canada combined.
My Previous Immediate Supervisor was a Golf Fanatic, was on a course for charity with a set of OLD Junk clubs with my workmates(we volunteered) just playing a scramble to earn money for the charity. LOADS of Beer, lots of laughs EXCEPT the Super. He was a cussing and throwing stuff, wrapped two clubs, a Wedge and a Driver around a tree as could not get the shots he wanted. I have played, KNOW am No Good, do not try any further. Hack at short shots, scream them off a tee like hell won't have them, Little to NO control was just another day. STILL have the Junk Clubs.
Hey CO, that bridge at the course you set, is now on STL News!! https://eur04.safelinks.protection....uuQGWj45+yYq/fuQj25Xi3JeGB7Vz/FJs=&reserved=0
Thanks for the pic, I see him and the mrs. both have the covid. Both being at the tournament, I'm sure there was some handshaking and politicking going on. I bet some other attendees are sweating their next test.
Seems the governor has negligible to no symptoms His wife also not much Some people get a serious week long flu from this My own niece and her hubby at Jackson Mo had it where just felt bad Two of three girls they have got it but nothing for symptoms third never got it
Small world I live in Jackson
Their last name Oehl Farm a Lot
Installed the second water tank at a housing development. Got a headache rack on the flatbed. If you look close, the green ford is in the stall ahead of the flatbed in the last picture. I spent the last 6 months to my son- "you better change that starter or you're going to chew that flywheel up- and then you are going to get to drop trans and do a clutch". Well guess who's doing a clutch and flywheel. I do feel pretty good though, I'm not doing any of it- its all him. I ran the stupid end of the trans jack to help him shove it in, and I need to go down tomorrow to help bleed clutch. But the rest has been on him, it eats me up not to do it, but he doesn't learn anything if I do it.
Loaded out temporary water pump. Watched where we stepped on his trailer.
Steel on a house garage.
Some people should just get their materials delivered to a site. Trailer house frame trailer, no need to put tires and rims on all three axles of it- that would be overkill. And a exceptional trailer to truck connection. The truck is a cut down old u- haul made to a flatbed, and its actually better than his last truck. Which about 6-7 years ago I watched him slide down a hill into a jobsite, because - well- who needs trailer brakes. Drug the truck all the way down a asphalt driveway, and the rear axle hopped the curb and the second axle held on the curb and kept him from the trees. I'm sure it still doesn't have trailer brakes.
Yikes ... not only is the hitch bent, it looks too small for the receiver. God surely loves and takes care of idiots. He made so many of them.
Multiple accidents waiting to happen. He's the kind of guy you like to see get pulled over. He's putting everybody at risk.
Did you notice how the safety chains are hooked to the tow vehicle. The dumass is going to kill someone. Thanks for the other neat photos CO !
Might be a call to the DOT is in order. Scary isn't the word, brain dead maybe.
Hitch looks sufficient. Couple of 1/2” bolts oughtadoher
After another look at the hitch, I think it unlikely he has trailer brakes. He is using a flat four connector. There's no wire for brakes in a flat four. And it's not a surge brake hitch... therefore... no trailer brakes. State of MO doesn't have any trailer brake requirement. Hope he stays in state.
And when he kills someone he will just disappear in to the hills I bet! I know many people complain about the "nanny state" laws as some call them but it's 100% because of people like this that 90% of the laws have been written. It's all a big joke to some people till it's your mother or daughter laying on the side of the road bleeding because this jerk tried to save some money!
It's crap like that-that really-I mean really pisses me off. I and others in the shop spend our time everyday seven days a week doing the absolute best we can to make sure the equipment is in safe top notch road ready working order. DOT rarely ever finds anything to write up and when they do it's a license light. But with our safety record they still will pull our rigs in knowing it's going to be slim pickings trying to find a write up. Then there are those turds like that one that just drive around and never get stopped. This town is full of the same turds, it makes me wish sometimes I had become a weigh cop.
When I see a truck cop with someone pulled over, it's always the newest, cleanest, best looking rig on the freeway... Ed
Could be pulled over for any number of driving reasons/moving violations. Trucks with crap piled on dash board, dirty, crooked torn flaps, bent stacks, broken steps, dented scraped up fuel tanks, oil spots on back of cab and frame, broken cracked fenders, bad glass, cheap stick on letters for name, multiple tires that the tread don't match are all dead give away to a truck and driver that have a problem.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX No *%*&# delete option
I know a guy who used to haul snow for the city with an end dump. He said all the shiny clean trucks are the ones usually behind on maintainence and the trucks in their work clothes often are more road worthy because maintenance is more important than how shiny it is. Some places have shiny well maintained trucks.
In my experience of running transport for construction clean helps a lot but in my harvesting experience you had to be squeaky clean or so illegal that the paperwork was insane if they stopped you and that was the reason not to pay attention to those guys It's just like goosnecks and one tons hauling backhoes or the like they are flirting so hard with being illegal but they never get messed with Admittedly tho the out of 5 stops one was a checkpoint for everyone 2 were for officer discretion and 2 were for speeding so if i would slow down i would have less problems
Don't look too close at the tires on his trailer either guys, they match the rest of the rig. My stuff isn't the best and newest stuff on the road. But I try to keep up with tires and brakes and lights, to at least make a effort. Its not easy and it costs $$, but I always look at the flip side, if something happens, I know I did my best to run good equipment. The comment on 1 ton's hauling equipment by AzIron is spot on around me. We've got every little contractor running around with back hoes, pretty good sized zero turn excavators, telehandlers, track skid with a mini ex on the same trailer, etc. , all on a gooseneck or bumper hitch behind a 1 ton. With todays hot rod engines, they have all the power in the world, they just can't stop, and the equipment is too top heavy for the truck and trailer in the hills and curves we have. I have a guy about 3 miles from my shop, we drove by one day and I saw a cat backhoe up on his gooseneck trailer. Behind a single wheel pickup. I told the guy riding with me "he's going to dump that mess". Sure enough, couple days later he flops it off the trailer on the curve by my road. Destroys the backhoe, tore the truck up, and I don't think it did the trailer any favors. And he owns a semi. Of course he was driving a new truck a little while later, I'm sure our insurance rates paid for his stupidity.
I keep tires, brakes and bearings up on my two little trailers, prefer NOT to overload them to the extent he has. I likely have six ton on a 24' goose but is rated to 13k load capacity, especially on the E rate tires on it.
Looked second time, WTH has the boom secured to the floor, nails? Certainly he does not use that to lift weight?
We have two plates on the front of each tractor one is the Washington base plate the other is the Oregon Trusted Carrier plate which each tractor has a transponder for scale bypass. Too many violations and Oregon will yank the Trusted Carrier plate and red flags will fly. The other thing is our fleet insurance is also based on maintenance. The records have to be kept accurate at all times, because the carrier insurance can show up and audit the service records at any time. Too many skipped services and insurance rates go up. Because of so much equipment I have to make judgment calls constantly which involves each drivers driving ability. Equipment might get hung out longer than liked so it's replace the shoes/brake pads early, tires sometimes early but It all depends on whos behind the wheel on how long those items will last. Most DOT officers will back off when they see someone is trying to maintain equipment, zero effort surely means a ticket.
I think its bolted to the old U-haul aluminum deck. You know its homebuilt, you know they use it, you didn't even have to ask. If they pull that trailer around, what wouldn't they be afraid to use.
Some scary thoughts there!!!
I run a tandem gooseneck behind my F350. I use it to haul crane boom, welders and misc gear to jobs. Ocasionally ill put my 303 Cat on it . Im licenced for business use ,but dot here says i must up the GVW to be compliant . This means my licence decal goes to the front of the truck. Inspection and stopping at scales even with the empty pickup comes into play. I have no complaint with the above but the kicker is ,i live on Vancouver Island . As soon as i pull up to the ferry terminal for travel to the mainland with my front decal the fares double. The pickup and driver alone goes from 70$ to 140$ ,with the trailer im up to 300$. They double fares to comercial haulers which are essential to our lives on this rock on an esential part of our highway. This wouldnt be hard to take ,i know it costs to run these tubs. But when im stuck in line waiting for hours as they load with motor homes pulling boat trailers that are taking advantage of 1/2 price fare sales it really p**sses me off.
I hear ya on the RV stuff, to see Doubles behind a RV and they have no more than a General Drivers license torques my nuts. Class 7 RV, a towed car or a Trailer with daily drivers then a Boat behind that. REALLY Not amused with ton dually with 38' Fifth or goose neck, with a boat in tow behind that.
As far as I know those configurations are not legal in NY, but then I'm not into the motorhome thing, but wonder what happens if they did decide to tow that rig into a state that does not allow it? Just scares me to think that a person whose biggest car they ever drove was a Toyota Celica can go out a buy a motor home the size of a Greyhound Bus and take off cross-country when they retire!
As far as I am aware the RV industry places information out to the 'Happy New Owners' as to what they have and where can go, have seldom seen tickets issued to them. Found this, but states nothing of Doubles save to length limit of 65' https://fifthwheelst.com/rv-size-limits-equipment-laws-us.html Still Scary **! Grandpa James and his 45' self contained self propelled Portable House with a car toter for his Lincoln SUV behind that!!
Green Ford is on the road again. I had to help bleed clutch and that was it. He's glad to have his wheels back. Apartment building we're starting on this week. They can't reach anymore with their forklift.
Trusses at a resort/ lake home development.
Last fifteen years the big build for STL and Lake Ozark have been stick build apartments as this Several burned to the ground Not a great pattern.
Job security is all
Mass Timber Construction was recently accepted into the NFPA standards. It's sorta like timber framing but with laminated beams and panels.
Like a kindling factory
I worked in a shop that was built with solid one piece timbers as big as those in that photo above. Imagine the size of those trees.
Munitions Plant I worked one summer was Olin Corp, Winchester Western East Alton IL. Building 4. Was one of the few PRE WWI buildings still had a Iron belt drive shaft ran full length of the building where it also had Solid beams that size, Built in 1887. Building burned to the ground around 1999 or 2000.
Worked in the Weyerhaeuser White River saw mill for a year after I graduated from high school. Most of the buildings were 18 and 24 inch timbers some of them 20 foot long or more. Logs came into the mill from a pond. The first saw could cut a 72" log going both ways. New part of the saw mill got a twin band saw mill that could only cut 36" logs. Everything went down hill since those days. Now it's engineered lumber that is more glue that wood fiber. If you want to see fire sometime, just go by a construction site where the laborers are burning the scraps.
Beaverpuke we call it here. I always have favored plywood sheathing,but i have one building sheathed with OSB ,oriented strand board and its stood a 25 year test of time. I have fabricator friend doing red iron bones for a 12 story wood building right now,be interesting to see how that one works out.
Looks like they have the kind of fork lift we crane guys hate! An unregulated, misunderstood thing with or without a winch handling loads with a telescoping boom.
Telehandlers, great invention, oft taken to furthest extremes of load, distance and angle where fail miserably and spectacularly.
Add from JLG : Delay or eliminate the need for cranes onsite. Our new 1075 telehandler reaches up to eight stories and offers a 60-ft horizontal reach for less material rehandling. No need for cranes anymore- 75' telehandler.
In other news. My mechanic and his young helper dove into the leaking rear main on the 40 ton. We've got more than a leaking seal. Under the oily mess of the rear of the engine and trans. connection, was a cracked flywheel housing. I sourced a used flywheel housing, but the pan gasket attaches to it, so pulled pan to put all new gasket on it. And surprise surprise- it looks like a valve spring washer in the pan. Going to go ahead and pull motor up and out, and pop the valve cover and see what's all messed up in there. The fun never stops.
Man, you have a ton of fun over there fixing things, you should buy one of those dual tandem trailers where the inside wheels are inside of the frame, I've heard they are a ton of laughs to work on when you need to change a flat, almost as much fun as yanking an engine to figure out what's coming apart up top when you only wanted to stop an oil leak down below, do you pay the mechanic or does he just stick around for all the fun and exciting projects.....
I've been out running crane the last few days, so didn't get in on any of the removal. I've just gotten to see the bits and pieces of carnage. I don't do all the wrench turning around my shop, I've got one guy that's late 50's and a former auto mechanic. He's been a great employee, but has some health issues and is wanting to slow down. I hired a young guy this spring to give him a hand. They both actually end up on jobsites quite often, helping put jib on, and setting up, and rigging. Also delivering spreader bars, manbasket, etc.
Been finishing up on a little concrete job.... No actually just putting in the gantry cranes again so they can do a little work on the tailwater gates. I'm always a little sad working at the dam, sad we don't build things like this today. The wind farm equipment is a 20 year max life, and many of them won't make that long. That dam looks like it would stand for 300 years. Its just a lot of concrete.
While your at it change the WP belt on that 3126, it's a dirty b!tch replacing it in any rig.
Are cranes inherently hard on engines, or do you just have the magic touch? Reading through this entire thread showcases your many experiences with engine repairs, swaps, overhauls, etc. Sucks to have two engine failures, both on your latest acquired cranes, hope it isn't too bad for you.
Ain't that the truth. The engineer that decided to put it down there behind the serp. belt needs his head examined. Its a pain just to tighten it. The joys of buying old stuff. I think all the idling time is really hard on the engines. A lot of the stuff I end up with also hasn't had the best maintence over its life. The 40 ton is a 2001, so its 20 years old almost. Everything wears out eventually. I guess I'd just rather fix than make payments.
Do you need to borrow a chain hoist to pull the engine?
Dont worry as the lack of talent worsens you will get plenty more calls to upright forklifts I have seen 3 go tail up in in the last 2 months one of them bent up a rebar cage for a Casson to where it was scrap gc kicked the crew off the job for safety violations
I've seen the carnage people do to telehandlers and I've never understood it. I've ran them a fair amount on construction sites and in the oilfield and never torn one up. Maybe I'm not using them right?
Meh!! Just not trying hard enough!!
I'm good. A beam trolley at about 3 ton would be handy for my gantry though, we've just got a old piece of chain wrapped around the top of the gantry. Which is horrible, because I wouldn't stand for anything like that on a jobsite with one of the cranes. But its been on there for years and I just never think about it. One more thing on the list.
Good news Friday! Got the motor out, (picked it up, rolled the gantry ahead and let it down). Valve cover off. All the valve springs have their washers. Compared washer from pan, its too big for valve spring washer, but it is the same size as the head bolt washers . Front right corner bolt, has no washer under it. Evidently on its last head gasket, the washer dropped off the bolt before they braappeddd it in place. It rattled around the valves, and tinkle tapped its way to the oil pan. The "mechanic" said f it. and ran the bolt home anyways. I think we are just going to leave it alone. I'm concerned if we pop the head bolt loose, then I'll have to do head gasket. Its held this long without a washer. I do at least now know where the washer came from- progress!
Yeah ... But will you remember where you put the washer for safe keeping when you DO take the head off. ?
He's praying this engine never comes out again while he owns this crane
Around here pulling those trucks over would be racial profiling. And the drivers don't (won't) speak English.
I've already forgotten Second law of thermal dynamics : the entropy of the universe tends to a maximum. All things come apart eventually.
It's required that drivers understand and speak English to get a CDL-so who is giving them the license back there?
Am thinking some states went back to letting the Corner Drugstore issue licenses.
I think they are putting them in one of these if you buy the 3-pack!
https://vertikal.net/en/news/story/36304/outrigger-incident-in-nz Pretty small mats, on not very good ground. Didn't have much ctw. on the back either. Probably dinged section #3 pretty good where it hit the bridge beam, but the bridge saved him from going all the way over.
Ground permits for all? outrigger setups . On it goes. Im doing a job right now with a sectional barge,these are older sections without the center lift ring. Customer wanted me to use my 1/2" 4 way chain bridle and just dead end the hooks like stoppers in the pin pockets. I said no way . I called my wire rope guys up to have 4 3/4 X 5' straps made with an eye on one end and a knob pressed on the other.This would have been a positive direct connection. They said no can do ,not for lifting not Worksafe approved . How does a choker manage to jerk a huge log in from the bush , with the cable always pushed to breaking strength? The sections are 13 tons ea. Rigged like this ,attached to my 4 part 1/2" chain bridle the chokers exceed its capacity of 31000lbs.Gotta be better than a grab hook jammed the wrong way into a slot. They are jamming us deeper into the box we all think outside of to survive.
Illinois is famous for having governors go to jail. George Ryan-- for drivers licenses. Before he went to jail we had Polish drivers delivering rock on a job that neither spoke or understood English.
My Parents were from IL, born/raised, Dad was the one came up with the Driver License from the Corner Drug Store as is where received HIS OWN First License, East Alton IL!!!!!
Pretty much the entirety of that project area is crap ground. I'm surprised that they hadn't used swamp mats for the outriggers if the radius was that far.
One down- down under, and the other one in florida. Both blamed on ground giving way. https://vertikal.net/en/news/story/36325/void-causes-overturn https://vertikal.net/en/news/story/36323/truck-crane-over-in-nsw
It occurs to me that it's an extra hours work to do heavy mats but seems a cheap price to the alternative is it stupidity or laziness
Hindsight says its pretty easy to see the second crane has his outriggers over the storm drain.
https://www.salvagesale.com/for-sal...211351?h=5000,q|crane&rr=1&hitprm=&pnLink=yes "The unit sustained collision damage on 06/18/2020. It has been reported that the unit was hired by the City of Norfolk to remove an 85' tall confederate soldier monument and to take it to a city facility where it is being stored. While they were removing the statue, the marble base broke and causing damage to crane. Unit will run, but there is no boom in the crane. See the photo report. This unit is being sold as part of an insurance claim." Damaged a 90 ton link belt during the statue removal this summer in Norfolk Va. https://wset.com/news/local/remainder-of-confederate-monument-in-norfolk-to-come-down I wasn't able to find video of the crane being damaged.
Karma Hope the City is Self insured and paying for this.
So this statue was taken down because some dumbass tried to climb it ? I would put grease on it and sell tickets. I fear for the future.
I think the statue was more taken down because it was known as the "johnny reb" statue. I think the irony of the united states and the world morally denouncing the taliban for destroying a budda statue, while tearing down our own history in a fit of vandalism is a great tragedy. Today marked the destruction in portland of lincoln and teddy roosevelt statues. When they decide the churches, cathedrals, and synagogues are a moral affront to them, they will have to come down next. We discussed at the dinner table tonight, that Stone mountain and mt. rushmore are just as "offensive", and I think the calls for their destruction are coming.
There was already a big push for Stone Mountain to be destroyed about a month ago.
It must be noted that crane operator has "reported" his own post as possibly being too political to be in line with the Forum Rules. That being said, as long as everyone else keeps those rules in mind, there should be no problems moving forward. Thank you, crane operator.
What is with all these crane incidents, is there a shortage of reliable crane operators and rigging people?
The nerd in me just had to know, so I Googled it--It was approximately 3 seconds from the time the excavator began to fall, and the noise of impact. That figures out to a hole 145 feet deep, and a speed at impact of 65mph. Probably left a mark...
Certainly one that wouldn't polish out with T-Cut.............
Am suspected air displacement slowed it some blowing down the hole However Digging it from its newly impaled crater home will not be a easy task!
I don't think so. I think the proportion of mistakes hasn't changed, its just that when someone like this screws up, its on you tube. Having the stick out away from the machine changes the center of gravity a lot. if they would have been using steel chokers or chains where they had the nylon's through the tracks, it would have simply spun. In using nylon's through the tracks, they guaranteed it would cut those as soon as it moved. They have chains everywhere else on their rigging, except for the place they really needed them. A couple lines to the boom heel or on the stick instead of the tracks would have saved it also. No bucket and the stick up higher would have accomplished the same thing, but it looks like they have headroom issues. Nothing like dropping a 50,000lbs stone down a hole.....
How did they get so far into the lift before it failed. Was is ok until they tried to swing it out of the hole?
The excavator is balanced on the front set of straps. So they are swinging it over the hole, when they stop swinging, it dips toward the bucket just a little. That was enough to get it started, and then it isn't coming back. Steel through the tracks would have saved it from being in the hole, but it still would have spun. The accident is a chain of events. If at any time, the operator, the rigger or the engineer, had just said, "hey, this doesn't look right, its tippy on this front set of straps and its going to fall out" , none of this would have happened. People are too afraid to say something. And to willing to take the easy way out.
Have seen machine moves where the lift rises fine straight Up or Down, the Bump when the lifting machine goes to reposition the load to another location is what starts the disaster or the tilt. Even a good operator will not see it occur until too late, know this from Millwrights I worked around as they become the operator's extra eyes on load shifting.
And this is how close they were to doing it right. From what i see in the video the machine was tipping before the sling failed. You cant see how the spreader was rigged to the crane i wonder if they had 2 hoists on it and one lowered more rapidly changing the centre of gravity. You see excavators all the time with 2 or 3 feet of track sticking over an edge ,reaching out with out tipping. The front sling looks between 2 and 3 ft from the centre of the idler. Or was it a sudden stop travelling side ways with the crane that caused that roll over ? I lift mini excavators all the time 2 hooks on the blade and 2 on the lugs at the final drives .Im curious on this one.
Considerable variance to the one that dropped, stick pulled back, implement on stick closer to lift point CG is considerably closer to center. Excavator was on a spreader bar suspension not two hooks CG was considerably closer to front slings as noted by CO, Stick tucked as this one would have shifted a lot of weight back to the rear slings.
Could the 4 point spreader lifting the Doosan also be a contributing factor. Im thinking like a square without any diagonal support collapsing. The single spreader on the Cat looks better but you can see the front sling is loaded more.
I'm wondering why there aren't welded lifting eyes installed on machines that are commonly craned into other levels. It is common around here.
They were factory on a Cat 215c
I'd have to agree John. It is such a small cost to add fixed, welded lifting points, or steel lifting chokers/chains and proper rigging compared to the cost of the machine. That idea was beaten out of my head from Day 1 when I joined the oilfield. Oilfield history is riddled with horrible accidents that were exacerbated by people too afraid to speak up. SLB taught Stop Work Authority in week one, and we regularly did training to reinforce behavior to speak up and stop a potentially hazardous situation. It wasn't just us, most of our competition and customers had some variation of "Stop Work Authority". Anyone can stop the job if they think it poses a heightened safety risk without prejudice against them. This did not stop us from accomplishing work; it kept us safe while doing work that was more thoroughly planned out and thought through. Some accidents still happened, but in general, they were caused by people that were not following the safety policies in place.
But on the other hand it also potentially puts the onus for any failure on the equipment manufacturer. In a similar way to the installation of fire suppression systems it appears as though in general equipment manufacturers don't want to be left carrying the can in a legal sense. EDIT: The only thing I can find listed with lifting points on them in the current product line are SSL, CTL, & MTL machines. It is an attachment and is described as a "lifting kit". Depending on model it is either four separate lifting points or a frame bolted to the machine in four places with a single lifting point in the centre.
Most of the skid steers already have the four lifting eyes installed on top of the ROPS structure. I've seen multiple medium to small sized excavators with lifting eyes on the track frames. All the big utility excavators that get moved around all the time and have to be broken down usually have eyes installed by the owners of he machinery. I've worked on dozers that get lowered into a ships cargo hold to clean the corners of the hold of dry material. All the military spec machinery I've seen has lifting eyes installed to allow one piece lift by dock machinery onto ships. It is so common that I can't imagine it not being done for any machine being placed in deep holes. Notice I didn't say dropped.
My Kubota mini has the recommended lifting points laid out in the manual. I have yet to lift it for real, other then this shot, real as in part of a job, but I like knowing I can if the need ever arises.
Liability.No one wants to take responsibility for any kind of alterations ,so this stuff just keeps happening. I bought a new Ice vibro this spring and have always thought things like a side ladder built into the body of the power unit or some tie down lugs that work with chains on the bottom edge of the power unit.I was told by the rep they dont want to change a thing in fear of liability. If i thought that way i wouldnt leave the house every day.
My 303.5 on the hook at home going over the fence to sort out some yard problems.
You know I might have to get a crane the way you swing those minis around looks convenient
Thats my neighbor on the tagline. The crane saves both of us from hacking our fences. You should get one and join us treading water as lack of operators and regulation trys to sink us . I was thinking one day i might and go out and try working with the 303.5 and earn real cash,hahaha.Maybe enough to suport the crane habit.
May want to invest in a spreader bar above the cab on the mini, saves squeezing it like a pimple as at some point will bend.
Can we talk about the green shirt with the phone out and walking up to look down the hole while those chains are still whipping around? Some people don't have the sense god gave a baby duck. Even the guy in the skid loader GTFOs.
It's okay . He had special boots AND a hardhat!
The pic of my mini being picked, with the clouds as a background, always reminds me why the classic Howard Hughs flying movie Hell's Angels went so over budget. He was a stickler for the right kind of clouds for a backdrop! I keep waiting for the right phone call, where I can tell my customer I have the capability of lifting my mini on top of his 5 story house (or similar) and be able to bill for both crane AND mini time simultaneously, hasn't happened yet darn it.
Id bet hes the safety guy.
Had to go back and see that idiot!
Dmiller has been shaming me with all his honey do projects. Of course it takes a actual break down for me to do any work around the house. Old stove went down, and no supper with no stove, so - no choices or putting off this one. Being the tightwad I am, I had to go to lowes to the scratch and dent/ discontinued aisle to do a little discount shopping. Have you seen how expensive stoves are?
Your a brave man taking on those shopping responsibilities. Ill only go as far as to haul the stuff home and drag it the house. If i sugested scratch n dent id be living in the barn cooking on a coleman.
Don't worry- I had the boss with me. But she knows my spending limitations. I can only spend a lot, if I think I'm getting a "deal". I think they just pull boxes out of the back with a random appliance- call them "damaged" and suckers like me feel I'm getting a "deal" at buying a stove for a outrageous amount of $$$ that will probably die in less than 5 years with a blown out circuit board. More likely its "connectivity of things" bluetooth, wireless internet (why we need this on a stove is beyond me ) will be incompatible with my then new current cell phone.
I have it on good authority that sometimes Lowes dent & scratch sales are simply units undelivered orders, floor models, or like my example... they delivered the wrong unit. delivery guys said the unit will go to the S&D sale because they unboxed it. It was perfect when it left my house.
Very likely with mine. I can't find a scratch on it.
I will more likely fix the broken model, not much I can't fix unless it involves parts not made anymore or never made to be replaced.
I'd done heater elements twice, a complete rewire of the back side, and a door switch before. Its been broken more than any stove I've ever owned. In fact I don't think any other stove I ever have owned has actually broke. This time the control panel went, and it was $500 for the part. I couldn't see that kind of repair on a 20 year old stove- because its been so unreliable already, so new one it was.
90% of all our appliances were bought just that way!! Wife is as much a penny pincher where a bargain is just as good as new in box at times. Fridges and cooktop in house fridge in shop Even some of the sink hardware were last of runs model change outs or delivered and returned but still new. Got to love bargains!
I thought they would have a hammer laying around in the warehouse for those scratch n dent sales.
My wife always shakes her head and walks away when I start playing "lets make a deal" in the store . She gets embarrassed, and wouldn't dream of making a offer on something in a store. I always figure they can say no if they don't like my offer. It was originally $1,800. They had it marked at $1,400. I tried to get it bought for $1,100 and ended up at $1,200. I'll stand and haggle a little for $200 . The box top had been cut open, but the sides hadn't been, and it was all still packaged up. $1,200 still seems like a lot of $$$ for a stove.
I like my hook rollers even more after watching that video.In my early days of pile driving with a 20 ton Michigan we stopped for coffee and noticed one of the rear hook roller pins laying on the deck. We were doing test piles ,drive one with the drop hammer ,then pull like a basta**d and reef the same pile back out ,repeat over and ever.Never noticed a difference missing a pin.
Scary at best
Hvac with the liebherr and the mack
Had to move a different golf cart bridge, they are going to redo the abutments and move it out away from the cliff a little.
Railroad hasn't been having much luck lately, seems like drive motors, both engines. We'll go a long time not being down there, and then it seems like we're there all the time.
Redoing a highway ditch for MDOT. This has a set of culverts under house driveway's just downstream, but they get washed out every spring. Had to have the power company move the power. First two didn't fit so great, they were off a little on the gravel base. The backhoe and loader did a little regrading, and we were good to go.
This is a mill for turning railroad wheels. Look who's got a 5 ton chain fall to level things out... It was pretty rainy, and we waited until it had mostly quit before untarping. These came out of a railroad shop in Idaho that got shut down.
This is a lathe for railroad axles, came from the same shop.
So not knowing anything about the inner workings of a crane, do they have a similar turntable to an excavator or a different style turntable that would make that crane flip off of the carrier frame??
Its just a big bearing in the truck cranes and the newer crawlers, bolted to the welded frame. Tugger's conventionals are a little different, on the older ones they just have big rollers riding on a large metal ring. Here's hook rollers: Here's truck crane bearing:
Cab is painted (there's a reason the picture is taken from a distance I aint the best painter), bed is laying on it. Still need to center it and bolt the bed down, lights, bumper. But getting closer.
Golf bridge is reinstalled.
Had to have a little help to set the new far piece on the bridge. Was supposed to be 2,500lbs, I had 4,000 on the scale. So we walked a zero turn down the other side and tandem picked it into place.
Rock crusher that needed a new liner. The liner's are epoxied into place, and supposedly with release agent, so you can knock them back apart and put new liner in. No release agent. Banged on it with excavator for a hour or two. No hammer on site, the only hammer they have is backhoe mounted. Couldn't get any large excavator with hammer moved in, so I had the guys bring the winch truck, we loaded up the upper piece and hauled it to a breaker. It didn't budge in a couple hours of hammering either. They carbon gouged a little on it, and called it a day. Brought back a bigger welder, and we moved it to the shop, they had to cut it into 5 pieces to get the liner out. Previously someone let the liner get too worn, and it has a void in the case. With that void filled with expoy, there's no driving it out, no matter how big of a hammer. New liner is in, and they should be running by monday.
And who doesn't like a track loader picture?
I see that like most quarries they are absolutely on top of cleaning up their conveyor spillage - not..!!
@Tags ,I had the same question @crane operator Thanks for the solid explanation with pictures.
That brings back memories of an exchange my brother had with one of the "engineers" of the then new plant I ended up working at for 40+ years. My brother started working there during the summer after he graduated from high school two years before me. Brother was complaining about the way there was so much stone spilling off the conveyors. This "engineer" when he heard this kid complaining asked he what was his problem? Brother told him he was tired of cleaning up all the spillage. "Engineer" said but this is a spillage free plant! Brother then said why am I spending most of my day shoveling up spillage? To which the "engineer" replied as only an "engineer" could, "But it worked on Paper!" Could never understand why some of the tail pullies on the secondary plant which were above ground when I stated there were now three feet below grade level by the time I retired! And the entrance to the main electrical control building which used to be at least one step up at the entrance was last I knew one step down! I mean it's not like there weren't a handful of front end loaders and a couple skid steer loaders available to keep the place cleaned up! And the whole plant was built right on bedrock so there wasn't a problem of digging too deep while scraping the floor!
When the crane rips off the base/ undercarriage like that, its usually a safe bet that its been repeatedly overloaded, and/ or repeatedly shock loaded. Of the pictures I've seen of one's that have broken off, it seems its more likely to tear the welds out, than break the bolts out. But either one can occur.
Thank you for the explanation, it's absolutely amazing and lucky that no one was standing next to that when it went over, looks like the operator went for one hell of a ride though…
For those who haven't seen pictures before, here's kshansen's old work site when he got started:
Yeah, that's a rolling a rock up a mountain kind of job, never gets done. This is the boiler refurb at the asphalt plant I did last saturday, at the same time I was finishing up the other crusher job with the 100 ton. They are only a mile or two apart, so I was able to just go back and forth to get everyone done. The roof of the boiler shed is angle iron with two pick lugs, pop the roof off and replace boiler.
Finally got the big tank loaded out. 83' tank takes a 83' well. And it was pouring rain. Everyone was thrilled. And of course my rain pants had a epic blowout. I hate working in the rain.
Several episodes of trucker arguing with the factory guys (tanks too wide- can't load trailer here- tanks too tall etc. etc.), move trailer, shim trailer, tank up, tank down, rinse and repeat often, and we finally got it loaded. I pity him on any railroad crossings.
Sun finally peeked out as we were done and back to shop.
The first photo in post# 3152 looks like the trailer midsection is maybe an inch off the ground. Did the trucker leave like that ? Even the railroad needs more clearance than that.
The trailer was built essentially like a detach lowboy neck on each end, so he could raise and lower each neck. There were shims in the neck, and at each joint in the trailer. In the one picture its got 2'+ of camber in the middle, all that camber came out when we laid the tank in it, so it took a lot of tries to get the blocking and shimming correct. The one joint in the picture is actually almost on the ground, that was the close point. We raised the tank to max legal height and shimmed it to there with the necks. Driver said he could jack up either neck to get over a low spot. I don't think anywhere in the middle of the trailer was over 3" off the ground loaded when we left. Hope he's headed for kansas, nebraska, s. dakota, oklahoma- flat country.
That reminds me of the time years back when a car hauler apparently not familiar with the route decided to take Route 31C from the Route 90 exit to Elbridge instead of Route 31B. The route he took came on to Main Street in town a few hundred yards from the car dealer. Problem is there was a very short and steep approach on to Main Street. Last I saw him he was sitting there with the trailer wheels half off the ground and spinning tires on the tractor!
The riposte to that is that it's like shovelling **** uphill. It's a tough job but someobody's got to do it......
A strange creature has seemed to adopted me today while at work. Found him by the dumpster. Send help.
This made me laugh way too hard at work lol!
Be afraid, be very afraid! He's coming right for you!
Off to work early with the moon out. Got the big Christmas tree up also.
Had a forklift rented last week too, installing one 20,000 lbs process machine and moving a different one. Crane to load and unload, and then skates and a 10k telehandler to move around in the buildings.
Setting steel and removing a boat top for transport.
Had another one not make the corner at my driveway, this time a motorcycle. He's busted up pretty good, collarbone and ribs, went over the handlebars after going right into the culvert.
Replacing bucket elevator, 110' back inside the building. Pulled roof panels for access. Had to bring along a extra steel mat to get leveled up.
Do all those cracks in the pavement make you a bit concerned about how the ground is under it?
Not too much, the old plant has been around forever, and most any dirt you can find or scratch around here is solid rock underneath it. With my 4'x6' mats you aren't real likely to punch through. In other news, the 2005 3/4ton ford truck I bought earlier this year as a project, just wouldn't stay running right. With my limited diagnostic equip, I finally gave up and it went to a local shop. They called today and it needs phasers and the cams are actually worn also. It won't hold timing. I told them to just do the timing chains while they are there. Its got 88,000 miles on it, and I guess the timing issues are the weak area of the 5.4's. My old dodge one of the guys drives, popped a snap ring in the transfer case. Its parts are supposed to be in the first of the week. And the 2000 ford flatbed with a 7.3, is also going to get its engine replaced, junkyard engine is picked up. I've been driving my '92 fsuperduty most of the time, I think I still like it better than anything else I own, and its at least running right now. In the "make repairs or make payments" game- right now I'm making repairs.
When ambition outweighs ability.........
I'm right there with you on yhe payments or repairs game. My 2008 needs a Transmission Fluid Temperature sensor replaced which I will be doing this morning yet. Drain trans fluid, drop the pan, pull filter, make a mess of tranny fluid everywhere, replace $12 part, and install everything again. With the sensor not reading, the truck is in a limp home mode and won't shift into 5th gear. Also, the shifts are excessively firm and pronounced. 223,000 miles so I guess I'm due. Truck also needs new exhaust manifolds, studs and gaskets, and a replacement bed, but that will be my winter project.
Its down hill and marked curvy up at the top of the hill. But the first part of the hill is pretty straight, and then it gets curvy toward the bottom, with my driveway being the first tight curve. Its kinda flat at the start of the curve, so they come rolling down the hill, and with as steep as it is, they just can't get slowed down to make the corner. Its much worse if its wet. Its raining this morning and I bet someone goes off. The county just came out and replaced the curve signs again from the last two cars that went off, they each took one of the signs. The motorcycle was lucky, they hadn't replaced the signs yet or he would have smacked one of them on his way to the culvert. Most of the cars split the culvert, and dukes of hazzard it across the driveway. Usually it gets a a-arm or most of the front lower grill assembly on a car. I've been thinking of a sign to put out by the road, but they would probably just hit it too.
I like to skirt the edge between paid for and no repairs. When we start to need repairs on a truck it's time to buy a new one - hopefully the last "new" truck has just paid off at that time.
I don't mind payments on equipment, I just can't stand the thought of payments on a pickup. I know how it makes sense for the depreciation deduction, and how low interest is. Its just that the pickups don't make me any $$$. So spending $$ on one is tough for me.
I’ve been making pretty good money doing lockouts on the cam phasers on the newer 5.4s usually takes me around 3 hours if I’m not doing timing chains if you replace them use motorcraft only do not use the parts store specials they won’t last
My rural road is not plowed in the winter past my driveway, my place is the last the county plows to. They have a sign: NOT MAINTAINED IN THE WINTER PAST THIS POINT" 30' south of my turnoff. Every year, like clockwork, people try it and get stuck. At least now, with cell phones, they don't knock on my door and want to use my phone.
I have some glass hoisting pics to post up, is this the place?
Post them on a new thread. Sounds interesting.
will do, right now postimg.org has been down a day. I may have to look for a new place for pics.
You can upload pics from your device directly to HEF. You don't need to host them elsewhere first.
Yep unlike some forums it is easy here. Just look down in the lower right of the box you are typing a reply in and there should be three blue buttons. One says "Post Reply" Center on says "Upload a File" and the right one says "More Options..." Click on the "Upload a File" and it should take you to a place you can click on the picture file you want to post. There may be a size limit so if you have a picture file that is huge you may have to reduce it but most will go through just fine.
Roof top hvac units.
Trusses at a lake house.
Got late setting trusses on the lake house, I drove home in the dark. Water pumping station with the RT.
Did you have Cat Stevens playing in the background on that job?
Had to go back and put hats on at the lake house.
Concrete wet well. Base section was 27,000. The risers didn't match the drawings, so they had to adjust the depth a little before it was set.
Ford just got its inspection passed. Going to have to trim the bumper back a little, floats up front are pretty close to rubbing. Mack has a leaking boom cylinder. Generator offload with the galion.
Nope- I'm so poor I can barely pay attention, let alone afford a radio in the crane cab. That said- you're showing your age Dave, Cat stevens is before my time.
Wife's little honda had a door window go "thunk". At least that's the description I got. Door window regulator cable slipped through the plastic mount, trashed the cable in the cable reel. I was kinda surprised, the new regulator and track complete was only like $60. I was guessing it would be over $100. A update on the '05 ford with cam phaser issues: phaser issues turned into bad cams, then it turns out the cams ate into the aluminum heads, because ford decided cam bearings were not necessary. Repair shop was going to be over $5,000 if I had one head replaced, and over $7,000 for them to install a reman engine. I don't really need them to replace the motor for me, so I paid them for their time, and took the rollback over there and loaded it up. Reman engine showed up just before thanksgiving. $3,000 for a reman engine, 3 year and 100,000 mile warranty. The reman engines supposedly have cam bearings in the heads.
Its that time of year that gets a little foggy in the morning in our area. Had to go to the quarry with the 100 ton. They broke off the concrete barrier at the top of the intake feeder for the jaw crusher. They used a breaker to bust up the old stop. But we had to pick up the feeder hopper and move it back into position. I had to have them take a excavator up on the upper deck to push it into place after I had it picked up. Last picture is the wet well we set the other day. We had to go back to pick up the counterweights, and the water has been filling in the hole. Good thing they have it backfilled and I hope some of that water made its way inside the well. Its a pain when they float out.
Anybody else spend thanksgiving weekend building a tiger pen? I guess the tigers can't chew up the conexes, so they are there for shade and a structure for them to climb on. Used the 100 ton to set the conexes, and the galion to work under the power lines.
They have the trench and pvc installed to move the power underground, just couldn't get it done in time for the panel installation. I was going to set them all from the topside with the 100 ton, but when the power co. couldn't get the lines underground, we had to get a little creative.
Made a maiden voyage with the counterweights on the new truck. I don't know what the 3406e is set at in the ford, but it pulls. We needed to get the weights off the winch truck, because I knew I was going to need the winch truck for getting the galion back out of the tiger pen hole. It got a little late on friday night, LED's are the best.
Short road and corner into the hole at the tiger pen. Newer ford as dead man, winch truck doing the pulling. Had to swap to just the winch truck for the last of the hill, dead man attachment was dragging me down the hill. Had the galion on three wheels for a while before it broke over.
Quarries, locomotives and tiger pens. It really is a wild world! Here's some recent Cat Stevens. Yusuf / Cat Stevens "Wild World" - YouTube
nice to see you work a neck bender. They don't show up much over here.
That tree looks awfully close to the enclosure panels. They do realize cats can climb trees and jump from said trees ?? I hope those tigers are well fed and satisfied
This morning after I posted that, here comes a beaver tail lowboy that has a whole tool kit on it, look like a 12 ton in front then a scissor lift and a warehouse forklift. I hadn't seen a neck bender on a low boy in ages!
And I would not be so sure they can't climb that fence!
One of the guys that works for me, is looking for a farm backhoe. I looked online a little while tonight, and saw one coming up at ritchie bros as a "inoperable" machine. Ad says trans. slips and loader damage. Somebody tried to repair it. https://www.rbauction.com/1988-john...nvId=12387700&id=ci&auction=denver-co-2020261
That is one big weak point on most older backhoes I have welded a few they crack on the inside first if you catch them before that it's not a big deal dont think I have ever seen one that far gone
They should have left it cracked! There's bad welding and there's awful welding. Not sure what that mess is but it isn't welding. Would probably have to make a new lower section for the loader arm or find a used loader boom.
that was likely done with a brand new $89.00 wire feed from some where
Or someone was gouging close by and blew all the slag and molten steel on it. What's really sad is it looks like they spent quite a bit a time making it worse with every attempted bead.
On that Birdshyt pile replace the loader frame!!! 'IF' can get it REALLY Cheap then worth it.
No, that machine just needs to go to a parts dealer. Already has a trans problem, coupled with a crippled boom. Send it to someone who needs an engine or replacement hoe parts. If the P.O. did that to the boom, what else did they fabricobble on that machine?
Denver is too far to go to buy a project backhoe, there's likely busted loaders closer to me, that wouldn't be so expensive to go get! I'll give them this- they spent a long time trying to fix it, I don't know why they didn't just overplate the whole thing, or cut it off and patch something else in. If you've got time to make a mess like that, you could at least just cover it all up with some 1/4" flat plate and hope for the best. They certainly weren't trying to make it look nice.
That crack went neglected for a long time before it ever came close to catastrophic in fact I bet the owner that tried to fix it bought it with the crack in it and thought nothing of and then bought a wire feed after it got ugly and thought nothing of fixing it everyone's a backhoe operator and everyone's a welder just ask them
The person that welded that probably got a participation award.
That looks like a Torch weld.
Boom cylinder is back from the hyd. shop for the Mack. The guys got it reinstalled today while I was out setting trusses. We had tried to pull the cylinder apart, leaving the barrel in the crane, but it was stuck, so we removed the whole cylinder from the crane and sent it to a bench. They said it was stuck pretty hard, and the paint shows it slipped in their bench pulling it apart, its got some pretty good cat claw scratches. While the cylinder was down, I decided to pull the suspension apart. Center trunnion was worn, and I'm doing the rest while I'm there. I decided to just do one side at a time, it will mean a extra trip to get the other bushing pushed in, but I don't really want to have to line everything all up again if I pull both sides at the same time. From what I understand, the u bolts on a camelback torque spec is "really tight". I'll have to dig out the torque multiplier.
Got the other vault installed beside the wet well. This one doesn't have a bottom, its pour in place. Golf course has been spending some $$ with the deere dealer....
Had to do a little skating project. Luckily, they had a 10k telehandler at the jobsite, so I could use it for one end and skates under the other side and pushed them both in.
Damn, looks like they had Wolverine pulling that cylinder apart
Two cabins this morning. First one was great- 35' commons and vaults. Second one was a pain. One way pitch roof, 45' trusses with 1/2 of the truss being a 15" tall vaulted area. And of course they split all the boards in the truss at the joint. We didn't have to stiff back them, but I can't believe we didn't break any of them.
you do get into some interesting stuff
it was often referred to as German Tight aka "Guten Tight".
Pretty sure the mechanic that installed new springs on my dump truck, and u-bolts said that the torque spec is one full turn short of breaking.
I was told that you turn it until it breaks then back off half a turn......
1600 lbs if they are the ones I am thinking of. 400lbs on the torque wrench across the multiplier, takes about half a day row boating to tighten ONE u-bolt it seems.
You need one of these .........
Hytorq is Your Friend!!! Useful in MANY Places!
Hytorq is Your Friend!!! Useful in MANY Places! This is how Mack tightened them originally!! Mack Truck Trunnion Press - 2012 - YouTube
I saw you were working on your stuff out side and thought about the weather but you are just far enuff from the north poll than me. I hauled eggs to Lebanon one winter i would leave home were it was 20 or less and Lebanon would be in the 50s or warmer.
I don't think a hytorc is in the budget this year. I really don't do enough big stuff to justify having one. I'll probably just be rowing like Dmiller says. Typical weather for us is high 40's low 50's day, 30's at night. I've lived here 12 years now, and its only been in the single digits a handful of times. I try to do as much in the shop as I can, but we had to have the boom around backwards, and forklift and crane for boom cylinder, and that's just easier to do outdoors.
Anyone rent them round your way.? All depends how much you have in the availability of manpower department I guess.
It would probably take me longer to get one, than it will to just tighten them up. My center trunnion isn't the two piece one, mine is one piece, and that should make it a little easier to tighten up. Looks like from the video Dmiller posted that I should put jacks under each axle and give a little up pressure flex on the springs as I tighten.
Once the bolts are in place just row like hell!! Will not need the pressure with the multiplier, just gonna take forever. Will need something situated pretty solid to set multiplier handle against, Nothing Springy.
The passenger side trunnion slid right off, so you know the drivers side wouldn't be easy. I got down there after my crane job this morning, the guys had tried burning out the center yesterday and trying to cut the inner. Well there's just no room in there to cut, so then they went to cutting on the block. They didn't get very far on cutting the hub, nobody was real happy burning rubber out. I was able to get it to start rocking with light persuasions tapping from each side. I flattened the ubolt holes on each side while tapping on it, but I got it to move a little. I was then able to get a puller on it and got the rest of the outer off. Then I slit the inner in two pieces so we're down to shaft. New trunnion hub is on its way, should be here next week. They put a couple scarfs in the inner shaft when they were trying to cut in from the outside, but I think it will be fine.
"Tapping on it" now that's funny!
Some days ‘finesse’ is a ten or twenty pound head and a lot of vented frustrations!!
If a HyTorq isn't in the budget put two torque multipliers in line and power it with a Ridgid 700.
Those darn metal-eating chipmunks have been at it again ..........
Local lowboy driver got lucky the other day. This is a steep little driveway, and crowns bad where it hits the road, he got bellied out trying to make the highway. Driver got out and lifted the neck off the road, its pretty steep right there, and the tractor wouldn't hold it. It slid back through the guardrail, and the trailer hung up on the road again, or it all would have ended up down the hill. The trailer neck was holding the truck off the ground. I went to see if they wanted a bunch of old tires to walk the excavator off the trailer (this is right by my shop), but they were worried the excavator was the only thing holding it still on the road. The first wrecker ran out of pull, they were waiting for a second one to tug the truck with the trailer. They had it out late that night. Funny thing is, they stuck a dozer just a week or so ago in the same spot, same truck. I might have just lifted the neck before I tried making the highway.
Set some sewer boxes at a resort. 15,000lbs around 60' away.
Working on a cone crusher, and went and looked at a job down by the lake yesterday afternoon.
Spotted this forklift for sale the other day, and the forks seemed a little odd, the shafts are all bent up. Closer look- they took 8' forks, and welded them to the top of the 4' forks.
I’d say that driver got off pretty easy. I’ve been looking at tella handlers as well, mostly for my own jobs but I’m sure I’d hire it and an operator out as well. I haven’t decided between the 5 k machines and the mid sized machines, for my own use the small machine would be best but for hiring it out I’m thinking bigger is better. One thing I’m finding is most of the used machines have been hated on, and there’s a premium on the the gently used units.
I wanted a telehandler when I bought my galion 15ton. I want a 10 or 12k if I'm buying one, that's how big I rent when I really need one. And they are all $30,000 plus for anything that's not destroyed. I've got around $20,000 in my galion and have been happy with it. Its more of a niche machine, and I'm a niche job kinda guy. I can rent a 10k anywhere anytime, so I really don't want to invest 30k in one, I just wouldn't use it that often. If I was general contracting and building homes, I'd own a 10k in a heartbeat. The small 5k 5519's etc, are ridgid frame machines. I would definitely get a little bit bigger machine that has the tiltable frame instead of a ridgid frame. Other wise if your on any kind of a slope its hard to have the guys work out of a platform or place a bunk of plywood sheeting by the roof. Get tilt frame. The other advantage to a smaller 6-8k cap. machine, is its easier to haul if you just have a gooseneck trailer behind a 1 ton. The 10k cap. lifts are 35,000 lbs plus.
I didn’t notice before what’s all that white stuff LOL
Its not by me. We were 70 degrees thursday.
Thanks a lot for bringing this up. This has been the last 3 hours here.
Those photos make me feel cold just looking at them........ Currently 84, mostly sunny with scattered heavy rain showers & about 110% humidity.
That's the way the models have been tracking all week. I didn't want to ruin yesterday for you too. If it makes you feel better, I didn't even get flurries up here and I like snow.
I prefer the 70ºF's but for this time of year I would rather have it in the 20ºF's than this 30-40ºF BS! Too cold to do anything outside and too warm to freeze the ground so all you have is mud! At least if it gets cold enough to freeze the mud you can cut some fire wood and not have a mess when you bring it in the house a year or two from now to burn it. Like they say when you cut and split firewood in the winter you get heat out of it twice!
Well the ground was warm, but our temps have been cool, so this snow has hung around a while. A jeep managed to get stuck in a flat spot, and someone went through the ditch at the shop corner. Lucky for them, someone already took out the new corner sign a week ago, so they only ran over the already knocked over sign.
They want to raise the block walls of this building. With osb prices through the roof, and new trusses with a long lead time, we're going to try to save the trusses and roof. Someone has a pair of oil leaks to take care of also.
I was way off on weight of the roof section also, and I still can't figure out why its as heavy as it is. They had not gotten it separated very well from the walls, and that didn't help any, but its on the ground now. They've decided now that they are doing all the bays of the building, originally they were only raising one bay. We're going to take a little more crane to get the rest off, I had to boom up a little to get the first section off with the 70 ton. I had some margin built in when we went up there, but I used it all up.
Compressor for a big chiller unit. When we brought the old one down, we tried to transfer the two picking eyes to the new compressor. One eye simply snapped off when trying to remove it. They had a little gantry up on the roof taking the compressor out, and I know they had a short chain just going flat from eye to eye. I'm sure that cracked/ bent the eye. distorting the threads, then it snapped off rather than unthreading. I'm just glad it didn't let loose on the way down from the roof. M16 thread eye, customer's picking eye, and you can guess where it was made.
Went and did the job down by the lake. 1st gear with power divider in. Slow and easy.
I knew the hot shot driver wouldn't have a chance of driving back out of the pump station, but " I've got 4 wheel drive" etc. etc. Hate to tell you this bud- but the weight is now all on the trailer axles after I pulled the building off, with no weight on the drives, you ain't making that hill. Whatever. Fortunately, he spun out before the curve, he would have never got it backed back down around the curve, without jacknifing. Extra 4x4 ford up front and they got up, but there was a lot of spinning. It was nice of them to tear the road up before I had to get out.
I've broke axles and it ain't no fun, I hook up some help before I need it. That way if you roll a rock, the help keeps you moving in the right direction, instead of digging holes and spinning out.
I picked a garage roof, complete, several years ago, so they could put the new already framed walls and floor underneath it, brace them, and then have me set it back down, making a second story out of it. It went perfect, what was great about the job was it was for my county's recently retired building inspector, who had earlier retired from 30 years of being an iron worker. In other words, EVEN THOUGH he was an inspector....he knew what he was doing, and I took it as a high compliment he choose me to do the hoisting. He had beams already in place up in the trusses, so my tele spreader bar and 4 pick points was all we needed, and it floated up just perfect.
Volunteer day at a church. Volunteers to set clear span 70' trusses is always a adventure. The head guy is a contractor, so he and his son knew what was going on, but if the lone mexican framer hadn't shown up at about 9:30, it would have been a long, long, long two days. Typical volunteers, everyone wants to stand on the ground and direct, no one wanted up in the roof. The old guy cutting blocks evidently forgot his glasses, because next thing I see- is someone with a tape measure sorting blocks by length, within a inch was the acceptable range. I think at one time they had a "long" and "short" pile. They will have to do some adjusting to get sheeting on. Started connecting trusses, with cordless drills and screws. They had air compressor and hoses all laid out, and I'm like "Hey, where's the nail guns to put on these hoses?" Contractor thought it would be easier/safer for the volunteers to handle screw guns. The poor framer up in the roof that was doing all the work, just didn't have enough hands to line block up, pull truss over, start screw and run it in. Nail gun = line up and bam bam. I ain't got time for screw guns. Truss providers must be struggling to get long lumber, bottom chords were 12' long boards, which makes for a snaky truss. Wind came up about noon, and we had to go to two tag ropes, head guy was " that takes too long" . Two tag ropes was the least of our speed troubles. But they all got put up in a day and nobody got hurt.
25 ton sprung a radiator leak, and yes, I tried to smear some "water weld" JB weld on there to get me to a job if I needed to, because the camelback was still in pieces. And no, the "water weld" didn't work. I am that guy that will try to bubble gum something together in a pinch. I shouldn't even be allowed near nice stuff. Leak is right at the fold of the top tank, radiator is going to come out next week, maybe........... if I don't really really need it, in which case it will just go to a job and drip antifreeze.
But I may not need the 25, Camelback is back together. I did a little custom torque multiplier work, with my lug nut remover super tool. Its like a 50:1 and it worked pretty slick. Slugger wrench on the next nut over for a stop and spin spin spin by hand. You can tell when it starts wrapping up with the torque. I felt a little close to it all if things went bad, but it all worked. Hytoc is going to have to wait for a different job. I think we'll take the mack for a little run, and then better put it back up on jacks and recheck everything.
They're moving out of a jobsite in town. The tow truck boys had a whole car trailer full of tires for the job trailer. They were planning on a few tires not making it. Someone whacked one of the old light poles in the parking lot pretty hard, and the chandelier that they saved, between the wind and some vandals there isn't much left.
Roofing materials with the 70 ton, and legal eagle with the new counterweight rig. Removing creek boxes with the 100 ton. We put this crossing in a year or so ago, and it keeps flooding and cutting out the road. It replaced a ancient pour in place that was 1/2 of its size. But the county decided its going to have to put in a bridge instead of the boxes. They will store the boxes and use them in a different location.
Had to move one of the vaults we set a few weeks ago. They had moved a feeder line to the riser box, and that made the precast holes not line up. Unfortunately, they didn't have room to get the concrete core drill between the boxes, so we picked up the one box to get some room to work. It got a little stormy, and we even got a rainbow. There's evidently a rush on, we had gotten winded out of two jobs, and I was standing at the shop when I got the "how soon can you be here?" call. My "about a hour" reply I think made the customers day. And probably his Christmas weekend.
Has that new engine paid for itself yet..?
With what the engine cost, considering profit margiins etc. etc., probably not. But new cranes like it are a cool seven figures. With what I have invested in the crane, its not like I had a choice, if it needs a engine, I'm kinda stuck putting in the engine. I'm still nervous as a cat when running it, hearing noises that aren't there. I'm barely getting to the point where I trust it. All that said, its a really nice crane for my uses for it- the size that it is and what it will do. Those germans build a really nice machine.
I hear you. The three Grove (basically a Krupp with a different suit of clothes) ATs that they have here are awesome machines all things considered.
I ran a 110 ton Krupp back in 92. Krupp sent their US factory mechanic out to teach me how to run it. How to take advantage of the kneeling system to set it up and so on. I drove it about 40 miles from the port. Drove better than my truck. Only had it for one job. It is a memorable piece though.
They have a 110-ton GMK machine here, along with a 165 and a 250.
Fascinating stuff removing the ENTIRE roof in one piece @CraneOperator
Well, we installed a reman engine in the 3/4 ton ford, 5.4. Ran great after installation. Have about 2 weeks of running on it. It was teens one morning a week or so ago, and when I started it, it didn't want to idle hardly. Won't hardly run on the road either. It acts like it has the timing all goofed up again. Its sitting in my driveway right now, we've been too busy getting other stuff running, that I haven't had time to mess with it. I don't know if the new phasers are junk, or I have a ecm issue throwing the timing all out of whack, but I know I don't have the tools to diagnose it, so I think its going to have to go to a shop. I'd be interested to know what's all involved in locking them out. I'm assuming there is a piece that locks the cams in place for timing, and then the phasers are completely removed? It did run great though for the two weeks we had it going......
Its amazing how much they have changed since 1992. At that time, the booms were still all cylinder, or cylinder plus cable extend. It really limited boom length, the 110's were usually only 131' booms, the 175's only had 161'. Today they use a single extend cylinder, and locking pins on the booms. You can get a 110 ton with a 200' main boom. A 250 ton can be over 250' of main boom if you get the extra long booms. The GMK suspension is still the same drop boxes and big a arms with hydraulic "struts" suspension, almost the same as '92.. They do ride like a dream. My liebherr is a little different, it has solid axles like a big RT, and then just hydraulic cylinders for the suspension. I don't think they ride quite as nice as the grove, but its a lot simpler and more durable suspension and axles. Been enjoying those pictures also. Your application is different than a lot of our daily "rental" type work. All the heavy picks in close don't usually need all the counterweight, and really don't utilize or need all the "long" boom features of the new stuff. Just lots of parts of line so everything moves nice and slow.
For our machine assembly work in my thread in the Shop Talk forum maybe, but what you don't get to see is them working in tight corners of the Process Plant with all 300' of boom out plus a fly jib on the end working over the top of buildings & such. That's what they were specifically bought for, and I for one am glad they are on site. Makes my job easier. There is a plant expansion project coming up that requires a high-capacity tower crane because of insufficient area to operate a big crawler. What's coming is a Liebherr 4000 HC 100. According to the spec sheet it will do 22.5 tonnes @ 96m radius........ https://www.liebherr.com/en/int/pro...ewing-cranes/heavy-load-hc/details/72261.html
I can't find any pics. of the crane but it must have been fun putting the spinning roller coaster in at West Edmonton Mall. The floor was reinforced with tele-posts so they could bring in a 30 ton P&H crane in to install the pieces that were lowered through a hole in the roof with a huge crane ( I think a Liebherr 100ton+). The older (70's) P&H had the best profile and chart for working in the extremely tight confines. All the work was done at night because the rest of the amusement park was in operation during the day. Only a couple times was opening at 10 am delayed. The total weight of everything was 320 tons and it weaved around the other roller coasters and rides. During the day they put a barrier around the crane with a spec. sheet like it was a new attraction. Galaxy Orbiter - Galaxyland, West Edmonton Mall (HD) - YouTube
that`ll make a dent in the profits
From what I understand they are buying it new with some sort of a guaranteed buyback from Liebherr after construction is finished about 18 months down the line.
Locking them out isn’t to difficult they make a tool to slide in to hold the timing chain in place so you can slide the phasers off the end of the cams without tearing the entire front end down to get to the timing chains just make sure you mark the phasers and chain well so you can line them back up biggest issue is to make sure whether it has Forman or Ford phasers as the kits are different a pair of vice grips on the cams right behind the phasers to lock the cams in place helps a lot as spring pressure from the valves will rotate the cams when you pull the phasers loose and it’s just a small piece of billet aluminum that slides inside the phaser after you loosen the front cover on them that keeps them from moving definitely watch a couple YouTube videos before attempting
"Brand new" suspension bushing for my son's pickup. Evidently someone had trouble installing it, shoved it back in the box, and returned it to ORielly's. Its been ground all over the back end and really torn up. I called and asked for another one.
Hvac unit and some trusses.
Finishing up the trusses, roofing materials with the 70 ton. And I love it when the truss pile is way out there...
Got to do these trusses twice. Its a fertilizer storage building, two piece trusses. Set the back half first, then tried to do the front 1/2. Jig was off when they made the trusses, so they wouldn't fit up. There were some heated phone conversations. Trusses came down, and they sent new ones a week later. Second set fit better. I forgot to take a picture after we set the front 1/2.
Nothing like steering light with a load of cedar on the back.
I've heaped a good load of firewood onto my truck many times, but dang, that one takes the cake there
what th rims ain`t touchin th ground
At least it's not a load of hedge posts. The receiver hitch would be dragging the ground if it was.
Yeah, cedar is pretty light. Saw these pictures today. Link belt lattice truck setting tilt up panels.
wow! Ripped rotec.
What's the culprit behind that problem
that`s flat scary
no kidding, being downwind of that boom and load.
Tilt ups are always heavy, and you get side loaded a lot. its hard to be just in the right spot every time. If you'll notice, the rear outriggers have a wheel set on them, rather than a outrigger pad. Its a cheesy way to pick and carry with your outriggers down. They pick up the front set of outriggers pads and move the crane with the rear outrigger set on the tire sets that are mounted where the outrigger pad would usually go. The picking and carrying on the outrigger wheel set leads to a lot of swinging back and forth of the load while they are moving, and that all gets transferred to the bearing. I think this one got tired of that and it cracked off. The fact that the crack is toward the rear of the crane, says swinging load banging it, more than a overload. Overload would tend to rip the area toward the front of the crane on the bearing, when picking and carrying over the rear wheel set.
Ouch! That looks like it would be an awful ride and an even worse feeling as an operator as it's going over. So here's a question, does insurance pay for that repair if the insurance company sees it as abuse or is it even repairable?
That depends on the insurance contract. I worked with an adjuster one time on a crane tip over. His phrase for that project, "stupidity is insurable."
Who would ever see this warning label . ??
Warning. If you can read this you have exceeded load parameters.
Around here tilt ups are usually done on a crawler crane and its usually a minimum of 250 tons
Where the crawler doesn't work, is if they don't have the room around the perimeter of the building (build to the lot lines). Or the ground conditions are really poor, then it gets $$$ to try to timber mat it all. This one was in the pacific northwest, and with all the rain they get, I can see wanting to work off the concrete. That also looks like a pretty big ditch off the back of the concrete where the dropped panel is laying, so I don't think they would have had room for a crawler. The wheel set under the outrigger isn't a new idea, I've seen pictures of old lattice rigs in the 70's doing it. I think they will have the crane on the wheel set, and actually start with the top of the panel right at the crane, and allow the crane to roll toward the bottom of the panel as they stand it. The bottom of the panel is poured toward the wall, so as it tilts up, the crane ends up sitting where the panel got poured at, and the base is right at the wall. I've never actually seen it done, just pictures.
ORonglys delivers to our shop every day like clockwork but this happens alot ujoints are one of the worst. I have unboxed more than one used ujoint.
I think I would be making the delivery person open each box before they left the property!
That crane has outriggers on the upper, its made to "self assemble" kind of like the new crawlers. You pick the upper off the carrier, and drop the house on a lowboy. I'm not going to bet against that being a cause of the coming off the carrier either, that whatever locks it to the house came undone, or someone flipped a lever wrong, and the house was just setting on the lower instead of locked. And then with a load on, it twisted off. So when its picked up on the outriggers, off the carrier, that's when you see the label.
Judging of the DRY Dusty appearance of that bearing and bull gear was not getting much of a slather of lube either. By sheered area it appears to have been catastrophic fail not a break and hold or over time zipper.
Dropping some tanks for moving to a different facility. Little building weighed 18,000lbs. Its like 5" thick of steel and wood.
Big tree on the other side of the house. There's a street on the other side, but its on the wrong side of the power lines. It was a big old maple, deck of the house was built around it.
Didn't have much room to lay the branches down either, house power line and another across the street. Bottom piece of trunk made a trailer load.
Got the christmas tree down. The last picture is one of their little delivery wagons for in the amusement park. How many miles to you have to pull one of those little wagons to wear all the tread off?
Got the rest of the roof off to raise the building walls. The contractor decided to cut it in only 2 pieces instead of the 3 sections I asked him to cut it into, so the last section was a little bigger than I wanted. It had some rotten sheeting on the one side, so they were trying to avoid that. I'm of the smaller pieces is better camp, but - It held together.
Probably not as many miles as you think. My dad has a used golf cart . Tires looked perfect when he got it 7 years ago. He only drives it 6 months a year, and not daily or long distances either. Two years ago he had to replace both front tires as they had wore right down to the cords. Maybe 500-750miles driven on them, but all on pavement .Back tires are worn, but still have tread.
Ha! That's just cause you steal it and are out ratting around in it. Pulling doughnuts in the church parking lot I bet.
I like the paint job on their propane tank. View attachment 232574
Hi Crane Operator I noticed a series of spreader bars in your pics. Do you make those yourself or buy them? I’m looking to build one for non commercial applications.....recommendations ? (lifts under 15,000 Lbs). Thank you Bob
What in the world is that 18,000 lb building used for? blast shelter?
Storing equipment used in the fracturing of rock in quarries, if you get my drift... We just moved one yesterday for them that weighed 31,000. It was built on a old trailer frame.
Friend of mine is licensed His is a concrete LINED 20’ conex Empty is at max weight
This showed up today. I'm going to need a oilfield hand to show me how to run it, its got levers, chains, and cables running everywhere. It kinda looks like a guy could hurt himself with it if he wasn't paying attention. Its a 1981, c500. Big cam cummins, 13 speed with (I think ) a 4speed aux. Its triple frame from the back bumper to the rear of the front spring hanger, then double frame to the front bumper.
Time to call JY Oil field Gin pole work booms are not for the faint hearted! Have not worked one in close to forty years Handy as socks on a rooster for those that can manage one
when you figure out how the gin pole flips up and over to the back let me know will you? i think i know but not sure
BTW Where the hell did ya find that relic?? That is from MY era!!!
Not so much the Raising as the controlled drop to the rear/or front that becomes fun!!! Timing IS everything. Last one I saw like that was 1981 when That old Biddy was NEW.
Cool rig ! Maybe no certification, no tickets ,run her on straight tipping capacity. Looks like fun to me.
Far western oklahoma. Oilfield is dead right now. I don't know why I bought it but here it is. I'll give it a whirl and see what happens. This one actually has three winches, so I think I can flip it over controlled and let it down with the line winch. That or hook it on a tree and drive.
Make a movie when your playing with it.
I agree, Vids are a NECESSITY now!!!
Second or third time top shiv in dirt or bounce off roof rack will be a master!! I was, in the day!! Of bouncing them off stuff on flip over!!
Lets see air under those fat front tires!
I`m getting started on building a lightweight similar contraption to be interchangeable with the front bucket of a loader as well as the back of a truck. 24' long to handle 5-800 lbs in and out of a van. btw nice looking piece of eq.
Its got two pto's, one for the little side winch driven off the main trans., and the big winches run off the aux. I think I can change speed on the big winches by what gear in the main. I don't think it has a reverser, I think you reverse in the main trans. The little pto has a reverser. It didn't come with a instruction manual, or a wizened old gnome folded up in the glove box, that could pop out at the right time and slap me "THAST NOT THE WAY YA DO THATTHERE YA IDJIT!!!!"
I wasn't that worried about this thing until you guys started in....
I've got one on the back burner that would be a jib mounted on forklift forks for a telehandler or straight mast forklift, and use a 12v winch up over a head sheave and a battery set on the frame. Remote control and I'd be golden.
If you like haywire a frames ,im almost embarrased to show this one. I just had to get my new electric furnace jammed up on the shop wall one saturday.
"Hello? OSHA? Do you do cross border inspections to Britich Covumbia? No?!? But what if I see something really dumb, like the dumb things I would do? Mind my own business? Do I need my own personal shop inspection? Why no, icertainlydontneedyoutocometomyshopthankyouverymuch......" What's this OH&S thing?
And i used it with out a forklift ticket and lived to tell about it.
I'm sure WorkSafe BC has a 24hr number.
You ain't really using those gin poles unless the fronts are over 2' in the air. You bend those and I've got a new set here to replace them. 5 1/2 od, 3 1/2 id mains, with 3 1/4 od x 1 1/4 id extensions. I've got a 30T single sheave tailboard block to go with them.
Those sound a little heavier than sch.40
looks like it worked. whats not to like
Drill pipe
Actually DOM tubing.
We helped build this house a few years back. Something is bleeding through the stucco/ siding finish. Looks like steel chicken wire instead of aluminum, but I ain't no finish expert. Anyways, the homeowner is a doctor, and they are moving houses, and taking the swim spa and hot tub with them. I don't know if they're moving to fix this house, or its all in court, or what's going on, I'm just moving the tub. I do know I'm glad I'm not the general that built this house, because it was all custom design, and the little bit that I was involved was a mess when being built. Maybe I'll get to put it back when the house is redone.
Another tank and storage building, this was the 31,000lbs one. Storage building was all built out of a old trailer frame.
Swim spa going up under the doc's new house. And a new tower to throw interference to tiny's new hat.
All done.
New house looks a lot better than the old house. Old house looked like an office
I did a house for a local brain surgeon a few years ago, it too looks like a commercial building, even the inside. After, what 12 years of schooling? And then his day job, he's used to that look I guess.
Is almost as the Higher education level removes the artistic side.
saw these today at Scott Equipment in Nashville
They say the tadano's are a really nice machine. I'm sure I'm not their buyer, but its nice to look at new iron. On the old iron front.... '98 Western Star that I pull my lowboy with is putting antifreeze in the pan. (60 series detroit 12.7) Liner, head, water pump, or air compressor. My regular detroit man is three weeks out. He recommended someone else, and did mention that its likely the head cracked in his experience. I haven't even pulled the pan to see where its coming from. One of the guys went to start it the other day, oil was just on high part of the line, but water was low. Added antifreeze and started up truck, by the time it built up air and he had the snow shoveled off, the low water light was on. He then pulled the dipstick again, and it was all milky on the oil. Pulled the pete under the trailer and got the crane delivered, but I'm going to have to do something. If I pull the head, I wonder if its worth it to just inframe while I'm there. Unless its just the water pump, which would be great, as long as it didn't damage a bearing.
my first move would be pull the pan fill the rad. pressurize it and then with a good drop light go under check both inside and out of all liners for drips
How much longer do you want run the WS? If the rest of the truck is in good shape and there are a lot of miles on the engine I would probably do the in frame.
Until I can buy a electric truck. We don't do a lot of miles, and this one does what I need it to. I sure don't need a new one. I really like this truck and it seems well built. When I have time I'm dropping the pan.
Bunch of HVAC units. I was going to take the 100 ton but I thought the 70 ton would get them, and I knew I'd have to set up a couple times. The 70 ton is way faster to move.
Replacing some steel on the back side of a pool building. Its a two story wood/ window wall. The water ate up some of the wood inside, and they are replacing with steel, but I think the chlorine is going to eat the steel faster than it did the wood.
Steel frame building. This guy had some bar joists they saved out of a building. He's a welder that does a lot of fab, and is making a bigger fab shop. He does good work and has been really growing. 1/2 the building for powder coat, other half for fab. Can't get decent powdercoating done, so he's going to do his own.
Hanging steel with some ironworkers. He's struck out on his own after 20 years for a big outfit. This is a steel framed porch for a resort. Nice to work with a pro.
I saw this was a Liebherr and thought of you.........
That's a steep hill, and a pretty tight corner.
What are they lifting? A Titanic Full Size model??
That's got to be a 500-700 ton hydro. Most of the time when they are fighting them up a mountain, its for wind farm work. Looks like its either a 700 or 1200 ton by axle count.
Friggin MONSTER!!
would have liked to have seen the take off after stopping on that grade
That was impressive! I just set the 4,000 pound cab back on some AWD ex military rig (I think it was used for tank recovery, 6 axles, tires 6' tall ) after some engine work, that is currently being used for towing some big cranes the last couple miles to a wind farm site, or so I was told.
A HEMTT? Or something bigger?
I imagine the carrier is equipped with a powershift and a torque converter. It was probably quite unspectacular. I WAS impressed with the manoeuvring around the hairpin bend though........ reminds me why I like ATs. A 1200 according to the operator's web site. Apparently they are a specialist outfit dedicated to wind turbine assembly. https://www.windhoist.co.uk/
ask Texas what they think of wind turbines today
Its not just texas, I have a aunt in kansas that has had rolling blackouts. Springfield ran a few rolling blackouts yesterday. We got a email from our power company saying they may do rolling blackouts today. I live less than a mile from a 200mw hydro dam, they've been putting out around a 100mw all week. I think they can't run a lot more water out without flooding downstream. They've burned through 8" of lake level water doing it.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/joewal...r-isnt-to-blame-for-texas-electricity-crisis/ texas only rely’s on wind power for around 17% of their electricity. Maybe the wrong place to place blame. They simply don’t have an infrastructure that will withstand a cold climate. I have posted an article. Read it if you wish. Ps. I number of years ago we had a unusual hot summer and lost power for several days.
Gas wells well heads froze out with the turbines being down, BAD Day all round. CTGs could not run either and they are 54% of TX Power output.
The wind farms up here are set up for icing conditions, they thought they could save some bucks and not equip the Texas ones with it, as it wouldn't be cost effective. Thing is, 99.9% of the time, it isn't probably.
I think that may be it, or something real similar.
It's probably a M1070 HET. There is a guy that uses one in the moutains of Nevada with a 16 tire and a 7 axle.
Tony Beets has 8 wheel drive Oshkosh winch truck. Monica Beets - Gold Rush - Hard at work #Oshkosh #Volvo #volvoequipment #460C #truckin #thisishowwedo #thatyukonsummer #bushroadsneedbushtrucks | Facebook
I looked at a m1070 that was up at surplus auction. They are wide and long. Detroit 2 stroke and the army boys say they are horrible on fuel. I had no use for one, I was just looking. The trailers they have for the m1a and that trucks suspension are pretty amazing.
That's it, great find! I couldn't see them in the video, but the cab roof had built in pad eyes to rig to, and it for sure had a DD, and the tire inflation system. I just got my check yesterday for the work, 2 picks a month apart, after they got the engine work done.
We prepped this boat for transport a while back. It was a tour boat here in town, and its headed for New Hampshire. Pilot house, stacks and all the upper canopies and the rear paddlewheel came off.
Snow pushing pics, I got a little hard on the blade popping rocks in the driveway, come a long and a little welding and we were back at it.
Made a mess out of the deck on the mack. I was on a job and smelled hyd. oil. It was running a pretty good stream out of the back of the boom. Took it home, set up the next day, and the tele cylinder is just barely damp. I think it had some frozen moisture in between wiper and seal, and it pushed on the seal. Motor/ gearbox on asphalt tank. And some amusement ride maintence.
Grill exhaust fans on the roof, the ducks on the pond are appreciating the ice being gone.
Got the roof all back on the building. Cold weather and snow made it hard on the mason's raising the walls. I think they added around 3' and are going to raise the doors taller.
Hvac units with the 100 ton. The bollards at the building we raised the walls on- don't do much good if you ask me. They all are about 4" wider than the door openings. I always thought the bollards were to protect the door openings in the building, but I didn't pour the concrete. The last picture is from this morning, put all new feedwater chiller pipe on the roof of a hospital. The cold snap froze and burst it all. They said it was circulating, and still froze, but they didn't have any glycol in it. It usually doesn't get cold enough to freeze it.
I see i`m not the only one to push snow with a forklift
Mine is pretty primitive, but it beats a shovel. I'd really like a skid loader, I think it would be handy at times,but I just can't find it being $20,000 of handy. I used to just hand shovel my pavement, and let the rest melt. But after I got the allis backwards tractor forklift, and got tired of waiting for snow to melt, the FORKABLADE was born. I kind of threw it together one day before a snow storm, and its actually nicer than a loader tractor. You can kind of stack snow up, and the visibility is great. It would be kind of cold for all day, but I don't have that much to push. It doesn't snow often enough that I need anything better, and I own the forklift, which beats buying something for the 2 times a year we get snow.
You should straighten the blade and put a couple length's of channel iron on each side of the pivot to straighten it. Skid shoes or wheels would be a good idea too so it won't dig into the gravel or soft area's. Should be able to find a decent skid steer for less than 20K if you don't really care what brand. Most use common components.
The old blade has already been reinforced in the past. I just broke it again. Its all straightened up now, and rewelded. Until I nail another big rock in the driveway. Most of the skid loaders in my area that I would find useful, are in the $15-20,000 range. I can rent a compact or mid trackloader or rubber tired skid for under $300/day, any time I want one. It would be nice to spread gravel around and push snow once in a while, but that's about all I would need one for. I've got much better equipment for lifting. I could really use a skid loader about half a dozen times a year, I usually only rent one about once a year because I'm a tightwad. Once or twice a year makes it a no brainer to rent one for my limited needs.
Maintenance work with the 100 ton.
Building a coaster ride on the side of a hill.
Changing some light fixtures at a mini putt course.
A second bridge at the hill coaster.
Looks like I'm going to have to do a little modification. The wiper motor on the front of the upper cab glass gave up the ghost, and I couldn't find anything that really looked close, so I had liebherr send me one. Going to have to drill a extra hole to get this mounted. I hope it has the right amount of motor arm movement.
Nice work! That theme park is the gift that just keeps giving.
definitely fun and different work too.
They're a good customer. Good guys working there. This is their "hurry up time" to get everything ready for spring break opening. The hill coaster is at a different location. We've been involved in three different hill coasters in the last few years. All are at different sites, but within 6 miles of each other. It seems the recreation stuff goes in cycles. Several years back we built a couple new go kart tracks. Then it was zip lines. Current flavor of the month is hill coasters, the riders have individual cars and control their own brakes.
Tree removal, at least the sun wasn't in my eyes. Generator replacement, and a video billboard. Wind was blowing pretty good on the video board, but was from the right direction that the other board face blocked it when I could get the panels up there.
Setting a concrete wet well. The dirt guys built me a nice pad. Ford 450 lost a tire. Both shoulders stayed with the carcass, just flipped out the middle of the tread. Tire still had air in it. This is the second one of that set of drives to go that way.
Had to sneak back in the amusement park, they had a old wood structure that needed to come down, I removed a closer section a couple years ago. Had to pull out a little fence, and walk back there with all the counterweight on, no room to mount it in there. I pulled into place, marked where I needed mats and where the crane was parked. I pulled the crane back out of the way, and then set the mats with a forklift. Boomed out of the rest, and shot out some stick. Was right at 3,500lbs of wood trough.
Was appreciative of the rear steer for getting in the park, but its a load to fight into a tight spot with all the counterweights on. Left some black marks on the pavement from the tires turning.
Had the nose up over the pond when I got parked. Was able to get out on dry ground though.
sure don`t do any diggin around there with out a jack hammer & a case of dynomite
So I bought a jib and a manbasket the other day, located up in Des Moines. Figured I could go see mom and dad a little bit, and pick it up. The jib is 25' long, and I'm guessing 1,000 lbs or so. I didn't really want to pull gooseneck trailer 400 miles there and 400 miles home, or pull counterweight and drive the big ford (its a 20' bed), so I got to staring at the 450 flatbed pickup. Its a 11' long flatbed, and another 10' to the front bumper. Memories of ladder racks and some creative thinking = A little welding on the back of the flatbed and we've got a rear support. Discussions were had at the shop about leg braces/ gussets on the back stand and headache rack, but I made the call "its good enough". So we welded the rack on thursday morning, and my friday job cancelled late on thursday. I took off about 6:00 after supper and it didn't start well. We don't drive that truck much at night. Just north of Lake of the Ozarks, I go to flip lights to the brights, and all the headlights/ tailights disappear. I remember having this issue one early morning, and it hadn't reoccurred, so a "solution" hasn't occurred either. If I pulled the turn signal stalk forward (toward the steering wheel), the "flash" brights would work, but no other position would. Its a 5 speed, so steering, shifting, and holding the turn stalk forward isn't a great 8 hour drive scenario, so the leatherman needlenose pliers was jammed behind the turn signal stalk as a temporary repair. It was slightly disconcerting- as it would occasionally fall out rendering the night incredibly dark. Several instances of no lights- drifting to what I thought might be the shoulder- and a search of the dark floorboard for my pliers occured - until a more forceable application of the needlenose to the rear of the switch seemed to fix it. I pulled off about 1:30 just outside of Ottumwa, on the shoulder of the on ramp. The 7.3 idled along while I got a little nap, and woke up and made it to my folks place by 6:30 or so. I remember pickup seats being more comfortable to sleep on in my youth. That and the ford has a distinct exhaust smell if the wind is right at a idle. But I digress. Dad and I rode to des moines together, he hasn't been out much since last march, but he and mom have the shots now so she let him out. I hope she doesn't tell my sisters about it, or I'll catch a bunch of static from them. My auction purchases loaded like I thought, (plenty of room) and I grabbed the rear of the jib after I had it loaded and gave it the good "shake it and see if anything falls off" test. Nothing fell off, red rag on the rear overhang, and I deemed it road worthy. Well the roads in Iowa are concrete and frost heaved, so shortly out of town I could see a rhythm effect taking place, a nice oscillation of the jib was visible out the front window. It was most noticeable when looking out the rear window, at how the front rack was moving back and forth compared to the truck cab. Worry appeared in my life. The jib was loaded over the passenger side, and not wanting to explain to mom, how I crushed dad on the way back to their place, a extra ratchet strap gusset was placed. Oscillation decreased, worry level dropped from level 7 to level 4. Dropped dad off and worry level decreased from 4 to 2 (mom can be a pain). Increased speed caused increased movement, so excessive speed was ruled out, fortunately the further south I traveled- the better the roads are. A couple stops were performed along the way - examining the welds on the front rack for signs of imminent failure - and further travel at not excessive speed was deemed safe (not that I had a welder in my pocket to fix anything, but looking every once in a while made me feel better). Safe travel on america's roadways was had by all, and I was back by 6:00 last night.
Ratchet strap gusset:
Nice auction score! Seattle company has a basket but we never used it, what with the availability of 85' boom lifts. I was game. They were not
I have another basket just like it, they self level and are rotatable. We've got adaptors made to fit two cranes. I only use it where they can't use a lift, its usually because they can't get close enough to the building. A 85 or 135 lift has a lot of up, they don't care for a lot of radius. The fixed basket is much nicer to work out of than a swinging basket, but its not for every situation. . There's a assortment of seven different heads inside the auction basket, the last adaptor I made from scratch, it should be easier to modify one of the factory ones than make all new.
HA! More than once I've loaded something up, tied it down and said "That ain't going no where". Only to have worry appear later on in the voyage...
An old boss who has long since left this world used to say somebody in the transportation industry ought to write a book with that as the title and theme: "That ain't going nowhere!"
I've had a front rack on any rig I've owned since the '80's, in addition to a mid and rear. I always make the rear with a easily removable cross bar so you can still walk in the bed when needed, and the front rack is also quickly removable. This was handy when I was still a builder, and needed to haul long lengths of lumber on my little Toyota pickup, as it shifted the CG forward plus I didn't have an excessive overhang. Then when I started fabbing large solar arrays in my shop and delivering them the concept also came in handy, never lost one! The big box (but real narrow) is my 1000 pound kitplane coming back from Kansas, 1000 miles, we had a big V on the front to cut some of the drag, got 24 MPG and saved a bunch of delivery money, back when I really needed to. Hit some major cross winds, and icy roads, but not at the same time I still see that Toy flatbed around town, i bought it brand new, it has well over 300 K of very hard miles on it now, and has been owned by a bunch of Hispanic roofers and concrete guys who always have it loaded to the max, I guess my welds on the rack and flatbed were OK as nothing has broken! I am a Toyota fan to this day because of that rig.
In my misspent youth I ran a crew cab with 8' utility box that had a ladder rack that went from front bumper to front of utility box. I also had a removable leg that mounted on the rear, just inside the tailgate for long pipe. We would haul 40' long 4-6-8-10" galvanized pipe on it. Some pipe out the front and some out the tailgate with a red flag. Anything goes with a red flag?
I can only guess there had some pucker factor whenever you passed a semi in that Toyota. Seems like that had to have waved back and forth a little in a good crosswind.
Do you have any pictures of the plane?
I think that's in the DOT rules. Yep, uh huh, for sure it's in there
As I recall in the older days you had to have a red flag if the load was beyond the rear bumper. You were only allowed fifteen feet past the rear axle here in Washington.
I don't recall passing anybody...., big surprise, and this was way before 80 mph speed limits, it was actually OK once we got out of Kansas and the 25 mph direct cross winds, but they were steady, not gusty, so once you heeled over a bit it stabilized, and the roads were dry.
Whenever I cleaned out a rig to sell it I'd for sure find 3-400 red flags in the glove box, behind/under the seat, toolboxes. If it looks sketchy, put a red flag on it. "License and registration please. Sir, have you been drinking today? Oh, never mind, I see you have a red flag. Have a nice day"
Well I didn't have a very good day yesterday. I woke up in the night and didn't feel well. Then I got up in the morning and didn't feel well at all . I had the wife drag me to the ER, and spent the morning there. Wife knew I wasn't feeling well- #1 because I wanted a doc, #2 because I had her drive. CT scan and the doc says 2 kidney stones. One on its way, one shacked up for later. He prescribed me some pain killers, and says the stones should work their way through. I felt better yesterday, and it bothered me a little today. Way better than all the things I was worrying it could be. Doc says they should pass through within a week. Paperwork had a list of things I'm supposed to not eat, so it looks like I may just die of starvation.
I don't envy your next couple of days. The wife has had them three times. On the first set, she went to the rock crusher and got beat up pretty good. She wouldn't go back for two and three. Good Luck!
Real sorry to hear you have kidney stones. Not fun at all. I had one a few years ago. You can't really move in a position to make the pain go away. Did they tell you to use a strainer so you can catch it? Should have drugs to enlarge the urethra and another drug to make it easier to pee in addition to pain killers. Mine passed after 3 or 4 days and it was a great relief. I wish my back would have got better after 3 or 4 days.
Damn that sucks but not near as bad as it could have been. I stopped going on WebMD when I felt something was wrong because in 15-20 mins I was sure the diagnosis was 3 months to live.. Feel you pain, gotta have my face chemically burned off April 2 due to pre-cancerous damage. Can't go outside or be in sunlight for 48 hours. Oh yeah my cholesterol is high and doc wants me to take meds.. Welcome to the old folks club it only goes down from here. Hope the best on the "passage" - those pills may become like the gold they peddle on the radio.
Really sorry to hear that CM. And this is what it comes down to, the pain and suffering forum. Is there a special font you can use to convey you're in pain? Being in constant pain really sucks.
Oh ... the pain of a kidney stone. Young lady type in Dr's office kept going on about "How a man relates to child birth in women" When asked if she had any children, the negative answer made me wish her first born would be 10 pounds ...
Went thru a round of them in the 80s Voodoo of that period of time was a warm tub of water they set you in then used a ultrasonic rock crusher to break them smaller. It took several weeks for the broken porcelain shards to finally pass and the bruising to go away. Felt as had been beaten with a ball bat for same time. I drink cranberry juice often have never given up on my regular eats have only had two instances figured had passed another SMALLER one as felt similar but not gone back to doc.
I thought I had kidney stones because of the pain, took myself to the hospital 2.5 weeks ago on a Sunday morning. Found out I had pneumonia both lungs, plus blood clots both lungs and right leg. Totally dehydrated mostly because I sweat so bad from the pain the night before. Now I get to eat rat bait for 6 months to be sure the blood clots are gone. Mine was caused by rotator cuff surgery a couple weeks before. The E R nurse said take deeper breathes, till she listened to my lungs, because there wasn't much left for making oxygen!
Kidney stones are bad but the pain I'm feeling in my back right now is worse. Feels like a truck drove over my back and then someone beat me with a bat 100 times. If I move the wrong I can't help screaming out in pain. Yes. I've had a kidney stone.
Pulled muscle?
Have you seen the medical folks? I had that typed of pain a few years ago, when it hit I would almost go to the floor. I woke up one night far a P call, could not get out of bed, sat on edge, rocking slowly to and fro, finally I could get up, back felt much better. Went to recliner for the rest of the night. Morning, I felt much better, by evening I could move around OK! Mentioned it to a friend he said it was probably a bone spur, it had broken off, dislodged or something. He had the very same problem years ago.
good luck april 2 nah Dave, too much work to do. This is "work pics" remember? I took along one of the guys today in case I got to feeling bad, didn't know if I'd be able to throw pads. Felt pretty good most of the day, but afternoon and early evening have been on the down side, "my little friend" is on the move. Which is good- the sooner the better. Made 4 set ups and 3 different sites today. Tomorrow is supposed to be rain. New scale at the fertilizer plant.
A thank you to everyone for the well wishes too, everyone I mention kidney stones to is like "ohhh, I feel sorry for you- my grandpa/ brother/ uncle had those and said they weren't fun".
Now you got me worried, My dad had them so bad he said he had to get out of his truck on the way home from work and roll around on the ground a bit before he could manage to drive again. Older brother had one that the pain hit him just after take off in the B-52 with full tanks of fuel, he was not a pilot but one of the crew. Anyone that knows about B-52's knows they can not safely land with fuel load of fuel, wings might snap off, that's not good! They said they could dump fuel but that would not make people happy if they did that over the Great Lakes, so just hang on till mission is over! Wife had them twice and went to hospital for removal work both times. First time she got sepsis, guess someone screwed up something and had to go back in for major doses of meds. Second time the hour and half procedure to blast and remove them ended up taking 4 hours and she ended up with "Pelvic floor dysfunction". Look it up in Google it is not fun and is only sorta resolved at this point. Knock on wood I have avoided it so far and will take the ruptured appendix I had 40 some years back over the stones any day! Bad pain for one night then trip to ER to have it cut out and a week in hospital on strong antibiotics and I was good to go!
ER Dr. thinks it's muscle related. Have a couple partially healed compression fractures from years ago. Pain seems to be getting worse. It feels like my back is tied in knots and they're fighting each other. I used to be somewhat OK once I got on my feet but I'm terrified to move for fear I'll get the spasm's. Had one this morning in the doorway to the washroom. Somehow I was able to turn and get my left hand on the tall dresser just outside the door. Then I got turned so both hands were on the dresser and I stabilized myself for about 5 minutes before I tried to move anymore. It was sheer AGONY!
Maybe I should have worded it different that there maybe needs to be a pain and suffering forum. I'm really glad you're still able to function somewhat with kidney stones. I hope you pass them as soon as possible because they cause extreme pain. When I passed mine and caught it in a strainer I was surprised how something so small could cause so much pain. It was like a large grain of sand. With larger ones I think they can use ultrasound or something to help break them up into smaller pieces. I like seeing all of your work pics. Hope you're 100% very soon.
Couple HVAC change outs. I've got to go take one of them back off again on Monday, its the wrong unit.
Saturday work at the hospital. Big blower unit was bad in package, had to skate off a pad, and out a doorway, to get it on the crane. It was up in a penthouse on the second floor.
Old railroad toe jacks, skates and blocks to get out the door. It was probably 8" or so down inside the threshold to the floor, so we had to block up on top of the skates. Was back to the shop by 12:00, it went pretty slick. The mechanical contractor had a lot of help and I brought 3 guys with me.
Some steel for pan deck on a garage. Old 25 ton still earning her keep.
Fancy tree house, they wanted a hot tub beyond their deck. It was a long ways over there, because there was no place close to set up.
Big tree removal. Had to cut a tree out of the front yard just for a place to lay down the tree from the back yard. I think this may be one of the biggest oaks I've ever taken down. I've taken down some with bigger trunks, and some that were taller, but this one had a lot of wood up in the air, it was like 4 regular trees. We were all day, and we have to come back for 4 more small trees that are still in the back yard.
fun stuff. I would not call that work, so much.
The "work" part of all of this is the overhead, billing, accounting and making a profit at the end of the day - lifting stuff and moving dirt is the fun part.
You knew your in the working class when your TV screen is bigger than your bookcase..
Hey now! I just noticed the name on that bucket truck hauling the chipper! Think I could convince them to let me borrow it and the chipper for a few days, have some "spring cleaning" to do around the property!
I figured they were your long lost relatives. They are a multiple location outfit. They originally started in St. Louis, and opened a couple branches near me. They are big in the muching/grinding/ landscaper supply game also. The original owner went down in a small plane a few years back, the 2nd generation runs it now. You could just get your own equipment, and have it be your 2nd career.
Well if they are relatives they would probably not admit it! Problem with getting equipment to start my own business would be then everyone I have not seen in 40 years would be my good buddy looking to borrow things. Actually just cut and hauled three garden tractor loads of dead wood in 4 foot sections over to the wood shed. Now just have to cut to firewood length and split the larger ones. Actually have to give a shout out to the wife as she was the operator of the zero turn and unloaded most of the wood.
That's why all but one our trailers have pintle rings and the one that doesn't is a 2-5/16" ball - cuts down on the "friends and family" usage.
I am the black sheep in my family anyone comes around my first response is no you cant borrow prevents a lot of stress
My Goose is not for Loan(To ANY that come to ask, the 18' car hauler is also 2 5/16 ball so not anyone can pull regardless NOT for loan out.
Any of you have askers that want to borrow the tow vehicle too?
Yes
Hurry up roofing job with the 100 ton at hospital. The reason it was hurry up, was because I originally sent my 70 ton down there. Of course the hospital wouldn't let us block off the blue spaces, so the crane ended up 110' away instead of 60'.
The 100 ton being at the hospital was a good news/ bad news scenario. Glad I had the extra crane, bad because the 70 ton didn't make it down there. The guys blew a antifreeze line and lost a head on the 6v92 in the 70 ton, so I ended up bringing the 100 ton there. 70 broke down in a good spot. 4 lane road with turn off lane into a unused road. I didn't like the idea of flat towing it all the way to my shop, so I got a somewhat local heavy haul outfit to load it up. Needed a wrecker too to get it up on the stretch deck lowboy.
Sorry about the somewhat blurry pictures lately. I dropped my old phone (samsung) and I'm utterly unimpressed with my new phones (motorola) camera. Scored a big lot of shackles and hooks at a auction. Even came with a pretty nice stand. One of the guys got them and all the other rigging shelves straightened out real nice.
Trusses with the old 25 ton. I've worked with this framer before, but it was a few years ago. I asked him about that, and "well- I've been in prison for a while...."
So 3 times in the last three months, I've worked on properties for horse people. All horse people are crazy, but these particular people are even more so. All three properties, contained a house/ shop/ horse barn, that were all in the same building. This one had what looked like a attached garage- nope its horse stalls, instead of a three car garage. Personally, I've spent a lot of time in barns in my life, I don't want to share a 3,000 sq. ft home with 6 horses. The three doors next to the crane are the horse stall doors, the trusses already set are for the house portion of the building. Horse people are crazy.
Setting some more steel at the school project. Had to bring in the 40 ton rt after this, to set the last of the steel, the truck crane wouldn't reach it.
This was last weeks little surprise, 3" of snow. It melted within 2 hours of falling, we had been 70 degrees the day before. Today was tornadoes and rain, we got over 2 1/2"s in a few hours. The creeks and streams are really ripping. I went and looked at three trees tonight that are laying on a house, I'm going after them tomorrow morning. https://www.news-leader.com/story/n...e-cam-footage-shows-raging-waters/4870963001/
Setting a grease trap precast box with the 40 ton, and some trusses with my old 25. The old 25 is sure nice when booming down through the trees, no a2b cable to worry about snagging up. The precast box was a long afternoon. I was there at 1:00 and the box didn't show up until almost 5:00.
Setting a little gazebo structure at a big house. Its 70,000 sq. ft. or so. Ninth largest house in the U. S. Owned by the guy behind Prime trucking, a large freight hauling outfit. http://www.purvajain.com/rob-lowe-home
sounds like you have a whole lot of iron that you run by yourself!
Nah- I've got some good guys working for me. There's 4 of us right now.
No tornadoes here, but the east half of Lawrence got 2 1/2" in about 30 minutes. Took about 10 to flood the rail bridge and overwhelm the storm sewers. After 30 we had floating cars. I was a little busy to get any good pictures.
We had a concrete cutter that just got back from a job in Kansas who said it snowed right before he left. Global warming right? Crane Op did you get see the Kommie track loader at the big house? It's been a while since I've seen one of those. Nice crane in the background.
more crazy horse people
Sorry, I didn't see it there. I didn't spend a lot of time walking around. The general contractor had a "supervisor" that was being a pain. I rolled up in the crane, and nothing was right. #1- I evidently brought too small of a crane. Super says "it weighs 8,700lbs and there's no way you can pick that". I looked at what we were setting, looked at the ironworker (who is my customer- I wasn't working for the general) and said "there's no way that weighs 8,500lbs. It looks like 5,500 at the most to me". The ironworker looks at me all crosseyed, and catches me beside the crane " this super is impossible, and its all his way, I can hear the ice cracking under your feet". I come back around the crane and tell the super - "I'll set up, I think I'll be good for around 9,000lbs, we'll pick it up and see what it weighs, and if I don't have enough crane here, we'll go back to the shop and get more crane." Super grunts and walks around in circles muttering, while I set up crane. #2 Super declares that we need a spreader bar. problem A- The gazebo top is a circle, full of steel frames- where's it going to go? Spreader bars are for things that can crush, I can't see any way this thing squishes. Problem B - he's worried I don't have enough crane, and now he wants me to lift a spreader bar too? Problem C - They have their own spreader bar, a homemade cobbled together piece of junk, with no ratings and no tags- If I'd have shown up with something like that- they would have run me off the site, but because its theirs- its good enough to lift with. Here's a picture of their spreader bar, and that's as close as I got to picking it up. #3 Super wants to choke all the ironworkers brand new nylons on the frame. As soon as they start to tighten on the water jet cut steel, I know its going to cut those nylons all up. So I dig out some green roundups, we basket those through the water jet holes and throw some softeners in between, and voila- no cutting of nylons. I've not made friends at all with the super, but I'm happy and the ironworkers are ready to set some steel. So finally we're all rigged up, I pick up the frame and its just under 5,000lbs. Swing it over the legs and the welders get to work, I think the super would have been more happy if we hadn't got anything done. Some guys want everything to be complicated and a "big project".
I'm surprised they didn't come over and start directing the lift as well. That's all you need is two or three people waving their hands thinking they are running the lift. I was pulled off to the side one time by grizzled old wrench who gave me some good advice. He said "don't get in the way of people who do one thing all the time and do it well." Offer to give them whatever help they need, do whatever they tell you they need done and if they say nothing, just get out of the way and let them do their thing. I've passed it down a couple of times since I was the recipient.
Had four persons attempt to be Crane Director at the Nuke, Turned off Crane and sat for a moment. They all began to argue then I cut in on the Radio Headset I was using told the operator I designated as signalman to put the twits on headsets or listen to the speaker. I stated to the Group that "I" designated Load Signalman and they needed to LEAVE my Operating Zone, would be NO pick with me holding the crane controls if didn't. Was a Few more words then my Supervisor went to the floor area and instructed them I meant what I said and to LEAVE. They finally left and we got work done.
I was around enough things being lifted or running a loader used to lift things that I know having more than one person trying to direct a move of any kind is a recipe for disaster! More than once while either doing a lift with a loader or the 40 ton overhead crane in the shop I have stopped and said I'm watching Ernie or who ever was the guy I trusted and told them let that one guy know what needs to be done.
That's not a spreader, that is a steel whaler off a concrete panel. I have 4 of them here in the yard for the 2x6 channels. I think i shared the antenna story before, where i showed up and ran the boom truck at the request of the owner. I had that "3 signalmen" thing going there and one of the wannabes signaled line down while another guys's hand was in the bight. I just looked at him and shook my head, and never looked at him again.
Oh, I know how that goes. You haven't seen me post in a while, because I've been in working on a government project where photos are banned, plus in more of a leadership role rather than pulling levers. The GC has a complex bunch of rules around almost everything to do on site, especially cranes. It's now at the point where the documentation takes longer than the lift, & every aspect needs to be signed off before the crane can so much as put an outrigger down. Of course, these checks are done by people who are less than competent. It makes a mockery of my experience & qualifications in crane operations & lift planning, plus those of our operators & riggers. We have performed nearly 10,000 lifts incident-free on this site, of weights up to 35 ton, and it's down to our team performing well together. They tried to ban the use of synthetic slings on site, then didn't see the funny side when I offered to wrap chains around the roofing iron we were lifting up for them. Safety is up to the guys on the ground, not the one with the clipboard
After all my talk about the general contractor and his cobbled up spreader bar- guess who had to fab up a lifting frame.. At one of the fancy golf courses, they built a new bathroom. And then decided they needed rocks on the other side of the bathroom, right under the 3' of roof overhang. The close side they could set with their forklift, the far side had no equipment access. So some big square tubing, and some reinforcing plates, and some flat iron for pick points, and a lifting C-frame was born. Of course this all started on a Friday morning (first call at 9- looked at the job at 10) for a lift time of 8am on Monday morning, so I had to scramble around for the steel and some fab time. Got the steel picked up yet friday afternoon, and welded up on saturday morning and even a load test that afternoon. A plasma cutter would sure be nice. Mag drill is nice for the holes, but cutting the plates would be a lot slicker with a plasma, but the torch and grinder is what I own.
It will look good passing overhead.
I only got a picture under the overhang after I got a rock set. It pretty well hangs straight up and down with the rock weight on it, when the load goes away, the c-frame drops down crooked. But it all worked and the rocks are set. The biggest rock they wanted over there was a little over 10,000, and I didn't need the frame for that one. The rest of the rocks were in the 5,000lbs range and I used the c frame for all of them. We stacked rocks to almost the top of the door frame, about where the electric box is sticking out of the wall, on each side of the door. Had to have the top rocks rigged pretty short to get under the overhang and set.
Very cool it was good to see it in operation.
I need to talk about torch safety also. So if you use your forklift like a fab table, and are cutting out a bunch of small pieces, and you're in a hurry...... That's right, you can be prone to notch areas in your forklift teeth. Nothing like zipping along cutting and wondering why its blowing back a little. Of course its nothing a little grinding and a bead of weld won't fix. But I did feel a little sheepish.
CC I built something like that for setting final drives off high track cats but you'll find out that it comes in handy in a lot of other apps.
its only unsafe if the piece you did`nt realize you were cutting falls on your foot
Yeah, that would be a surprise. Speaking of working safe- I talked to a guy today with a used motor. I asked if he had something to load it with if I bought it, and he said yes, but I'd have to run it- he "had a little incident yesterday". Namely removing all 5 fingers from his hand. He said he could have gone to St.louis, and they would have tried to reattach them there but wouldn't do it locally. He told them not to bother, a buddy of his had some reattached and they didn't work right, so he told them he would do without. Be safe out there guys, it can all change pretty fast.
ouch` thats going to be very painful as well as cumbersome when it all heals up
Absolutely sounds like something I would do... I was 16, helping my dad on a house he was building. I was ripping a sheet of osb on wooden saw horses. The thought of propping the sheet up, or shallowing the skil saw blade up for the 1/2" osb never crossed my mind. I cut right through the center of the first saw horse and the whole thing came toppling down. My dad was just staring, mouth slightly agape, quizical look on his face like "Did my straight A student really just cut right through my saw horse?!" He said, "Patch it up and get that sheet cut. And yes, I was straight A's through school and did some really, really dumb stuff.
I've heard that that crazy and genius are close together , so just fall into which ever category that suits ya at that particular time .
Well Genieass does not fit my nature so Crazy probably does.
My father ran his own market for 40+ years, and he worked in the meat department. The year before he was getting ready to sell the business and retire, he cut a finger off in the bandsaw. Complacency got him, teed him off no end!
So the other day my boy left his old ford (mid 90's) at a park n ride for a couple hours while he took off with a friend. Well the cat thieves were there, and even hit his old ford. Funny thing, the old ford has 2 cats, and they just took the little one. I don't think either cat has anything in it anymore, but whatever. He was pretty ticked and driving loud for a few days until we got a "cat" reinstalled. The old cat also served as the 2 into one for the 300- 6 so we had to get a little creative. Nothing some 3"x6" rectangular and some stub pipes couldn't fix...
Some trusses on a addition with the 40 ton.
Installing some 5g / wifi skids. We put up around 10 skids. Used the galion, the 40 ton, and the 100 ton for one hard to reach skid.
The sad new shop truck. This is the mid 2000's one with a 5.4 that we gave up and put a reman engine in, and the reman has also died. It slipped over 10 deg in timing, backfired enough to destroy the plastic intake manifold, and has 2 cylinders with bad compression now. Waiting on info about warranty from the reman place.
This is a precast concrete vault for pool equipment. They are building 30 or so cabins down a one lane dead end road, and all but two of the cabins were beyond where we needed to set the box. Me : we're going to block the whole road to set the box. Customer : Just do it. Me- its 30-40 minutes to set up, the same to tear down, and 30 minutes to set your boxes. Going to block the road for 2 hours? (there's got to be 200 guys of various trades working beyond this point) General Contractor : (loses his mind in various ways) No Me: best we can do is start at around 5:30 and tell all the subs. General: Maybe leave the outriggers in on the other side so people can drive past? Me : Laughs hilariously. Later that day- Me : spends until 5:30pm getting cars moved and waiting for a multi billionarie to get done looking at his latest project- and puts outriggers out, totally blocking all access to the project. 2 minutes later I have 4 van's full of mexicans trying to go home and trapped by the crane. They wait for 2 hours while we work. They were all warned. I made lots of friends.
One of my guys setting trusses.
Taking down a overhead crane. All the siding and roof was blown off the building 10 years ago. They haven't made precast here since before the storm damaged the building, the thieves have stolen all the controls and some of the motors and most of the wiring, but some guy wanted the overhead crane. Well he's got it, but I think he's going to spend more trying to get it working, than he did buying it.
Crane op with all the money your making just go buy a new shop truck, we all know that Ford 5.4 is a POS! Wait a minute..there are no trucks on the dealers lots. Damn pandemic. JK - looking good on all fronts.
A acquaintance owns one, developed a rod knock. I said not to drive it, rod would come adrift, exit block. He continued driving it, rod made its escape Him out of pocket $500 core chg;
Sorry guys- these aren't work pics, just a little family picture time- so if your just here for the work, you can skip this one. Its been graduation time around here. My oldest daughter just finished 4 years at mizzou in columbia. We just went to her Honors college graduation. One of only 150 or so kids to graduate from the honors college. I don't really know what that means, but there were only 150 kids listed at that graduation, the whole school graduation is huge in the football stadium. She's probably in for some more school as she's thinking she wants to go on and get nursing degree. I'm so proud of her, she's switched majors a couple times finding out what she wants to do, but she's stuck with it and has a direction she wants to go. She's been working at tutoring and a restaurant, to get her way through school. My son just finished a 2 year degree at community college, and is going to be transferring to missouri state for another 2 years for a B.A in construction management. No pics of his graduation, he said he's waiting until he gets his 4 years done before he walks. The community college has been a great route for him, first two years at community college in missouri are free, so he only has to pony up real $$$ for the last two years. He's been framing this spring while he finished up his second year. My youngest just finished high school at the top of her class and is headed to Missouri S & T in Rolla for chemical or nuclear engineering. She is getting pretty well a free ride at college. She's worked hard at her classes to get to that point. This will be her third summer as a lifeguard. Sorry, just had to post the proud dad pictures.
Awesome! It’s great to see your kids grow into good adults. congratulations
Sounds like some pretty bright kids with some very bright futures ahead of them. I know a gal that graduated with an engineering degree from Rolla. Caterpillar engineer, very successful career. Excellent education program there and well connected with various industries to help place their students in the workforce after graduation. Beautiful family you have there @crane operator
Congratulations! You have a lot to be proud of.
Good job with the kids! Poor ol 5.4 lol. I have one 5.4 truck . It's supposed to me my ride even though I'm always in my service rig. I need to tear into the front of the motor, probably going to put a lockout kit in it.
Older brother graduated UMR 1973, became a PE in Civil Engineering, last work was San Diego Public Water District(Southern CA). He is the one currently in CO. Congrats to ALL three kids, is a hard row to hoe being in school these days and carrying higher standards grade point averages. You have every right to be proud of them.
you have amazing kids
Congratulations you guys!
Thanks for all the congrats guys, its been a ball of fun, next fall is going to be a lot different with no more full time kids in the house. Its been raining off and on all the time here lately. Fighting between showers I've been neglecting some of my picture taking. Of course with the rainy season, that means more people missing the shop driveway. Lost two of the curve signs in the last two weeks, one a week after the other. Post beam barn, six main rafters, pine with metal bracing and a cross tie rod. Going to be a wedding chapel. They have a great view out on the back patio.
New boiler (45,000lbs or so), and some trusses. I was stuck on the truss job, I had to set right where they took out a dead oak tree. Backed up until my tandems fell in the soft fill, put the crane up on jacks and threw cribbing under the tires in the hole, and managed to walk it back out. Once I was out of the filled in stump hole, it was only greasy on top. I stuck the 40 ton truck again yesterday in a mulch bed, walked across the curb and the tandems sunk down in pretty good. I got it blocked up, but couldn't get myself out, a little tug from the f450 rigging truck was enough to pop me out.
The second sign got really wiped out, there's not likely enough to save on it. Some units with the 100 ton, and a generator at a cell tower site.
Some other work with the mack and the 40 ton. I've had one of the other guys out at a observation tower, they are installing LED lighting up the sides and around the upper story. Used my fixed basket on the RT, its around 130-140' up, and the other side is further away. I let him do the manbasket job- 4 days of up 4' and wait 20 minutes all day long, tries my patience level. They have one row of lights, tight up under the overhang of the observation deck, the fixed basket on the jib works great for that.
Well I hope none of you guys hung a flag from a cable choker over memorial day weekend. It seems they did in connecticut, and the college spent all weekend trying to find a operator to let it down- good luck with that on a holiday weekend. The steel choker evidently looks like a noose and people are all up in arms about it. We may be outlawed from using chokers from here on out. Also- don't anyone tell the news people that its called a choker, or for certain we won't be able to use them anymore. https://www.fox61.com/article/news/...e-it/520-c2a3ea90-7bc9-4ae2-8eb8-d403f1479cbc
Yikes... Someone point out the flag waving in the breeze yet the heavy steel cable hangs straight. College and media are full of educated stupid people.
doh. Noose-like ropes. :facepalm:
The boys might use a real choker next time,just dont put the knob in the bell when your being patriotic.Maybe then the academics will be happy.
^was thinking the same thing
Hope the contractor got a hefty change order fee if they had to send anyone to lower that flag, to compensate for being dragged through the muck because they are honoring our war dead. Any guesses what the "woke surcharge" will be for any future crane work on that campus? Guessing that the contracts won't allow certified wire rope slings to be suspended in the air in the future...
I've got it! I'll make certified disguise covers for eyes.
Every boat tied to a dock, every sail boat no more ropes knots they all look like a noose run hide AHHH..................
Finished up the manbasket on the tower work. I'm going to bet we will be back, these new led's aren't that reliable in my experience. There's always strings that don't end up working right. Nothing like the sun in your eyes. Some steel on a cabin porch.
Fixed a outrigger cylinder on the Galion. Found a missing o ring where the holding valve bolted to the cylinder, it only slowly weeped there, the seal behind the wiper was the real leak.
New video board, and a HVAC unit. Wind was blowing pretty good on the sign job, and it blew my skylight shut, didn't do the top window any favors.
Playing with boats and barges.
Look at you go! Love that water fun.
None of the barge stuff is my equipment, or the RT that's on it- they bare rented it from central. Its for a powerhouse gate rebuilding job. I'm not big enough to swing a job like that, the company doing it says est. 1919 on their trucks. But they paid me to put their stuff in the water and I'll hope to pull it out in september when they are done.
I figured, but you still got to play by the water
That little Tug Boat must be all 2 engines and a fuel tank ? Seems so short and not much of a hull, obviousliy people know morw than me about Tugs so I'm sure it does its job
That's basically every truckable tug. Anything over 26' is considered a real tug and is regulated as such.
It is pretty damn cute. That hull shape is spectacular! Looks like an upside down sanding block
Been gone for a week, wife's family get together in the Black Hills. Me and the wife and my two youngest. Had to build a receiver hitch for the wife's honda pilot. I had a old one off a Dodge pickup (I think- its been around a while). A little steel and a little welding and we were good to go.
Had to put some hot tubs on the bottom floor of some two story decks. Unfortunately the c frame I built for the big rocks was too short. This one's a little longer but not as heavily built. The c had to be above the top floor roof and it worked out just fine. I built a x frame "spreader" with a swivel to fit under the c frame, there wasn't a lot of room under the upper floor.
Emergency sunday job, and some more steel and beams on cabins.
Big water pump
Loaded up a some old railroad wheel repair equipment, its headed to the scrapper. There was a turrent lathe, a vertical betts wheel lathe, and a wheel press. The old betts was heavy, like 26,000lbs.
4 piece fireplace in a guy's backyard. Lucky the lot next to him was empty, or it would all have been from the street.
Pulling concrete forms. Removing roofing materials.
Tree job, I buried the 100 ton in the yard, we got rained on before getting the last of the trunk out. Yard is flat and when I got off my mats it just sunk on down. We went back the next week and filled in the ruts. Shin to knee deep, wasn't dragging pumpkins, but close.
Putting swing stage up on a resort building. They are painting the upper green portion of the steel roof. Building was new in 2007 and the paint is flaking off a lot of it. They repainted this side from lifts, but no access to the rest of the building, so angel carts off scaffolding on the roof is the plan. We were trying to beat a thunderstorm, so I didn't put the jib on like I had planned, I put the rusty eyeball on it and thought "main should reach that". It was a little taller than I thought, but I had just enough reach. It started raining as we were pulling out of the parking lot headed home.
Pulling old boiler out of a building. 62,000lbs, hauled it on our lowboy to their boneyard. It was built with a wide hangover on one side, in relation to the built in skids, so it loaded a little crooked.
Replacing fir poles in a resort porch. Not a lot of room to work.
Trusses for a big house. Back side must be a indoor basketball/ tennis court, pretty high ceilings and I hope pexiglass windows.
Trusses, some steel on a office building.
Reinforcing a old church roof. Church had been added onto several times by "volunteer" carpenters, without much structural thought. This isn't fixing any of the roof problems, but it shouldn't get any worse.
40 ton RT lost steering/ brake assist pump. Lucky to get it loaded up and hauled home. Pulled pump and no splines left on the aux drive on the engine. Should have most of the parts by middle of next week. The swing gearbox is apart also for a leak between brake pack and gear reduction, after disassembly it needs a shaft too. Had to unbolt motor/trans/dropbox and slide it around in the frame to pull the pump, going back in is going to be fun. We also pulled the front timing cover off, thinking we needed to time the aux drive, but after having it open, we didn't have to.
Loaded out the barges and tug.
The Rt they originally had on the barge, lasted 3 days. They didn't like the crane, and so had someone else supply them with a different 80 ton. It was a pretty new grove.
Had a "3 day" roofing job, turn into a week long roofing job. It was super hot that week (this week has been a nice cool down). By the 5th day, the roofers were drinking at 9am, and it didn't make things go faster.
What kind of work were they doing off the sectional?
They redid the intake gates on a small hydro electric dam. Pushed the barge up to the dam and worked off the barge. There's no good land access to the dam.
Friend of mine is the landside support operator working on the fish diversion of a small dam. He's having a good time with that. It is that same kind of deal, no good access from the beach.
Dam they are working on was built in 1913. It was upgraded in the '30's . First hydro dam in Missouri. Powersite Dam/ Ozark beach Dam. The powerhouse sits on the far side, up against a bluff. I've had my smallest truck crane up in there years ago when we changed a motor on the overhead crane. But the water has to be down and its a gravel track up tight against the bluff on the downstream side. Here's a great collection of pictures of them building it. https://mdh.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/campozark
New outdoor bathroom. Doors look awful narrow to me, don't know how they could be ADA compliant. Also, this just sets on a concrete base, no basement, so water and sewer lines are all exposed to the cold. Plumbers were not happy, but they didn't design it, they just bid hooking it up. They told me to just put it on the schedule for in the spring to pick it up so they could fix the water and sewer lines when they freeze and crack. Job security.
I hope those plumbers made sure they went over their contract with a fine tooth comb to be sure they can not be held accountable for any damage that might be the result of freezing.
Probably has an electric heat sysytem. Will run day and night to keep the pipes from freezing. Lights on 24/7 also. I was driving downtown by the other night. Whole row of medical and college buildings both sides of the freeway all lit up interior and exterior 9:30 pm. Empty parking ramps fully lit. What a waste of electricity. Simple motion detectors folks that's all it takes. Lots of poor designs out there.
Nope, sparky was there wiring at the same time, and we actually talked about that. There's two cut outs for window a/c units, one on each restroom. BUT no heat. Unless the window units have a strip heater in them also. My only guess was that they shut the restrooms in the winter and blow out the system like a RV.
Was looking at a terex crane the other day. The geniuses at the factory installed a CEMAT transmission. According to the tag "DO NOT PUSH OR TOW VEHICLE". So what in the blue blazes is someone supposed to do when you get stuck in mud, slide in snow or ice, or need pulled up a hill? Pray? Wait for better weather? Just go home?
Maybe they mean if machine is not running ? Many automatic transmissions have no fluid moving through them when engine not running. Many cars and trucks are not supposed to be towed on all four wheels when not running. Some models towed behind motor homes have a transfer case to put in neutral prevents transmission internals from rotating with no fluid flow.
Reminds me of a story that's funny now but not so funny then a friend of mine told me. He had one of those real nice bus Class A motorhomes he pulled a Honda pilot behind. Well he loaded up the RV with Pilot in tow and headed down I-65. He barely merged onto the HWY when they looked in the rear view mirror and the Pilot was nothing but smoke. Yep smoked that transmission. He tried convincing his wife that it "jumped" out of neutral into park but she didn't by it.
Check out this recent one from march of 2021 https://www.motor1.com/news/494805/jeep-wrangler-flat-tow-engine-destroyed/
Ask Mr. Truck Shop about that warning. His policy is to disconnect drive shafts before moving anything with a tow truck.
I left a older Subaru wagon in first gear once, ONCE! I got distracted by the customer interrupting my hookup behind the boom truck, by wanting to pay me. Long story short, I got up to 65 mph, for about 10 miles, I don't know the math exactly but I think it'd be at least 10 K RPM on the old Soob? Whatever, it totaled it. $750.00, and I drove it for a couple years, and didn't put a dime in it, so no big deal, and a lesson learned.
No doubt lesson learned. When I am hooking up or unhooking any trailer I don't want any distractions.
Well, it seems the wife and I are now empty nesters. My son is now a junior at Missouri state in springfield, he's just a hour away. He had two years at community college and now is finishing. Youngest daughter also started at Missouri S and T in rolla- 2 1/2 hours away. Its quiet in the house. Got some steel and trusses set on a big house overlooking the lake the other day. 3,000 lbs beam about 92' away. My 70 ton would have set it, but I never would have got my 70ton up in the driveway.
No need to flag the outriggers swing area, if you can't even walk around the crane.
Setting a pool, the telebelt man was nice and left me the good spot. Those telebelts have a heck of a gear reduction on the swing motors, because he was a long ways from being level. And yes, I will block the whole road to unstack trusses.
Lp bulk tank.
It's refreshing to see you have all that room to work with like we normally do.
So my rt has been sitting in the shop for a while. We stripped the drive spline on the 2 section pump that's mounted to the engine, not the main hyd. pumps. This pump runs the brake boost and swing in one sector, and the steering on the other sector. New pump, spline drive in engine gear housing, and new bearing for it, should fix it all up. First new pump we got was wrong. Second new pump was right pump, but needed to make some adaptors for fittings etc. Finally, new pump installed, have swing and brake (front sector), but no steering (rear sector). Steering has always been weak on this machine, so I'm thinking we have something else wrong. Have hyd. flow, but no pressure at the front steering cylinders. Good flow at swivel, and someone has been at the orbital, so I guess its decided to give up the ghost. No change after replacing orbital. There's a flow restrictor valve, with a pressure relief, between pump and swivel. I have flow coming out of this valve, but no pressure. I disassemble and the pressure relief has a lot of wear at the seat, and a fine shaving in it. So I go looking for a new pressure relief. Its a griesen, which has been bought out by parker. Grove is 13 days out on the whole valve, 26 days out on the pressure relief. Can't come up with a good part number for the pressure relief. But the hyd. shop has a generic adjustable flow divider with pressure relief, and it's only $100, so I buy it and some fittings and install. Still no pressure. Pull the line off the pump and put my gauge right in the line. I know I've got no relief now, and the pump will just deadhead, but I decide to just bump the starter and see if the gauge even jumps. I don't care anymore if it deadheads, I'm ticked. I get nothing out of the pump for pressure. So we repull the new pump, which is a pain in the *** to get out, the motor mount bolts have to come out and slide the engine and trans to the side, and its a pain to get at the fittings. The guys finally get it out, and disassemble it. Call me over, and the seal on the back sector of the pump is out of place. Its kind of all goofy in there, because that seal is actually right by the gears. How in the world do the gears not chew up the seal? Well it doesn't get chewed up by the gears, because there's supposed to be a swash plate on the gear side, holding the seal in the housing. The front side swash plate was there, but the rear one wasn't in the pump. Gears were turning giving me flow, but with no swash plate I sure wasn't going to get any pressure out of that pump! New pump is ordered. This one has been a little frustrating. I just couldn't see how the problem could be in the new pump, because it was giving me flow. Usually if you have flow, the pump will build pressure. So I went chasing other things all over that stupid crane. Pump to flow restrictor, through swivel, to orbital upstairs, back downstairs through the swivel to the twin steering cylinders, I had gauges put in all over that stupid thing trying to figure out what was going on. Its kind of nice to have it figured out.
How can there be no warranty on that pump? Has to be some recourse with it.
I'm sure they will warranty the pump. They probably won't warranty my shipping back and forth. All my time trying to figure out what was wrong. My steering orbital. My flow restrictor pressure relief valve. Or any "downtime". Or any labor in and out. But maybe I can get it back working again.
Offending pump.
Replacing pole at resort. Quarry conveyor.
BMC Stone has a conveyor system similar but ANCIENT, comes out of the pit to the crusher and stockpile area.
Pump finally showed up last week for the rt, its up and running and ready for a job! Guess who's highway just got new yellow stripes on it? (And guess who evidently can't drive)
A little tree work.
Put a mini up on a retaining wall for a mini putt course, and a HVAC unit.
Setting a couple beams on a house. Driveway had a little slope.
More log replacements.
Bunch of HVAC at a school.
I shouldn't have to buy another tag rope for a long, long, long, time. I went to a sale last weekend, a customer of mine that did tower repair work is getting out of the business. There was 5 miles of rope, and I brought home about a mile of it. Its all good double braided without that cheap core. A couple of the tubs had 5-600' in them. There's a bunch of roundups under the tubs of rope, and I got a few chain come a longs and some shackles too.
Looks like your schools are flush with cash, like in my area. Covid relief money I think it is, they got a big chunk and are spending it ASAP. My HVAC guys was surprised to be replacing units before their due date, well before. Easy come easy go! Kubota minis have designated rigging points marked, look on the digger boom, at the top of the arch, those are two. The other two are also marked, in the rear. Not that you did it wrong, just not the way the Kubota whiz kids planned it, but you probably have a lot more time in the op seat then they do!
So I grabbed it by the blade and the lugs on the track frames. This little unit is a hard used rental, and I didn't see any other places marked. It was actually back heavy, not boom heavy, so I couldn't really see it getting away from me. I do see what you're talking about on the arm, but I just leveled it with a pair of shackles, and kind of put the boom out until it hung straight. Isn't it nice when they put designed pick points on something, only they are over 4' different in height? Good luck on guessing that for rigging length. I've done some larger ones without lift points, and usually I'll just grab the track frames, and if they have a bigger stick, I'll put another line on the stick. I put arrows on this web picture where I grabbed it, where's the other pick points on the rear? You own something like this if I remember right.
Page 47 is Lifting Procedure for the Excavator and lengths of cables. https://www.kubota.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/U17-3.pdf I expect by attaching to the boom in the raised position, the CG is below the boom attachment point.
I cheat a bit. I'll use a couple of 5ft synthetic slings shackled to the blade, and just chuck a hook onto them and another hook onto a shackle to the boom. Comes up perfect on a digger that size, up to 3t.
this one's a bit larger, so I used don't slightly longer slings. Same principal, though.
Kiwi refreshed my memory, you swing the house around "backwards" and use the blade. On my U 25S Kubota mini, figuring I'd be lifting it often, I had two custom length wire rope slings made up, they and two stock slings made it fly perfect. For sure your rigging job worked equally well, many ways to skin a cat etc. I think I picked mine a few times before noticing the designated pick points, kind of a nice touch they include those but they need bigger labels! I sold it a couple weeks ago, got all my planned projects done, hadn't used it for a year, and used the money to asphalt my rural home's driveway, (plus more room in the hangar now, where i stored it) something I've wanted to do for decades. It was fun to operate that little machine, and they are working fools.
Found the pic of flying mine around, just because I could!
This glass clerestory/ skylight has leaked ever since the building was built. They can't keep tenants in the building because every time it rains, there's a lake on the floor. It was originally installed/ built on top of a 6" rectangular tube, that got welded into the structural steel of the building. The builders need that steel to build the new roof out of, and it would be a pain to try to get cut down to that point. So I had them take out the lower glass, and put some bars across it and brought the upper glass down with the frame. Cut it to pieces on the ground.
Was at a auction yesterday, and bought not one, but 2 cars. My son has been making do with his 94 ford pickup, but now has got a better highway cruiser in a 1997 crown vic, with only 127,000 miles on the clock. Runs like a top and the a/c works. His old ford truck is kind of low geared for back and forth to college. This should make better highway speeds. Youngest daughter has been driving my old red 3/4ton ford, and its also pretty low geared, and she's 3 hours away at college. Her new wheels are a 2009 toyota prius. Its got quite a few more miles on the clock- 240,000. They drove it in to the auction site, but it wouldn't restart when it was time to sell it. I really had no intentions of buying anything. But the crown vic was selling pretty cheap, and my son has kinda been looking for a different set of wheels, so at $1,500 I thought it would make some cheap college transport. So I threw my hand up and bought it. The prius was two cars down in the line, but it wouldn't start or go into gear that day. I guess no one really wanted to bid on it without it starting or going into gear, so it came home for $2,600. I bid figuring they got it to the auction- can't be anything too seriously wrong with it. I got lucky, the keys are a little finicky in the prius, and if you don't put your foot on the brake, they won't start or go into gear. I got it running and drove it home! First impressions- the crown vic is a pretty solid old car, the prius is super noisy on the road- I'm guessing I've either got a bad tire, or they saved all the weight they could with sound deading eliminated. Its noisier than the dickens on the road.
Also- sounds like I need to buy one of the anti theft shields for the cat on the prius, I guess they are the $$$$ ones to steal.
I think the crown vics around that year were one of the best cars built. Cars and pickups are getting harder to find you did ok. I have a pt cruiser that has a bad head gasket. It has a very good body i am on the fence about fixing or junking it.
You know you can sure **** off those of us in the rust belt! Just to find a 1997 that looks that good of any make would be near impossible here! And if you did you sure would not find it for $1,500! How much would you want for that 1994 Ford?
He wants to hold onto it for right now, I'll keep my eye out for a good one for you though. They actually aren't that rare in good shape by me.
Actually if I was to be 100% serious I would like to find a nice, say 1997 Ford Ranger! Had a extended cab short bed years back that the rust finally got to. Basic 4 cylinder 2wd.
Rough day today. 2hour drive to the jobsite 100 ton. Supposed to take down 4 trees. Get there and they were supposed to take down a tree by the road so we had room to work. Its not down. And there's two more trees they want to take down while I'm there. They leave for lunch about the time we get going good, are gone for a hour and a half. I'm thinking "daylight is burning boys, better get your butts in gear". Finally pull the last tree at 5:00pm. Still have to take crane down and 2 hours back home, and sure enough, boom won't telescope back in. I'm in the middle of the street with a street closure. 103' of boom still out in the air. The piano wire reel inside the boom, that gives the computer the precise boom length for the latching system has evidently lost its spring, or has a loop in the cable, because it won't retract. Liebherr after hours tech support came through, and we were able to telescope it back in, all in manual mode. Which I hate doing because you can really mess things up. It wasn't fun, and it was really really dark when we got done. But the crane is out of the street and in a parking lot. It was too dark and I was too tired to bring it home. Counterweights are home and we can go get the crane later. Parts order for tomorrow. And the customer wasn't happy because the bill was too high. But I got a check. Let's hope it covers the new reel.
Of course it could be worse, I could be trying to fix a CAT with mystery low oil pressure like DMiller.....
Kudo's to Liebherr! I'd guess it's common practice to have their 24 hour support number on hand. I think it's also common customers complain about the cost when it's their vault things take longer. I remember when I did a job on a multi-unit luxury condo complex. I was using the skid steer and I had a single axle dump truck. The customer hired someone else with a smaller/mini skid steer to do some of the work between the units and in front but wanted to use my dump truck. Sure. Then they were complaining the about the cost saying the guy in the skid steer did a lot more work. It took a long time to get paid on that job with all kinds of excuses like they never got the bill or they sent a cheque out and it must have got lost, etc., etc. I don't charge by the load, I charge by the hour like every other dump truck so if it takes 15 minutes to load or close to an hour you're still paying for the time the truck is sitting there. It's not like I can go to another job and just come back to haul the material away. Funny thing is I was kind of dumb and only charging $40/hr. and could have been using my skid steer in between loads and not charging extra for it.
Damn CraneOP that sucks and unfortunately I know how a day like that feels.. So is the Liehberr back home?
Curious mind here too CO
You gotta love it, don't cha?? You show up to do a job when you were supposed to, the tree guys the customer hired didn't do what they said they would, you need to change the game plan, the guys take an HOUR AND HALF lunch, you get the job done, of course something brakes, and the customer isn't happy.....aren't people great!
Crane is back home, got done with some other jobs with smaller crane before noon, caught a ride down there and brought it home. Part is ordered from liebherr, I think they had it in their parts depot in virginia. Should be here tomorrow, I've got trusses to set all day with a smaller crane, so I'm hoping to get it apart and maybe reinstalled Thursday. I thought about trying to fix whatever is wrong with my reel (which may not be much), but I need the thing back together, and the reel is in a super unhandy location, and having boom stuck out and not being able to bring it back in is actually #1 on the list of super unhandy. So new reel.
Yes, yes they are. Customer called again today to complain some more about the cost, and he "isn't going to recommend me to anyone". The guy actually complained about the crane breaking, which happened after I was done with the job, and I don't charge time for my own breakdowns. Complain about things that don't cost you anything? I kinda hope he loses my phone number. These guys aren't a regular customer of mine, they're out of my usual area also. I tried to direct them to guys closer than I am, but he "knows a guy who knows me"- and I'm evidently the tree whisperer. Tree cutter was like "that was amazing, and I can tell you really know what your doing with taking those trees down, but the boss man is going to throw a fit about the bill". He was right, the boss man did throw a fit.
Good riddance. If he does call you again he will demand that you sharpen your pencil, and he can insert the wooden object where it will do the most good.
On to good news, the 2 cars in a day auction has been a success all the way around. The Crown vic (nicknamed "The Couch" or formally "Crown Couch") is a great cruiser. He can fit all his tools in the trunk and there's still room for at least 2 bodies. Everything is dry and locked away. It floats down the road, and the couch must have the most overboosted power steering system I've ever driven. Youngest daughter wasn't quite as sure about the Prius. The prius is definitely a girl car, and she was kind of fond of the 3/4 ton ford- not a "girl" car. All the road noise was a severely chopped/ worn set of rear tires. New tires and a windshield to pass inspection. The new tires eliminated the road noise and and it rides 100% better. I put around 50 miles on it around town running for inspections and fixing. Her and I did another 30 or so with her going for a test drive run. She drove back to college sunday afternoon, a 150 mile trip. And put in 4 gallons of fuel. I don't know where she stopped for fuel, or the exact miles she got out of the 4 gallons, but the little trip computer said 48mpg. She's pretty happy with that.
Just to make you feel better I had a day today that I should have stayed in bed. Had a couple guys offer to help on the oval track which was great. I was running a little late and then the place I get diesel has a new loyalty card so I had to cash out my old card and switching it over took about 20 minutes. OK, I'm 45 minutes late so let's get something done. Needed to put 1 new tooth on the did steer bucket. I think some of the glow plugs are bad and it took forever to get the damn skid steer going. I think it was an hour and half. Would spin over fast but just wouldn't catch. Finally boosted directly off the batteries instead of at the starter and it started right up. Weird. The batteries are behind the seat is why we didn't boost there first. Then used the battery charger with a booster on the welder so I could weld the tooth on the bucket and think I fried the battery charger. I'm using a generator on the battery charger and never had a problem before. Used a truck and got the welder going. Then the welder didn't want to strike an arc and rev up. Went and jiggled the connections at the welder and then it worked. Everything that could go wrong did. Thankfully the day ended a little better. One of the guys stayed and helped put a new hyd. hose on the Cat. Of course it was about the hardest hose to put in and connect being a 1" 4 wire hose. Almost needed a 3rd person to help get it in. Routed it slightly different and had to leave a clamp off but it's in. I need to see if the clamp is really necessary or could be modified. It would have caused the new hose to rub on some other lines. Salvaged some of the day but think I should have stayed in bed. The other guy crawled under the Cat which was a huge help. My back aches just from leaning over fixing stuff and I loaded a couple loads in the dump truck with the skid steer that really did me in. I'm just stiff and aching now and can't wait to get in bed. Hoping tomorrow will be a better day.
Did you guys not agree on a rate or price beforehand? Did you charge them during lunch break? Just curious. Our local crane outfit refused to take a 30 minute lunch break when doing 8 plus hour days. The only other thing they have really ever done that irritated me related to charges was the crane Op kept taking phone calls while on our time clock. Im not talking about 2 minute call from the boss. 10 minute shoot the **** with his buddy kinda calls. 3 or 4 of them throughout the day, so 30 to 45 minutes. As an owner, Im not paying for a crane ops time to shoot the **** on the phone. No problem paying for the crane rate for actual crane time.
I dont do crane work but do a lot of by the hour service we charge thru lunch me and my guys will eat on the run if we are hungry so I charge thru the customers lunch break it was there choice to take one It always seems after lunch takes time to get the rhythm back witch adds a fair amount of time to the day but if I had a customer take an hour an a half lunch I would dam sure charge for it
We're all by the hour, I'm not running the saw, so I'm not estimating how long its going to take them to cut trees. I knew we were in trouble first thing in the morning when it went from 4 to 7 trees and the big one by the road, that he was going to have out of there, wasn't gone. I went and looked at the job, told them a estimated travel time, my hourly rate, and counterweight delivery and permits. I told them to send me a email address, and I'd send them a formal quote, and they never sent a email address. I'll take a 30 min lunch if the customer wants, that I don't charge for. BUT I'm not taking a 1 1/2 hour lunch, especially when that pushes me into OT that night, and I wouldn't have been able to get the crane home either, so that costs me another 4 hours of riding around to go back the next day and get it. 1 1/2 hour lunch when you're less than 1/2 done isn't a good plan.
Taking a 1/2 hour lunch break makes sense if the crane is sitting idle and you've got a bunch more work on the same job. If you have 1/2 an hour to an hour more work but they want to take their lunch break instead of finishing with you first, should charge double time. If the crane is holding something up while they are taking a lunch break and you have to stay in it should be on the clock. Cranes aren't cheap and if the customer wasn't prepared like they were supposed to be isn't your fault. "A lack of planning on your part doesn't constitute an emergency on my part" is pretty much along the same lines. You want the crane on the job and you're fiddling and farting around don't expect a discount for your stupidity.
I had one of those just yesterday: a custom home, and at 11:50 AM, with just the 3 car garage left to set trusses on, the carpenters dropped their nail belts and took off for an hour lunch. When they got back we wrapped things up in a bit over an hour. I'm knocking half an hour off my bill for my lunch. I seem to remember, during my construction days, whether working for myself or as a union journeyman carpenter, lunch meant 30 minutes, but now the min seems to be an hour. And these pussies are using air nail guns, not swinging a 28 oz. waffle headed framing hammer, but I digress. I had another job to get to, and they knew it, but as I still had plenty of time left I didn't say anything as the bossman (the guy who writes the check out) is a friend of mine and he, like many others, is struggling to find good help. Today, my second job got canceled because the contractors help couldn't get it together to show up by 1 in the afternoon. The job site is going to get rain over the weekend, and the site is a mud pit so that will set the job back by at least a week, in late October, in snow country.
I agree and a half hour means 30 @##$%$% minutes! Today I was sitting in my excavator waiting for the crew to saunter back after their 45 minute "break". I'm not going to dig grade and check it myself, that is why we are a crew.
In these kinds of situations back in the days when I still worked we we would just take a 10 minute coffee break every couple of hours and book some overtime for no lunch break. Didn't hold anybody up and got the job done sooner. Everybody seemed happy with doing it that way. d.d.
Who wants to stay at the job site any longer than necessary anyway. After 10 minutes to eat my lunch and 20 minutes to relax and clear my head that is long enough. I would not want to do another 30 minutes looking at my shoes. I'd rather spend that time at home with the wife and kids. Or getting paperwork done so the next job can happen. Time is a nonrenewable resource.
Long lunch breaks are fine if you own all the equipment you need on the job.
Just to be clear, we had only asked for a 30 minute lunch break. I was just wondering if thats what had the tree Co owner complaining to crane Op. An hour and a half is just wasting time. Sounds like a typical tree **** show. We didn't prep, showed up late, took a 1.5 hr lunch, gave the customer extras for free, and can't figure out why we didn't make any money. Most tree guys aren't good businessmen. When you are climbing trees, you need a break at lunch time. Got to give your muscles a break and you need to put some food in. Got to let it settle for a bit if you want to keep it. We sub to multiple other tree companies in town as we are the only one with our own crane. We always let them stop the clock for 30 minutes for lunch. Even if not climbing, its kinda hard to eat a sandwich while feeding the chipper, etc.
It all depends on the arrangements you made with the crane and if the crane operator has to stay in the crane while you're having lunch. I don't know as I'm not a certified crane operator but wouldn't think you can leave the crane for very long, if at all with a suspended load on the hook.
Got called to look at a job with issues. The potential customer hired a sign company to put scaffold racks on a building in town, to work up on a wall. Most of the scaffold racks are 2-3,000lbs. So the sign guy shows up with his bucket truck, throws a chain over the fiberglass boom by the safety lanyard, and proclaims "good to go!" Its not a bucket truck anymore, its now a crane. I say my piece- "no way is the bucket designed for that and I wouldn't work around it", which goes over like a lead balloon, but I can sleep good at night. They can do what they want. But its a great way to snap a fiberglass boom.
Lol I don't think I've ever seen a bucket rated for more then 1k, plus it had a real material boom for swinging large light heads. 3K seems like asking for a Darwin.
Don t think i'd even get close to that rig with 3 k hang in on it
Good idea to run not walk away from that one, @crane operator !!
A couple years ago, a moron that has a shop a couple miles from mine, bought a backhoe and put it on a gooseneck behind a single wheel one ton. I spotted it in his yard, and told one of my guys "he's going to dump that thing". Probably a week or two later, he had rolled the trailer, dumping the backhoe off, on the highway on the other side of my shop, and its a miracle he didn't kill anyone. Well, its been raining here, and yesterday my shop road curve got him. He had a tandem enclosed trailer behind the one ton dually he purchased- I'm assuming after the insurance paid on the last one. We haven't had anyone quite that far into the trees.
Trusses
Roofing job at a resort. This is one we actually helped with a year or so ago, turns out they had different lots of shingles on the building, and the resort wasn't happy with the stripe look on the roof. So the new comes off, and newer yet installed. The battery dump box is the cats *** for dumping shingles in a dumpster. I missed out on most of this one, one of my guys covered all of it, but had saturday plans, so I finished up for him. It was kind of wet for roofing.
Some steel on a back deck for a house, and some more scaffolding moving.
And I turned down a heavy moving job a week ago. Wife plays piano, and does lessons at a local church a couple days a week. Since we are empty nesters now, I took her shopping. We've had a upright that we bought right after we were married, and I took her to a couple piano stores and let her play a bunch. Went and looked at some in private homes also. Her favorite was a Baldwin made in 1905, it had undergone a restoration maybe 10-15 years ago. Its big and heavy, and was 2 hours away from my house. A piano mover quoted me $650 to bring it to our house, and I know there wasn't anyway I could do it with my guys for less than that. He's got all the equipment and does it everyday, so I let them move it. Wife has been enjoying it. Supposed to have a tuner/ repair guy come next week to fix a couple issues and tune it all up. I think we need to turn it to a little angle in the room, but I'm not the real decider on how the furniture is placed in the rooms anyways, I'm just the dumb muscle.
My mechanic in training has the 5.4 ford shop lawn ornament in disassembly mode. This is the reman engine we put in that skipped time and shattered the plastic intake. He's got it down in a lot of pieces, and I don't think we've actually hurt anything serious, and I've found the culprit of the timing issues. The cam phasers have a clock spring that pushes the timing back against the oil fed advance (I think that's how it works). Any how, after watching some youtube on what they are supposed to look like, I found that the left head phaser, had a bolt sheared that tensions the clock spring. So no timing adjust on that side. I think I'm gong to get the little blocks that lock the phasers in place, and then it has a tune that goes on the ecm so it won't throw codes with the blocks in.
Red is the lock bolt that holds the end of the spring, blue arrow is the bolt that tensions it, and you can see where the first picture, one phaser has its bolt sheared.
If I remember correctly those are just pins that are driven in to hold the spring also make sure to get the correct lockout kit as aftermarket phasers are different from the oem
They are the unthreaded end of two extra long bolts that hold the plate on the other side. My phasers have fomoco printed on them, so hopefully I can get a oem set to lock them.
Ok yeah now that you mention that you are correct it’s been about 2 years since I did a set of lockouts
Been a busy November, and I haven't posted up much. Got the big christmas tree put up early in the month.
Bridge beams. They pushed the poor little manlift all over in the creek, and finally had to drag it out with the excavator. They aren't really made for loose creek gravel.
Indoor waterpark building, all big lam beams.
Plant maintence
Wood and some steel
Had to set a pair of conex's up on a hill. Road had two switchbacks too tight to get a crane around, so rented a pair of forklifts and tandem set them. Going to be a off grid cabin. The plywood box is the bathroom. Said they were going to catch run off water, but that isn't much roof to catch run off from.
New house beside a runway. Garage is the hangar, or the hangar is the garage, however you want to look at it. There's a couple more hangars along the runway. In the third picture- I'm on the road and the runway is to my right with the other hangars across the runway. Its a great retirement spot for someone who has a small plane and wants to fly around a little. Its not a super flat runway, it runs uphill to the east pretty good, but its paved.
Sewer boxes. Truck driver had to stop a couple times coming down the hill, evidently if you pump the brakes forty two thousand times, you run out of air.
Development sets on a hill up above the lake.
Shop dog is getting bigger. And loves gloves and plastic water bottles, don't leave either lay around. That and she's absolutely destroyed one old semi air seat (there was foam everywhere ), her blanket, and eaten the headrest off the yellow creeper.
Hope Rental Supply does not see this thread. They will not be getting their deposit back and no future rentals.
SSHHHH.... I won't tell if you don't. If you do tell---
Went and picked up this little gem today. Broderson IC-200 carry deck. 2002- Gm vortec v-6 (I think) gas or propane. Hoping to use it for interior maintenance and crowded quarters work. I bought it on a auction down in arkansas.
So where were you when the jakes decided to quit working? Oh yeah, About right there. I used the "brake check area" as a "cool down brakes area". Did not have to use the "runaway truck ramp" . I bought the little broderson in russellville ar. So I took ar- 7 from harrison south through Jasper to russellville. The drop down into the buffalo river bottom from the russellville side is pretty steep, and the corners get tighter the further you go down. Sure is a pretty drive though.
Walked the RT down a timber hill and through a creek to get to this billboard to change panels. And used the Broderson at the shop and out on a job- I even got the jib swung on it. It runs like crap though, its a vortec v6, and I don't know if its got a vacuum leak, or just bad old gas, but it should run a lot better than it does. It will barely climb up on the trailer, and wants to drop down and die when you give it some throttle. I'm going to start with fresh fuel, plugs wires, cap and rotor, and see what I get from that.
County boys evidently got in a little scrap with someone, two cars at the ford dealership body shop, both dinged on the front end. Setting some steel with the broderson, and a log cabin.
Putting up plywood with the rt, and setting a steel ridge beam with the 40 ton.
Timber beams on the back of a cabin. You can see my stack of mats on the drivers rear jack, its a little crooked there. The last picture is the foundation of a turkey barn, that we need to set trusses on. The barn is 540' long, and they are going to build 5 of them.
Turkey Barn?
Just south of us in Arkansas is the center of turkey raising in the country. Lots of big commercial turkey raising facilities, all raising turkeys for the nearby Tyson processing plants.
I thought the country's Center for Turkey raising was Washington DC ..
I think it's pretty much in the midwest.
I just looked it up, Minnesota is #1 (40 millions birds), and arkansas and North carolina (both around 30 million birds) swap back and forth on #2 & #3. The farmers here contract with tyson or butterball, I think the company will finance the building, provide the birds and feed, farmer provides the land and place to get rid of the fertilizer. Its large scale factory farming.
Set two pre built cabins at 90deg to each other to make a "house". Couldn't get them both from one spot, yard was too crooked.
Lift cylinder has been leaking pretty bad on the forklift. The top seal came apart in pieces, so I just hauled the whole cylinder to the cylinder shop. Got it back this week and reinstalled. We use the forklift all the time and its a pain when its down. Had to go online to find a new chain link connector for the mast chain. One of my guys spent all day driving around springfield looking for one, Grainger had one if I bought 5 at a time, ended up at mcmaster carr. Sheetrock for a condo redo. There's no service elevators at all at this complex, so anytime they have to do major work (doors/ countertops/ sheetrock) its got to either get carried up the stairs, or crane.
Picked up some tires yesterday, I was only going after 4, but I ended up leaving 4 more behind, after I got the truck full. I've got a guy that is a buyer for the recappers, he sells the good used stuff that he gets, and he also regrooves. We don't do enough miles, my tires usually age out or rebar/ shotrock gets them, and at 1/3 of the price of new, I don't mind driving used sometimes. I still buy new for some things, but for a set of drives that don't go out often, the numbers sure beat a new set. I'll send one of the guys after the other 4 monday. There's 3 425 steers, 4 11r22.5's drives (I left the other 4 of those) and 2 11r24.5 steers in there. If I hadn't had my toolbox in, I think I would have got the last 4.
In addition to searching town for the chain connector for the forklift (and ending up online), I also ended up online for a part for the welder. Its a feed guide for the wire feeder, and I've managed to jam the wire in it. I was really needing to weld something up when it jammed, and it actually fed the wire and didn't jump it off the wheel without the guide, but I think I got lucky. Welding store man spent 20 minutes on the phone and his computer, to basically tell me he has no idea what the part # might be or if or when he could get one from lincoln. And they sell new lincoln welders. I found it online, and have one on the way. I'm all for buying and supporting local business, but sometimes its hard.
I'm so with you on that one, I'll always try local for a part first, but it's down right depressing when they can't find it, don't know what you're talking about, or just don't care. It's a sad state of affairs for local businesses when they can't find it and I can find it and have it on its way in a matter of minutes.
I know, I'm sitting on the stool at the welding shop, while he's on the phone and computer, talking to a different welding shop. I look the thing up on my phone, hand the man the phone "hey- it looks like this and its for a LN-7 wire feeder- is this what I need?" All I got was a kind of a blank look- "well- I can't know if that's exactly what you need without the 4 or 5 digit code number that lincoln put on a sticker in the box when they made it". And that's what I need to have to order it. It was all of $10 online and he won't even bother to look any further, then I guess I'll take a chance and order it myself and see if what shows up is right. I need the welder.
Got my Christmas present early. This showed up today. Its a 2002 Link Belt 8640 HL. 105' main, 51' jib. Its basically to replace my old 25 ton Grove, 35 ton Grove, and my Mack/ National boom truck. We use our newer 40 ton Grove tms 500e all the time, and we are really happy with it. My mid 70's 25 ton is plain worn out, the upper is fine, the steering and brakes/ undercarriage is the real issue with it. No one wants to take the Mack/ National, unless its a long drive, and you only have to do less than 1,000lbs and be under 70' radius, and that just won't do most of my truss jobs. The wife thinks we need to keep the Mack for places where you can't have any counterweight, but I'm in the "send it down the road" camp. I won't hardly take the mack anywhere, because I get to a job, and don't have enough crane and then I'm ticked. We'll see how it goes, and then get rid of some of the old stuff. The faded orange paint is on the list also.
Does it have FMC brother? Or the only brand bigger machines as FMC?
The FMC is from the old parent company. Food/ Machinery/Chemical, which absorbed the old link belt in the '60's. Typically anything with FMC on it is from before the 90's, Sumitomo and FMC formally joined then (86-87 or so). FMC was totally out of link belt by 1998. Link belt is headquartered in kentucky, but sumitomo owns 100% of it now. You can see stuff that has link belt and FMC labels both on the same machine.
I’ve seen huge cranes mostly lattice boom with FMC logo on it, they looked very new to me. Thanks for clarifying about Sumitomo/Linkbelt. I knew more about excavator side of things before. Is Kobelco still have anything to do with crane side of these? Now when they got out of excavators side of CNH? Or they were never on the crane side?
I don't know about Kobelco, I'm no lattice boom expert. Sorry.
The new link belt has a swing alarm that goes off whenever you get on the swing lever- that's the most annoying thing ever.
New to me Link belt has been on two jobs already, both successfully. Yea! Glass windows, on the other side of a house, huge, but flimsy wood frames. No way to get a glass vacuum lifter on them, multiple panes. 40' off the ground on the other side, no way to get a manlift down there. So I repurposed the dance floor with some handrails and a frame to hold the windows. Essentially a 6' x 13' work platform. Worked like a charm.
Little car missed the driveway last week in the rain. They left it right in the middle of my driveway too. We drug it out of the way to get around, they shattered the passenger front rim on my culvert. I found three kids wandering around in the woods, they had come to rescue the car and the driver- who ran off into the woods after wrecking their car. Never saw the driver or them leave with it. It looked pretty messed up on the front suspension.
I do NOT envy you your work or your Driveway location CO!!!
That is a slick way of solving that problem. How bad was the sway for the installers hanging from that? I see you run pretty well any brand of equipment (Grove, Link-belt, Liebherr, Gallion, National, etc), and change off often throughout the week/month etc what piece you are using. Is it fairly easy to switch between machines, or is it easy for you because of your years of experience? Do the machines all have the same type of controls (similar to jumping between excavators with same control pattern)? I can run a two different patterns of skid steers. I've got a lot of experience running Case H pattern and Bobcat foot controls, but I struggle in an ISO pattern machine. My dad can't run Case, but is fluid with a Bobcat. So, does the link-belt, Liebherr, etc, carry a learning curve period for you, or was it pretty intuitive for you to start running it?
Last mobile crane I was ever in Cab was a OLD Bantam, Hydraulic boom with Friction winches, I would NOT know where to start on newer machines as you have CO. Is bad enough swapping from a 963B to a D or into a Deere Excavator, crawled in and sat behind the little Deere CTL controls the company has, got Right Back Out!!
The dance floor is pretty heavy, I used it to move a 5,000lbs manlift from floor to floor on the tall steel building we built a few years ago. So its heavy enough, that it doesn't sway much. I also put two tag ropes on the outside corners, so a ground man could spin them and hold them against the wall. Of course that means you have to have a pretty big crane to put the workers and window on the other side of the house, I used the liebherr to set them. I thought it went pretty good, considering I picked up the handrail steel about 2:00 the afternoon before and started welding then. I would have never made being ready if I hadn't had the dance floor already built, and another guy prepping steel while I was welding up. As far as the controls. The liebherr and the grove rt are 2 axis i.e. 4 way joysticks. The grove 40 ton truck, and link belt have single axis joysticks, but the winch and boom are reversed on the right armrest. Grove has winch on the right, link belt has boom on the right. Left armrest is also different, tele and swing on the grove, swing and second winch on the link belt- tele is on a foot pedal on it. All the old grove lever machines are the same, and we swapped some levers around to make the national and the p&h levers the same as the grove levers. I'll likely swap the position of the link belt right armrest to match the grove pattern, because that's what I'm most used to. I like winch all the way to the right, because that's where it was in all the old lever machines and it just feels right to me. Its best if you can run them without thinking about it. Of course just because the levers are in the same position, doesn't mean they all run the same. And they all have different computer systems. The liebherr liccon is the most unintuitive, overly complicated, unhandy boom control and lmi system, but its the nicest one to run, once its set up. It isn't fast, but its super easy to boom down two inches 100' away, and you aren't doing that in my 70 ton p&h- it just isn't that precise. And once you run one liebherr, they all use the same computer system, so that's nice. Most of the domestic RT and truck cranes use fairly simple computer set ups, and you can get the hang of them in pretty short order. Grove AT's - I used the old EKS system quite a bit, and it was pretty nice and easy to set. I actually prefer their screen to the liebherr also- the liebherr is a pain to see in bright sun conditions. I haven't run a newer grove with the ecos system, but I hear they have a lot of loosing the boom location issues. They are kind of all the same once you get onto it- similar to running different skid steers. I actually like running different machines all the time, it gets kind of old running the same thing day after day for me. I do have cranes that I prefer to run.
You would have a lot less trouble operating, as figuring out how to set up the computers. The new link belt, I need the manual for to learn how to set it up. My Grove 40 ton truck is really simple. The liebherr has things the computer can do- that I know it can do- but I can't do it unless I've got the book in front of me, and even then it can be a struggle. I'm not real comfortable with it in manual boom extension and retraction, its really easy to mess things up. But once its all set up, there's only so many functions- boom up and down, winch up and down, and swing left and swing right.
My uncle did something similar with the Deere excavator my grandpa bought. Uncle spent years running Cat pattern and despises Deere. He can run it, just doesn't like it, so part of the deal with the purchase of the Deere was to have the pattern changed before it arrived at the farm. Making the operations intuitive and instinctual were what I was wondering about with your operation, and it sounds like you do just that as much as possible.
Great explanation. I have installed Greer LMI on a old P&H cranes. I got into a new P&H in the mid nineties and couldn't make the machine move because of the electronics. I've done appraisals on Demags and Lieberrs and wouldn't even attempt to turn the key switch.
I might know of a new home for the Mack out west, all things considered. They have two shops and two log cabins to stack, and 70' and 1000# is a good fit.
The mack/ national is going to make a nice boom truck for someone, its still all levers direct to the valve body, no complicated electric over hydraulic systems. It will also get in a pretty tight spot- its only 18' outrigger width, and with no counterweight swing. The Mack with camelback is the most stable boom truck I've ever driven, a lot of them sway pretty bad side to side because they are so top heavy. Its got a manual inj. pump 300 maxidyne, and while its not super fast, it grunts right down and pulls in lower rpms. I do like that its a 9 speed in my hills, over just the old 5 speed quad ranges. For us, its just that we run into so many jobs where its a little further away, and a little heavier than expected, and the mack really suffers at longer radius. The new link belt and my tms 500e both are well stacked with counterweight- 8,400lbs on the grove and 9,700lbs on the link belt. You can pretty much lay either one out 90' away with 2,000lbs. on main boom.
Which model is the national?
Trans out of the western star, I actually just got it back from the rebuilders yesterday. It took about a week. They did have a couple exchange ones, but they were both sold before I got mine there, so they rebuilt mine. Redid the pads for the link belt. It had sliders, but they carry far too low- I know we would hit them in driveways and ditches. They are also difficult to use how the crane is built- you end up down in the mud to pin and stow them. We will just stow them on the deck.
New years eve truss set. If you look close, you can see all the green rock from my antifreeze leak. I did get it patched up enough to set the last three trusses, scalding the dickens out of myself in the process. Then I replaced the hose before I left for home. Holiday work never goes right. Condo shingles with the link belt. And some poles for a amusement ride.
They had quite the drill rig for the pole set. They brought in the mud mats, and then let me set on them to set the poles. The hill is all sod, and water runs out of the hill all the time, so it would have never happened without the mud mats.
I don't think the gas station air pump is going to help. A piece of junk Sany telehandler, first one I've seen. I know the rental salesman and called him and gave him a hard time about it- "don't ever send it for me" etc. The clutch throw out shaft was shot in the w. star. I had one of the guys make a trip to the dealer for it.
thanks for posting the fun stuff, I miss it.
This job started early- and went all day long and part of the evening. Its filtration canisters on a sewer treatment plant. Story is that the filters are now only good for 3-4 years and cost about $120,000 to replace them in the plant. So around 30-40k per year maintence cost just for the parts that go bad, no labor. I don't think they are real happy with the engineer that specced the system. Having the led's on the crane really helped.
Threaded the needle on some maintence. Under one section of track and over to reach a sprocket. I was worried we were going to need jib, which would have meant dismounting, hanging it from a forklift and remounting around the trees. I honestly thought main boom was going to be 10' short, with all the elevation changes, and inability to really measure it, I just put the eyeball on it and thought it would be short, we had 5' extra.
Local area firefighters had their antenna damaged in windstorm a couple weeks back. Had to do a little deicing to make the driveway.
Steel for a porch on the backside of the vacation home.
Set those two 17,000lbs tanks, and we can't cut the tree branches. Laid it flat and rigged it short.
I’ve loved cranes since I was a little kid. Even got to play with a boom truck for 6 months when I was an apprentice. I really enjoy the pictures. Cam
yes nice pictures. That's a great chart to get those heavy tanks in there. That first picture of the sewage treatment plant filter had me do a double take, I saw the power lines ( that ended ) and then that bell on the pole and thought you had to work over close wires.
Got some platforms set on the poles. Also some trusses.
Billboard head. "We think its around 15,000lbs, but we're not really sure". Well then I'm bringing my 100 ton crane, because I'm going to be around 50' away and I hope its not 20,000 instead of 15,000. They were pretty close on weight- it was 16,000.
I did tear the new link belt up the other day. I lost a air bag on the rear on the way home, and the suspension is a bag on walking beam. Well- you shouldn't drive a walking beam/ bag suspension without one of the bags- it tears up the cross arms. Its not the first time this has happened, there's been prior repairs in this area. The arm is now all rewelded, and the new bag has showed up. I'm going to order a extra bag so I have one on the shelf, and can replace it on the spot rather than trying to drive home. Live and learn.
Put up a new video board monday, it was pretty nice out, 60 degrees and sunny. The guys on the board were in their shirtsleeves. Its about 11 degrees today, with 5 inches of snow and still snowing. They are saying we may get close to 9".
Glad you guys are enjoying the pictures. I store all my pictures on my home computer. Its amazing how often I look back in quickbooks- find out when we did a job years back, and then go find my pictures of the job. Either because we need to go back and do a repeat and I'm trying to remember how/ where we set up, or I have to do something similar and I want to refresh my memory on how we rigged up something. I have my pictures sorted by month, which makes it a little easier to find them.
One of my favored comments when someone asks me to repeat a job: 'I have slept since then', meaning is in no way I can remember absolutely what/how we did then!!!
Heck! these days I have problems remembering what I had for breakfast when it's time for lunch!
I’ve been slowly reading through this entire thread, good stuff keep it coming!
I like the chronologically arranged pictures idea. Mine are all jumbled up, keeping track of what and when would make it easier when I realize 3 months later I still haven't been paid, and now so many other homes have been built I'm not sure which one I need to threaten to lien. True story, happened yesterday. Those electronic signs are a money maker for their owners, a guy I know has one, and says the investment versus income ratio is much better then his rentals, and no tenants to put up with! Billboard work is great, any sign work, always fun seeing it years later, knowing you put it up there.
I hope you regularly use a backup system/service of some kind. I drowned a phone in 2019 that I had not backed up in 9 months. Lost all my pictures of my youngest daughters first year, and many others. I know they are only pictures, but it still hurt knowing they are gone and not coming back. Also, thank you for sharing your work. I really enjoy this thread, along with several other long running work related threads. I enjoy seeing the day to day of a field of work I've never been a part of.
I love the photos but am truly amazed at how clean you keep your cab windows.
Half the time I'm cheating, the top window opens on a lot of the cranes, and so there's no glass between the camera and the work I was cruising around looking at some cranes for sale, and spotted these two jewel's. Check out the digger steer tires on the first one (and some pretty chrome lug nut covers). And the second guy has no need to see the passenger mirror, or for that matter anything on the right side. (typically the boom rests are taller and you can see under the boom- someone's cut this one down)
Got new shoes put on the galion yesterday. I also had new tires that were supposed to go on the link belt rear tandem. But I told them to keep them. I don't know, they just looked like cheap tires to me, and at $500 a pop, I told them I wouldn't mind spending a little more and getting some better tires. I ordered two different tires, one a hercules, the other a roadmaster (cooper), and I guess I'll pick between the two when they show up, I guess 315's are somewhat in short supply. I could get 8 of either of the ones I have coming, or I could get goodyear's - but they were $1,800 each- and I'm just not paying that for 8 drives. A warehouse supplier that also sells some local- had absolutely no 315's from any of the lines of tires they handle, and told me to buy whatever I can find.
Loaded out some old cement plant equipment. The last picture, they pulled tandems out of the plant, and just put in one axle- there's over 30k on that axle, and they were headed for houston. Good thing it isn't hot weather. And I hope they had their route planned out....
those mobile plants get fat with mods, but nobody ever adds an axle for that. Add to that the tires are usually old enough to vote. We had a portable down at the dam job and all the tires looked......not roadworthy.
Only experience I’ve ever had with roadmaster tires was on some trailers company I drove for leased and within 6 months they had all blown out and been replaced and these were new tires on brand new trailers with the air inflation system
If you look at the second picture of the boom down special up there, there is a flipped down section of boom rest that can be flipped up and *(hopefully)* secured in the non-braille setting. Not too sure about those large caliber bullet holes in the top back side of boom. That does not look factory to me.
The roadmasters are around 725 each, and the hercules are around $525. I think both are 20 or 22 ply. Both designed to be "waste hauler" / city service drives. The ironman ones I told them to keep were around 500each. Trash trucks run a lot of 315 drives to deal with their weight issues, which is also why the crane is running 315 drives.
Been looking at tires, can get some continentals or hankooks shipped to me that are a drive style more like I prefer- a little more aggressive with open shoulders to get mud out. 550-650 each depending on which I get. Anyone ordered tires online and know if they include FET in on the price- or do they send you a paper later and I'm supposed to pay it? I also studied up, and if I'm willing to lose a little bit of road speed, I could go to a 12r22.5, so that's another option. I'm not sure on availability. It was a option on the crane from factory, and would go right on my 9.00 rims.
Ordered tires online today, my tire man just couldn't find any in stock with a drive type tread. I guess I'll see if they get here. It was a Monday today. 27 people calling trying to get scheduled in the next two days. I was out in the 100 ton- full jib manbasket work. Drove the counterweight truck over a manhole lid that broke. Put a cone over it and called the maintence guys for the facility. At least the tire didn't go in far enough to break the water valve under it. One of the other guys went to do a billboard with the Mack. I looked at it yesterday, and "you'll be fine getting in there"- we had 3" of sleet last week that isn't all gone (its like hard snowdrifts)- but it was all gone where he had to go. He got in there all right. he just didn't get back out. Side slope and tandems slid down the hill on him. He got a ride back to the shop, and got one of the other guys, and they were going out there with the winch truck. Well the winch truck hasn't moved in 6 months- it wouldn't start and had one flat tire and two low ones. I came back after my 100 ton job, got the winch truck running and the tires up, while they went and got another job done with the Galion. They went out with the winch truck while I went and looked at another job, and just got the Mack stuck worse. Its kind of stopped walking down the hill, but that's because its up against a tree. I finally got out there at 5- its going to take a wrecker. I've got one meeting them tomorrow after he does a job first in the morning- I've got three other jobs to do, the first two jobs are a hour one direction from town, the last one a hour in the opposite direction from town- windshield time. And thank goodness tomorrow is tuesday.
Isn't life grand! I'd rather worry about how to get all that done, than having to get it in the first place.
They got the mack out this morning. Ended up having to jack it up with the outriggers and slide some of my mats under it, I guess it just wanted to dig in when they were pulling it uphill. I took the pictures last night. Better than rolling it down the hill. My guy said it was starting to get a little light on the uphill side. And I made my 4 hours of driving around too. Had to get serious at the asphalt plant, they didn't break the chain on the conveyor, and trying to change top bearing. 90' of stick out with 14,000lbs on, the link belt had all it wanted. Told them it better come loose, or we were going to need more crane. They're supposed to be running on next monday, didn't have the right bearing, wanted to put in a "temporary" wrong bearing. So we put that in and it isn't going to work. I left to go do another job, and the new bearings have shown up, so I'll have to try to get back there tomorrow afternoon.
Slowing sliding on a side hill like that will certainly get the blood pumping! At least your guys knew to stop before it got real bad. Glad you got it out of there with no damage.
Scored a clutch jack, brand new OTC. Its in pieces, main frame and two boxes of parts. I've looked at them before, but always thought they were a little too much $$$ for me. But this one was $140. That I can afford.
Manbasket work, Down by the little dam looking at some work, and some rail cars.
More wheel changing, did one on a traction motor on the engine, and did one on each end of the dome passenger car.
Set a few blocks and then backfilled the retaining wall with 2" clean. Haven't used my old concrete bucket in a long time, but they started talking wheelbarrows, and we would have to wait while they backfilled. I said I had the solution to that. It takes a while to do a couple loads of rock that way, but it sure beat wheelbarrow. The wall was built before the house, then they decided they wanted the wall 1 block taller. They set most of it with the excavator, but no room for that on the backside of the house. The first of the wall was in the blind, further towards me I could see. The upper deck was in the way also.
I think it the right call for one more block on the retaining wall. That's a steep hillside so close to the foundation ! ! Reminds me of the California houses sliding into the sea.
There's a pile of fill on that house. They put the wall up a ways, and filled, and kept going up. Its a monster house, full size gym on the back side. We did the trusses on it last summer. Its 25-30' of fill
that's a load, 1/2 a locomotive engine
Minus the front truck weight. What's the chart over the end of the carrier? radius to the engine's coupler ?
I don't know if you can read the computer, but I was good for around 100,000lbs , and the most I saw was just under 80,000. Chart drops off pretty fast in every foot that close. It loses 17,000lbs of chart between 17' and 20' radius. I always ask if they left it towards empty of fuel, and they never do. One time we had fuel running out of the neck, because it was so full. But I'd hate to think of priming that beast if you ran it out. So I can see why they keep it full.
Crane op .. That's a neat display. 17 feet radius,35 feet of stick out with 32 feet of overhead ? Does the chart change as the load is rotated on the carrier ? With that info, I wonder why cranes collapse unless one has rigging or footing failure.
Everything on there implies smooth operations. It doesn't take very much ham handing to get things out of chart. That's one of many ways the wheels come off on crane picks. I basically get by. The one time I can point to where I was really really smooth, I was setting this transformer that was 16,000 even and my boss was calling me in to the pedestal and I kept booming down and swinging slowly slowly and the little lights are on and flashy, and I was able to get the actual load of 16,000 to match up with what I could pick at 16,000. The honky thing never went off! I've never seen that before or since. Usually a tiny gust of wind or a mouse fart or somebody pulls a tagline and the thing starts honking.
Chart will change as you boom up and down, and will also change with boom configurations. Simple rotation- chart will stay the same, as the radius doesn't change, so the chart is the same. The liebherr is a 360 degree chart, so chart doesn't change with swing. Typical collapse is gross overloading, and like you state, rigging or poor ground conditions. Most I see - involve a sudden change in weight- demolition- tear down of industrial equipment, and tree work. Tilt up walls get a few cranes a year- the panels are heavy and gain weight as you stand them, and its always newly disturbed ground (soft). The wind farms usually claim a few 500+ ton crawlers a year, bad ground between sites usually results in them going over. Its possible also to get in trouble with telling the computer you have more counterweight hanging, when the weights are still on the trailer. The weight shown as lifted, will change a little even with a unchanging weight. It will read a little more when you start booming up, and will get a slight decrease when booming down. You can also see a little change by simply lining up or down, but it will usually settle out when you stop moving. It takes quite a bit of boom up, to lift the engine off the tracks, it deflects the boom and flexes the carrier enough that it would easily get a foot or two of radius if you just winched up on the load. With a lot of boom out at big radius, its not unusual to get 4-6' of radius change in simple boom deflection.
My liebherr has 102 pages in its load chart book. Every boom, jib, counterweight, outrigger possible combination. My old tms 300 fits on 1/2 of a page. With room for all the "notes" underneath.
What are those blocks called besides retaining wall blocks, look like something I would want to use and maybe make my own.
A set of forms and you could make up your own a few every day. Most of the concrete plants here make them up with left over concrete in a plain style- they call them "mafia blocks". Plant usually has 6-8 form sets around with them setting if a truck comes back with extra yards on. Those on the house have a fancy rock pattern and use a plastic grid, and had gravel in them (big trough)- I'm sure it was all engineered and the gravel is to allow water to come off the property and out/ down the wall. Mafia blocks look like this: They are solid and don't let water through, you can stack them and they lock somewhat together on the groove.
The solid mafia blocks if they get stacked too high don't hold/ interlock well, and water can get up against the back side and push on them if you don't have good drainage.
I know of a few of large mafia block walls around that water pours out when it rains. Unsurprisingly, they are all leaning the wrong direction these days. There is an apartment complex were even upper tier, 3 row wall has algae growing on the blocks. Last time they asked for bids to fix it no one responded.
Due to a wind turbine farm that takes up 20 miles by 20 miles and expanding as I type, all prices on those are $130 a block which is I was asking on those other you had a picture of. According to my math they are still cheaper than making them myself, but from what I have heard it's just left over concrete a concrete yard has to make them. Also heard they are way cheaper than $130 usually, such as around $50 or less a piece.
Concrete companies around here make "Eco" blocks. They use left over concrete the trucks bring back. Set a rebar loop in the mold and dump the truck. The last I bought was $25 each. Weighed 3500 pounds. 2x2x6 feet long. It's a racket.. Customer buys the concrete, and they sell it twice.
all those walls need to be laid back and have drainage installed. I worked a development where the contractor did not install them properly, and we took them out with big excavators and trashed most of them. I brought a few home but none of the blocks were used in the re-do. What a waste! They were those hand stackable fractured face blocks, about 70# each not those little home depot ones.
Those monster blocks I used in the loading dock were only $20 each, and probably because nobody wanted to handle them
Well this is a crane forum... It's not like most normal people can move a 3500# block around.
https://www.whio.com/news/trending/...ling-70-ton-crane/UT3FODMBMBHY7H2WV3SLMYN7OY/ Its actually not a 70 ton crane, but a old t300 P&H. But you would have to be pretty gutsy to just get it fired up and head for the scrap man.
Never underestimate a Mims from Chilton County... I know a few...
Got to love the backwoods meth heads.
Well had to go back to the golf course and set some rocks. Had to fill in with some 0-6" for the counterweight truck to get in, they've got two of those nifty articulated side dumping trucks to run up and down the hill, because its a little sketchy for regular dump trucks. They had a pump truck scheduled to be on down the hill from us, when we were setting the rocks. First pump truck wouldn't go down the hill- said it was too steep. They sent out a smaller pump truck- and that driver wouldn't go down it either. They poured the next day with a different company.
Got some oak from the sawmill for the lowboy floor. Also finally got some drive tires for the link belt that I was happy with. These are Hankook DM 09. Shipped from North Carolina- at $30 per pallet. They must have some of the freight figured in the price of the tires- because I don't know any shipper thats taking 2 pallets from N Carolina to missouri for $60. The tracking showed them in Little Rock on a Wednesday. On that Thursday by tracking- it went to amarillo- then across new mexico to arizona, and then to tulsa oklahoma. In 10 hours. They think they actually got lost on the dock in little rock- I got them the first of the next week. I don't have them mounted yet- but at least they are here.
Some trusses, and a typical no oversize, no flags, just hauling a couple feed bins set up....
Took apart a old asphalt plant. Some went to a different corner of the quarry to rust to pieces, the rest was headed to wisconsin. First tank was 90,000lbs or so- pretty good load for a tandem truck and spread trailer, but we stayed all on the quarry property. I think it had a lot of material still in the tank.
Drum was around 120,000, they waited for some tires, and then decided they weren't actually moving it anywhere with a tandem truck with no brakes on the trailer. I suggested a loader behind it to at least get it out of the pit- the safety guy gave me the stink eye over that idea. If I was driving the truck out of the pit- I wouldn't mind a 988 behind me with a bucket full of rock. If you lost a driveline, even with the brakes working I don't think you'd hold it coming out of the pit.
Had to move the loading hoppers too. They had built a rock ramp up to the one side, and we had to hook the 10 k telehandler to it with some chain and pull it away from the ramp. It was kind of grown in. Its about 140,000. Tire man was working on it too.
Had a big day with the link belt. First job was a walk in cooler, then two set ups on two HVAC units a hour south of town. Then taking apart a duct 3 hours drive in the other direction, and then the 2 hours back home. There's a little red light that comes on in the fuel gauge when it gets low. It lit up about 6:00pm on my way home, but I was pretty close to town by then.
Timber trusses and a HVAC unit.
3- 40' high top conexes, going side by side to make a bar. I don't know how they are getting under it to wire and plumb or run duct work, and I'm glad I'm not going to have to cut out the interior walls either. there isn't 6" between the bottom of the conexes and the dirt between the footers. Had to get some comealongs brought out- walls were a little dinged around on the sides, so we had to put the squeeze on the end frames to weld them tight.
Nice pictures! That outfit that moved in down the road has a TMS500E, among other cranes. I met one of the delivery operators today at the fuel station, towing his pickup behind a National 800 series boom truck.
We really like our 500e. It such a good combination of capacity and weight and size, for the typical work we do. The link belt is really shaping up like a great crane also for our daily type work. Its got a little more capacity and boom than the 500e, but its also a little wider to turn with the longer wheelbase, and it isn't as fast in the boom when flying trusses. Nice to have options.
^ if you can get it done with a 50 ton............ Less tires, no overwidth, in my state no overweight. They are handy the 50~60 tonners. Washington follows the more restrictive fed rules and bridge rules. It is a PITA for larger crane outfits.
Rained early this week, and had to install a pond intake screen. I delivered the crane late monday and the ctw., I got in there just as it started raining- its at the bottom of the hill where we set the rocks earlier. The last bit toward the pond gets really greasy when it rains, so the whole evening I'm sitting in the house listening to it pour rain, and saying bad words in my head, knowing what the jobsite was going to be like the next day. They were pumping the pond down, but the pump ran out of fuel during the night, so we had to wait a little while after we were set up to get the screen in. One of the golf course boys had waders, the other one just stripped down to his shorts and climbed in. I would have been headed to the store for waders- because it was in the 40's that morning and the water looked cold. He said it wasn't very nice. Needed all the lockers to get out, I always worry with them all locked in about tearing up a axle, but I climbed back out with all of them spinning away.
I even dug out the mud boots- and I don't wear them very often. We're mostly rock around here, and if its usually that bad, we can't get a crane in anyways. Lowboy has floor out and actually I think they finished putting the new floor down at the end of friday. Need it monday. Also got called to move a chiller off the roof of the hospital- I showed up and "hey- can you load the MRI machine too?" They had just finished skating it out of the building, and didn't want to block it up and jack the rigging forklift forks out from under it. The slime hill at the pond, was just down the hill from where we set rocks a couple weeks ago. We had a excavator there in case we couldn't climb back out.
Lowboy floor is in, it went out today and I didn't hear about anything falling through it. I had a job first thing with the 100 ton, and we had to flip the old HVAC unit on its side for them to haul it off, he didn't want it on his fenders. Sent one of the guys later this afternoon, to go set a new HVAC unit. 70' in and 2,000lbs according to the customer. He took the 40t grove, and called me- he's 8' short of reaching it. I'm at the shop after my first job, so I fire up the Link belt which has 10' more of stick, fortunately its right close in town. Well turns out that he was not only 10' short, of stick, but its 90' away, and the unit is 2,700lbs, which means the link belt isn't getting it either. SO back to the shop I go, I had the 100 ton set up and doing some maintence after our job this morning, I start breaking it all down, we take it out and finally get the unit set. Three cranes for one job isn't very productive.
If you weren't so far I would come and preview those picks for you I wrote up a lot of picks that I could not get with the boom truck. It always started out " can you do this?" and ended up with me handing my notes and drawings to an operator with a real crane.
I always let the guys know, when a pick is lighter and/or closer than they guesstimated, how much I appreciate it, and how rare it is when it happens!
Had one of the guys setting a new video board the other day in the rain, I didn't even stop to help- it looked pretty wet out. One of the old fords needed a fuel tank, and its a little easier to access the fuel pump if the only thing holding items in the bed is the plastic liner. A little cut off wheel work and the opening was big enough for working. Had three setups to do big units on a new cancer center. 10,500 at 70' or so on a three story. Of course its a crowded site and everyone is in everyone else's way. Job super came over and said -"they've all been told- everyone is getting out of your way today"
Another HVAC unit across the road from the cancer center, this is on the main hospital. also got some more conexes set at the bike riding park.
Looks like you could open up that tank access with a stiff broom, LOL! 10,500@70' is a pretty good feat.
Do you still have your 70 ton, or was that sent down the road after the Leibherr showed her worth?
Yes- its sitting in front of the shop, after one of the guys overheated it. Its got a different 6v92 in it now, but we haven't had it running in almost a year. Can't sell it not running, and I haven't had time to mess with it. Too many irons in the fire. We've got by without it for long enough, I'm only going to regret sending it down the road if I need to make a tandem pick, and I wouldn't have anything big enough to take the other end opposite the 100 ton.
Loaded up a barge for the powerhouse. This is some kind of a cleaner/ dredge for the new intake gates they installed. It came from austria and who knows what it cost. A tech from austria came to help unload it from the trucks and put it on the barge. The dredge part had pick lugs that were 8" different in height- I asked him what they did to pick it with at the factory- and "they just picked it". Well I know they didn't do that because it would pick all wonky, so I roll hitched some roundups and it picked fine- he showed back up 10 minutes later and "they used come a longs to level it out". Thanks bud, its already on the barge.
Sent one of the guys to pick up some timber mats. I think they came from a wind farm job, but they are only 4'x8' x8" and usually they use longer ones (16-20') on the wind farms. Anyways, they were $65 apiece and only a couple hours away. They looked pretty good for used ones.
Units at a mall. I posted up a picture of the liebherr screen a while back, and this is what the whole screen looks like.
So on the screen. Top right and down- I've got the computer set for 3 parts of line, I can handle 6,300lbs. I have 2,300lbs on the hook at the time of the picture. I'm at 108' radius, 41.1 degrees boom angle. The A! means my boom sections are locked in the automatic extension I've selected, I've got 147' of boom extended, with each section locked at 92 percent. I'm 98' off the ground with the boom tip, and I have the alarm silenced (horn with the x through it). At top left: The L106 1400 0015 is the configuration set up (92 percent all sections, on full outriggers, with 35,500 counterweight- its all selected in a different screen). I'm at around 30-40% cap per the sliding bar, and the 748 is the RPM's of the engine- it will only turn 1350 or so max RPM's running the crane. The #2 winch is the aux (rear) winch and its showing 26.5' of cable extended (its actually stowed in this picture but I haven't zeroed the counter in a while) #1 winch is showing 39.6' of cable out. I usually don't zero these, I just watch them if I want to see winch movement- there's little arrows up and down when the winch is moving. And the liebherr black and grey screens are really poor in sunlight. There's so much glare you can't hardly read them. I actually use my penlight all the time to read it. They are great in cloudy or low light- night work. I'm sure it looked great in the indoor lab when they bought them. The new screens are color- white background with blue numbers and such and much easier to read in sunlight.
It looks pretty familiar. They had a 120 ton at the union school, I spent an afternoon in it. I did not take my test in it though, I used the old 60 ton Grove truck.
Thanks for the write up! I find it very interesting even though I have never been in a crane and probably never will.
I also struggle often to read my screen, to the extent I've thought of adding a small light or ditching it for a colored screen, if it wasn't a multi thousand dollar expense, which I assume it would be. Plus the hassle, if a changeover was a simple plug and play, and 1 or 2 K$, I'd do it, but probably more like 5 or 6 K and a trip to SLC to get it installed correctly. My main electronic screen in the plane is in color, and is always easy to read, that's want I want in the National.
Pulled some antenna's off a water tower.
Swapped out the factory oddball air hose quick connect for a milton. All hoses the same around the shop makes it easier to steal some air. That and we've been trying to get the air suspension straightened out yet, and its way easier to shop air it. I think I finally figured out the issue with the suspension, its the small valve in the last picture is hanging up. I tore it down and got it moving and everything seems fine now. The horn stuck on in one of the fords, we had the steering box out, and I think someone gave the wheel a spin. Its a wonder the air bag didn't cross wires instead of the horn.
Saturday work, had a nice view of the lake through the house. It was a great day- wind was still, and the sun shining from behind me.
Every once in awhile luck out on a Last Day of the Week Job!! Column mess looks fun!, And that is a Hanson Fitting as used in Commercial applications like Power Stations
well if anyone wants two used hanson air fittings, they better speak up quick. They're in the trash can right now and the dumpster is pretty full.
I don't know for sure how many different types of air line fittings they are, (4 or 5, more?) but they always seem to be the wrong one, if trying to use another's tool on your line, or vice versa! My own for the last 40 years have been what I think are called 'type G", not sure about that, but I know with all my tools etc. I'm not going to switch now. I have a fitting on one of my air tanks, so I can run a nail gun off the truck's air system, every time I've offered that, when the carpenters had an issue with their compressor, wrong fittings!
There is a "universal" female fitting that will take 5 different versions... It takes: Industrial, ARO, Lincoln, Tru-Flate, and European. Everything in my world runs on the Industrial. I ran into some folks with other versions at one shop I ran, and got sick of it, so I put a number of those universal fittings out around the shop. Told them if they were going to bring their own gear with odd fittings, then bring a hose. They worked perfectly well. No idea on their long term durability, I was only there a couple years. I got mine through McMaster-Carr.
New wheels at the shop. Its a f-550 2000or 2001 7.3 with 6speed 2wd. 160,000 miles or so. Its got 6th gear out in the transmission, and I think a bad injector. But it was priced right, so we'll do a little work on it. I don't think this is the first truck the flatbed has been on, its pretty rusty so it will probably need a bed. Its got a add on vacuum pump and the system set up for a vacuum over hyd. gooseneck trailer. That will all come off. Hung outrigger boxes and pulled the jib off of this the other day. Its a 150 ton RT that a concrete company bare rented for a retaining wall job.
Got a lot of water running over the dam right now, its been raining quite a bit. Did a little roofing project- its a flat roof, and they put all their trash in the fabric seed bags to fly it down. T he broderson was headed out for a job. We've got all the old fuel burned out of it, and it is running pretty good, but something is up with the switching from gas to propane. Its just on a rocker switch in the cab, but I don't think its actually switching over to propane. One more thing on the to do list.
On the gas to propane switch: the owners manual for my jlg says to turn off the gasoline valve and allow engine to burn all gas out. Then, with engine off, switch to propane and restart engine. I dont ever run propane on my lift, but I had some in the propane tank that came with machine. I tested out their method to make sure I know how to switch in case I want to. It worked, machine ran and then ran out of propane about 15 minutes later. I've never done it since.
I'm not sure where I would turn the gas off to run it out. Its a two way toggle on the dash, one way lp, toggle the other way gas. If I wasn't so lazy I'd dig out the book and then I would really know. As it is- we just filled it up with boat gas and its headed out. Its all outdoors on this job, but I'm hoping the indoor job shows up for it- which I need to have the LP fixed for.....
Rebar for a drilled pier. Nice looking Watson. Unfortunately, I just got called yesterday, the cage has to come back out. Someone mismarked the hole, and its in the wrong spot. I don't know how they are getting the casing out, but I'm supposed to pull cage monday. Stopped for supper at Braum's, and luckily beat a church bus there. Both because I didn't have to wait on them to order, and also that I didn't have to meet their driver in the parking lot, looks like he's been a little close to something. Because I dont' think that bumper passed a pretrip.
Saturday work, pump motor out at the quarry, and had to reposition the screen on the blocks. Its trying to walk itself off, we put some rubber under the screen feet to keep it from walking around.
There is that Maxim crane outfit, all over as you said. That is all some nice scenery. When I did bridge jobs they vibed the cases in and out with an APE hammer.
Quarries here bury the base of the screens in previous crushed rock to stick them in place, even the portables. Church bus looks more like a Prison van!! The driver had adequate tools to push that back some right in the parking lot, lamp standards.
Here they are all up on stands/ blocks for the conveyors, and it seems like they clean all around the bases all the time. Skid loader and scraper pole.
That church bus bumper.....that right front corner is my biggest blind spot, and I did similar to my bumper, not quite as bad though. I need to get an extra camera for my existing backup camera screen to rectify that situation.
Looking at the water tower makes my neck hurt. I never liked jobs were it was so high or behind something that i couldnt see what was going on.
Looking at the water tower makes my neck hurt. I never liked jobs were it was so high or behind something that i couldnt see what was going on.
The half round curved mirrors on the front of that bus should show that whole bumper. I'm calling it a driver error. But who knows, maybe some soccer mom hooked it in the parking lot before they left- and there's a chevy suburban with a tweaked rear bumper that matches it. They put those front bumper mirrors on all the buses now, so the drivers can see a short kid that's right in front of the bus. They make a similar mount and mirror you could put on the front of your mack to see that.
natman- something like this would cover you. Or you could get some pretty slick chicken sticks....
I hate to add the extra drag of more mirrors (it's the pilot in me.... and the Prius driver) but I do need to do something as I don't want to bend the bumper again (repaired good) and many times, in tight areas, it can make the difference between a 3 or 4 part turn around and a 2 part. I always tell any ground crew to watch THAT corner, I have the others handled via mirrors and the backup camera. My only blind spot...., extra drag aside, I need to stop by my local heavy truck supply house and browse the mirror department.
We put on a lot of bus mirrors, people get tired of the guys trying the hope and pray clearance gauging system lol
Backup camera looking at that corner. One of our guys had his whole work van perimeter covered by cameras.
In Karma news- the church bus bumper? I did the exact thing to the western star on a mafia block, and I've bent the passenger step on the liebherr all in the last week. I'm thinking about driving school. Storage building.
Replacing HVAC
Big dehumidifier for a water park. Power lines, no room, bad driveway, this one had it all.
New operator setting trusses with the RT. Trusses with the link belt.
The local railroad sold a old dining car they owned. It hasn't been on the line in years, so we had to load it on a flatcar, and they were shipping it off. Its going to become a food trailer/ diner a couple hours away from here.
Love it when they start closest to you and work away. Removes all chances of seeing what your doing. Awesome!
Is it a working RR or a museum? I wonder if they would be interested in our Caboose that is for sale? What is the name of it?
Fun stuff. That first truss pic above ( Karma news ) you had tons of extra rigging room.....NOT
Sent one of the guys a hour and a half away today, supposed to do precast floor panels. I went and looked at it- crane was going to be 80-85' away. Looks like 25-30' long panels or so- customer says he sets them all the time where he's from in kansas, this is his new lake home. He tells me the panels are only going to be 900 to 1,100 lbs each. I've never set panels that were that light, but maybe these are hollow core with lightweight concrete- he's pretty adamant about their weight he "sets them all the time back home". Whatever buddy, the 40 ton linkbelt can set them if he's on the money for weight, and I've got a little chart to spare. I'm out working in the 100 ton and my phone rings (I bet you can see where this is going ). Its my operator, he's got the first panel picked up, a small one of the bunch, and its 8,500lbs. I tell him to just offload them, and get weights. Big panels are 11,500. I guess he missed a zero on the end of his weights. I can't even set them with the 100 ton with no closer than I can get, they're going to have to make me a pad to get my radius down. No ones very happy, but you'll have that sometimes.
I'll get you the name of the place where they are going.
I can't type my initial response as it would explode the filters here, but it ended with rotten liars. Glad to get done with this business soon
Trusses, and we've got some more to set down the hill on the other side (more on those later).
The 100 ton step I injured at the railroad. Hot tub on the lower deck of a back deck. Old one off and new one back on.
you and your fancy bendy rig
Night work. I hate night work. Night crew supposed to be ready to pick at 10:00. We get there at 9:00 "Sorry man- we've got a truck to unload first won't get around to you until 11:00 blah blah blah" We got started around 10:00- none of the pre lift information was right- so I could have just as well stopped by the local preschool and had them fill out the lift plans- it would have been just as accurate. 127' away in the dark dark night.....
Engine oil out of the 60 series in the western star. One of the guys went out back and fired it up- I hopped in to stare at a low water light. Well the water was low because the antifreeze is all in the pan. We had a reman head put on last year, and evidently there's issues by #1 cylinder- either gasket or the reman head is junk. Fun never stops around here.
3 more sewer system boxes, and it was even muddier than it was last time. They had to drag all the empty trucks back out up the hill with a dozer. No weight on the drives and they didn't have a chance climbing back out. Counterweight truck walked out, I had to lock in all the axles with the 100 ton but I was backing out, which puts the weight all on the front steer making the rear want to spin.
Spent 1/2 a day changing big units to the left on this building- and then "hey- we need these hoods all the way over on the other side". I really didn't feel like moving crane at 2:00 so "lets just swing over there and see if we can reach it". 139' radius. Sure beats moving crane. Got a little work out of the carry deck too. They're moving these units off the ground because its prone to flood. Head room was a issue with the big unit so I broke out the center pick bar.
Rebar cage for a new electric transmission pole base. 10' dia hole. Pulled a old screen off its blocks to get it ready for shipping out from a closed quarry.
Remember the houses down in the hole? Well house #4 I had to wait for more wood from the shop to get set up, its crooked down there.
I was going to ask about that bendy thing.... but I think I have it figured out! Roof overhang cheater bar?
yes he hangs hot tubs and big landscape rocks off that "C". pretty slick IMO.
Skyking1 has it, its a c frame, this tub was on the lower deck but still 18' off the ground, and its a pain to try to rig them and just shove them off when they are under a upper deck. So the c just throats the upper deck or porch roof. I actually have two of them, I have a heavy one we set a bunch of big rocks with under the overhang of a building, and I built this light one that's longer just for hot tubs. I'm going to redo the light one for hot tubs because it flexes more than I like. I'm going to do some thin wall 5" square I think. Right now its 2x6" and it twists up on the 2". Hot tub was on the lower deck by the arrow. It actually came out the far side of the deck because the only opening that was big enough for it to go through faced toward the lake. We have a 4 way spreader that hooks on the bottom of the c frame to hook the tubs short and to save on head height.
shoving them off is not without a lot of risk, so that is a huge safety improvement IMO. i have a suggestion on a new one. I would brace the C on the outside. Extend the vertical a little ways and add a gusset to the horizontal load arm. You will always have enough rigging to allow for it to stick down a little. you could scab plate out the lower arm more than halfway with triangular plates. That would stiffen up the lower arm, and you sure could do it on the upper too.
The big one is all reinforce plated and doesn't flex. The small one doesn't actually flex at the 90 degree. The 2" side actually kind of twists and it bends along the whole beam.
Hot tubs in the fog. And a glass project. We had to do 8 skylights on this building, no room to swing jib, so we had to mount it with the galion. Had to swap between offset and no offset to get them all. 4 on each side of the building.
This was a little different glass lifter than I've ever used with a crane. All the other ones I have used had a battery vacuum pump, and all the cups are interlocked together. Then a little light would come on showing you had a stable vacuum pulled= safe to lift. This one just mounts in the hand held lifter cups and you hope for the best. I didn't care for the lifter. But it did work for all the glass. It was a little breezy, so we flew the glass flat, after installing the frames. We averaged about 2 skylights per day, a couple days we didn't quite make that, with intermittent thunderstorms, and some out of square frame issues. I rigged all the glass, had a signal man on the roof, and one of my operators in the crane. It went pretty well.
Compressor replacement with the RT. House framing job, they wanted me to set where they added in some rock, and warned me it might be a little soft. We sat on the other side of the house. You can see they've been using the forklift mast to push themselves around the jobsite.
Grove sent me a seal kit for outrigger on the tms500e. Not much seemed like the right seals in the kit, and the kit included no seals for the piston. Off to the hyd. shop, they had all the seals but the hydro locks for the piston, but had them the next day. Finished it up today so it would be ready monday. I did get on the phone with the grove parts man, turns out the book I have and the computer system he has are both wrong, and my seal kit is for a non existent cylinder. Parts man got me the right number, is willing to exchange my wrong kit for the right kit, and I'm crossing out the incorrect numbers in my book. Of course, now grove will probably change the parts in the incorrect kit to match the incorrect number, and then I will still end up getting the wrong kit next time.... Also, the cylinder was a miserable bisterd to get apart, but its all back together.
Tore out old conveyor for concrete plant friday, put undercarriage under the new conveyor. They poured the new concrete late friday- we came saturday and installed the new conveyor. Unfortunately they got the pad poured in the wrong spot, so they were adding on to it, and doing some other modifying, so they could have the plant back up for monday.
Looks like the hyd. shop is clean like a surgery room in the hospital. They even wear scrubs.
Come on! I worked 45 years in a quarry and we never made mistakes! That's my story and I'm sticking to it! But can't say what has happened since I left!
Plant didn't make it back running on monday. Stopped by yesterday (tuesday), sparkys had wired up some stuff wrong, which blew out. Sparky had to get some new switches. They finally had it running yesterday afternoon and were tracking the belt.
See that little doorway above the Broderson? We got to shove 4 beams through that, winching up one concrete ramp and down the other, with the largest two beams being over 4,000lbs and just over 40' long. What a ball of fun. They got installed on the wooden deck built 12' over top of the lazy river water pool in the upper part of the indoor water park.
The steel is making a ramp/ bridge from the upper level of the old building, to the walkway ramp down into the new building. I put my old freight cart up on the concrete ramp and we chain come a longed it up the ramp, and then let it down the other side. Engine hoists and toe jacks and skates to get them into place on the plywood floor, which is the form for pouring the concrete floor of the bridge.
Trusses
Rebar cage and moving a crusher plant.
agree that I would not be a fan of that glass rig. I was handling some 120 pound 1/2 tempered glass with two cup handles like that, and I had to pump one of them constantly as it leaked. Take note of those covers. Anything will mess up those cups so they are protected at all times. This is the power rig I worked with. Note the latch at the center swivel. We'd come out of the crate horizontally with the cups rigged barely off center up on the panel. The ground guy would lift on the panel and trip that latch, then I would line up smooth while they let it rotate to vertical. Later we used half of that to set some tall skinny closures of raw edge glass.
That's similar to the ones I've always used also skyking. This is the first time I've used the hand cups one and I didn't care for it one bit.
The rock guys use about the same thing for handling slabs for countertops. My shop was in a building that had two halves. A countertop company was in the other side from me. We shared a fork lift at times and I helped them put rock on the big machine for cutting. The rock is stored on a side leaning against a rack. The owner of the rock company was there and decided to run the fork lift. I stood back while it was hooked up to the slab. He picked it up and started moving to the saw. Got close and started jabbing the control. I don't know if the vacuum bled off or the jostling shock loaded the slab, but that 4' by 8' slab exploded. I didn't know they were that fragile. I can only imagine the way glass would explode.
Funny that previous page on installing hot tubs. Those still popular out that way? Because around here the fad wore off a ways back.
Hot tubs are pretty popular. Lots of the buildings are weekend rentals, so the people staying don't have to deal with any upkeep. Get boozed up and jump in the hot tub. The biggest racket is swim spa's. They are like a overgrown hot tub with big jets that you have to swim against the current. The real kicker is there's some kind of BS that the retired people somehow get medicaid to spring for it- as therapy from their doc. It will be some 14,000 square foot house and Uncle Sam is buying them their fancy hot tub. The swim spa salesmen all push the medicare angle.
Just like the scooter chair ads a few years back [ Absolutely No Cost To You]. That scam was run on tv by a scammer in Spokane. They got caught milking the system.
Got the whole crusher plant moved out of the pit. They are going to drop the pit floor again for more rock.
Unloading pools.
Got a funny report on the little broderson. The guys were out back of the shop using it, and it blew a radiator line- blown off literally and there was LP leaking into the hose that popped off. "Its making bubbling noises in the radiator". Its got a vaporizer in the fuel system- its a gasoline or LP engine. Something has broken loose in the vaporizer and its bleeding LP direct into the coolant. I had them bypass the vaporizer and I've got a Impco knock off coming in the mail. The old one is a zenith and I couldn't find anything available like it.
that's fun light stuff. It would be a bit of trouble if things got a little "nautical" as we said on the water jobs.
haha I could totally see that happening with ~100 PSI gas available. I had never heard of that though. Those vaporizers are what makes LPG semi-safe and usable. That failure mode was the caveat We had a camry that was totally reliable, but one day I smelled oil. The oil pressure sender had failed internally and it was squirting out where the wire hooks up. Fortunately it played onto the exhaust and alerted me, because it was not turning the light on and also probably never would. Talk about a catch-22!!
Years ago I had a 10 gallon propane tank's relief valve pop off while driving down the road, with it in the front seat of my little Toyota pickup as I had the bed totally full already. The seat seemed like a good place for it, being empty and with a belt to secure it, but it was winter, and it had been overfilled a bit in the cold, and the heat in the truck....you can guess the rest, obvious now! Luckily I'm not a smoker, and the release was only a second, but it scared the heck out of me and almost made me wreck, my helper was driving behind me and asked "what was that all about" when we got to the jobsite.
Yoikes!!
Didn't get a picture of it, but there was green AT in town yesterday doing something on the other side of a building. The counterweight truck was out front and it was a twin-steer Mack with a lift axle. Looked like very 'former oilfield.' Anybody got a guess on the company lime or fluorescent green boom and the truck was green and cream maybe.
Wasn't me. I did help out a crane from kansas city today. They put in a bid on setting a cell building skid, I didn't bid on it because its a new site in a terrible spot, and I didn't really care if someone else did it. They sent a 45 ton boom truck down the night before, put the operator up in a motel, and didn't set it the next day- called me--- "its too steep we can't get in there". I sent one of the guys with the galion and he pick and carried it down in there. The guy from kansas city bid it by looking at google maps satellite. He said "I wondered why we got that bid." Because anyone that looked at it didn't want to go in there. I wouldn't have minded a twin steer mack for my counterweight truck, it helps a lot with our axle restrictions. They don't typically turn real well, and I didn't find one for a price I wanted to pay either.
they are pigs with a yuuge circle for sure.
The liner puller I got for the western star was a piece of junk, it didn't last long and only got one liner started moving. I have a steel one on the way, this one was aluminum when it showed up- I wondered why it was so cheap. Also got one of those special boxes with german parts in it. Rebuilding the 100 ton one part at a time adds up. This box is the electrical sensors for the carrier/ upper level readouts. My wife had me guess what it cost, I guessed $1,000 and it was $3,000. We did the last two jobs with it not working, I just leveled with a hand level each way- I could have done that a lot more times for $3,000. But I'll say this, Liebherr had the parts on hand, and I had them in my hand the next day, and that's pretty hard to beat. But we set it up this morning with the hand level, and when I got the new box back in- we were right on the money. No school like old school.
Spent the last couple days working on a cell phone tower (its camouflaged as a pine tree). They sent a email monday morning at 9:00 wanting a crane at 8:00. Since I can't time travel yet, and I was on a different job, I told them I could get there about 1:00, but I was going to look at it first (I knew where it was- I just wanted to be sure I could get in there). We're blocking a road fully with the crane (no one lives on it- its a cut through gravel that you can go around each way) , so I called the county and told them about it so no one got upset. First day started at 1 in the afternoon monday- and it was hot. Them boys on the tower had to be cooked, but they stayed at it- I got back to the shop around 9:00PM. Day three was today, and we didn't even put them in the tree/tower. They were short parts that were supposed to show up, first thing in the morning, then at 12:00. We broke crane down and got it out of the road at 3:00 without the parts showing up. I'm sitting right on the south side of the tower- and its a hot sunny spot right about noon. After that the boom shades me for a little bit, and then the trees in the ditch help out.
I've got the A/C for the 100 ton sitting in boxes at the shop, where they have been for two years. And its nobody's fault but my own that its not installed. But I've sure wished this week that I had it in.
I suffer from the same problem, I have the materials for a few projects here, just need get to get to them. Cam
My dad bought a AC kit for a 1955 Buick he drove to college in the late 50s. He parked the car after college and sold it in the 199? the kit was steal in the trunk.
Day 5 of the endless cell tower job, has been much like the previous ones this week. Lots of sun, not much crane movement. If Saturday goes good- we may finish on Sunday. Yesterday and today were both supposed to go into the evening hours, but both were broken up by pop up thunderstorms with lightning. The 100 ton doesn't telescope in very quickly, and its a little sketchy when the storms already on you, with a bunch of stick in the air and climbers in the tower. All you can do is get them out of the tower quick and hope for the best. Tomorrow has the highest temps forecasted for the week (weatherman says 100- or whatever that is in celsius for you foreigners like 537 degrees or something) , supposed to cool down sunday.
I never liked the camo cell towers. Doesn't fool anybody and the bulk & height makes it even more conspicuous. The only camo tower I like is the flagpole. Even has a flag on it.
Camo towers look particularly obvious when they are in the middle of a deciduous forest in the fall or winter.
As a low flying pilot, I just don't like the sound of a "camo tower!" With a storm moving in, I bet it gets intense with that much stick to pull in, wow.
Didn't finish on Sunday. We're going back on Monday and the possibility of finishing was listed as "maybe".
Sounds like a well paying job provided this is by the hour and not a fixed bid. I'm never a fan of a job running long, but sometimes there's a nice silver lining attached.
Still not done. Tomorrow is Friday and I've got a cabin booked in the wilderness down in Arkansas for Sat. and Sunday night for the family. Might not get my holiday weekend off. Wife isn't very happy. We're right by a big resort (that's why the tower is a fake tree) and I know one of the guys that helps run it. He called me today "are you guys going to have that crane sticking up all weekend?" "Its really sticking out on the hillside". Our ugly old boom sticking out and making people uncomfortable- sounded like a pretty good excuse to tell the cell boys to head back to texas for the weekend, and they can figure out their problems next week. But the more I discussed it with the resort guy, we decided neither one of us wanted to be the reason for customers at the resort not having good cell service for their holiday weekend. So if we don't get done tomorrow- on the weekend we're telescoping out and putting the cell boys in the tree in the morning, retracting boom while they are working, and telescoping back out to bring them down at the end of the day. And if we finish tomorrow, we won't have to worry about any of that.
fingers crossed for success. Darling Wife needs to be happy I asked for the 5th off several months ago, and it turned into a pi$$ing contest. The owner wanted to trade working on Saturday for taking the 5th off. I said no, I'll be off both of those days. I had mentioned it back at the beginning of the year when we reserved our camp site. One of the engineers stuck his nose in and found out I cared about as much for his opinion on that matter as I did anything else. "I was rude" he said. Don't call me and we'll do just fine
If you don't set your personal time boundary's then no one will. We are taking tomorrow through Monday off and paying our guys for the time. Everyone needs a vacation - the ones bitching about your crane sticking up over the weekend will more than likely be enjoying their time off. Stick to your guns. You asked for the time off and they should've noted that - it's not your problem they didn't. Of course it's an individual decision whether you are an employee or small business owner on what stance to take in order to set those personal boundary's. From my perspective the world needs skilled tradesmen like never before in my lifetime, might be time to reflect that. Just my $.035 adjust for inflation, YMMV.
I was an oiler for a 250 and 170 ton ATC after the great meltdown of 2009.We stacked alot of 300+ foot towers.Stacked a mono pine in a ski resort once,it only took a day.We must have had better tower hands back then.
I'm betting supply chain issues on that tower problem. They are everywhere. CM, it was not a thing. It was mostly that guy sticking his nose in and risking losing it. I can walk away from this gig and be working elsewhere in a matter of days, if not hours. We ALL know that
We're not stacking a new tower. This is a existing tower, we put some new antenna on, and they are having electrical/ communication/ fiber optic / interwebization issues. If you remember stacking towers, they don't do any of the antenna/ wiring hookup when you stack the tower- all the wiring connecting happens after the crane leaves. So this tree/ tower, doesn't have a set of steel pegs like the towers, so instead of the cell boys climbing the tower for a week and hooking everything up after the crane leaves, they have to have us there to put them in the top of the tower so they can work. Its not the site guys issues. The climbers take endless pictures of all the electrical connections they have made, send them off to some engineer in a office, and wait for responses while the computer guys in who knows where, run diagnostic tests. So far, we haven't gotten a "all green" good to go signal, back from all the diagnostic guys. And as far as the taking off, I think I'm going to the cabin, all the guys have split up the weekend work (if it has to happen). They knew I had plans and they are covering. They're a great group of employees.
If any of my guys asked have asked off, they are getting the time off. I just call the customers and tell them they are going to have to switch days or find someone else. I don't pull that on my guys. Asking for the saturday before the 4th- so that you can "get off on tuesday"- isn't going to fly. I'm going to venture a guess that the engineer and the boss man aren't showing up on Saturday. I don't ask my guys to work on saturday, unless I'm already working and can't cover everything. And its always voluntary. I figure them showing up on monday is voluntary also- and I would like to keep them all working for me. So with the weekend stuff, I'll "do you have weekend plans?" before I ask.
We already kinda knew that about you Mr Slings.
We're right up the hill from the resort marina and can hear the music and laughing and fun- it was going on all weekend. And just on another note. The climbers we are working with- are two tough dudes. It was high 90's and over 100 temps last week until after saturday. So they went monday through the weekend, every day in the tower in those conditions. Monday we were onsite until 8. Two days we got afternoon thunderstormed out around 5 (high humidity brews up afternoon storms here). But we would put them in the tree at 8:30-9:00 every morning and then they would stay in the tree working until at least 6:00pm, mostly later. Their boss would send up water and food, but that was it. Friday and saturday were both 105-108 heat indexes and it wasn't very nice out. I and my rigger were sitting under the shade tree drinking water and dying. Those two little hardcore dudes kept at it all day long. I like to think I'm pretty tough- but I ain't that tough.
If I came across as brash it wasn't intended. Hitting the "over the hill" point in my life has me rethinking a lot of things.
No problems here , I sometimes wish our work was scheduled out 6 months or even 6 weeks in advance, and I had all my little ducks in a row. I've been on the phone numerous times this week working around a 5 day job that's into its second week of work, with a one hour back notice of a start time. Its been interesting to say the least. But we've made it work so far, and I think we're going to finish tomorrow, and everyone is going to have off until tuesday and if doesn't all happen quite like that- I guess we will deal with whatever curve balls we get. And I'm also in that stage of life when I'm beginning to see that maybe I didn't have to work all those hours for all those years, and miss all those events. I've even been kind of looking at motorhomes.
That was not brash it was just direct My guys get all the time off they schedule I do a few paid holidays but that's about all we can afford as the owner I seem to never take time off but I think that's a mind set more than anything kids are growing and starting to get to a fun age so it will be less 7 day weeks in my future My guys probably work an average of 45 to 50 hours a week so I really dont want to work Saturday unless its absolutely necessary cause that's the days I can do maintenance and no matter what when I have employees out on Saturday I get about half of what I planned to fix done
Looks like I'll be setting a flagpole for a neighbor Saturday morning, part of my "do whatever it takes to have great relations with your rural neighbors, to preserve your airstrip." That attitude has allowed me to fly off my own place for the last 40 years, with zero issues. Then, as long as the National is on the mountain, another neighbor needs two propane tanks set on a pad, and though he has 5 or maybe 10 acres.....the tanks are right under the powerlines of course! A designated spotter, with a rock in hand to throw at me, will make it doable.
We shut the whole company down the week of the 4th and Christmas and give everyone two envelops . Got the idea from the last employer I had before I went into business .
Well done. We usually give a week at Labor Day and from Christmas to New Years. Everyone needs time off.
Cell tower is done, but not really. After installing all the new antenna, and the endless run around from the engineers, they come up with a doozy of a plan. Unbolt the whole antenna assembly- the three arms with all the wiring and antenna's attached, and rotate it 10" around the tower and reclamp. It didnt' go well. The weight on the arms twists the clamps enough that it didn't want to spin. I think the only way it would have spun was if the all thread was almost totally loose, which the tower climbers understandably didn't want to take it all that loose. I think all the weight and clamps of the wiring- and its overall stiffness and resistance to bending, made it not want to spin also. We could get it loose and wiggle, but even with comalong pressure couldnt' get it to spin. I told them to tell the engineers if they want it spun 10", the antennas and wiring all has to come back off, spin it, then reinstall. If they want it spun that bad, its going to cost them. I made it to the cabin, I was a couple hours behind the wife and kids, but I made it. Cabins were CCC built, and down 15 miles of gravel road. Electric and water in the cabin, but no A/C, but being on the edge of the cliff, there's a constant updraft so a decent breeze all the time. View was great off the back porch. And with only 3 cabins there and a small camping area- its not very busy. Had a good time, was a little warm but not bad for july. Went hiking sunday to a waterfall/ pool area back in the sticks.
Feed mill repairs.
Changing out some units with the link belt.
Guess you have to have faith in who ever is directing you when working blind like at the steak house! Then again it's a two way street! There's been some people I would trust in that and others I have had to plane ignore while making a lift, often the latter was a "boss"! And the lifts I dealt with were usually using a pair of frontend loaders so that adds a bit of "fun" to the mix!
Unless its a customer that I know, and that they know what they are doing, we won't do any out of sight work without our own signal man. I just tell the customer up front its going to be a job that includes a rigger/ signalman, and charge accordingly. These units sat right on the far wall of the building, so no clearance. Its just not worth the liability to do it without our own guys.
Agreed. It takes a little time to build that trust. Glad you got away as planned Could you rotate that cell tower gear with a spreader to take out the bending moments at the clamp? On that trust note, I have had the pleasure the last two weeks of working under a tower crane that I could just signal. Pretty soon the company bellman would give fewer and fewer radio signals and he knew what I wanted. He was also smooth like glass.
How are you liking that link belt compared to your grove 40t. Are the charts pretty comparable or is that link belt a heavier crane?
Twin spreader bars to make a triangle and three chokers on each of the unbalanced t bars to make a nine point pick. I wasn't in the tree and on a july 4th weekend the tower climbers were ready for home. I really think the wiring was hanging it up the most. I had also brought along a chain comalong to help them try to drag it around. It would have helped if the antenna and such on the arms were balanced, but they aren't. It also would have been easier if they had told us to turn it before all the new antenna were mounted. I'm sure also for them in the tower, its would be worrying that if you take it all too loose, and can't get it where you want it, and then what do you do if you can't get it back to where it was. There's not much for a platform up there, they are sitting in sling chairs on their harness. Its not like they can manhandle it back into place.
thank you for the picture, that is what I was thinking. It is all that you could do. If they had a manlift to work come-alongs out of it would probably get balanced enough, but on chairs in the middle they could not really reach to run them.
Pros for linkbelt- prefer the jake to the exhaust brake, also prefer the cummins to the cat. Charts are pretty much the same, but linkbelt has more main, and all the jib. I prefer its two speed winches. Its in better shape than my grove is. link belt has a heavier boom which is better for up close work, but it hurts it some at radius. Pros to the grove- its lighter (probably close to 8-10,000lbs lighter) , shorter wheebase, faster setting trusses (it booms up pretty fast) with all its counterweight and light boom you can really throw it around. It will also get set up in a smaller place- mostly due to the wheelbase, it also has a little better ground clearance on the rear and slightly longer jacks. In reality- its a coin toss between the two. I gave one of my guys the choice of which crane he wanted when I hired a new operator- and he wanted the grove. I found myself for a lot of work preferring the link belt- but I sent the other guy to do most of the truss work, and I tend to do the heavy work. I would really like to buy one more 40 truck crane, and get rid of my mack, and I think it will come down to what's available price wise, more than that I prefer one over the other. Its really nice in some ways having the similar but slightly different cranes, because it gives me options on which crane I send to which job. We have a current job setting mostly trusses in a horrible location, we take the grove over there, because its easier to get in and out with being smaller. But we had a 90' away beam there the other day, and the link belt will do that on main, so it went.
I guess two other things- #1- the grove came with only one winch and no jib, and if there's any way ($$$) - I wouldn't do that again. You don't need two winches very often, but when you do its nice having it right there. I have a jib now for the grove, but no brackets for it and the computer isn't set up for it either, but eventually it will have the jib. With the 95' main it will do most of our truss work, but without the option of the jib, you do limit yourself. #2 Rust. My grove came from NY and the link belt from nevada. Grove has rust and the link belt has been baked to death. But link belt uses fiberglass cabs, and that's a big help. Also- it seems like 80% of the tms500e's that I've looked at for sale- have rust issues very similar to mine. Maybe not as bad, but I don't think grove was using the best primer in the early 2000's.
Monday's issues- 100 ton has to come back home, then I've got to go fix the RT Its on a job, they got finished friday, but it will only stay running in reverse. As soon as it shifts into forward, it blows a fuse and it takes out the solenoid on the fuel to the engine. Operator says it will run in reverse all day, but no forward. Sounds like its time for some tester work, about a month ago someone tried to hotwire it by pulling wires out of the ignition below the dash, so I'm guessing this is related to that mess. We put in a new ignition at that time to get back running, but may have other wires pulled out. Fun Fun.
A kid I went to high school with moved to LA some years later, in two years he had two cars stolen. On the third car he sealed the glove box except for a few small holes. As life would have it about two months later his third car was found about six blocks from his house in the early am hours abandoned. Glove box door open---They found the rattle snake.
I like the way you're thinking, but no glove box in the crane, and I'm not sure I'm up for putting one in there if I found a no shoulders.
If you know where to look you can get a rattler in pretty much anywhere Eastern WA.
You would have to known Ricky, his clock was wound a different direction and slightly tight.
Well its been a busy week here. If this was grade school, i would have brought treats for everyone, because wednesday was my birthday- and I'm now half way to a hundred. So here's a imaginary cupcake for each and every one of you--- WHOO HOOH. In other news, its been hot, with a side of hot, and supposed to be even hotter this coming week. I'm ready for fall. Did a creek crossing for the county. We tried to do this one the first time in January, and it rained every time we rescheduled it for 3 months. So we gave up and waited for drier weather. July was it.
Unloaded a tub grinder for a mulch processer, 55,000lbs.
And then went to set some trusses. 100' clear spans and they are snakes. Got 8 of them set, and the crew was warned about bracing them sufficiently, by me and the general. Well they are short handed and in a hurry, and we came back from lunch to see the whole rack settled down onto the roof. Guess what? That's right- not enough bracing. While trying to explain to them in my very poor spanish that I'm not grabbing ahold of the whole mess 120' away and hoping I can lift it up (7,500 lbs of trusses) without it all collapsing and dragging me into the building- one of them starts pulling screws out of the bracing they have left. That's when I got off the roof and started breaking down crane. The only thing that kept it from all falling over, is the fact that this roof is going over the existing roof- and it all just sagged until it rested on the old roof. If we would have been wall to wall, it all would have come over. Its their baby now, I had other work already scheduled, and I don't know what they are going to try to do- I think the trusses are bent enough that the general is going to make them scrap them and start over. I went and got the crane today and brought it home-I've got other work going this week. We're supposed to go back wednesday, but they need about twice as many guys as they had, and someone that's done 100' clear spans before- because they ain't like 50'ers.
And just for fun, after I spent 3 1/2 hours this morning going and getting the 100 ton, my wife informed me we had a small drain issue at the house. Its not working. So all you dirt guys really needed to offer me up one of those mini ex's so I could have dug down to the septic tank lid. Instead I've been out there with a shovel and a sawzall for the roots. Did I mention my wife planted a creeping vine ground cover thing over the tank lid a couple years ago? The lid hole is ugly in the yard. I was thrilled about that. I held my more colorful language about it until she went in the house. Everything looks good in the tank, I guess as good as a septic tank can look. I pulled out a big ball of hair and feminine products, and I'm going to need a snake because there's still a clog between the tank and the house. And in case anyone forgot- its hot.
Those "flushable" products are the worst. Just because one can flush them away... doesn't mean they go away. I fought that with a house full of teenage girls. "But, the package" says so ...
Unnamed material is back to flowing downhill.
I have had that problem for so long with the ladies of the house. I had to buy my own. I was renting but finally broke down and bought my own. The women in my house go through toilet paper like they own stock in charman or something.
Son works for a DOD contractor maintaining remote radar stations. Station operators can loose their mental being alone for months. During the great TP shortage of 2020, one particular station received a pallet of Industrial strength TP with the consistency of 80 grit. Operator lost his mind after a couple weeks of that. Flew in his favorite brand. All was not better until the pallet of 80 grit went inside the incinerator.
Thanks for the chuckle. I've laughed at this at least three times already, and I'm laughing again reading it now.
A forklift and some manlifts up on a deck. Trusses, and a new tire inflation cage for the shop.
Cell phone building load out. They aren't using this tower any more so the building gets loaded up and gone. I looked at this job months ago, and we've had to reschedule several times. The road in had a narrow gate, and they widened the opening so we could get the semi off the road, but they didn't move the fence. So we had to do a little post removal to get in.
Back to setting the 100' trusses. And a feed mill one of the guys is finishing up on.
One of the guys called, blew a heater line in the lower cab of the 40 ton. In addition to losing the line, he told me the antifreeze was dark and stunk like fuel. Cat 3126, so we got new injector sleeves/cups and got them finished up yesterday, I just have to get the engine cover panels put back on. My young mechanic got the injectors and sleeves pulled and reinstalled, but didn't get the oil all out of the cylinders. I was there when we were ready to restart, and bumped the key and knew it was stuck. We pulled the injectors back out and I rolled the engine over a couple of times and got the rest of the oil out. Flushed the radiator and block a couple times outside, but I think we'll probably need to flush it again in a couple weeks, there's two heaters and a lot of line for the fuel to hide in. We were having starting issues with this engine, long crank and poor take up, and I think it was directly related to these sleeves. Couldn't make enough pressure for the fuel.
The tire inflation cage: I know a guy whose father got struck by a exploding split rim at a local tire shop. 5 kids at home at the time, all pre teen. He never woke up, but lingered in a coma for something like 30 years while his family grew up, got married, went to war etc., and finally passing away last year, so whatever it cost you it's worth it.
Gonna need a little soap and water for that liquid spill in Aisle 3!! Will be FOREVER getting fuel out of the cooling system. I do NOT have the patience for the retards you all deal with, I would be collecting ears for my machine window display. I second that commentary on the cage, saw a man die from a ring launch, took half one side of his head off in the process. NOT for the faint hearted.
I think in all the tire shops I've been in, I can probably count on one hand all the tires I've seen inflated in a cage. There always is a cage, stuck over in the corner with two old tire flaps on top of it and surrounded by boxes or old tires, but never in use. Mine is getting mounted and I'm going to use it. Interestingly enough, the day after I ordered my new cage, two guys went to the hospital at a small tire shop nearby. They were trying to seat a tractor tire. https://www.ky3.com/2022/07/20/several-hurt-after-explosion-tire-store-forysth-mo/
And on the injector cups on the Cat 3126- the cups themselves don't cost much. $30-40 per cylinder. The tooling was kind of spendy- $600 for just the puller. Another member here generously offered the use of his puller, but I had a operator gone on vacation this past week and wanted to get them done while he was off. Its better if I just think of it as a $1000 repair and not how the parts vs. tools breakdown was. The cat man had the injectors, o rings and the tools all in stock, so that was a plus.
Key take away When needed, tooling required to restore a machine to function is not spendy even if is. Takes money to make money.
Good lord, how much do you need to overpressure a tire to have the rim blow out like that...
I am going to guess that there may have been flammable substances involved.
I would think so. Still hard to imagine the steel rim giving up quite like that, before the tire. There's a reason I dropped off a 50+ year old rear tractor tire last weekend for a new tube... That's way beyond my comfort level.
Looks like a ATT shelter.About 54000 pounds maybe
This is one of the smaller buildings, its only 36,000 lbs. Most of them are the 54,000lbs ones. The really big ones will go close to 100,000lbs, but they don't use the heavy ones very often, just too expensive to haul and set.
Yeah ATT ones we used to set were 54000.Verizon always had the generator room on their shelters at 80000 plus
I have a picture some where of a Verizon shelter tied to a lowboy and the delivery fella didn't quite make the turn in to the site.It had a pretty good lean towards the ditch and of course power lines over head so we all had to wait for a 60 ton recovery wrecker to help tip it up.
Multiple bent spots around that rim uncertain of how the localized funnel lip formed but can see happening due to internal pressure, maybe from landing after launched. By the Green Goo on tire and rim had some kind of flat prevention fluid inside, bead may not have been adequately lubed, cannot tell if might have added a tube to that tire and the bead was not seating so put full shop air on a tire rated at 30psi. Side note, kid at the trucking company was repairing a recapped tire, had the boot inside and was airing it back up(11r22.5 trailer service), Cappers previous repair boot on Sidewall failed when at close to half inflation and sent the tire/rim across the shop against the rear duals of the truck that trailer was on. Had a cage, was not using it, are now for ALL inflations.
Probably watched some yokels on U-tube doing it and thought if a couple squirts were good how about a couple cans full!
80000 pounds in a precarious situation.
We never had a flat wide open area so crib up the Demag and back the trailer under the crane for a short radius.The truck driver did not have enough skill to back in a crooked narrow long drive so I had to do it.
Setting power poles in sensitive areas required frozen ground installation.The Demag cribbed up.It was a good time to walk under and inspect and lube the driveline.The pole was tagged out with a 844 wheel loader.
That's some bad driving judgement.
Yeah, but the fenders on his truck look good.
4 axle long wheelbase tractor with sleeper isn't the best for off the highway work. It does look like the corner wasn't near as tight if he would have been coming from the other direction. We find ourselves transferring loads a lot from the over the road guys, to a short wheelbase truck and trailer, to get trucked in items into tight jobsites. I will usually just tell the customer right up front that we aren't getting a over the road trucker into the site- and price in the transfer of load. I'd rather just swap it over right from the start as mess around and have a trailer in a ditch.
It's pretty stupid to try tight maneuvering with a tractor that has way to much wheel base. Some loads can be placed by unhooking and using a 210 WB. Most of this OTR which is 80K, anything over is considered heavy haul, with these garbaged up pimped trucks is most certainly worthless. But people who own that junk end up calling people like C. O.--it's good for his business.
that is what I spotted in that picture, a trip around a few blocks and come at it with the left turn and way less drama.
Just because he owns a truck doesn't mean he can drive.It was a very do able access for most people.
Roofing material and some trusses.
100' clear span trusses are done. Got the rest of the building set, and the first 8 that collapsed came back off and were replaced.
New peterbilts on their way to a customer. I've never seen a delivery guy with a set up quite like this. I suppose it saves a flight back home, having their own truck with them, but I'd think piggybacking still makes more sense. I guess it would save the cost of the wrecker to unpiggyback upon delivery also. It wasn't much of a old trailer that they built it out of.
My guys undecked the top of this boat the other day, its headed to new york. Glad I don't have to pull it- its 20' wide and probably 90' long. Photo credit for the action shot goes to Impact- he's evidently got spies out looking for my work.
Somebody needs to buy this guy a real truck, so he can quit cosplaying in his pickup. Check out the wide mirrors to see past his single wheel flatbed. They got the rest of the curve signs again last weekend. One of the three got taken out early on the last installation, but they got the rest of them now. Spotted a crop duster on the way home from church, it must be pretty potent stuff he's spraying, because the tank isn't very big. Tank was on the back of the trailer with the booms. He's got a pretty slick little trailer for hauling it around.
In my very limited experience with helicopter spraying, they've done the really high rate applications. Both times a tender was on the edge of the field and the chopper would land on the tender and get another tank of mix. Every few tanks they'd add just enough fuel to keep it in the air.
More pics from the 100' trusses. And got a new headlight in the ford aeromax. It was $$ I thought- but I only found them at one place.
Boat after we undecked it. And doing a hvac unit with the link belt.
Had my hands full at the railroad, their older engine is a little heavier than the newer one. It had a little bit of a gear chewed up, but I think the real problem was behind this gear. I think the main bearing is out. We left it up on blocks and hoping for a traction motor to be built. I fished the chunk of gear out of the grease box.
Two way radio tower replacement.
nice pick, it is hard to get the same number in both windows like that.
What's the point of 2 weight readings
I believe the top number is the maximum capacity at the current configuration and the bottom number is what is actually on the hook
yes, and usually a mouse farts or the breeze blows and it goes over on the actual and the alarm starts honking.
I didn't know LMI displays went up to 130%! You nailed it, ALMOST needed a bigger crane but not quite. The big nuke research site out in the desert here uses a 50% of max limit on their picks I'm told.
Exactly like they said- one is max capacity- the other is what I had on the hook. And yes- it will vary up and down a little- it will show more as you are cabling/booming up, and less when cabling or booming down, and settle out when you stop moving. I think the 50% is kind of ridiculous, especially when you are talking larger weights and cranes. In the railroad engine picture, true capacity (100%) is another 13,500 lbs or so. So if I'm over by 500lbs or so when I'm good for 90,000lbs, I don't get real worried. If you're only good for 2,000lbs, and you're 1,000lbs over, that's a whole different animal. Of course at the nuc site, I could see having big safety margins.
there's a 10% buffer but I make a point of not giving that away, especially in something like a boom truck. That's for me
The easiest way to sum up everything I've been told; the Idaho National Laboratory is a special place.
A retired iron worker I knew paid for his 15 ton boom truck, several times over, by leasing it out to some company out there, months at a time, with little operation, the meter kept running! I fly over the place many times a year (don't get lower then as requested on the sectional, about 1500') , never have wanted to jump thru all the hoops to work there. More nuke reactors in one place then anywhere in the world I think, all research. They developed the Pluto probe battery, 300 watts, 24/7, for 35 years I think it was...., according to the engineer I rode the ski area chairlift with once!
Trusses at a new apartment Stairway I'm glad I didn't have to build
Chemical storage building
they could have put a slide in there with a winch at the top to get back up
Yep! make it into a bobsled ride.
Why is the crane cribbed up on such an angel ? Novice here enjoy seeing your work and glad you are kept busy.
Not to jump in on Crane Operators thread but simple answer would be to get the crane level. Sometimes picture makes it hard to tell how much a grade is when in person it is quite a bit over the length of the frame!
Scholzee .. Look at CO's 4th picture. On the right side there's a white p/u then compare it to the dark car's level. Gives a better perspective of the slope the crane is set on.
It’s because crane op wasn’t well behaved in a past life and as punishment he has to stack blocks everyday before he can sit in his nice cozy cab and relax. In all seriousness it takes a lot of work and knowledge to be able to get cranes level on that kind of ground. You take a flat lander like me and put him on those hills he’s gonna be a nervous mess for a while.
Ha- throwing blocks down is all part of the fun. Beats climbing a tower. Today's unit- Funny story about this unit- it went out about 2 months ago- middle summer blister hot. Landlord for the gov't entity (gov't entity rents building) orders the unit, HVAC manages to find a unit- call us. We go out to help install, crane is there, HVAC guys are there all ready to install. The gov't entity (renter) refuses to let the install happen. They have to have 30 or 60 days written notice about work being performed at their facility per their contract- blah de blah blah. So instead of getting their AC when it was hot- here we are in sept. at the tail end of hot weather- installing their new A/C. After their written notice.
Have you ever had anything slide on a hill like that after you're leveled up?
Once you're up, if you have it cribbed right, it should be fine. When they want to slide, is in the transition from having enough weight on the tires that your park brake is holding, vs. being anchored by the jacks. That's when they take off - is in that transition. I try to make sure to get anchored good on a jack or two as I'm coming off the tires to keep it from sliding away. Its kind of awkward if your standing at the outrigger controls- as a 90,000lbs machine slides away from you down the hill.
I always tried to work the boom truck with the nose down the hill for that. Get the front tires up while the rears are down hard. It took a ton of cribbing to get the 5th jack that way, though.
Good observation that explains it well kind of figured it was to level bot picture of slopes always deceiving never show up in pictures as dramatic as they may be.
I had a boom truck run away from me once. I didn’t try it again. Told the guys to get a bigger crane and set the trusses from the street. When they’re sitting on front jacks and take off sliding down the hill it’s a sickening feeling. What I dislike most is once you get one leveled up on a heck of a slope and you look at the beams and jacks bowing towards the back of the crane because it was pushing so hard downhill. I never could relax after that. Pictures of the jack cylinders bending just play on repeat in my head. Groves were never that bad but the terex’s always scared me.
Way to go gov't... so Veterans looking for medical care had to sweat it out.
That may be the most government thing I've heard in a while lol VA may be the most PITA of all healthcare operations.
What I hate are the setup areas with a DOUBLE fall line. Straight up or down one way or the other are one thing, but when the left front pad is blocked up 3', while the right rear starts off jammed tight before you even can get any cribbing, those are the worst. On the slopes so steep I know I'll run out of travel before getting level, I'll throw some cribbing out and drive the front tires on it, gaining a few inches in UP. In the very worst sites, I've had to do that, then max out my outrigger travel (after jamming all the cribbing I can underneath first) and then I've put more blocks under the front tires, as much as possible, let down onto it, and then with the outriggers up put MORE cribbing under for a second lift. I think my "record" is about 4' under the front tires. Those sites are why I carry so much cribbing all the time, and don't need most of it thankfully.
Metal tracks for a runner/sign assembly.
Need a Oil Change while there!!
We have a spot at our yard that has a drastic downhill transition. We nose our crane over it and use the front set of outriggers to pick it up. Its very handy to do an oil change. Plenty of room to sit up under it. We always put cribbing under the front tires in case anything was to happen so it couldn't fall. Beats the heck out of crawling around on your back working on it.
Speaking of outrigger jack travel: spotted this well driller yesterday, 1/4 mile from my place (new neighbors, from California, but good people nonetheless) he not only had enough travel to get level, but enough to get the entire rig in the air. I often have to settle for just level. Different type of rig setup entirely of course, comparing apples to oranges. My first oil change on my then new to me National 13110A, was done at my local CAT shop, as I had just done about 10K of work there helping put their new facility togther, and I was probably feeling lazy I guess. If not for the next day's mountain job site, resulting with the front tires being 3' off the ground, I may not have noticed the copius leakage coming from the FINGER TIGHT oil pan drain plug. Also the two oil filters not changed, that I was billed for.
Well driller here can do same, the jacks are not on outriggers to front but rig mounted so can be really long throw(not certain a Good Thing) where can extend a lot as not so much a side load crane fixture.
Are they unloading it or installing it in the building?
Don't know.
have you set any outriggers on buildings? We had them on the Expedia job and I pulled one off the garage with the boom truck. It went from the building to the right outrigger pocket. I had not laid down the boom rest yet
About 2 hours ago, I told the customer I'll be swinging a lap pool over his house for in a couple days, that if he could leave one garage door open, I could run one outrigger pad into it and knock a few more feet off my radius. It'd make the difference, roughly, between being at 65% or 75% capacity, and I always "cheat" all I can. I also told him it won't make a good YouTube video, too boring.
the yellow box is called an "outrigger" in the high rise building jobs. They bolt them in to give them a place to land loads. That one was for shooting in pallets of stuff with the forklifts, but it was 5 floors up on the same job earlier that year, and the tower crane was landing loads on there.
Winch decided to puke hyd. from the brake pack into the winch gear oil on the grove. Made a mess on the jobsite, but its just some seals so that wasn't to bad. Link belt was leaking over the deck from a bad o ring. Liebherr went down on site from a bad alternator. Threw new batteries in it to get this manlift back on the ground. Then had to help the computer find the boom location back.
Tipping chart? You just need more counterweight.
for that "special" over the rear chart. Looks like a pick and carry setup for tilt up buildings.
Picked up a spare truck at a auction a while back. Finally got it drug home. Trucks are priced through the roof right now, but I decided better to buy one when I didn't absolutely need it. 1998 kw t-800 N-14, 13 speed, DS 404 4.11's, 8 bag kw suspension. It runs and drives and it needs some drive tires. And I'm sure there's some air leaks on it- it takes forever to build air.
Concrete plant silo's. The assemblers had a pretty slick welding/ tool trailer.
Christmas decorations.
T800 should do you well. Air leaks can be a trouble as we get harder of hearing to find. And its WAY too early for Xmas Crap, Turkey Day has not even arrived!!!
Ive had a bad air governor cause the super slow to build air problem. I took it apart and it wad terribly gummy inside. I think a new one was like $35 for a bendix.
That welding trailer, that is something I have not seen before, the trailer concept instead of a dually flatbed, very nice. I always check out the framing contractors I work for work trailers, and (no surprise) the ones who have the best laid out and generally innovative ones also happen to be my best customers. Easy to work with, and quick paying, the trailer tells the story!
The problem with trailers is that they are easy to hook onto and just go. My welding trailer was stolen about fifteen years ago now.
The welding trailer looks very similar to the trailers I see farriers (horse shoers) use if they don't have a similar style bed mounted on a pickup. Instead of a welder in the center they'll usually have a swing out propane forge, vice, bench grinder setup, etc.
Appears they modeled after the old IR air compressor houses, or repurposed a old one on that trailer. Appears also to work really well.
Superior Energy Auctioneer has an auction this week in Oklahoma. Lots of Leibear crane s and parts
Great- you tell me about it the day after the sale. Probably better for my bank account.
In the sale bill, they were selling the jibs and the counterweights separate from the cranes. Can you imagine trying to separate out which counterweight you had to buy- and get it bought for the 1/2 million dollar crane you just got? They evidently didn't know what they were doing, because the counterweights don't just interchange.
It's not like Legos?
good thing you missed that sale.
It was years ago when Ritchie Bros sold out Sunnen crane here in the northwest. Base cranes sold first and the jewelry was removed and sold in a different yard. Lattice boom cranes only got the base and tip sections of booms on the machine. All the sections were sold separate in the other yard. Hook blocks, pennant lines, counterweights and ball hooks were all separate lots. Even the extra parts were sold separate. Ritchie Bros were grinning bid at the end of that day.
Here I was thinking seeing an auctioneer sell a corn head and the header cart it was sitting on separately was ridiculous. The guy that won the head didn't win the combine or the cart. They also waited until the head was sold to mention the cart was seperate.
I was at an auction where they sold two pallets of epoxy. One pallet was clearly labeled part "A" ... The other pallet was clearly marked part "B" ... The pallets were sold to different buyers ...
Up here Ritchies sell logging trucks separate from the rigging ,cats separate from the winches.
More Scam to the Dark Art of Auctioneering.
I was at a auction were they split up every thing i bought a pallet of parts and a good friend bought the machine later on . He didnt know any thing about needing the parts . I had less than $20.00 in the pallet i just gave the parts to him.
Night work at wallyworld. It was scheduled for afternoon. I told them "wallyworld is always at night". This is going to be different says the customer. Store manager and general contractor disagreed. It was night work. Weekend work at a hospital/ heart clinic. Sunday morning and we still had to get cars moved out of the way.
Not one, not two, but 3 shelby gt 350's. One had a shelby club sticker in it, so I'm guessing they were having a club weekend. Just not something you generally see at the stoplight. For you blind old farts that can't see through my dirty windshield- or around my bulldog's ass- here's a identifier picture with a helpful numbering system.
Oh the things I did see- at the carwash. I was there with the welders putting up steel for a sign, but the mescian framers had it all going on with their creative scaffolding systems. They actually used the blue genie in the first picture, to install the pallet skid/ zip board scaffold for installing ceiling. YOu would think that if they could install the walk board with the lift-
I'll just guess where the trusses go, because I sure couldn't see them.
More night work. We started this one at 11:00 and I walked in the door at 6:00 am.
Its a Christmas tree built out of steel and clear poly, with the map outline of the local lake, laser cut into the exterior of the tree. I'm guessing we are going back out sometime to put a star on top, but I haven't heard for sure.
Another concrete plant, this guy has a used plant, with 6 brand new KW mixer trucks, brand new loader, and a bunch of other equipment around. He's got two mid 2000's KW mixer trucks also, but I bet he's going to have some kinks to work out of the new trucks. The other plant we built this month, has some older front discharge trucks, and a new plant, this guy has the new trucks and the old plant. I don't know which problem I'd rather have. Actually, I do know, and that's no concrete plant, especially one less than 15 miles from 4 other plants. Two of which have their own quarry, and one of the quarries is where I'd have to buy my rock from.
EMC near to hear had a OLD plant up toward Troy MO, got so out dated they bought and built a all new plant, trucks are self destructing as they feed them from that new facility as can shotgun them in and out. From time of Back In they can be loaded and moving out in as little as 37 seconds.
cool art project! My 2nd car was a 66 coupe, thanks for those pics too.
First call : "hey, I think the brakes are dragging on the gooseneck trailer, its smoking". (Me thinking - surely he would feel the brakes dragging) just unhook the trailer plug and come on out here, it should be fine. Second call- 15 minutes later : " hey, I just pulled in at the gas station at the top of the hill, and a wheel fell off the trailer". Well- that's not a brake dragging making it smoke.
Water tank in a new development. And squeezing in a conex.
Christmas decorations.
New pool house trusses. Last couple were in the tree.
I can’t remember when Sunnen shut down. Do you remember when that was?
I'm thinking 2003 or 2004. I'd have to get an old computer started up to be sure.
Just wondering: why the hooks AND the shackles on the Connex pick? I use just the right size shackles, I keep 4 onboard and pretty much use them just for Connex lifts, as the next size down or the next size up, won't fit. I'm guessing you didn't have that particular size but had the hooks? I do Connex picks for a industrial contractor on his 20'er, used as a tool box, (15 K, lots of tools) and everytime I start to get out my "special" shackles and other rigging, he stops me and gets out his all in one , specialized just for Connex lifts rigging out, a 4 cable bridle with built in latch hooks. I always feel like I have to tell him I'd invest in the same but all the rigging I carry onboard has to perform multiple uses, and I only do about a dozen Connex lifts a year at most.
With 8 cranes its just easier to grab the "connex hooks" and then live with whatever shackles are in each crane. I've looked at the lifting lugs that are made just to fit the holes, but they are kind of spendy and I know I would be missing the left one when I needed it. I also see some guys rig from the bottom of the boxes, and not use a spreader bar and just let the rigging wrap the box. It would save dragging a ladder around. I've always just grabbed the top, then I'm not dragging rigging around the top edge of the box.
Those are heavy as heck, and a pain to roll up and put in a box also.
And since we were just talking about counterweights, there's a auction in texas this week. Its a bankruptcy auction, so I'm guessing the former owners don't want to help, but they are selling two all terrains, one tadano, one liebherr. They have been all over the map on how the counterweights are selling, and the current listings show the tadano selling with the full counterweight hanging, and all the liebherr counterweights selling with that crane. The liebherr shows no counterweight on it selling as its own lot, and then the cheek weights for both cranes selling together in one lot. But its changed three times in the last week, so it might change again, but as it stands, someone is going to end up with weights they don't need, and someone else is going to have a crane bought with no weights. https://cagp.industrialbid.com/lot-...561/Multi-Million-Dollar-Crane-Rental-Company
Have you seen these?
Looks like a big hammerlink chain connector that they are just putting a bolt in. A hook is a lot simpler. The one nice part about just hooking in the top, its never buried in the mud.
Everybody isn’t 7’ tall like you though
How did the Goose axle turn out, or has it yet?
Ha- ain't my fault you quit growing early New axle ordered. Old axle had bearing race welded into the spindle. When the race came off, the race seating area of the spindle came with it. Supposed to be three weeks or so.
Did your tires look like this when it happened?
Nope, tires kept right on rolling, until the hub, tires, and all rolled off. Those look more like a brake locked up.
Bearing welded itself to the spindle on our hopper bottom. I wasn't driving it when this happened.
That is one of those things where you have to let it get that pretty orange glow in the center then park it until it cools.
Bearing welded itself to the spindle on our hopper bottom. I wasn't driving it when this happened, but I was told it wasn't obvious until it was too late due to wet pavement. That's his story anyways.
Well I bit the bullet and got a newer set of wheels to drive around. 2016 f-150, 140,000 miles on it. Got lucky and found a xl, which got me the cloth seats, no center console, and rubber floors. And of course, its not perfect. 5.0 six speed auto, 4x4 with rear axle locker. No prior history on the truck. Randomly driving down the road, I get a "rumble strip" vibration of about 2-3 seconds, then it goes away. Mostly happens at highway speed, doesn't seem to be caused by pavement imperfections, but does seem to happen mildy less often on a stretch of new asphalt near the house (but I'm not as fast there). Nothing seems loose in suspension or steering. Shifts fine, and doesn't do it when hitting deep dips or holes in the road. I made a run to western kansas last week with it, and it was very frequent running 70-80 out in the plains. Maybe two times in every 5 minutes. Closer to home and less speed- maybe 5 times in a hour. I thought originally bad struts/ rear shocks, but it handles fine. I've been reading and fixes are all over the map, but what seems likely is either torque convertor or rear axle. My plan is drop pan on the transmission, full flush and I've ordered some "lube guard instant shudder fix". Also plan a rear axle drain and replace fluid and do a debris check. Any other ideas from you guys that work on these every day? Other than the "rumble strip" effect, seems like a good truck.
Feed truck about got the counterweight truck, little tornado rolled through. It picked up a cattle pot and a 379 pete and 180 degree turned it. Going to need a little fiberglass repair.
I can't help on the shudder, but that's a sharp looking truck. A close friend of mine just bought a 2016 F150 yesterday. He doesnt have 100 miles on it yet, but I'll be listening to hear if he reports anything regarding a shudder. That was dang close on the counterweight truck.
Got a little snow by us. Of course the window of what I was climbing in was open.
Big entrance awning, I think this is going to be office or apartments. Ironworkers welded it all up on the slab, and it needed to be at the correct angle after we picked it. I think they spent a week welding it all up. I think I could have got by with just two chain falls to roll it in the snatch blocks, but I didn't want to have not enough, and have to rerig, and that stupid thing picked perfect. So I guess it wasn't wasted time hanging it all.
Back in the trees. Replaced some HVAC equipment.
Trusses with the mack. Carpenters had everything laying between me and the house.
I wasn't really shopping for me, my daughter was in a fender bender and they are totaling her car out (nobody hurt just a lot of quarter panels beat up). A dealer I've dealt with before had this, and we've been going farther and farther all the time, I decided a little newer truck to go look at stuff wouldn't hurt. And I'm not dropping 60-70k on a truck. I gave $22,000 for it. Which I don't know if its too much or too little, but I thought it was fair. One of my guys has a newer GM and I don't hardly fit in those cabs. And while I like the rams, I'm not sure I need more mopar in my life, and they are spendy used. I still wanted a truck to haul parts around, but I have plenty of other bigger trucks if I need to trailer something, so 1/2 ton is fine for what I need it for. Somehow I've put almost 2,000 miles on it already.
CO, I have pretty well decided once KW is licensed and ready to go, will do away with my old rust ball 3/4t, done me well for 22 years but time to go away. Will likely go to a Half T 6' bed or even a later Exploder or Escape as will only need a hitch for a small trailer as should need any volume will use the Big Wagon.
Not sure what shape your tires are in I had a 3/4 ton that after 60 miles an hour would get a vibration similar to that spent like a month chasing it anyway it took a bolt in the sidewall one day and tires were used up enough replaced them all and no more vibration
Good looking truck. Is there any chance the truck has a “sensor package “ on it? That could be a “lane departure” warning going off even though you’re not leaving the lane? A friend has a newer F350 that does it quite frequently. A very light, but noticeable shimmy/vibration in the steering wheel when it thinks you’re doing something you shouldn’t but you aren’t, if that makes any sense?
Its got new goodyear tires, no lane notifications. the vibration is almost more heard than felt. Can't feel it in the steering wheel, or really in the truck- you don't feel it in the floor or seat, it just sounds like going across rumble strip.
There is a TSB for the limited slip chattering, but I don't know that it would do it going in mostly straight lines.
We've had to add an additive for that that will smooth them right back out, but I think he said he has the electric locking rear diff on the that, so I don't know if that would have limited slip or not.
My least favorite place to find the trusses, close and in line to where they have to go, far away...., and I let them know for next time. I explain how at the end of the job I've had to winch up and down over 1,000 feet, because I was picking close and reaching far, and how much faster and easier it is to put them off to the side if possible. As a former carpenter, I'm always amazed how clueless some crews are, but then I remember what I put the boom truck guys thru back when I was wearing the nail belt!
CO, BTW, how many chain falls did you ever manage to untangle from that hoard you purchased??
Hope you notified the RR that the line would be blocked and they put out the appropriate signals.
Its not that kind of railroad. Its just a loop in a amusement park, narrow gauge. And I did go talk to the boys at their railroad and made sure they weren't making a test run down the tracks that day. And I did have the chain falls I needed for that job. I think I ended up with around 30 chain falls out of that tangled mess.
I kind of thought that was the case as the gauge was small for even a narrow gauge set of tracks!
Park Rails tend to be 18 or 24" ga. Knew the guy that set them up back in the 80s.
were there any 1ton or 1-1/2 tons in the bunch
I think so, I'll have to go look what's there.
that canopy rigging was a work of art The trusses on your toes, that's a miserable boom show.
Wondering if you lost a wheel weight or something and it's only noticeable at certain speeds. I have 2015 F150 with the 2.7 Eco Boost. Can't say I have any complaints with it in 130,000kms. Just put new tires on. It's especially quiet and gets good mileage. Some people don't like the auto start/stop but I've never even had the slightest issue with it. With the aluminum body hope it lasts at least another 7 years. Concerning RB auctions I haven't looked that close lately but generally any popular machines with attachments, the attachments are sold separately and if it's a ripper or a winch still on the machine they charge a few bucks to remove it. I think $1000 to $1500 depending on what is involved. Several years ago a Bucyrus Erie 300H excavator in decent shape sold for $6000. It came with the dig bucket and the clean up bucket was sold separately. A used equipment dealer bought both and was asking 20K. The bucket wouldn't have fit anything else without extensive modification. I don't know what it sold for but what a drag to have to wait around all day for it to come up for sale hours later. Even worse for buyers of a dozer with a winch or ripper. I think the attachment is sold right after but what if another buyer gets it. The dozer buyer has to wait until the attachment is removed before they can even haul the machine away. What happens if there's issues with the machine after an attachment is removed? I do think in most cases the dozer buyer buys both. Was just reading RB has a new female CEO that wants RB to get into the parts business so they can support the machines they sell. That will be interesting.
Need a bigger chain fall? I bought a bin full of chain falls ,a dozen or so 5 to 10 ton and this 25 tonner was in the bottom.
Im casually looking for a 5 ton
I grab up all the 1/2 and 1 tons I can find. My 5th wheel hitches hang in the rafters off chain falls. I'll probably rig up the truck canopy, but stabbing it with some lumber fork extensions seems to work well.
Little muddy the other day when I was signaling.
HVAC units on a church addition
148' flagpole.
Load testing a overhead crane extension. They put the rating on the overhead, based on how much deflection it had under load. So I mixed and matched counterweights and mats to what the engineers wanted for weights. It was great design, they can't put any item more than 6' away from the wall of the building. Should make loading convenient. We did all the crane work for the steel addition, my RT has just kind of lived on the site, and we've been there off and on the last 6 weeks.
^Fun stuff. I am considering using that zip system sheathing on the new house. It is spendy but instant dried in with some tape. I think it is worth it, working by myself or with minimal help.
Zip is far superior to osb, or osb and tyvek wrap. A few guys went away from it in the last year or two, due to supply chain issues of price and availability, but most have gone back to it.
At Lowe's, it is $46.75 Vs. $11.66 for 7/16" OUCH! That's a hard sell. the walls are ~100 sheets. $3500 premium to use it there, minus the ~$500 cost of wrap. Georgia Pacific has a product called Force Field that is only $20 a sheet at Menards. My nearest Menards? Gillette WY LOL!!
I've been around a few of them here, my first thought was that tape would be good to carry in the plane for emergency fabric tears repairs. I worked on one house that spared no expense, what appeared to be the ZIP stuff with 2" foam bonded to it, (they needed 16D nails very close together, to get the engineered shear strength) AND it was framed with 2x8's! Been seeing more and more, still very few, of the ICE blocks homes, all by homeowners not pro builders. No matter what, they still need me to set their trusses it seems.
Getting some weather today. The boat ramp got a little short this summer when the lake was down. They set two extensions with the telehandler, and were in 8' of water when they set #2, so called me to set the third. They probed with a rebar because they couldn't see the last slab, so who knows if its in the right place. The extensions were 8'x20', and instead of putting cables under them, so I could pull them out, they just left the nylons under them to basket them. Can't wait until someone catches one of those with a prop, or a trailer.
Sewer boxes. 12' x 30' x 45,000lbs. Had to set close so I could set them from the end.
Had to build a little road to get in here. Its in between two school buildings and never gets any traffic, and its got a channel kind of dug in the middle of it. So timber mats and plastics on the top side.
You have a keen eye for bad spots!
Does it get a little hairy getting into some locations like backing down a slope near the water? I've seen some pics. of stuck cranes and it doesn't look fun getting them out.
Tell me about it. It was the boat ramp in the morning, sewer boxes that afternoon, and the mat walk the next day. The sewer box job was a cluster. A friendly competitor called me about them, sewer box builder was out of wisconsin, and had worked with him before. All he had available was his 300 ton, and he didn't want to take it down the hill to where the tanks sit. The wisconsin dispatch lady from the tank builder called me, I told her I could get down there, but doubted the road trucks could, or at least get out when empty, and a lot of the OTR guys don't like getting drug around by a dozer. She asked if I was available on tuesday, and I said I was if I moved some jobs around, but our schedule was tight with weather coming in, and the holidays. She said she would call me right back. Two days later she did- and I told her I was now booked, and was going to explain when I had openings, but she just said "thank you" and hung up. When someone tells me they will call me right back, I'm thinking in a couple hours, not a couple days, and I'm not leaving open spots for a "maybe". And I suspected I hadn't heard the last of the sewer tank job. I didn't think anyone else was going down there. The wisconsin dispatcher, simply had the trucks loaded in wisconsin monday morning, and sent them to missouri, with no plan to offload the 45,000lbs tanks. She called back my crane buddy from springfield, and he wasn't going down there with his 300, and the other crane outfit that's capable of doing it, came and looked and said they weren't taking anything of theirs down there. She called the contractor who they are going in for, and told him "no one will go down in that hole" and it was basically his problem to get them offloaded. She didn't mention her scheduling problems with me to the general contractor, who I also do work for. The general contractor called me. I told him the schedule issues, and that I could possibly get there after my boat ramp job, but it would be afternoon. That was okay with him, and the boat ramp job went well- so we got there early afternoon. I don't know how he's working it out with the wisconsin people. He told me the sewer system was a '' one price for the whole system", and he was back charging the wisconsin people for my work. The truck delivery drivers commented that the dispatch lady is a ditz, and they were just glad I showed up. They did have to pull the empty trucks and trailers up the hill to get back out. They spun out in the loose gravel trying to climb, I had enough weight in the crane, and the counterweight truck walked right out also. The road had been a muddy mess the week before, but the general did some rock work on it before we came.
I try to look things over before I get in trouble. If it needs mats or rock, it gets it before I get in there. In a lot of ways, its easier here where I live now, than where I grew up in central iowa. Its a lot more rock here, and you don't have the black dirt with no bottom in it, that you get up there.
Is that pink/ orange crane beside your boom truck one of yours? What make and size is it?
Its a link belt 8640hl. I've had it a little over a year now. Great crane. Charts almost as good as my old tms300 grove.
Scored a old snap on road chest a while back. It came with a bunch of tools, and I'm thinking I'm going to make a skid/ cage like the new ones have so we could pick it up with a forklift and put it in a pickup for in the field repairs. Even came with a old 3/4" set in its own box.
Had to build a fire under the ctw. truck last week when it was cold, the block heater is bad, and it just didn't want to. It was 13deg. that morning, and after the tarp and the heater for a couple hours and a battery charger we got it going. The beams are on the back side deck in the blind.
Doing some chiller water piping at the hospital. We made a vertical run up a mechanical shaft with a 70' riser, and then two horizontal runs across the top of the penthouse.
Quite a score on that tool box and the socket set. Hopefully it came from someone who didn't need it anymore.
Seeing your signaler, looks like one of the carpenters on the job, made me think how I have had to tell some of crews I've worked with since my camera install, it's field of vision is a compromise. In other words, yeah I can see great, but depending on the boom tip height and width of the load, it's not a miracle cure. They have gotten a bit spoiled I guess but what it CAN do.
Lady had the toolbox listed for her husband, he just wasn't going to turn wrenches anymore. I saw it a while back, and they initially wanted $4,000. Well I wasn't the buyer at that price, but when it got down to $1,500, I was the buyer. I had one of my own guys on the back side with a radio- I could set the close side, but the far side the view was pretty limited. And the framer's english isn't very good. Wind was running about 20mph that day, so I put out only 95' of stick and tried to keep out of the wind as much as I could.
Glad the tools have a home where they will get used.
Got to start studying up, I've got this showing up on Monday. Its a 2005 link belt 90 ton. This is the crane I went and looked at in western Kansas. I went to North Dakota and looked at a 100 ton Liebherr that needed a ton of work (like 6 months and a minimum of $150,000 of work , it was run into the ground). So I decided to get a bigger truck crane. I know it won't get into the places I can put my AT, but I hope it will be a little cheaper to maintain. I've run a 8690 before, for another construction company, but that one was a Cat engine, and every time I ran it for them, I struggled with getting it to regen correctly. The company told me they always struggled with it, and everyone I've talked to with a 8690, also had regen issues with their cat engine. But this one has the optional 12.7 Detroit, and I guess we are going to give it a whirl. Its 140' main, 58' jib, 39,500 of counterweight. ZF auto shifting manual transmission. I think with no weights on it- its around 80-90,000. It actually out charts my liebherr in a lot of places, but doesn't have as much main boom.
It must take almost, maybe more skill to drive the crane in a crowded area as it does to hoist with it. Seem to recall reading the DD engines didn't have as many problems as some other engines. Hopefully won't need to use the new tools too much on it. It's great you've got enough work to justify another crane. Are you going to sell an older crane?
Nice score on the tool box. Glad to see you found a crane. I did laugh at the “ it’s to cold for my truck to start” post. 13* Just think how easy crane guys here have it for setting up. Biggest hill is a two story gopher condo. No cribbing required. Keep up the good work.
I bought a tool box that looks exactly like that, except it says Mac, not Snapon, used about 25 yrs ago on Ebay. It is worn slap out from riding but all the drawers still work. When I wrecked my p'up in August, it went flying but it's still fine.
Driving around the crane isn't any worse than driving a straight truck. You can put them in places you wouldn't dream of getting a lowboy or tractor trailer. I'm going to have to fix some cranes in order to sell some cranes. We've been busy all the time- but I've got a list of "this stuff is old and needs to go".... You would chuckle at that, fortunately I haven't forgot all my old weather tricks. I'm just not smart enough to get everything inside- or to make sure the block heaters all work.
You'd have to have a huge shop to put all your cranes and trucks in. I imagine with a crane other drivers move out of the way. In any kind of altercation they would lose. Are they any special provisions for driving a large oversize crane other than a standard class 1 license?
All I know from following a few pieces of heavy equipment being roaded on the highways around here is that way too many people don't have a clue at the damage that could happen if one of them hit their car!
When gave up road work traded my own Road Box for a KR1000 against the lower I already had. Road Box served me well for close to eight years.
@Welder Dave n the US a class A CDL covers everything but tankers, triples, passengers, hazmat. There are endorsements for all that, I have them but dropped the hazmat a long time ago.
Still have my Class A with ALL endorsements, going to drop Hazmat/Tank this next go round.
You can keep tank with no extra BS. Its the hazmat that takes the BS. Wouldn't a truck crane be a class B? A is for trailers, no weight limit on B as I recall. School bus is a S endorsement, separate from passenger.
And I will NOT EVER attain S Endorsement, EVER!!!!!
Yes, but I wonder what happens when you put the boom in a jeep?
I actually had a discussion a while back with a guy. He claimed to need no CDL at all. Any truck crane in my state doesn't even have plates. They are considered "special mobile equipment", and as such- is not much different than roading a backhoe down the road. But- a boom dolly does have plates , and is registered as a "trailer". All my guys and I have class A CDL.
I figured as much Flatbeds with counterweight, etc.
Technically, cranes here in dolly are a permitted oversize load. All oversize permits missouri are supposed to be "irreducible". So you really aren't supposed to be traveling with weights on a dolly here- because you could reduce that load, but I know of some companies that do. I don't put any weights on my dolly, they go on a truck.
that is what I was saying about your guys all having class A. Around here the rental guys are driving flatbed combos with counterweight, dunnage, etc and need the "A".
One of the guys was swapping truck off the lowboy to rollback trailer. Thought he had pumps out, but didn't clutch it, and had truck running. Somehow he got the return line unhooked, dead heading the hydraulic return. He said it went bang and dumped a lot of oil.... I think we have a damaged control valve also, it was leaking oil also, but I can't understand how it didn't blow a line off a fitting or a smaller connection. It just blew the butt right off that cylinder. We got the cylinder removed from the neck friday afternoon. It looks to me like the end plate was never welded very well, with little penetration, but somehow its held together until now. I'm debating cleaning it all up and trying to reweld the end back on myself, or sending it to the cylinder shop. Cylinder shop is two three weeks out.
Was it a piston pump feeding that circuit? Generally and gear or vane pump will split before anything else.
I think its a Gear pump. And it has a pressure relief in the pump, because I had to set it, but I don't think it could dump all the pressure with no return hose hooked up. I still can't believe it popped the end off the cylinder, and didn't split a line or fitting. I'll get some better pictures of the end cap/ barrel end, it just looks like no penetration on the weld.
Weld looks too small from what I can see. I think if put a slight bevel on the cylinder (for penetration) and a good 2 or 3 pass weld to get a 3/8"-1/2" fillet weld would be a permanent fix. A smaller root pass and 1 or 2 cap passes depending on what size rods you use. If you use Mig you could weave a 1 pass cap. With 2 or more passes would have to be a pretty bad weld to have a leak. I'd use 7018 stick if you have a choice.
I'll mig it if I'm welding it myself. Its been too long since I stick welded anything. I may have to make a walmart trip to the reading glasses carousel before I start, my close up vision has really gone down in the last year. I think I may make up some rollers to spin it on as I'm welding it. Tack it all up and go for it- what's the worst it can do- leak or bust back off.
Had to get a new airport flag, I sucked one into the jib sheave at the hospital. It amazes me that I can have 220' of orange boom standing in the air, but I'm not legal because the pilots can't see me- unless I have a 36"x36" white and orange flag on the tip of the boom.
In aviation it is all about responding to history. Go back far enough and you can find the accident that gave birth to that rule. There is typically some deaths involved.
You could check the bottom of the cylinder rod for marks that might indicate that the rod is bottoming out against the cylinder. It looks like some hammer marks on the rod stub.
I think the rod can bottom out, but I don't think it usually does when its inline with the 3 other cylinders in the trailer. I suppose I could install a collar on the yoke end to stop the rod piston from hitting. But isn't that how most cylinders bottom out? and then the machine comes up against its "pressure relief"? There's some marks on the rod, from someone beating it apart to reseal it sometime in its past. And one of the other cylinders in the neck isn't factory.
That's another application for going old school. I've always shut off equipment to unhook hydraulic hoses on the hoe packs and breakers. I see other guys leaving running and it just bugs me at some level. Spider sense, whatever.
Looking at my own pictures, the rod has to be able to hit on the bottom. The bottom plate has a male of at least a 1/2", going up inside past the weld.
My impression then is of bad design being part of the issue. Is the cylinder single action or double action. My experience is that newer machines cylinders are designed to either not bottom out against the rod or to have snubbers that slow down the motion to lessen the affects of impact loading. The reason I bring this up is because I don't see any obvious flaws in the welding. With what I see, the failure appears to be a sudden catastrophic release which shouldn't be possible from the pressure of the hydraulic system.
Double acting cylinder.
In having the relief line unhooked between the tractor and the trailer, and the tractor pump still putting out pressure- its possible that the relief valve on the trailer wouldn't be working correctly - there's no where for the relief oil to go. Then the cylinder bottoming out wouldn't activate the relief. Meaning something had to give, I'm just shocked that its the bottom of the cylinder and and not a hose or fitting. Any hose fitting should have been weaker than the weld on the cylinder end.
Here are some random pictures I took yesterday on the way through Seattle. I can pull them out of here if you want, Crane Operator. First one was a nice Christmas tree on a luffer right alongside I-5. It was a four part tree. They have the floating bridge SR520 shut down to put a lid over part of it. They're putting up the beams this weekend to make about a 3 acre park.
You are right. Is the pump body cast iron or aluminum? Tensile strength on that weld should have been at least 60,000 and more like 70,000. A two wire hose is about 12,000 if I recall and a four wire about double that. That's why I'm thinking there may be more to the issue.
I think its a cast iron pump, I put the wet kit on the truck, but it was a used wet kit from the junkyard, and it was longer ago than yesterday, so I wouldn't dare guess what the pump actually is. Its all rubber hose between tractor and trailer, to the control handles, a "common" aluminum block that all 4 cylinders tie to, and then rubber hoses to all the cylinders from the aluminum common rail valve block. There was plenty of other "relief" items to blow. It really doesn't matter, because I'm going to have to fix the cylinder and the control handle block (which likely has something cracked or blown in it- its also leaking), and I'm not likely to redesign the wheel here. The trailer is a 1998 or something, so its not really a design flaw, rather operator error.
I understand that. Just thinking of other things to check before putting it back together.
I appreciate it. I'll admit, I'm concerned that I may have piston/ rod damage, or even damage in the other cylinders. Operator said it blew almost immediately after he pulled the return to tank line. I'm debating if I need to take the blown cylinder down and check for damage or not. The pump on the tractor still works correctly, they had it on my rollback and it was all operational.
If you could roll it would be great. I'd weld it like pressure pipe is done. Tack it good in 4 places to hold the cap square. Then start at one of the tacks and put a smaller pass until just before the next tack. Then grind the tack out and the crater on your weld. Overlap the last 3/8" of your weld and weld to the next tack and do the same. On the last section grind the start of your weld and the tack you started at and over lap the start a little bit. Grind the 4 stops and starts and for the cap/2nd pass you could slowly weave about a 3/8" wide fillet weld. Run it fairly hot so it wets in good. It wouldn't hurt to have 1 stop so you could grind the start to insure complete penetration at that point. Rolling should make for a good even weld. Looking at the break in the original weld, part of it looks like there wasn't as much holding as other parts.
One thing I forgot to ask. Does the end cap for the cylinder have a dished out center section so the rod/nut doesn't contact it when fully retracted? If not maybe you could modify the cap so the rod can't hit it?
Most cylinders I've ever messed with bottom out on the piston on the end of the rod. Its how you set pressure relief/ check pressure relief, by bottoming out the cylinder. All the outrigger cylinders on the cranes are that way, so are the boom lift cylinders. When the piston hits the bottom end the pressure relief takes the fluid pressure away. Unless cylinder travel is mechanically limited by the physical structure that the cylinder is moving, I don't see many cylinders that stop travel by stops on the yoke/ exposed rod end. Only way you could do that would have the yoke beating up against the wiper with a collar.
I think some cylinders have end of stroke cushioning. A spring or rubber bumper would probably work.
Where end of stroke cushion is needed, I think the most frequent method is to have the piston, but not the rings, partially cover the oil port.
I can't believe you didn't split the hydraulic pump or some hose. We purchased a county plow truck with a lever in the the truck we thought was a control for the plow or dump. First time it blew a hose that was worn. After replacing the hose we didn't realize it was engaged so it blew the pump. It had an extra circuit connected direct to the hydraulic pump with NO relief. County mechanics are not to bright.
This piston would partially cover the bottom port when fully collapsed.
I'm sure you have already thought of it and maybe I just missed it if you mentioned it. I would be hooking a test gauge into the line from the pump and see what the relief valve is set at. I have no idea what the normal pressure is but 2,100 psi is a fairly common pressure on hydraulic equipment. But don't take my word for that! I would sneak up on the relief valve setting when testing it after it's all back together. No need to do the repairs twice if there is a problem!
When we originally set up the wet kit, I didn't use a gauge in the line to set relief on the pump, I just kept bumping it up until it would pick the trailer neck up with my RT crane on it. The relief on the pump wasn't high enough originally, to pick up the neck when loaded. The relief on the pump- I don't think it would ever be able to port enough flow back without a return line hooked up. Its just a little needle seat thing- if I remember correctly. There are actually two reliefs, one on the pump and another on the trailer at the control valves. I've never messed with the one on the trailer. I guess I'm not terribly concerned about pressure relief settings, I'm sure we just spiked the pressure hard with no return hose (making the trailer pressure relief inoperable- there's no where for the oil to relieve to), and as long as someone doesn't remove the return line with the pump in, we should be fine. I still don't know how he was able to even get the return line unhooked, with the flow going through it- but I do know he isn't likely to make that mistake again.
Valve stack is repaired for the lowboy. Took cylinder to a welder friend, I just don't have time to mess with it, and cylinder shop is long lead time. Reinstalled valve stack and capped off missing cylinder- 3 cylinders was enough to load my galion (44,000)- so it got delivered to a job yesterday. Now just waiting on cylinder. I doubt it will lift my RT (70,000) without the 4th cylinder, but who knows, its at a different site and I don't have to move it. Manbasket work, and set a new exhaust fan. Full offset on the jib. Had some trees in the way.
Concrete plant
Got to run the new to us 90 ton today. It was a rough morning- computer didn't want to cooperate, and giving counterweight fault issues, but eventually got it working. I was a little peeved. We set down a conveyor, and then got this rock crusher down off its legs, and put onto its wheels. About a 85,000lbs crusher. They had the intake feeder already off when we got there.
Well all our hard running has caught up with us this week. The new to us 90 ton threw a transmission code Monday, had boom in the rest and tray on the deck, so had to get a little creative to get to the transmission to trouble shoot. Had it going by noon monday, and it finished the quarry job and made it back home. Link Belt 40 ton has broken a suspension/bushing pin, and it trashed bushing mount welded onto the crane limping home. We've got the bore mount being turned at a machinist, and the new bushing in hand. Our grove 40 ton has a similar suspension, and it hasn't given us a bit of problems, but the one on this link belt is always busting stuff. I think we are going to rebush the whole thing after we get this band aided back together.
The grove 40 ton swivel seals also finally gave up on Friday. Its been seeping for a couple months now, but we've been too busy to address it. No choice now, its puking oil everywhere. We got swivel removed from the crane and on the shop floor today. Seal kit is on its way from grove, and if I can figure out how to split the cans, we can start going back together. This swivel has hydraulic, electrical, and antifreeze going through it. The antifreeze portion of it isn't getting rebuilt. No seals available, just a whole new "updated" swivel for the water side, at over $3,000. The seal kit for the hyd. side is right at $2,000. We're just going to put a aux. heater upstairs and plug off the water side, and reseal the hyd. I'm thinking I may have to pull the wiring from the block connector on the bottom of the swivel, to pull the wiring portion up out the top. That's the way the old groves are, but I've never done one that had the block connector. Its either disassemble the block, or cut all the wires and butt splice them when I'm done.
And the rollback trailer has a little problem too. We stacked the counterweight for the 90 ton on it, went 3 hours away to that quarry job, and now have the trailer back home. Had trouble with one tire- there's a rim that seeps at the weld seam on the rim. But that's a minor issue- I think I've got a new rim found for it. The real issue is going to take a little welding to fix. Its a wonder that they made it home.
Trusses. Flat one way pitch trusses are a pain, they are super floppy. And they built a patio between me and the building first.
Wasn't there someone talking about LED vs. incandescent bulbs and melting snow? Well the old bulbs will melt snow. It was getting a little nasty on the trip home from the quarry with the 90 ton. Snow/sleet/ rain.
Sewer boxes.
The reason I never installed LED's in the tow truck.
Thats a great reason to never install them on primary driving lights.
Some of the repairs you do yourself to your cranes and equipment are just as impressive as the jobs you do. You need to be very versatile... crane operator, mechanic, welder and electrical specialist at any given time. It must get very frustrating at times. I think you've said Terex cranes are best to stay away from. Grove seem to be pretty good for parts and service support. How do Linkbelt compare? Was also wondering if you have any experience with older Bucyrus Erie cranes? I think they had some good models. They were pioneers in marine cranes. Not sure who bought their crane line or if they just stopped making cranes?
The newer Grove stuff isn't built as well as the old stuff- seems like they cut every corner they can in manufacturing. But, its still better than a lot of other stuff out there. Their National boom trucks are really the class of the boom truck world. But it seems like they cheap out on stupid things, that really wouldn't cost that much to be nicer- like the horribly cheap plastic they use on the interiors. Give me steel or thicker plastic, the equipment sits out in the sun and all weather, and guys in and out of the cabs all the time, it would be nice if the interiors held up. I think the newer link belt cranes, are built to a higher standard than the newer grove stuff. I'm not super happy with how they do some things, and they don't always support some of their older equipment the way I think they should, but not a lot of companies do. Honestly most manufacturers are only interested in selling new cranes, rather than supporting the older stuff. Which is how they make their money- selling new cranes. I just can't afford new cranes. I have very little experience with any old friction crawlers. I've been around them, and played on one or two, but not enough to really know what I'm doing. And as far as the fixing, I've been very fortunate that other people are willing to help with advice and information. Sometimes its not about knowing how to fix something, its knowing who the right person is to ask about fixing something. A hour on the phone can save 10 hours in the field. I've also got two guys that were willing to come in on their saturday, and help pull the swivel and get the link belt undercarriage ready for reassembly. I couldn't do it without them.
BE had hyd. cranes too. I ordered a book from them on their history up to 1980. A very good book too, One Hundred Booming Years. Sometime after 1980 they got out of several of their equipment lines. Although a dragline Big Muskie was the 1st use of 5" dia. cable. Didn't say what the hoist winches would lift but the drag winches, that also used 5" cable (46.2lbs./ft) with a rated breaking strength of 1080 tons had a line pull stall exceeding 1000 tons. They were powered by 8 2000 H.P. motors. The 2 hoist drums used 10 2000 H.P. motors developing peak H.P. of 27,500 during hoisting. I wonder if Linkbelt cranes have some BE history? Your crane has a similar cab. Some cranes had dual cabs. In the late 70's the hyd. cranes had fiberglass cabs like their excavators. Advertising from around 1968 said: Bucyrus Erie / World's longest line of cranes and excavators Was hoping someone might know what happened with the BE crane product lines. I did read the rights to the marine cranes were purchased from Sparrows group.
Here's some pics. from the book. Sorry they aren't the best.
A couple more.
View attachment 278928 View attachment 278929 View attachment 278930 Wow That's gonna take some work to put back together. I don't like how all those stress points come together in one place. I think the horizontal piece should extend past the the arc. I hop you can show us how you go about fixing it.
There are tools available to remove the pins from those Deutsch DRC-16 connectors. Don't know if you were aware of that or not. Here's a kit but they are available individually as well. Sized based on the SWG of the wire. https://www.toolsource.com/terminal...utsch-terminal-removal-tool-kit-p-100508.html
that's some good stuff Craneop. That swivel looks like a yuuuge PITA. I get abandoning the cooling circuit, you could fix it and then have it fail anyway. Having an instant heater is nice on the really bad days where the engine and hydraulics are warm enough but you are scrambling around in an iced up machine trying to scrape it. It is a safety thing to just turn on that heater while the rest of it warms up. From the comfort of your pickup cab
If you did cut those wires, just my opinion. I would use shrink tube butt connectors with correct size of shrink tube over each single butt connector for double coverage.
^ cannot be too careful, I like that approach.
Thanks Nige. Junkyard gave me a point in the right direction for the tools for those. They were supposed to show up today, but we've got a ice event ongoing so no deliveries for a day or two. I think I'm going to try to remove them all from the connector block, if not its going to be heat shrink butt connectors and probably another layer of heat shrink. But I'd rather not cut them if I don't have to.
The tools need care because they are easy to snap. What holds the pin/socket into the connector are two plastic “fingers” inside each hole location in the connector that lock on the flange that is located right below the wire crimp so that the wire can’t be pulled out. If the tool doesn’t engage the fingers the first time, pull it out, rotate it 90 degrees and slide it in again. Patience is key.
Good deere dealers will have a large assortment of individual deutsch components.
Used those a lot on the newer Cat equipment at the quarry. I always kept at least a couple of each size on hand just for that reason. A side note is when doing a larger round connector is to make sure you get the wires in the right hole. Sometimes the numbers can be confusing as to which hole the number is for. Would not want to mistake a hot for a ground that could really ruin your day!
Have had a 3-4 inch ice/sleet event this week. Not much crane activity. The suspension is back together on the link belt- we had some machinist issues but got that sorted out. Got some new tires put on some trucks, and weights unloaded off the broken trailer. I was going to dive into the wiring on the swivel this weekend, but I've been battling a sinus cold, and I honestly just wasn't up for it. All the work that was supposed to happen last week, is now supposed to happen on monday. Actually we've been tryinig to condense this week and last week into this week, and it isn't going well. The 90 and 100 ton are both heading out for projects monday morning, and I've got my fingers crossed. I have no idea how we're going to manage the rest of the week, but we're going to give monday our best shot first. It's supposed to rain 1/2 the week also, so that will help out.
Sometimes it's nice to have weather delays so you can relax just a little bit.
This is the suspension pivot/ bushing we replaced on the link belt. I had a piece made that this was supposed to press into ( a buddy of a buddy is starting a shop). The first time I had it made, I went to pick it up, and it had a ridge about 1/2 way in, and it seemed narrow the rest of the way (by my precision finger feel). The lathe man said "well I was a little big on the front, but the back will press fit in". I aint no machinist, so I took his word on it, even though it felt wrong. Well I decided to test press it in, before we welded it into the frame. Well, it went about 1/2 way in, right to the ridge, and then things got a little ugly. We pressed a little more and put a little heat to it, and it wasn't going. Took it to my regular machine shop- who is usually super busy, but they got right on it (said they took another 23 thousandths out of the tight side), got a new suspension bushing, and everything went together like it was supposed to. A 12 pound sledge slid it right in. The first one suffered from us pushing on it.
This is what the new bushing looks like before we got severe with it. Taking down another christmas tree, and replacing a hvac system.
Fuel tank, a leather slitter machine we skated out and replaced. I didn't get a picture of the machine that replaced it, the old one was around 8,000lbs, the new one was close to 20,000lbs. Said it would slice the hide off your hand and you wouldn't know it. Of course its meant to slice hides down shoe liner leather thickness if you want it. Also some quarry work.
Swivel can outer barrel has some bad grooves, its supposed to get tig up and be back by the end of next week.
Hopefully their machining skills and measuring improve when they get the shop open. Good that the bushing could be further machined to work. If the shop is welding the swivel they should preheat it a bit to lesson the stress from welding on a large chunk of steel. Especially if it's Tig welded because that is a very concentrated heat.
Well- no swivel can back yet. The seals are those super stiff plastic type (they aren't actually plastic, there's a name for them) , and I can't ever get them on without damaging those, so the inner went to the hydraulic shop to get mated to the can when they are both done. Supposedly the outer is welded and not yet honed, so we could see those parts next week. We've been battling some wet conditions and have more coming. I was looking at a job yesterday for next week, and I'm breaking out the mud boots. Its a lake. Got a flatbed for making another straight truck for the 90 ton. Headache rack is coming off it and getting a home built one. Also got a couple air suspension axles. Going to put one on the rear of the 90, and another on the counterweight truck.
For operation of lift axle remove any of the old Parker/Norgren and install a GT5040-311 full function valve. It's the simplest easiest way to go. Very little trouble with them, only replaced one in 5 years. Cross reference numbers in link. https://tramecsloan.com/products/ai...es/lift-axle-control/hi-flow-lift-axle-valve/
So is that one 12v signal for up/down, with only a supply air coming to the valve? There wasn't a air/electric diagram in the link. And then how do you set pressure? past the valve and before the bags?
There's a diagram normally with the valve. You install a a parker lift axle regulator and gauge kit. The switch is for down automatically raises when wired through back up light switch or in off position.
On the cranes I've run air up to the cab, but having just a 12v signal wire would be nice. Would save a bunch of nylon tubing, because that cab is about 35' away from this axle.
It will still have a air toggle switch, the solenoid is for reverse to auto raise. The big difference with this valve is it eliminates the need for other valves, it operates both functions up-down.
http://cdn.norgren.com/pdf/LACM_5040_Series_IM_Sheet_5-13-15.pdf
Hey Crane Operator, First time posting here, I stumbled across this forum a few weeks ago and have been reading through years of old post ever since. My question for you is how bad is pulling the swivel? I have a tms300 that's leaking air into my hydraulic tank. I'm half tempted to just run an air line up through the center with its own little swivel and cap the ports through the main swivel, as we have an old pettibone and a manitex boomtruck that is done this way. But the wires coming out of the top look like a nightmare and I'm slightly afraid of disturbing them, plus for the life of me I cant seem to find one of the air swivels in all my google searches. Another question for you as I see you have a tms500e, I know the counterweights aren't hydraulically removeable but are they modular in a way that you can remove the heavy counterweight package relatively easily with another crane/lift? I'm always looking at used cranes to try upgrade ours and would like to not have to get overweight permits. I've always thought I would probably replace the tms300 with a tms540 with the 90' main. Its one of the few 40 ton cranes with hydraulic removeable counterweights and it has pretty good jib chart for the construction work we do. But the other day I was reading the spec/load chart brochure on the tms500e and I see they talk about different counter weight set ups but they don't really say if the configuration can be changed after it comes from factory. I just see you have one so I thought you could give some insight on the counterweight set up. Thanks
Thank you. Likely, pulling the swivel won't fix the air side. The air side gets moisture in them and they tend to rust and then they won't seal. You can have the swivel welded up and turned back down, but its a coin flip on weather it works. You actually need two air lines running through the swivel, 1 supply and 1 to control the throttle. The old link belt 35 and 50 ton hydraulic truck cranes from the early 80's used a brass two line swivel set up that will go through the center with the wires, if the wires dont' have the hole totally full. And if you can find a link belt parts man that will get the part # for one for you. I fixed 2- tms 250's that way. They use a pipe within a pipe and a double swivel on the top and the lines on the bottom are just one over the other. Its easier than pulling swivel. Swivel comes out in less than a day. Then machine shop time. And a day to put it back in. The counterweights in the upper rear box, are removable with a second crane or a telehandler on a tms 500e. There's two small square pieces inside the upper box that pull out the top, and the front bumper counterweight can come off also. You can pull the bumper weight off with the crane. A tms 540 and a tms300 aren't anything close to the same crane, if you need heavy lift capacity. The tms540 is more like a old tms 250. We really like our tms500, but it isn't a tms 300 either. My link belt 8640hl is a lot more comparable to a tms300.
Hey CO, need any help this week? Geez I gotta get out of here.
It was 68 here today. Sun shining, dead still, no wind. We were down to t shirts. Wife has daffodills with buds on them.
I was going to ask you how the weather was up there, but I saw your daughters drone pictures, and I decided I didn't want to ask, I could see what the weather was like.
Yea I've had issues with the airlines coming through the swivel wanting to freeze up so I know I've had moisture issues, but it's finally started to leak. The top of the swivel is a mess of wire nuts and I don't have a wiring schematic so I'd rather not mess with that. I like the chart of the 8640 but the strong chart comes with a heavy fixed counter weight which is something I'd like to get away from in a crane this size. Even without the extra HL counter weight the rear tandems only get down to 39,000lb, unless I'm missing something. Is there any way to get it to under 20,000lbs on the front and 34,000lbs on the tandems? I know the tms540 isn't a perfect replacement for a tms300 especially with a short boom and at close radius. But I'm usually using 60' plus of boom at a radius of 40' plus, which in this part of the chart they get somewhat comparable. I would probably miss my 105' of main power pin, but also like having 90' of live boom vs. just 81'. It would probably do most of its work as a jobsite crane with the jib swung. It'd be nice to have a 70-90ton with 130-140ft of main boom but I don't have any experience with a boom dolly and they're a little out of my price range as we're not a for hire crane service.
The 8640 is never going to get under those numbers. If you're running a tms 300, I think mine is over 44,000 on the rears. I have a tag axle behind the drives on the rear bumper- so I'm a 5 axle machine. Its really tough to get the 3 axle truck cranes to scale, without losing a bunch of chart. Are you trying to get away from permits? To get lighter axle weights- You may be better off with a tms 700e or a 8650-8660 with a rear tag- so you get twin steer and can add a rear axle to the back bumper. Those 4 axle rigs have all removable counterweight also. And if you are early 2000's in years, probably aren't going to be a lot different price wise. They both have 110' main with two piece swing around. They aren't going to be any better chart wise for setting trusses until you get past 100' radius. But they may scale better because of the extra axles. If you really aren't needing the chart of the tms300, the tms500e is going to be the lightest of the options. I think they are even lighter than the tms540's. I would avoid boom dolly if you can. They aren't handy.
Replacing signage around a motel. Going to get to do it all again, because this was just taking the old signs off, we'll have to install the new ones when they get built.
Working on plates and tag for the 90 ton.
Right in the sun. A homemade chop saw, that I saw for sale. Looks safe. Working late Thursday, had a nice sunset.
There's lumber piled everywhere on this jobsite. Had one of my guys bring the link belt out, to work on the pool house while I was setting decks.
This picture isn't that special, except I've got 148' of stick out. Liebherr will let you put the stick in your lap. It will boom up to 83 degrees or so, I'm almost to my outriggers. You don't want to be booming very fast when up that steep, you can put the spreaders in your window if you get them swinging.
Half of the lodge trusses we set saturday, well they blew over sunday night. Broke a few, new ones are supposed to show up next monday. Some of the guys were great employee's and came in Saturday to shove the swivel in the 40 ton. I just couldn't see us getting it put in during the week, so they took the saturday repair shift while I was out setting wood. They got all the hoses hooked up, and just lacked a few things, finished up monday but had a electrical issue. Me and the young mechanic got the electrical sorted out this morning, and went and did a water tank this afternoon. Looks pretty dry on the swivel- so that's a plus. Here's some pictures of the removable counterweight on the tms500.
Been working on a construction equipment playground. We're in a resort/ tourist area, and this is a new attraction going in. I think they are cute as a bug. I will get more pictures when it gets done. I'm thinking I'm going to host a HeavyEquipmentForums convention, we can have a skills contest. There will be prizes. No participation trophies either...
It's great to have good employee's to help when you're in a bind. Shows they respect you as the boss and you must treat them right. A mini-ex demo derby isn't likely but a syncronized dance would be pretty cool.
Interesting idea . At one time I thought of doing that with some of my old machines,id bet theres people out there that might enjoy the chance to play.Im sure the legal beagles would put my idea to rest in a hurry
Watching the 'Old Fellas' that worked those heavy demand light touch lever and friction operated machines or those wrist breaker hand thumper dog clutch graders that earned their abilities the hard way yet made it appear Easy As Pie!!
My dad ran that Koehring in my avatar from the 50s to the 70s. Never understood why he came home and had two or three beers every night and was always growly. Years later I ended up running the thing as a drag line a time or two during the week cleaning out a tailings pond. Wife and kids started complaining about me being growly and drinking some kind of alcohol after a day on that monster. I made life beyond 49. Didn't operate or drink like Dad.
Thanks. Now you have me thinking maybe it wouldn't be such a bad crane. Every 500e I've ever seen for sale had the front counter weight so I just assumed they had the heavy counter weight package and couldn't be reduced to meet bridge law weights. The tms300 we have can get an annual overweight permit pretty cheap but the trip approval is kind of a hassle. We have a manitex 40100s boom truck which has worked really well. Biggest thing I don't like is the jib. We build grain leg systems and the jib chart isn't very strong. It's fine for a couple thousand lbs down spouts but I don't like lifting a 4-5000lb head section 100' in the air on a 6000lb jib chart. Do you have a jib for your 500e? If so how solid does it feel? One of the things that draws me towards the 540 is the strong jib chart, at 40' it has a 12000lb jib chart where the 500e is 8000lb.
There's actually places where people can pay to run heavy equipment. It was new equipment and they had to take a course first. It was on Dragon's Den in Canada or Shark Tank in the US several years ago. Apparently it's quite popular.
Drive past the IUOE 513 training yards off old US 61 near Bowling Green MO occasionally, see the newbies running lattice and squirt booms, operating antiques I was working on Forty plus years ago learning a new skill. Been told about 1/3 pass, the others either break and run in the first weeks or do not do well enough to earn a card. On a map is between Eolia and Auburn south of BG MO.
Dig This Las Vegas is a play with heavy equipment attraction. https://digthisvegas.com/
That's the type of thing I was referring to. They make good money doing it and have pretty new equipment.
I wouldn't care for doing any big head sections with a current 40 ton truck crane or boom truck jib. My link belt 8640 has a two piece lattice swing away, and it would be the strongest jib I have in that size. That or a tms300. Really to match up a old tms 300 in a current crane- your looking at a 50-60 ton truck crane, a grove tms700/760e or a link belt 8650/8660. The boom trucks or a tms500 aren't really comparable.
Trusses. The delivery truck was a little hard on the bottom ones.
Water going in the rock under the road, and the whole area wanted to slide down the hill. Painters working up the hill had gone in at 8, we were there at 10 and it wasn't driveable any more. You could see the gaps opening in the road as we were standing there. It had dropped around a foot to a foot and a half. They brought in a excavator and when I went back to look at it (we were supposed to go up the hill and set trusses), excavator guy said he was at 55 loads of muck removed and rock laid in- I think he had another 20-30 to go to finish. I just wanted to make sure the road was good before I sent a crane up there.
Tag for the 90 is almost done. This was before we got the air and lights done. Its all painted now, and we just have to put new air bags in it. Had to put some new shoes on the old winch truck. We've been using it for counterweight for the liebherr all the time, because the other truck has the link belt counterweights on it. We were just peeling the old rubber off the truck. Bought new bags for both the tag axles- the 90 ton and the one we're putting in the KW. Also ordered 8 new bags for the kw. The ones on it are weather checked pretty bad, and I don't want to deal with blown bags one at a time on the side of the road with counterweight on the truck. They will be much easier to change now, before we get the flatbed on. Still need to find another lift axle for the kw for in front of the drives, I would like to find a steerable. My other 5 axle truck can tend to push the steer axle if the roads are wet, because the other 4 axles are fixed. The used steerables I've been finding are just a little more $$$ than I want to spend.
More houses.
Condo building- each "apartment" has its own A/C unit. We put all the new ones up, the techs will spend a couple weeks changing them one at a time, and then we'll come back and take the old ones back down. My operator said they put 68 units on the roof.
This is what the lmi looks like in the link belt 90 ton. Its a whole lot more user friendly than the liebherr system. Its been raining here, got the flood gates open on the dam again, they were shut for around a week and now they are back running. Going to have to deal with this tree next week, it nailed a boat dock when it came over.
Getting the trailer patched back together. I need it monday- so today was welding day. I still have to fix a tire on it tomorrow before I load it up for monday morning.
Trailers failing in that curved portion is mentioned in the Lincoln Procedure Handbook of Arc Welding. The fix was making the bottom curved section out of thicker steel like you did. It looks like it was a little awkward to weld everything in but should do the job.
Trailers failing in that curved portion is mentioned in the Lincoln Procedure Handbook of Arc Welding. The fix was making the bottom curved section out of thicker steel like you did. It looks like it was a little awkward to weld everything in but should do the job
Nice to get all that airbag rubber fresh, just like timed out tires they wait to cause problems.
It was a big pain in the .... I was going to turn the trailer on its side to do the L plate and dump it upside-down to do the curved piece. But I just burned it in like it was. I decided it was just too much screwing around to position it.
It could clean up with a little grinding. I used to build big skids for vessels and process equipment. We'd stand the skids up on edge and flip them right over so all the welding was flat or horizontal. Would have to crawl under them to tack the checker plate on overhead though. One time some other guys didn't put big enough tacks on the checker plate and it fell off when the skid was on edge in the middle of flipping it over. Thankfully we could all hear the tacks popping and stayed out of the way. It made a big woosh and created a giant dust cloud.
So they have these trusses 125' away, but the only place to set the crane was under the power lines. So we brought out the broderson, and put mats down and weights on the 90 ton with it, then set the trusses with the 90 ton. One way or another...
New one for me- 4 ply girders, and a 8 ply. I don't know who the engineer was, but setting a 8 ply and a 4 ply girder- in the middle of a garage header- doesn't look like a great idea to me. But I don't get paid to design, just to set them.
Can you have "short" - "long" trusses? Yep, these were a floppy mess. 4' tall and 60' long are not good dimensions.
Got a plan coming together. Used tag suspension- $150. Used 20k KW front cut off $4,000 Old KW steer axle to go with tag suspension- Free Just got to do a little fabrication and some parts replacement. From my measurements, I think the 20k front is going to be a "bolt up". I think the front frame forgings are the same as on my truck, and I can just swap springs and pins, and then mount steering boxes. Then I don't have to pull radiator- hood- etc.
Looks like your shop foreman is either saying, hold on let me check it out first or what are you bringing more crap home for?
And for you eagle eyed viewers- the short/long truss job- that's my RT in the background. My operator started with the RT, and a too short spreader bar. Everyone else was busy, so he had to go back to the shop, and load big spreader bar on the gooseneck, and then back to the jobsite. Gets back to the jobsite, and blows a hose on the RT. Under the cab, in a big bundle of hoses. They struggled around for a little while trying to find and fix it, but I told them to just park it up the hill, and go get another crane to finish. It was a monday job. She's just worried I'll spend to much on old truck parts and won't be able to buy dog treats.
Does your shop helper borrow your tools? We had one that would pick up wrenches while I was under the truck and drop them out in the grass. Her favourite was a 7/16ths. Cam
She loves plastic water bottles. She'll stand by you and whine while you're drinking one, because she wants it. She'll drag them off to her hill and chew them to pieces. Gloves once in a while. She also likes the little plastic cap off a brake clean can- she'll run around chewing it making it pop and crack, just having a ball.
My house has two of those big girders but they've got 6x6 under them and 48" pads under the footing. There are no load bearing walls so supposedly I can gut the downstairs if I ever want to without compromising structural integrity.
When I see girders tying into other girders, with lots of teco nails and expensive hanger/brackets, I wonder whatever happened to the building concept of direct bearing? Second thought is, the engineers and architects are just showing off. Third thought is, wow, what a complicated and expensive way to keep the rain out. Fourth thought is I don't care, as it means more time onsite for me the more complicated they get. Setting trusses the other day, between two girders, hangars on both, for one of my favorite customers, I asked him how much room he gave between the girders. So many jobs I'm on, if the truss dropping into the hangars spans 30', they'll set the girders 30' apart, making every insertion a struggle for both carpenters plus me (think I'm down, but just bound up in the hangar) This better builder sets the girder 1/2" further apart, making the job much easier for all, with no loss of strength. This is the way I used to build, so I consider it the right way! He also final nails girders after I'm outa there, just a couple at first, enough to keep it on layout, the top bracing being more important, so many jobs I'm on they nail the heck out of the girder base, then 5 minutes later discover it's misplaced, as if more nails in the base are going to make it more stable. I also used to "open" up the hangars a bit by a tap with a hammer, so the hangar is flared a bit on top, acting like a funnel for the truss, the same crews that set their girders too tight also never seem to know that trick. Stuff like that used to drive me crazy as a carpenter myself when I got into crane work , now after 23 years I have the right attitude: if they want the job to take longer, it's on them, just more money for me, still bugs me to see things done inefficiently though! I also see a lot of girders nailed together on uneven ground, then bafflement when I lift it into position, and it's bowed, the bow is "nailed in." Usually the same crews who set them too close, nail the heck out of them and don't open their hangars, and now that i think about it, they are also the slowest paying!
No more wall walking for framers in New Mexico. We have the "6' Rule." Anything over 6' has to be tied off or on a ladder. Took the fun out or framing.
Some people don't like wearing fall protection for what seems like simple tasks but the rules are there for a reason. I used to build large oilfield tanks and pressure vessels where would you have to climb on top to weld fittings on. A fall harness was never required and nobody ever thought much about it. Fast forward about 15 or so years and was saddened to see on the news a welder had fallen off a vessel and hit his head and died. It could have happened to anyone. In this case it was even worse because the guys son was also a welder at the same shop who had gone home earlier that day after his day shift ended. The accident happened around supper time. One contributing factor may have been that the guy had a couple drinks before his shift and there were trace amounts of pot in his system. Not enough to be legally impaired but maybe enough to cloud his judgement for a split second. Still a fall harness would have saved his life. Company was charged for not providing proper safety apparatus and ensuring it is used. Bad things can happen in the blink of sn eye. I remember being up on a big tank and it shook when a test plug blew out of a tank across the shop. I was lucky the test plug didn't hit me and knock me off the tank. The test plug is basically a thick rubber band on 2 opposing cones that tightens with a wing nut. I was a little scared when it happened. The plug blew about 30 feet. Tank being tested at about 2 PSI but it was a 400bbl tank so a lot of volume of air to come out a 3 inch opening all at once.
It's no accident that the heaviest beam in my new house is 330 pounds and I will set it all with a forklift.
Bucking to get into the overload of the day thread. 22' wide, 40' long, 22,000lbs. Luckily, I was only on college campus. No public roads.
Had a audience, tv camera's, and even a drone in the air. Even got asked to move the truck, because it was too noisy for their interview. No problem- we're done here!
Coming along on the KW project. 20k axle is in. Fleet pride sent wrong U bolts so waiting on them yet. Rear lift axle is on, steer lift axle is close. One of my guys is a good fabricator, and him and my mechanic have really been making headway. Double steer boxes came with a water to oil cooler for the power steering, which was a new one for me. You can see it mounted on the drivers side frame rail. Those lift axle controls truckshop recommended are $$. Fleet pride told me $700+ each. Looking at options for that.
Jaw flip at the quarry.
Where do you get the water for that? Is there someplace "cool" to get the water after the pump but before it runs all through the engine?
Customer made breakwater floats from 40' conexes. Dock floats on frames in the top of the conex, 3" of poured concrete in the bottom for ballast. Loaded in a separate lot, unloaded on the ramp, and pushed them into the water.
I just tied it into the antifreeze (water) lines that go to the cab heater. That water is circulating, and the cooler is in the oil return line from steering boxes to reservoir. I think the idea is to keep the steering oil in the 200 degree range with water cooling.
Most twin steer use a pump in the range of a Vickers 20. Low speeds with fare amount of turning heats the oil fast. Do you dirt track that yellow Star on the weekends? lol
It came with the wing, and the tall stacks. I was always going to pull it off, because it looks dumb, but then I'd have to seal all the holes in the roof. And I'm too tight to buy new stacks, just for aesthetics. I don't think the wing helps much, especially as we rarely hit more than 50. I didn't change the pump on the KW, I thought I would see how this one did, and if it won't keep up, then go junkyard crawling.
Hi- my name is crane operator, and I'm a toolaholic. In my defense, they are all bigger than 1 1/4" and less than 2" in size and it was $70 for 9 of them. Mostly williams and some armstrong. They ain't shiny chrome, but they'll turn fittings.
Lift station install. Excavation guys gave up on the breaker and had the blasting boys come in.
They got a little hard on the excavator. Said this is the second time in 3 months this has let loose. The pool boys at a different site had their afternoon job going well also.
Toilet running/leaking?
The same site as the hitachi with the broken cylinder- they brought the komatsu down the hill to carry the boxes to me. It didn't last the morning though- it went into limp mode and was down for the count too. I wanted to get my crane off site before I caught some problems from them. Had to pull outrigger beam on the rt to fix some hoses.
Not anymore. And I'm a pi** poor plumber. I wouldn't pay me. Don't tell anyone I know how.
I just had to replace the same in our master bath using the same one. X2 on not being a plumber either. Big pipe - check, small pipe - nope.
Guys got in a little saturday time. They started this building friday, and didn't quite get done so finished this morning.
they believe in stacking it up
I should have been more clear, they started the roof trusses yesterday. We've stacked the floor trusses and interior beams off and on for the last two months.
was kind of refering to the builder
Gotcha.
In Nashville Metro they will go 5 stories with wood. Future fire traps
One of my favorite places to shop for big wrenches is Habitat for Humanity. The one near where we stay usually has a large tool department frequently with large odd size wrenches.
Not just Nashville. 5 stories wood on concrete 1st floor with multi-level garage underneath. Probably built a dozen of those here over the last several years. There is one going up a block away from a job we have downtown. Bid a couple but never go them. They are going to have water intrusion problems on the 3 story buildings crane op posted above. The decking band is nailed straight to the plywood sheathing. Better have one hell of a flashing detail.
Built a cute little tower crane at the construction amusement area.
Hot tubs- 4 on the back- it looked like hollywood squares. Also scored a package deal- welder and a plasma cutter. Jobsite with a steep driveway, I don't know what some people are thinking.
Sheetrock, 4 truckloads- it was as much fun as it sounds.
those are cool forks. I have never seen them, the knuckle trucks have been able to get at all the jobs I was around.
I have run a set years ago, its essentially the same forks as the drywall truck, just without the rotator, and a battery powered hyd. pump with a couple batteries. I was always going to build a set when I found someone parting out a drywall truck, and just take the fork arm and re-build it. Its not as easy to unload drywall from a crane, because the crane swings so much worse than a drywall truck.
yes it is a couple of guys at the window just to keep things steady, where the knuckle truck just holds it there.
Yeah I've watched our local K boom guys unloading drywall, pretty amazing what they can do. Working out of level, flat boom angles, just seems wrong, from a straight boom truck perspective.
Going to have to work fast. Looks like we aren’t going to get a full day
You might make it to lunch if you don't have high winds
Came out okay, it was Friday so the ironworkers were primed to go home before it even started sprinkling. We got done what we needed to, and back to town at a decent time. Been working on a high school new gym. 140' clear span, built two of the bays on the floor and tandem picked them onto the columns. Each bay with the purlins was right at 24,000lbs. Rafters were over 10,000lbs each plus the purlin weight. I had the easy side, the other side has a ditch and that crane had to be further away from the building. I was in my liebherr 100 ton and one of my guys was in the link belt 8690 on the other side.
In a tight spot with jib on the galion. The A- frame jib is a pain to put on. Had to go in a yard to take down a tree with the 100 ton, and I struck "black gold" like the beverly hillbilly's, only mine wasn't oil, it was sewer. We had put down our mats, but it didn't help much. They had a valve access vertical pvc buried 3" under the grass, and it wasn't supported, with enough cut out to clear the pipe. So it nicely speared the sewer line from the house to the main trunk, and since we were at the bottom of the hill in a housing development, we were getting great head pressure from the rest of the system. It was all bubbling right out of the ground. Had a local guy bring down the hydrovac and a mini, and its all fixed, but the old lady that owns the house wasn't happy. But we moved to her driveway and got the trees down.
Thank you for reinforcing the reason why we don't do much if any residential/home owner work.
That is the smell of money
Yeah but not enough
You just have to charge enough. The real $ is new Step system installs. 11K per lot, 3-5 per week, one 308 and triaxle, 3 man crew. Every week
We do a lot of commercial it can spoil the guys so we take on certain residential stuff as a filler and it keeps guys on there toes about how nice heavy commercial is even with the stupid rules plus it sharpens skills a little with variety and forces them to think
Had to go rescue this lift. they drove it down the aisle painting the ceiling, and drove it onto the aluminum grate that covers the HVAC duct. Punched right through. Dropping the drive wheels 3" down into the duct. A couple toe jacks and some aluminum pads, and two guys bouncing in the lift scoped totally out over the opposite side, and we had it out.
Sycamore tree that's been dead for three years now. We quoted taking it down when it first died, and the customer didn't want to take it down then. Its super super dead now, the tree was unclimbable. So the tree cutters in manbasket, and a second crane to pull the pieces away.
Picked up a second link belt 8640. This one is a year newer than our other one. The upper side door glass didn't make it here on the truck, it fell off somewhere in arizona, new mexico, oklahoma, or kansas. So if someone here hit it on the road- sorry. The upholstery in the cabs is all falling off, steering box leaking, 1/2 the jakes don't work, and the engine fan doesn't come on by temp (manual control works). Missing a battery box cover and engine compartment access door. Two drive tires need to come off and we're going to go ahead and replace suspension bushings that we fought on the other one. Main structure of the crane looks pretty good, but we'll see what its like when we get to running it. It came out of California originally. A little help on my latest tool acquisition- I think this is for adjusting injectors on a cummins- but I'm missing the sockets. Any help for what I need for sockets would be appreciated- the tip is 1/4" drive and the outer socket drive is 3/8". And yes I shouldn't be playing with things I don't understand, but I have the feeling I can always learn. I picked it up at the pawn shop for $40.00, so I'm not out a lot of $$$.
New tool box to go with a new shop. We've rented a building a hour north of our home base. We've averaged around a job or two a week there for the last 9 months, and I'm sick of beating my cranes up and down the road. Our work there has come from customers from my other location, "hey- can you come up here and do X, Y, Z?" I'm really just trying to spread some risk around. If things get slow, its a bigger market for work. We've rented a 60' x 60' building with about a 1/2 acre gravel lot beside it, on a dead end street in a industrial park. Room for two cranes inside, and can fit truck and lowboy and 4-5 other pieces of equipment outdoors in the lot. I'm planning on putting a couple cranes there, and have been getting started on what we need up there for stuff. I don't need much of a excuse for tool shopping. We had a big steel bench and a vise, I just got a used tool box, and we've got a welder and air compressor, and a outdoor fuel tank. Dropped a too low cable/ telephone line that ran across the gravel lot, and got a security system. We've mainly just used it as a parking lot so far, one of my guys lives closer to there than our other shop, so he's fired up to not have to drive as far to work. We've been leaving a pickup there, so when we park stuff there we don't have to go pick anyone up. New toolbox was a $1,800 score off a local retired guy. Its a 72" x29" snap on. I'd hate to think what one costs new, and its heavy. I don't want to roll it very far empty. I have dreams that the new shop will be super clean, everything in its place, and no junk lying around, and then eventually it will force me into doing the same to my current shop.....
Always nice to start with a blank canvas so you can correct all the annoyances in the shop. I’m still fighting a couple of things that were build before my time that I never had the time or money to rip out. Cam
I bet the tree customer did not like the two crane price. Funny how murphy operates. As to the new tool? yes you got it bad I look around and find you the nearest toolanon meeting.
They are a huge resort, and money/ price is never a object there. The same guy who owns cabela's and basspro owns the resort, and has a house just down the road. Everything is top notch there. They didn't want to cut the tree down, because the owner didn't want it cut down, but it just became too unsafe. They basically built all the buildings around that tree, covering up its root system, and killed the tree.
Nice shop. Makes a lot of sense just to keep the cranes where the work is That's for tightening valve and injector tappets. The 1/4 drive is a flat head bit. The outer is 1/2" drive and just a standard 12 point deep socket for whatever size the lock nut is https://shop.snapon.com/categories/Torque-Adaptor-Set/675480
Ouch- that's a $350 tool from the snap on man. So basically you can hold the flat head adjuster with the inner, while tightening down the lock nut with the outer socket. I shouldn't be messing with any engine components.....
Yup. It's listed in the cummins manual but I've never had a need for it
That's a sweet new shop. I've seen crane yards come and go around here and it seems to be about where the work is. The Mobe is such a big part of getting the work done. having a closer place to do repairs under a roof will be nice.
My saturday project. New wire installed, and we should be ready to go next week. Fortunately we didn't break the spring in the reel.
This is what the RT has been doing. Its a new building for the local vo-tech- to replace their old one. The vo tech teaches " secondary technical programs, they include: Auto Collision, Automotive Technology, Computer Technology, Construction Technology, Culinary Arts, Marine Technology, Printing Technology, EMT, Early Childhood and Welding Technology" And I did get the KW white. I had a terrible time with the paint, I couldn't get it to lay down and flow, its kind of a matte/ orange peel look, but the guys said that's the latest trend in trucks- its custom.
Hot tubs and a little two ball work at the charcoal plant. Pulled chain and buckets up to replace sprocket. May be my last run to the plant, they are shutting this plant down after this season.
I've created two fire hazards this week. Installed two charcoal grills at two different apartment complex's. First one went on top of a old wooden deck. If two embers flake onto the deck- the whole works is going up in smoke. The second one went into a new wooden pavilion. I can touch the new wood roof right over top of the second grill, If anyone gets carried away with the lighter fluid or a little too much fuel in the fire, it will be the second one to go up.
Out in the woods. Customer- "Yeah- there's a spring coming out of the hill- goes right through here on the front of the house, its been wet and a mudhole for the whole job so far, we only get the backhoe stuck in it, if we drive in it. You should be fine with that crane..."
More rock with the concrete bucket.
I put one of these on several years ago: https://kar-tech.com/purpose-built-systems/wireless-anti-two-block/wireless-atb-transmitter-kit.html Framing houses out in the woods I'd break the wire once or twice a year
Yeah, but that isn't going to get boom length for the LMI.
What's an LMI? Kidding, I thought I was fancy with the wireless A2B
So hypothetically, what would two gallons of (what I assume is) fix a flat have for a effect on the balance of a tire? Took 12r22.5's off on drives to swap to 315's and one tire had liquid running out the rim when the bead came loose. Two gallons might be a underestimate.
We have used balance beads in the duals of our one ton pickups to help counteract mud accumulations between the wheels with some success. Sometimes when you hit a good bump it takes a second to balance out again. It could work! I would guess too much would be better than too little, to a point anyway.
I have Centramatic balancers on all my wheels, they convinced me the concept works so well, that when I saw a similar device meant for putting behind the prop on my plane, I got one for it also.
I have saw some guys try them but didnt like them. I am a fan of the balancing beads i drove a truck that had them in a tire i removed them and drove it agin. i could tell the diferents .
Been looking for a transfer tank to add to a truck, and spotted this one used. Looks like a regular used tank, pump included, $500. Priced about right. But look a little closer. What's this you say? seems like someone wanted small lines to go direct to the truck tank, but they can't weld, BUT they can drill holes and JB weld....
Bed is on. Just setting there, but we're gaining. The guys really made great progress today.
Old used trailer house from texas, put on a new basement. It was horribly muggy thursday, and we were all shot by the time it was set. I was still worn out today. Notice the trailer came with one bed already installed...
Yeah- put the truss pile way up the hill. Going to have a nice view off the deck.
Especially if it was used for diesel not a big deal to weld the holes up with Mig and grind flat and paint. If it was used for gas would want to steam it out preferably but rinsing good with water a few times could work. Make sure all openings are open so it vents.
I'd prolly just tap them next size NPT and screw in a plug.
You could tap them but you risk getting metal cuttings in the tank. Maybe just some pipe plugs would thread right in?
I think we'll just avoid the whole problem and find a different tank.
The 3" rain in a hour thursday- got the better of a roof. They built a new building up against the slope of a existing factory, and just installed some drain/gutters. I got the call thursday night and went and looked at it. Well the big rain shoved a bunch of debris in the drains (plugging them up), and made a pond on the roof. Roofs won't usually hold ponds for long, so down came the roof. There was one guy in the room that collapsed, but he made it out the door before he got smooshed. Workers said the water slid a bridgeport 8' across the floor when the wave hit it. 3' of water in the room below. Was supposed to go get the hvac unit off the roof friday, but the lawyers and insurance guys got in a tiff about it, and so it got put on hold. More phone calls friday and "safety issue" got things rolling, and we went saturday morning and pulled the unit. 120' away and a 35' sidewall so 90 ton with all the jib on. We had to dodge thunderstorms to get it pulled. Lawyers and engineers are having a big wheel meeting on tuesday and we'll see what shakes out after that. I think there's going to be a lot of fingerpointing about the design of the new building, attached to the old, and with no where for the water to go if the drains plug. It just makes a lake. Rained friday, saturday, and sunday in the hole. They've just been pumping the water out.
I have not wrapped my head around why they make these parapeted curbed roofs without a ginourmous overflow slot in them, with the roof sloped that way. And some kind of self cleaning drain system. A couple of strategic pieces of, what exactly? and it is game over, man.
Same thing happened on this building a couple of months ago. Got the call from one our GC's to come take a look and give advice on how to build it back. 1/3 of the roof sloped to the front with 2 downspouts and no overflow. The other 2/3 sloped to the rear with no parapet wall just a long gutter. From downspouts plugged filling that portion of the roof. Just like that building above there was 12" and higher water marks on the walls in the front. Best we can figure is when the front roof collapsed it created a gust and a ripple in the roof system itself that blew the back wall out.
I priced a demo two weeks ago that had a partial roof collapse due to clogged gutters....18k square feet of office....toast b/c of a few clogged gutters. ouch
Typical way to avoid shavings inside is to grease the tap well, and withdraw often. Yes, its a bodge, but sometimes its necessary. Repairing blown sparkplugs, any ford owners?
yup I drill holes till almost through and then start greasing the bit too. The other dodge is to pressurize the tank and hopefully blow more debris out than in. Drilling and tapping for EGT probes on cummins engines.
Metal shavings in a 100 gallon tank with a filter are not going to be a problem.
When I was working at our schools her one of my jobs was every 2 months I had to clean roof drains and log when and how much.
Did a job just yesterday on a shop I did last year. Set the trusses AGAIN...., after our heavy snow year collapsed the roof! The home owners were in Europe, so no one hurt, 75 pound snow load rating originals, new are 150 lb. Bad location, no winter sun, no where for the snow to go on the back side, cut into the hill like it is, plus the winds drift that side, I just hope I don't have to go back next year. ICF walls, is why they didn't get pushed out, that was interesting.
wow. nothing like a level work area. That is the bomb diddy about ICF, my basement build is ICF. R25 and 8" of reinforced concrete in one package.
Fenced us in. We working in the amusement park, put the crane in late after park closed, they built the fence back around us. Set the new building the next day, and pulled crane out the next night.
Units four days apart, on opposite sides of the same condo/ mall development. I take another guy with me, because with the trees and light poles, its a pain to put jib on.
Hot tub with a telehandler, generator, and a old emergency box truck that I think they are going to make into a food stand. The box truck I was totally wrong on the weight, it was over 7,000lbs, and everything I saw was aluminum construction on top of the steel frame, so it must have had a blast proof double wall on the outer skin.
Setting some steel, and a new concrete plant silo.
Repairing a water park by new steel columns through the roof.
Columns all set before lunch, supposed to go set rafters tomorrow, and I hope they get the columns all tied together before the wind blows them down. Aside from the one lift operator, always pulling between me and the column I'm trying to set, we had a good morning.
My new to us 8640 has a steering column issue. Link belt uses what looks like for all intents and purposes, like a GM steering column from a '89 suburban. Keys look like gm keys too. My other link belts are tilting but not telescopic, this new one is tilt, but also telescopes, and doesn't lock the telescope. So the whole steering wheel floats in and out about 4" or so. I remember the old GM columns for being bad about the tilt bushings going bad, but I don't remember them being telescopic columns. Nor do I know what locks the column. This isn't my actual column, but this is what mine looks like from a same year crane off the web. It pulls up just behind the spokes, and before the turn signal stalk. The back small lever, behind the turn stalk, is what does the tilt.
Got the rafters all set last week, and a old sand screw we loaded out.
Similar on some trucks. Twisting the entire ring around the city horn doesn't work? Might be worth a try. Should be able to tighten like a nut. One of our trucks has that anyway.
Hvac at the hospital Swimming pool control box/ overflow water box
Twisting the ring doesn't seem to change it, not that it might not be broken. My western star is set up like that.
Trusses without a lot of room. Second two are a commercial HVAC. It blew up on the 105 degree day, and the next day was in the 100's. The customer was "I'll pay whatever it takes to get you here tomorrow to change the unit". I wasn't sure what to change my pricing structure to. When they say "whatever" I don't think they really mean "whatever". Because I can imagine some big numbers.
We've been busy, and its been stupid hot. So I gave the guys off on monday and tuesday both for the fourth. After I had told them, I got two more "emergency" down calls. Quarry has a cone crusher down, we pulled it apart saturday, and I went to a feed mill sunday for a motor being down. I only had to bring a guy in for counterweight saturday, I got the mill by myself. I think I"m supposed to set some trusses tomorrow, and I'd rather not because the traffic will be terrible. But at least everybody else got a long weekend.
We've used and abused, a small old cheap hyd. press over the years. I was really hard on the old one last year, when we were dealing with suspension bushings. Spotted this on local marketplace, OTC 55ton. It even has a electric pump, that I'm already planning on some quick couplers for, and some extra cylinders. The electric pump had a plastic reservoir that was all cracked up, wasn't usable anymore. I took the broken plastic to my local hyd. shop. Head man went in the back for a while, and came back with a brand new steel tank. Said he had special ordered it 8 years ago for someone that never showed up. I don't need a press that often, maybe a dozen times a year, but they sure are handy when you do need them. Still have to round up a second set of pins for the bed.
That's pretty sweet C O !!
Nice score on the press.
I'll help ya with "whatever" Keep it simple, primes. Regular rate is 1 Whatever is 2 It has to be done yesterday 3
I know somebody with the same press but it uses an air over hydraulic pump. That press is better than a lot of homemade or cheaper presses that use channel iron uprights. You can stick long pieces between the uprights and support them on the ends of the bed. Kind of a pain to have to put them diagonal. The sliding ram is also a great feature and has full capacity in any position. Should serve you very well!
And "Of course I want it yesterday. If I'd have wanted it today I would wait until tomorrow to ask you" - 4.
People they seem to think I have been just sitting here on my thumb waiting for their call so I would have something to do.
So you going to tell us how much you stole it for?
I gave $2,500 for it. A new Harbor Freight 50 ton is $1,500. A new OTC USA made one is over $9,000. I just didn't want a Harbor Freight one. And I can't quite justify a new $9,000 one. So this seemed like a fair price on a used press.
Has anyone ever been around a press with the little cable system to raise and lower the bed, where the cables weren't all jacked up? I don't think I have.
I built my press and winch system with a hand crank winch i divided the drum into 2 parts and ran one cable to each side. I wouldnt own a press with out a winch its a must have. I will try to take a picture . It works great . A buddy has a big press he built he uses a fork lift to move the table. He has been a friend for years but he said the forklift works just as good that is a joke .
Condo building. Framers already been a little too close to the retainer wall with their telehandler. Hit the top row and got the wall bowed a couple rows down.
Nice to know I'm not the only person left with wedge brakes. Setting some trusses.
Lulls...#$%(ING HATE THEM. And I own one. That wall will have to be rebuilt in the pouched out area and that is a huge PITA.
yeah I saw that too. The crane is far back plenty, but the gas can overloaded it.
Enerpac has some presses that use a small cylinder to raise,and lower the bed.
Between the lulls and the self propelled manlifts, there's not many safe mudholes or utility trenches on any jobsite. They are guaranteed to hit something. Or get stuck, or both.
I dare say those are likely Air Disc CO, not a good thought on a dump truck. My last day with current employer is Friday, Knife action getting started sooner than expected, they are dealing with a Bad set up as that on a New Star 24yd Dump Truck. Cannot keep debris out of rotors on rear and eats the brakes up.
Oh- you're probably right, I never thought of air disc. It was a newer looking KW dump (mid/ late 2000's ish), so I was kind of surprised to see the cans pointed that way. I was wondering how late you could get a set of wedge brakes if you bought heavy axles. But air disc sounds much more likely...
Easiest thing to do is a boat winch to raise and lower the bed..
Some pictures of the winch on my press.
The winch split drum . I cut a circle in 1/4 bored a hole in it cut it in half and rewelded it on the drum.
Your pics. are too zoomed in to show very much.
I understand the press is in a trailer and the sun was going down . I have electricity run to the trailer so i could use stuff in there. There is also a camel back drill press in front of it that i gave away and am trying to get moved out.
Been hot here, and the hyd. transmission cooler that we changed to electric fan isn't keeping up. Went to the plywood ram air induction version, its holding up well so far. Factory placement is kind of stupid, its out of the windflow area, and so its totally reliant on the fan. That 50 mph breeze coming through makes a big difference.
Quarry work, changing HVAC, and a tree. We had a bad windstorm last Friday, so its been a tree week on top of all our regular work.
Went and rescued a tank this week. They were somehow trying to tandem pick with two telehandlers, and lay over this tank at a fab shop. It tried to get away from them. When I got there they had parked the little warehouse forklift counterweight on top of the outrigger of the 12k trying to keep it from going over. They got super lucky the whole works didn't end up in a pile, telehandlers, tank and all. I think the one telehandler was fighting against the other one and trying to pull it over. We got hooked up with the crane and got it all laid down safely.
This old mercedes was sending out some pretty serious smoke signals. And I've got a vague idea of what nuclear physics is, but why there's a empty box of it, from china, behind the local gas station dumpster, well I'm just not sure about that. We might have a 'see something- say something" event going on....
Is th Is the tank wrapped with panels for insulation? Seems rather dumb to be trying to lift it with telehandlers.
I see you got to put your new 40 ton link belt to work. Have you put it in full service or an emergency call gave it an early trial run?
Its been to 2-3 jobs. Its running a little warm in the cooling system. On a big long hill, you have to back out or it runs hot. I don't think the engine fan is working at full speed, and we may have a thermostat/water pump/ plugged radiator issue. Its usable, you just need to watch the temp gauge driving. No its just a bare stainless tank.
It must be welded on the inside but the tape or whatever was put on the outside seams looks odd.
Watched that type tank work with telehandlers or heavy loaders end up just as you described. Quarries used to be the worst at use of incorrect equipment to do a job as did not want to take time to service a crane that set too long or to hire one that could get it done easier or safer. Augusta MO quarry destroyed three product or water storage tanks in a year being ‘cheap’, cost them bundles and is why Mississippi lime went broke.
The tank I was lifting wasn't insulated, but the ones behind the telehandler, in the one picture, may be insulated tanks. (with the taped seams)
I was curious why the seams weren't welded on the outside. I saw the tank with the tape so I thought the tank you lifted was thin sheets for insulating and taped after it was upright like the other tank.
It's a firework of the non-nuclear variety. https://www.brotherspyrotechnics.com/detail/5179
Walnut in my yard got hammered. We had another bad windstorm Sunday night/ monday morning. We actually didn't have everything cleared up from the last one when this one hit.
Oak tree
I think this was some kind of hackberry, and it was solid all the way through. Some out of towners bare rented a 70ton RT, and it broke down setting walls on a new chick fil a . We bailed them out with the 40 ton.
This was today's (saturday- again) problem. Was a "wall" of telephone poles with netting and cables strung between them, protecting a resort pool from the tee box of the adjacent golf course. Wind daisy chained them all down, with poles and netting laying on the trees, and the resort building, and almost in the pool.
Chainsaws, cut off wheels and grinders, and some knife work on the netting. Two telehandlers, a crane and a manlift and it was all on the ground. I don't want to know how many chainsaw chains they ruined with all the steel in those old telephone poles.
Been some of that wild up here too CO. Trees across highways, down power poles, downed telephone company equipment. Trees stressed, weak from heat and dry to be drowned and wind stormed to death. Two larger Hickory and Solid rolled root balls out. Utility company here chasing outages seemingly every few days.
My son was without power at his apartment for 3-4 days. Lots of lines down from trees falling on them. It was a big straight line windstorm. I was up when it hit, I haven't seen it blow that hard on my hill since we had a tornado roll through 6 years or so ago.
We had porch furnishings off in the yard, some off the rear deck OVER the handrail. Bunch of screens on sliding doors torn up.
Pre-fab is the future in the commercial world and CFA has taken the bull by the horns from what I've read - pun intended. Did you finish the build and if so how long did it take to complete? Prefab is great for your business as more crane work involved and doesn't affect us as they will always need sitework.
We set all the wall panels, I'm not sure if the wall guys were installing the trusses or not. I think all these guys do is CFA buildings all over the country. They just bare rent and have their own crew lead be the operator. The kicker is in our area, the "bare rent" is from 4-5 hours away. I bet the move in/ move out transport fee was probably close to what I would have charged to do the lifting, to say nothing of the bare rental fee. And then he was shocked that when the crane went down, there's no one close by to fix the crane. Mechanic has to come from Kansas City also. They wanted me to come fix the crane when they called, I explained that I'm not touching someone else's crane- just because it would be convenient for the renter. Their company probably paid more in back charges for the trucks not getting unloaded, than I want to think about. I think they will be less than a week for walls and maybe trusses?
We just had a big 3 story "old folks home" (active senior living center I think they are calling it) go up here, and it all showed up prefabbed. No crane work on the whole project, just a lot of cheap labor and a 55' reach forklift with a cherry picker on it. Which accounts for the blank stare I got when I gave a biz card to the jobsite foreman, who seemed to be the only guy there who spoke some English. They kicked butt on the project, in and out in a couple weeks.
There's a building going up here that has huge prefabricated walls. They look to be about 20ft. tall and about the same width or more and there wasn't a crane on-site. Maybe they got put up by a truck crane when delivered and then the truck crane left?? They sure looked like huge panels to me.
Had to set this up late yesterday. Roofers got a little carried away. And then unloaded the pallet they had on the forks. The only thing that saved it from catapulting back down and over, was the mast was imbedded in the roof. Also had to resist buying two new trucks at the ford man. Shelby pickups at 775 factory HP. Stickers were just over $135,000. Each.
Got a big oak to load up tomorrow. And the one I did today.
Is morning work in the dark considered "night work"? Had to have a street closure to set some HVAC units.
That JCB looks brand new. Bet the operator needed a change of underwear.
Advertised as "good rubber all the way around"
But Man that's a Michelin so it's got to be good....
looking for the date code there, I think it says "MCMXCV"
The key word is rubber not tires. LoL
Saw myself on the internet the other day. Someone is selling a used concrete batch plant, and lo and behold there's my old tms 300 taking it down. I'm not sure that I remember exactly where this job was, but it was at least 10 years ago.
Concrete blocks on the bottom of a pond, They are going to cable a water based bouncy house to them.
Trusses, diving into electrical issues on the liebherr, and a tank.
Had to replace some skylights. They had a whole net/ capture arrangement to keep the indoor creatures indoors.
This is the nice "before" picture. The transmission went down on the way home from this job, operator made it to the yard, last 1/4 mile in 4th gear. He said he got it into 4th and just left it there because he didn't think it would shift into anything else. Supposedly the speed sensors on the tailshaft of the trans. are bad, expected to arrive 5 business days.
Zf12?
Yes, behind a 60 series. Getting a "no speedo" error code on dash and there's a code in the trans. also. Only shows up after crane runs a while and gets warm. Code is for "No range change group sensor signal (short to ground). There's actually two speed sensors on the tailshaft, that send the same info to tcm and ecm, and evidently one of mine was already bad, and now the second one has died. It will throw a check engine light, throttle gets all screwy, and it doesn't want to shift.
And I guess I'll throw this out also. The zf-12 seems to do great in flat country, and in mild hills. But I find that it just won't shift fast enough to deal with short steep hills. In our regular working area, we have a lot of 12% plus grades. You can't roll through a down hill carrying speed, and expect it to keep up shifting on the uphill. You end up slowing down at the bottom of the hill, and getting into the gear you need to climb the hill (manually) before you start climbing it. If you never have hills above 6-8% it would do just fine. I much prefer my ZF in my liebherr, which is a 6 speed torque converter transmission, to the zf-12 which is a air shifted manual, clutch based transmission, when in the steep hills. Its a spooky feeling when you hit a short steep hill, and you end up rolling backwards before the zf-12 finds a gear it likes. You grab the brakes fast, and learn to manually shift it early after that.
Does the Liebherr do self diagnostics? Looks like it would be a nightmare tracing electrical problems.
Yeah our zf12 behind om501la in our gmk is the same way. I really dont care for it. I'll take a 13 speed or 8ll over it all day long. I take it you have found the zf12 manual with all the self diagnostic information,etc? If not, I have a pdf of it.
Kind of. It will throw codes, and there's a huge code book. But its nothing compared to their tech support. My young mechanic describes their phone tech support "like having a angel on your shoulder". We've had a intermittent, total drivers cab control panel, blackout situation. So much so that I brought it home from a job and canceled until we had it sorted. It was throwing a code for PTO engagement sensor, and it would/ did knock out the whole shifting/suspension/ drive panel downstairs. The link belt book gives me the procedure for pulling codes from the shifter display panel, and a list of the codes. Is the pdf more in depth than that? A lot of the new liebherr's are auto shift clutch transmissions also. The torque converter gives a lot of cushion to the system. But mine is around $40-60,000 to rebuild the combined transmission/ drop box, so there's that added worry in the back of my mind.
It's a huge bonus having great tech. support. It can be the difference when deciding what machine(s) to purchase. Kudo's to Liebherr for looking after their machines and owners of them.
Loading out a tank. Setting a generator.
Setting some HVAC stuff. The blue dumpster/packer was really in the way for putting jib on and restowing it. No room on the other side because there's a parking garage there. We swung it over top of the dumpster.
In other news: 90 ton transmission is maybe fixed, maybe not. Speed sensors was the verdict, they didn't actually fix it. Test run was fine until operator tried reverse 1/2 mile from the shop and it went out again. But we cleaned up all the wiring connections and grounds, and managed to get home from the test drive. I'm not convinced we are fixed. But it made it home. We don't have time to mess with it until late next week. New KW counterweight truck has issues with engine fan not working in auto, the hard lines to the replaced air compressor are now both leaking(coolant), and the 8 bag suspension isn't working well for weights. It leans and tilts left and right horribly on the air suspension. I think we are going to try two leveling valves, one on each side, and see if that helps. If not, we're going to have to put a different suspension under it, because this 8 bag isn't going to work. One of the 40 ton link belts has winch issues. Slow in cable down. Winch motor is fine (but disassembled now- waiting for parts for reassembly), but there's a damaged brake release valve, and I think I'm going to reseal the brake piston assembly while I'm there. Also there's issues with the high low solenoids, so I've got some parts coming for that. Its been several weeks of tear down/ testing and ordering parts. We've got the front winch blocked off and are just using the rear one while we get it sorted. 100 ton has been at a feed mill for a week or so, and I've got one of my operators down there running it. Had my young guy off at CDL school, and we've been running around busy with the 40 tons and rt and had the galion on a couple day job. We've turned down more work in the last two weeks than I have in a long time. Just haven't been able to get everywhere.
Kenworth suspension must be the old AG100 with the round lower bars? The newer AG400/460 is much more stable. I can't remember if they use the same bolt holes or not.
There's kits that can be added to 8 bag to help with that don't know much about them
The KW is the AG100 with the round bars. The "kits" I've seen are a rubber bushing timbren set up, mounted in place of the axle stops. I could see a set of those working to limit the sway, But you would have to have them set just right with the suspension height or they wouldn't do much good.
Hate to say will be better off with a Hendrickson or a Chalmers, any form of a beam Suspension under that for stability.
Our old winch truck is spring over walking beam, and the other big ford is a 4bag Hendrickson. The 4 bag has. Just a little sway, but not too bad. The 8 bag is a whole different animal.
With a trailer on ‘as a Test Drive’ the 46k right bag under mine I noticed nearly no sway. Had a load of live trees my ex boss ‘allowed’ me to move from tree farm to yard, all rolling two lane
90 ton cleaning grounds didn't fix transmission. We've got it so it will act up reliably in test driving today, now to find someone that can fix it....
Most likely a Solenoid group or a TCM fault, could very well be a glitch in the harness.
Transmission expert from Pennsylvania says likely not transmission but ABS system.
Keep informed, has my interest how that works.
Ah, I believe it works through the miracles of can bus. Which is the equivalent of magic to me. I'm not sure how you send different information both directions through wires, I'm of the school of : #1 I have voltage, or #2 I don't have voltage, and I can troubleshoot from there. But we'll get it sorted eventually.
Most cars, Harleys after 2013 have canbus, multiple signals same wire differing frequencies or some form of voodoo so they go to their respective points not affecting others. Black Magic and Voodoo. Modern over used excess dependence electronics.
What happens if you disconnect all the antilock sensors?
I don't know. Late yesterday they found one of the ABS wheel sensors badly corroded and possibly not working correctly. Cleaned sensor and connection up, triple checked all the other connections, and bumped up the air pressure in the governor (air pressure has always been a little low- and book says pressure is critical for transmission shifts). The test drive today, everything worked correctly, no error codes, no issues. Current theory: ABS sensor bad, ABS pulls away throttle, throttle gets jumpy when pulled away, so that threw the error code on the transmission. When we thought the transmission wasn't shifting, it actually was shifting, and the ABS module pulls the lower throttle away, so that the operator thinks the transmission isn't working correctly. Maybe.
Be prepared to change out all ABS cables and sensors, cleaning the connections only works for short term, once those corrode tough to clean. Be glad it doesn't have ABS traction control, or does it.
Not sure, to be honest about it. I know its ABS but don't know if its also traction control. That's not great news about changing all the cables. They said all the other connections were great on the abs, just the one looked bad.
Got prices for adding timbren rubbers to the AG100 today, $1,200 per axle. Concerned the timbrens may affect off road travel articulation of suspension.
It will to some degree. Use a Q-tip and brush some dielectric grease in all ABS connections and around the connection sealing surface to keep water out.
linkbelt 8660 with the rear steer axle option. Coming up for auction. Think maybe the steering linkages are bent that connect the drive axles? I'm going to say it drives down the road a little wonky and scrubs tires pretty fierce.
i'd want to see the other side.
Its just as bad. I ran a grove that had the rear steer axles for a while, and it was nothing but trouble. I know of another one that the rear steer was all disconnected. I went through the pictures of this crane on the auction site, and they have all the hyd. lines to it disconnected, and its obviously all jacked up. Most times, they just get the axles both pointed straight ahead and lock them in place, but they evidently just sent this crane to ritchie bros instead.
Chevy built a pickup like that about 15 years ago-that design kind of flopped, didn't last long.
They are pretty rare in the truck cranes. Most guys mess them up from not reading the book. They will only handle around 46,000lbs, but you get way over that weight, if you have all the counterweights hanging on the upper rear with the boom in the rest. The book wants you to leave some on the deck and take some off. Invariably someone leaves the counterweight all hang and then tries to go through a mudhole and steer the rears. Then the steering linkages get bent or broken.
Mazda made an MX-6 with 4 wheel steering in the 80's. Honda did that too and neither company carried that idea forward.
Put the press to work this morning, pushed in some new torque bushings in the grove 40 ton. The frame rail side wasn't real bad, the one on the axle housing was gone. Put new in both.
Pulled down a water tank, its going to go get refurbished and we're going to put it back up in a different development.
The company doing the hauling I've worked with before, this was the first trip for their brand new trailer.
Tree out of a back yard, it was a sister trunk right at the ground, 1/2 fell on the house, other 1/2 fell the other way and hung up in the tree beside it.
Alvis and a alfa. First alvis I've ever seen. There's a place here that restores and auctions classic cars, we were doing new HVAC on a storage building of theirs.
Why is it these are ALWAYS where Cannot get at them very well?
Made the news. Peripherally. In pictures a few pages back, we were changing out a generator. We also had to replace the automatic transfer switch inside the building. 2,000lbs cabinet 30' down a hallway, plus the cabinet was larger than the doorway. Box went to horizontal- then through the door- then back to vertical and down the hall. We were there with a forklift and the safe jacks/ rigging equipment and spent a couple hours swapping. Cabinet went inside the building on Wednesday- so they could get it prepped for the swap over. Cabinet change was on Sunday morning, and the electricians had to have the servers all run on battery backup, while the main power was disconnected. Batteries didn't hold up, the electricians were there until midnight making the swap over. Took out 911 when the batteries didn't hold up. Ooops. 911 phone outage in Stone, Taney, and other counties raises concerns about emergency services The outage, which occurred while the Brightspeed services upgraded a new generator, left many residents unable to contact 9-1-1 during emergencies. www.ky3.com
Yeah, I was a little greasy and grimy before we got that one swapped. Couple of the guys were fighting around trying to get the old one out, I needed the housing side, so I had to drop driveline to get some room for big hammer to get the shaft out of the axle housing.
Will also report that the new press with elec/hyd pump is as handy as a pocket on a shirt, and the cylinder has a lot of stroke. Both of which made the torque bushings a breeze. We were talking this morning while swapping the bushings, and I'm so thankful for our shop and the tools. Yeah, it ain't no fun fixing stuff sometimes, but its sure better than just hauling it somewhere and/or having it down for weeks waiting for someone else to fix it. I need the crane monday, and there's no way that would happen if I had to have a outside person do it.
I've got new wheel sensors all ordered. Right now the link belt just throws a code for wheel sensors. With a check engine light. We'll see if what I've got ordered- are the right ones when they show up. The old ones are wabco, but the part number on the wire- isn't the right wire assembly. KW dealer had that part # but the plugs on the ends are different. KW man said they can't even get the other connectors and make up their own harness plugs- too much liability- no pieced together harnesses. So off on the search. I think, we've found the right ones, mine use a metropak 280 wire connection, not the round barrel ones. Supposed to show up either late this week or early next week. The Fleet Pride guy came up with them from the Bendix catalog. Thank goodness they still print parts books. Parts direct from Bendix - coming out of Indiana. The link belt man says the wires/ sensors don't even show in his books, or from the factory. But he doesn't look very hard sometimes. Anyways, I spent all morning today- looking for oddball u-joints. Liebherr uses a driveshaft off the front crank to drive the hyd. pumps. I got a bad u-joint, so just going to replace both joints. Short 2' driveline. Driveline shop can't source the joints, but came up with a part # by measurements- but not available from their sources (captured part? maybe). Liebherr won't sell the u-joints- just the whole shaft, but the whole driveline is on a shelf in Germany- either air freight (2-3days plus any time in customs) or 6 week slow boat. And $1,700 plus freight. Be lucky to see it by end of next week. Driveline shop would make me a whole new shaft with common u-joints, but had to order the flange yoke ends -and they thought that would be the end of next week, because of the time to get the yokes- plus time to build it with their backlog. I would kind of like it back together before then. Two other shops struck out, but the fleet pride guy came up with a place in wisconsin that supposedly has just the u-joints, by using the part # the driveline shop came up with. Probably off some European silage chopper- its a agricultural dealer he found them at. Might see U-joints tomorrow or monday.
Good you found ABS parts.
What was the water tanks purpose ?
Interesting factoid. Alvis also made military vehicles. The Stalwart (aka "The Stolly") was one of them.
Drinking water for a housing development. They are now on a different tank that’s further up the hill for better pressure. Tank will be sandblasted and lined, a different developer purchased it and it’s going to be reinstalled 30 miles away at a new housing development.
Straight 8 rolls gas in that military creature. not the straightest tracking at road speeds either. I was guessing either late 30's pre war or just post war construction on the car I took pictures of, but considering its the only alvis I've ever seen, I could be vastly wrong on age.
First U joints that I've bought that came in a box with no name on it, just a number. Machine shop in wisconsin had them, and I don't know if they are off Alibaba or what, but they look like the right thing.
My 90 ton's propensity for throwing codes has forced me into this. Its supposedly mostly only good for on road, which would cover my cranes. Supposed to be able to read all codes, clear, regen, cylinder cut out, show live data, etc-- but not rewrite ecm's like the full laptops. It was used/ direct from the company, they offer free demo with return- and I think this is a return. New ones like this are $3,500 and the used one was $2,500. Its android based, so any apps from companies that are android based can be loaded onto it. Came with OBDII and three other dongles. The little box hooks to the dongle, and the little box broadcasts bluetooth to the screen. Supposed to have about 30' range. My KW has the engine hook up in the engine bay, so this saves having to try to run a cable out the hood to the cab when trying to drive and real time view. I just couldn't see the $10-12,000 for full texa or jpro for our limited use. But I'm hoping it can give us a direction to go if down while driving or set up on a jobsite.
Spotted this at the KW dealer. I didn't even know KW made any small cabovers. This one said Boise on the dealer tag, and I'm guessing they aren't a cheap little camper. Sporting 425's all the way around, and I don't think the little green sand boards, are quite going to get something like this unstuck - like they would with a wrangler. Winches front and rear, and the spare was on a winch too, because I don't know many guys that could throw a 425 up on that back rack.
That cab looks a lot like a Mercedes.
Well I looked it up, and it was built by a local expedition vehicle builder. Base price is $725,000, so I don't think I'm their target market. I've seen some of their other vehicles rolling around town before. Patagonia Expedition Vehicle One of GXV's MOST POPULAR models! Built on a choice medium duty chassis with a body of 17-25' (or longer). Tons of storage, capacities, and space. www.globalxvehicles.com
And KW does make a medium duty called a k270 or 370. Who knew? Kenworth Trucks Kenworth Trucks www.kenworth.com
I'm with Nige, rebadged Mercedes, They did this in the 80s, both Pete and KW had Rebadged VWs.
Let us know how this works out. I might be interested myself in one.
Good friend of mine works for this local company outfitting Sprinter vans for a paltry sum of $200-300K +. Storyteller Overland | Best Off-Road Adventure Vehicles Embrace adventure with premium off-road, off-grid vehicles. Our MODE camper vans and GXV adventure trucks are built for all-terrain and unforgettable experiences. Learn more! storytelleroverland.com He takes the new builds that come out of QC then drives them 200-250 miles including "off-road" areas. Any noise, discrepancy or item not found during initial round of QC is noted and fixed before being delivered to the customer.
We were looking at expedition campers just before covid hit. A lot are built on the Fuso chassis that were not available at that time. Freight liner and KW both had chassis that would work for an expedition type camper. The body panels are distributed by an outfit out of Victoria BC as well as all the European style doors and windows. We decided to stick with the truck and camper for now
Since you don't know where they came from I'd check the hardness of that u joint. Maybe just a tap with a hammer and compare it to the old ones. Many years ago our local shop called "universal joint sales" sold off brand u joints . They kept failing much sooner than expected. We finally did a tap test and man they were soft.
Old ones had factory paint on them, and it’s got 16,000 hours on it. They were sealed ujoints and they still had grease in them. So the original ones were pretty good stuff.
It was a monday all the way around this morning. Two different flatbed trucks refused to start. One needed a jump and the other had siphoned all the fuel from the fuel filter. One of the 40 ton's had a hole in the air compressor line from compressor to air dryer. It wouldn't build over 65 psi, so that line had to come off. Braided stainless airline is evidently getting rare. My usual source here in town didn't have any. FleetPride has had it on order since april and didn't have any either. My hydraulic hose specialty shop had it and made me a new line. The Bendix wheel sensors that were supposedly on their way from indiana for the 90 ton, well they aren't actually on their way. They are on a 70 day minimum backorder. I think I've found 4 from another source, and they may be here by the end of the week. Lets hope they are the right ones.
Spicer makes a Value Line u-joint-no name-brand or packaging to distinguish. Made for other markets.
Compressor lines premade by vin# are non existent.
If they don't show-give me the part numbers I might have a source.
My dentist bought one of those Sprinters-$248,000, It spent 4 weeks at Mercedes dealer having the injection system fixed right after receiving it.
Patagonia Expedition Vehicle One of GXV's MOST POPULAR models! Built on a choice medium duty chassis with a body of 17-25' (or longer). Tons of storage, capacities, and space. www.globalxvehicles.com * And I saw a Kenworth badged one of those RSH's setting at a Very High End winery here in town.
Brother bought a MB Nosed RSH in 2021, Nothing but issues, charging system, fuel system, finally traded back for a tongue type trailer and replaced his pickup.
I was just looking for the line for one of my cranes, no one had the bare hose in stock to just crimp ends on. I don't think I've ever tried to get one by vin, it sends the parts people into a tizzy when I give out crane models for them to put into their parts system. And thanks for the offer on the ABS connectors. We'll have to see what shows up. I've also got a pantograph wiper arm I'm trying to get for my grove 40 ton. The books and websites just show length now, not dimensions of the end fittings. I've got one ordered, but I have no idea if its close to right either. Its a fair weather crane only, until the arm shows up.
CO, have you checked the PACCAR dealer at Joplin? I had the replacement for my KW made at EHC here at Columbia, by length.
I did get my stainless braided line made at Yarborogh in Springfield. They are the go to for Hyd. stuff for me, and they had the bare line and crimped on new fittings. Thanks for the help though.
If they can afford one of those campers, they can afford the high end winery too. 3/4 of a million bucks is a lot of money driving around. I imagine the insurance isn't cheap either. Get t boned by some meth head running around with no insurance, and your own insurance man would really squawk.
Problem around here for awhile was just getting the discharge hose, no one had it so it was buy one longer than need premade and reroute.
Just one of those big lift jobs
It's not uncommon to see Two DB9 Austin's at a time, which I have seen at wineries. * Money was/is no object I suppose.
That's cute, what is it?
The massive pusher diesel RVs are the big thing here, some Built on transit coach chassis and not as resilient as those shown. Hermann has a city park set up as a RV park for the tourista volumes that come here, electric connections, sewage connections and water supplies. City aldermam noted is a fat hog in Money Making. Those monster RVs show up dragging cars or trailers with autos in them for some show weekends. Blue Oval was several weeks ago, vettes were last week. I try to avoid town during those periods as block streets, traffic gets stupid.
Flathead Lake-Big Fork--The status symbol there is how much did the 16' door for the RV cost, is it all Teak Wood? Million and up RSH's.
Yeah, these ego types have to announce how much they paid for them like a trophy. Half to full mil for a RSH they cannot either maintain or really utilize, bad waste of effort. Add to that as noted two 16’ doors tall and wide as the owners seem not to be very able at backing.
It's ment for setting power poles the brand eludes me right now
Sorry to bring up old posts, but this reminds me of a bloke I follow on Instagram, who has just bought and converted a MAN 4x4 in 4 months for a lot less than that, admittedly not brand new MAN but still, He basically got dumped by his Mrs and decided feck it I want to go to Australia, so he's driving himself there from the UK with his dog. https://www.instagram.com/one.life.truck.it/ if you fancy a look
Gonna be a mighty wet drive!! I take it shipped by Ship then off to land!
so far, across in the channel tunnel, then drive across Europe, middle east, India, Bangladesh, Burma, Thailand and Malaysia and then it will be a boat from there.
Spider crane of some kind. I haven't seen one with horizontal outriggers like that. Jekko also makes knuckleboom cranes. The smallest of these ways 22,000 lbs.
It's a mini derrick 33 plus. Here it's is the day I got it
I've worked around several spider cranes but that's the first one with outrigger boxes that long. The glazers like to set their own glass with those spiders from the floor above, but I've had to do a lot of glass for them with the boom truck when it wasn't possible.
I looked at one of those a couple years ago, it had a post hole digger, was from a power co. for setting poles in back yards where they didn't want to drive their big trucks. I would want one on tracks, but either way, they are either real expensive, or don't have much capacity. I decided I wouldn't use it enough to justify a big/expensive one, and the cheap ones I could afford won't lift enough. But would be real handy around a repair shop.
It will pick up about 2200pounds I wouldn't be afraid to double the line to pick a bit more if I had too it's plenty stable enough. I got it off a towing company most all the drill parts where missing along with the engine
Well, first miracle of the week. The Zoro/ grainger pantograph arm arrived today, and my "best guess" from the tiny picture seems like its the right one. I'll try to get it mounted tomorrow. ABS sensors are the ones I'm really sweating. Both that they are the right ones, and that they fix our issues.
Just hope it's not the processor. When people talk of buying older to beat the new, there are a few areas that are problem child unless older than 1997. ABS is one of those, it can be a costly item.
All in a state of unrest, not good places to travel through.
Well, its a $200,000 paperweight if I can't move it, so if it needs a processor, I guess I'm buying a processor. This one is a 2005, the guy I bought it from was just getting his new one. New one was over a million. I think it was like $1.2, 1.3. So I've still got a little wiggle room fixing this one vs. new.
I think more of what I was getting at is parts availability. The older ABS systems are going to be tough, most will end up with complete update.
Looks like the SS Valdez ran aground, fetched up hard on the shop floor.
I’m such a moron. Winch motor, and the link belt it goes on were both at the shop. I’m helping get motor and hoses mounted, one of my guys is pulling first cap off: “Feels like there’s pressure in this cap” Me “”can’t be, tap the cap a little before it comes off “ “Still feels like pressure “ We’re at the top of the crane, all the other valves are below us, can’t be a half gallon of oil up here between the two motors and valves. It’s Friday afternoon and need it Monday-etc, so “Quit screwing around and pull the cap off” Link belt uses a pressurized Hyd. Tank system because the pumps set on top of the transmission, and even though the crane had been sitting overnight, it still had tank pressure. Cap blasted off Covered me, covered him, covered crane, covered floor. It’s an inch and quarter line spraying like a fire hose out the valve stack. When I finally figured out what was going on, I hit the tank reliefs. My boots and my watch band still smell like oil.
Took a bath in ATF like that one time.
We’d like photos please
I'm laughing over here 2000 miles away. I worked with a guy who tried to off himself with a water main test. He had a double check bolted right up to the hydrant, and managed to wrench it off without turning off the hydrant. He gave the hydrant valve a try and did not realize somebody had jammed it open pretty hard. It had test pressure on the main, and it blew off and put him under his truck up against the differential.
1999-Ag company oil warehouse, standing 15 or so feet away, forklift moving third stack pallet broke, steel 55 hit the concrete and exploded.
Read a safe-t-gram while taking apprentice training. An oxygen cylinder got knocked over and the valve broke. It went right through several cinder block walls and left a good dent in the concrete foundation wall.
Not going to laugh, or point Sounds like something I'd do
That's a little rough
Had two of those at AMEREN for close quarters pole resets. Could actually handle a 20-30' utility pole as a haul in with all the gear and had a Hydraulic Post Auger on the booms. Expensive little bustards. Sorry to say have been bathed in oil MORE than Once, not a fun day.
You learned after one time on the farm of leaving the valve open on the liquid manure spreader and releasing the 4" drop you were going to have a crappy day! Instantly. Had a hot oil bath when operating a Link Belt dragline and one of the valves broke squirting hot oil at you waist high. Then you had to reach back over the seat to pull the throttle back to kill the motor.
Wednesday and Thursday the guys had time to do some more trouble shooting on the troublesome 90 ton. Its back to the shop. New wheel sensors are in. All codes are gone now. But it still doesn't run correctly. Amazingly. thursday they were able to get it to consistently loose throttle. Crane has to be warm. Will drive and shift normally, until you are slowed or stopped, with the steering turned all the way to the left. Then the engine will not respond to the throttle inputs. No codes. If he's at the stops to the left, and turns to center with the steering, throttle will come back. It will only remove throttle in drive and reverse. Shifting transmission to neutral will make engine respond to throttle inputs. With the laptop on it, the throttle inputs stay at 100% coming from the pedal, while the engine just stays at a idle with rpm's when it does it. Have no places where any wiring contacts or gets pulled by the steering arms. We're leaning towards either problems in the steering column itself, or bulkhead connections leaving cab, or possibly a issue with solenoid on the pick and carry valve that we found late friday. We're deep into the weeds now.
Cannon plug? cab mounts and grounds?
In the wrong kind of way I'm glad I'm not the only one who has the strangest and weirdest issues at the wrong time. I'm real close to just giving up with everything. Everytime I seem to be gaining something else goes wrong. Today was that way. An experienced operator was coming out to run the grader to help get better drainage. First my generator didn't seem to be coming off of choke. It has auto choke and has always worked great but not today. The grader was running perfect for about 1/2 an hour then the articulation quit working but only in 1 direction. We thought it could be the switch. Changed the switch which was a pain and it worked but only intermittently. Figure must be a bad ground somewhere. Got the grader straight after about an hour and left it there. 20 minutes later he drives back by the shop because now the clutch isn't working. I just spent about $1500 on a new master cylinder and rebuilt booster and it was working perfect. Walked to the other side and it looks like the slave cylinder blew the seals out. I want to bang my head against the wall. Why does it have happen when I finally get someone to help me?? I'm just sick of everything. Sorry for hijacking your thread.
Sorry to hear Dave, have had a few weeks/months as that and get very dicy as to whether throw in towel or not. Been doing well since your health issues arrived, don’t let it beat you down.
Yeah, we're down to grasping at straws now. I have a obvious coil issue on the pick and carry diverter valve. And that runs off the power steering pump. Doesn't make total sense to me, that that would be causing our issues, but who knows. I was hoping for a obvious wire getting pinched, or pulled, but no such luck. I think its going to be the ecm losing reference voltage for a sensor or something stupid like that. I just couldn't see bringing down a tech, until I could get repeatable problems. (linkbelt tech is 4-5 hours away in Kansas City). I think we are at that point now, that we can get it to malfunction consistently.
In some cases-with late trucks under warranty depending on brand, rather than chase electrical issues once narrowed to a certain area, dealers just replace harness rather than spend hours chasing cause then repairing only to have it return several times. Anymore if harness is old enough may as well replace rather than patch. * I knew those ABS sensors were issue.
The 90 ton's issues were the coils on the pick and carry diverter valve. New coils in, and it has gone to a couple jobs with no issues. We had a rough week here, cool weather came in, and all the equipment decided it wanted attention and a warm night in the shop. 4 sets of batteries, three alternators, two hydraulic hoses, two check engine lights, two quick release valves, one belt tensioner, one seized water pump, and a squeaky serpentine belt. (You can sing it to the tune of twelve days of christmas). The 100 ton, all three counterweight flatbed trucks, all three 40 ton truck cranes, the broderson carry deck, the pete road tractor, one ford pickup, and my wife's honda, have been down at various points this week. As of this exact moment, the only things still hard down- are the water pump on the old ford big cam, and the KW counterweight trucks is at a shop with wiring issues. And my wife's honda has a squeaking belt, but it's mobile. I'm counting that as a win for the week.
Sounds as MY typical luck!!
When it rains, it pours Sorry about your luck. Hopefully itll change shortly
I thought that we had a rough couple months with trucks and equipment. Ours sounds paltry compared to that list. At least none of the our personal vehicles have had any issues this fall.
I remember back in 2009-we had 11 T800's with EGR ISX's-6 went down in one week, all eleven were gone before 200,000 miles. * Trucks and equipment-open the hood each morning pour a sack of money in there shut hood and carry on.
Sometimes it must get overwhelming when the problems just never seem to go away. It's a little better when you have back up equipment and at least 1 other person to help you. I'm stuck that it's hard to find someone to help me when I need it. I want to rip my MX track before the ground freezes but don't want to without a clutch in the grader. This latest issue with a slave cylinder having oddball threads makes me want to bang my head against the wall. Really makes me wonder if it's worth all the hassle and money to try and keep the track open. I've got medical issues that don't help. Right now I've got an overactive bladder and enlarged prostate and have to self catheter. It hurts pretty bad trying to insert the catheter. Hoping to get a stronger med. for a bladder infection that are more common when using a catheter.
My biggest problem lately was getting distracted by a phone call while working on my bike I carry in the boom truck. 10 minutes later I went to pull the Mack into the building and heard a crunching sound, I had left the front wheel in front of the truck, a new tube, tire, axle, brake disc, and wheel, for about $100.00. That seemed like a big deal at the time but if that's all I have to complain about.....
And a few I photo'd today while picking up the tow truck-pic's for C.O. *
Thanks, truckshop. I'd like to have one of those 8090 RT's like that red one. But they are just so big and heavy to haul in my area. How's the truck? Going to have to make a few more tow's to pay out the bill?
Total cost to repair/repower with reman $43,000 and some change. Just the price of doing business is what it is. Higher than a cats ass in a 100' tree.
Ouch.
Well it's why I wanted to move it to a 2019 SD122 tractor he had, he culled it even though it had major engine work done under warranty. it would have made a good unit. but now he is stuck with a 1994 that if he tried to sell friday he would take it in the ass.---Up Side Down, you got to know when to knock'em in the head.
I was kind of shopping for another day cab, but I can't make heads or tails of the current truck pricing market, so I think I'm kicking the can down the road. I've seen stuff from 2017-2019- in daycabs, under 400,000 miles, in the same price range as stuff with a million miles from 1991. There's a lot of stuff available in that $50-75,000 range. But I just don't want to give that much for my usage, and I sure don't want to give that much for stuff on its 2nd million miles. If I've got to give $60,000 for a nice truck, maybe I should just get the one that's 25 years newer for the same $$$$. I really think the freight rates are down, and that's where the newer stuff is coming from, and the farming/ construction guys are busy (I am) and are driving the old truck market up (because new stuff, DEF, elog's, the world coming to a end, etc.). Its the only thing that makes sense to me. There's a KW w900 I might go look at, e model cat, spring over walking beam with 4.33's.
Freight 'rates' are not too bad, its Freight Tanking here.
Here's the thing that's always been a thing--winter months. Companies end up with X amount of drivers that suddenly get **** in their neck with thoughts of snow and slick roads. Freight tends to slow except for small christmas cartage UPS-FedEx. So companies have a tough time finding enough drivers and like every winter some trucks are fence rowed or only run part time. That's when the trucking magnets the Aristotle Onassis types with feet up on the desk looking out the big office window at trucks plugged in, snow falling, on the line with no driver generating no revenue. Mental cogs start turning about dumping some for trade in's on new or cutting back because the magnet didn't like what he saw on that mornings MSNBC Squawk on the Street. All types of trucks come up listed in these months for various reasons, but normally it's the fact the truck is generating zero revenue at the moment and they have greed worms in their underwear causing a rash. * Right now the only trucks really holding there own are 4 axle {with drop}. A standard 3 axle tractor isn't moving very well because it's a truck for only a half a man, a wiener, limp wrist type of truck and there are better paying loads configured for Campbells Man Handler trucks with a pot of Hungry Man Steak & Beans cooking and that set of Training Wheels {Drop Axle} that makes for a real mans truck. * So the market is--Limp wrist automatic 3 axle cheap. Or. Steak & beans real hefty man drop axle only real men drive for twice the dough.
Haven't done much pictures lately, but we've been busy. Got to set a bunch of timber beams and a 5" thick glass wall for a new fish hatchery visitors center.
A nice computer message of death on the liebherr. It just wanted a reset. 47,000lbs sewer tank. First driver took a couple hours to get around the corner into the jobsite. Second driver was a one shot deal. Put a set of 3- 30' long epoxy wood countertops through a second floor door.
Shelby (or a clone) Some tandem custom bad location action New chick fil a And when this is on your screen, that's when things are really going on. (its the override screen).
pulled a old white military genset the other day.
looks good!
I’m a few days behind on this thread but Truck Shop killed me dead with this one greed worms in their underwear causing a rash I’m crying over here!
Santa made it to the shop today. Merry Christmas also to all you guys.
Set up in a crooked spot, and one of the guys got lucky with the KW. Broke driveline in three places and the yoke on the rear of the trans. Good thing he didn't let it roll back another 3' or it could have been 100' down in the creek.
Bunch of old lathes for sale out of a machine shop. That first one has got some serious gearing going on. Not much for shields, but you just need to be careful.
Top machine is missing the back gear shaft that would run the flaceplate gear. Second machine is a pipe threader. Bottom machine has been raised about 6"
Turkey house CAT clean out special. They whack the cabs to be shorter to fit in the buildings, but reattach the top for I imagine the electrical/ keypad. Either way, they come up for sale with a lot of hours and some hard use.
Nope. Nope, Nope. Discing in composted turkey liter was bad enough.
Did you buy it?
Back at all of all y’all for Merry Christmas fellas and ladies
Nope- I can get it bought and shipped to alabama if you're interested. Comes with free aroma.
A know a guy who used to raise chickens. When they came to get them to load onto trucks they used a chopped skid steer. The problem was they did the worst possible hack job you could imagine to lower the cab. Instead of cutting the bottom off the cab and just lowering the roof with all the electrics, they chopped the top off and made an absolute nightmare of the wiring. The shop that sold the skid steer also charged them a fortune to put higher speed drive motors in it. That was done OK but overall the machine was the worst butcher job you could ever imagine times 10! I can't see anybody wanting to ever work on it. Loose wires all over the place and none of them in a loom or even taped together. It was a perfect recipe for an electrical fire.
They did such a nice job lowering the cab it’s hard to tell it was ever messed with…..
It's a Cadillac compared to the one I was referring.
Don't do wheeled machines - tracks only.
You'd remember how, its like riding a bicycle......
Pretty sure your head would stick out the top. LOL
Once ROPS was reimagined surprised can still be allowed usage, any other industry would be handed their own walking papers.
They make low profile fork lifts but I'd imagine they're really expensive and probably a lot heavier than skid steers requiring bigger trailers. I don't know what requirements a chopped skid steer would have to meet. I'd imagine there'd be a big problem if an accident were to happen and the operator was injured.
That skid is the perfect representation of farmer work if ever there was one, I'm sure whatever isn't held together with 6010 is held on with bailing string and some tie wire lol
And duct tape alla Red Green.
That's for sure! And heaven forbid if a stick on compliance tag fell off after several years! And don't let someone tack on a bracket to the ROPS for the mandatory fire extinguisher!
Fortunately, I'm not their target market for a employee. If you look where that seat is compared to the new top of the cage, almost anyone's head would stick out, if they are over 5' tall. I'd probably have shoulders over the top.
Oh my you were at Three Finger Jacks-a legendary machine shop. Jack is blind in one eye and after his last accident machining he's lucky to have three fingers left to wipe with. * That's a K of the R-real boomer toy. *
Maybe they hire retired jockeys or short people to run it?
I've gotten flack on a Kubota forum for not having my ROPS folded up all the way, folded in half it sits just right in my outbuilding. It would still offer some protection also. Working on slopes all the time like I do on my mountain property, I was given double flack...., and finally I had to say that my boom truck experience maybe gave me a better buttmeter for when things are getting out of whack, before they get totally out of whack. That went over well... haha.
Well the butt meter works until it doesn't..
In my experience when the butt meter says back off your already past the reasonable point of no return I have done some sketchy stuff on the side of a hill in a backhoe and on about 4 occasions just barley saved it witch really means I about dumped it over knowing I was pushing it. Point is put your rops up no one wants to think about or read that story my dad's cousin was killed on a dozer without a rops Not pile on you do as you please The skid steer in question shows a severe lack of cares given to the person that has to operate it no one needs that in there life
Not worth taking chances if you don't have to. How long does it take to unfold the ROPS, 30 seconds? The only reason the ROPS folds is for putting the tractor in a low garage door.
It's not the time spent folding it up, it'd be the time spent rebuilding the garage door and header when I forget to fold it down before driving it back in I want to avoid.
My great uncle was killed when his JD 350 dozer with no ROPS roll over as well.
Put a big sign up you can easily see.
It's dark, I'm in a hurry, late for a job because I had to blow out my drifted driveway, which is pretty level anyways. Not only would I take out the door entry, I'd shove the sectional door off the track backwards, and it'd fall on the yet undented tractor. A local farmer tipped his tractor over backwards a few decades ago, and was trapped for hours and ended up losing a leg. About 30 years later, he did the same thing again, and again was trapped by the tractor on his leg. But this time he just unstrapped his artificial leg and crawled to a phone, true story!
There's a difference between clearing a flat driveway and working on a slope. If the driveway had ditches you could slide into then the rollback should be up.
Just some recent work, except the last picture. The last picture a guy sent me, he took it probably 8-9 years ago, me and my old mechanic/ rigger jim working on a indian statue- rigging it up to stand it.
Looks like the hood/apron off an impact crusher. Did have to pull the rotor also?
Nope, just replacing some of the wear plates. In my opinion they should have replaced all of them, but its not my $$$.
I've posted quite a few accident pictures of my shop corner. Christmas weekend, we had a different kind of "accident" at our historic site. I went down to feed the dog and check on things, and saw toilet paper scattered around by the gate, I had the sudden realization I should be watching where I was walking. Someone had a little too much Christmas party, and evidently wasn't making it home. They were prepared for this sort of thing, there was quite a lot of used TP around the scene. I understand when you gotta go, you gotta go, but they could have gone down the hill by the creek.....
A sketchy site, and some sketchy scaffolding. After we set the first column, I was "you guys need some real scaffolding, not 4 high bakers scaffolding". Three hours later, they went and got some real scaffolding.
They did have a creative set of forklift forks, and no cut sheet plans. So every time we set a piece, it generally got either cut off, or 3" added to the top. It was a long day. Lot has a little slope to it.
Hmmmm, you have to trust the concrete you're sitting on and what's under it. That in itself looks a little precarious to me. The river causes folks to build in interesting places.......and provides work for crane outfits!
Unfortunately, no where else on the lot to sit, without dropping the 3 phase power lines. And adding a bunch of fill to get a level spot. Customer wanted to put the outriggers on the walls, "they're 18" thick". I explained - outriggers tend to flex/push in and out, as well as push down, so I told him we would just set on the garage floor. I told him that if I put cracks in the garage floor, they can always tear it out and repour the floor, if I crack a 18" wide- 12' tall foundation wall, he was going to have a mess on his hands. So we sat on the garage floor. I wish they hadn't poured the floor before I got there, but I didn't get asked. I did put a gouge in the floor, getting in and out, my outrigger box on the rear drug a little. It was just so steep toward the road.
RE: the toilet paper by your gate, I see I'm not the only one to find it easier to lift a jersey barrier (not sure of the term, that may be the tapered types) into place and then fab off of it to hold a gate. Especially in a super rocky area, like by the creek on my lower 30. The block was way out of level plus side tilted but it was easy enough to hang the gate nice and level. 15 years and nothing moved, last summer the gate was no longer needed so I re-purposed the block for another use, holding a small solar array, once again saving me wrestling boulders and mixing concrete, just a few redi-bolts. My fenced town yard is just 100 yards from the county slammer, and when anybody gets released they get out of the area pronto, plus the state bulls are 1/4 mile away, so a real secure area. The only thing is when I'm speeding that last mile or so a bit to park it for the day, but they seem to know it's me heading to the barn and cut me some slack.
The crane dribble a bit while operating, or was the plastic sheet just a preventative in case it sprung a leak while operating? Very sketchy bit on the bakers scaffold. I've flipped a couple of them before doing interior ceilings, and falling 4 or 6 feet isn't fun, let alone what they had set up.
Its got a bit of blowboy, so five or so engine oil drips, and it will spot a little hyd. I'd rather plastic it, and go on with life. I use a old billboard tarp, and I'll use it on brand new concrete, when we go in the fancy boardwalk at the big mall, but don't worry about it otherwise.
I've been talking with a guy that bare rents some RT's at a refinery location. They are allowed absolutely no leaks. Nothing. I don't work at places like that. If they need perfectly dry cranes, they need to call someone else, because all my stuff leaks a little.
they won't accept a diaper pan? On the Expedia job on Pier 91 Seattle, the drillers had a couple of the big Pettibone Cary lifts with Detroit power and large galvanized diaper pans under them. Changing the oil mats was a daily thing. Another outfit had a 35T truck crane that just poured out the swivel. They did the same thing, but was stupid and dangerous IMO. I was happy to be on a backhoe on that particular gig.
Refineries often have anybody coming in, even just to drop off a machine, have to take a 30 minute or longer safety course. Quite a few refineries real close to me. It's almost rare to not see at least 1 crane at them. Often times it's a huge crane from Mammoet, Sterling Crane or one of the other big outfits. A lot of refineries own (smaller) cranes too. Sterling's yard is 5 minutes away and they always have at least 1 huge crane there, usually in some stage of either being set up or knocked down.
Worked in the local watersheds, no drips and spill pads under machines overnight just in case. We even had small spill kits in our service vans just in case. Bigger machines had big spill kits. Cam
I did a spa lift in a doctor's driveway a while back, the concrete had a custom finish and as his garage door was open I could see everything in there was so organized/racked, I told him later I'd never seen a more sanitary garage. He appreciated me not leaking on his drive. I did put a pad under my engine, but didn't see any drips on it, I do from time to time but got lucky that day.
Had to load up some extra wood for one of the guys. We were setting new dock ramp for the ferry.
Had to ride the ferry across to look at the new dock when I was checking the job.
New fire station training facility one of the guys built with the 90 ton. Just a big stack of conexes and they make a smoke fire in the bottom. And a boat they put on stands the other day.
100,000lbs lathe for turning railroad wheel sets. We unloaded it off the trailer, shoved one end in the building, then walked the other end around with the crane and skates, until we were into the roof of the building.
Been battling the cold a little bit. One of the guys had a tag axle brake stick. He didn't notice/ figure out why he was smoking for a little bit. Had to rescue one of the 40 ton's yesterday with frozen air lines. Could be worse. In the second picture, half way up the cell tower, is a tower climber. It was about 2 degrees out.
Is that a tug and barge? Does the tug pivot around on it's bow to go the other way?
Yes, tug and barge and pivots. Only ferry left in Arkansas. Its popular with motorcycle and car clubs looking for a day trip. https://www.ardot.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/ARHighwaysMagazine_Sept2014_web.pdf
Looks good . One of those jobs where you wish the outrigger jacks had 6 foot stroke.
If you had 6' jacks, they will want you to set up where you need 12' ones. I've been thinking about building some kind of a moveable ramp, that we could set on the road/ boat docks etc. Just to get the tandem's up before we have to crib the crane up. Would save walking the crane up.
This was a few years ago. But man those ramps made setting up on that boat ramp really easy. I liked the fact that they also had outrigger pads as well.
I've had jobs where after I eyeball the slope, and figure I'll run out of jack way before getting level, I'll staircase up a ramp with the 12" LVL I carry for pads, gaining some height right off the bat, then I'll run out the jacks, and when bottomed out (on the really steep stuff) and now the wheels are clear of the orginal staircase, throw MORE stuff under them, and repeat the process. Then I have to remember when tearing down to do the same, in the same order. A big pain, but I'm working by the hour, and it gets the job done. Longer stroke jack, somehow, would be real handy, except when operating I guess!
Thanks for the ferry link. Another really cool little ferry is at Mammoth Caves National Park. It is a tiny little sidewheeler that crosses the Green river in the park. 3 cars maximum, no RVs.
The problem with the whole ramp thing, is then I have to send a trailer with the ramp, and a forklift/ big skid loader to set the ramp, which means another guy, and pretty soon its a whole ordeal. There's a guy in tulsa with this for sale. Its 10' x 8' x 16" tall, and I think that would be enough to help in most places. I've done it with timber mats, but its a lot of work/ transport, and also requires another forklift or something to set the mats.
A knuckle with a 20' bed would do lots of things for you crane op, including some overhead clearance jobs. You could drive by and set that ramp and all sorts of cribbing. No forklift needed. Make some modular bases, for example. it would be a base unit with a sling built into it and you could stack cribbing on as needed. Swing it into place in one piece.
I've looked at a couple knucklebooms. They want big $$ for the big ones. I don't really want a 100' of reach, but it would be nice to have enough capacity to do jib inserts/ offset. Or for setting mats and such. Mounted up, it pushes a truck into $80,000- 200,000 pretty quick. The one's I've come closest to buying were dismounted, and I'd mount it to a truck.
If you were to buy a knuckleboom I would suggest to mount it on the rear of the chassis rather than directly behind the cab to get the benefit of a full 360 degrees of operating radius. Most knuckleboom trucks I have seen that are used for mat, etc, placement are set up that way. The downside is that you have to be careful in selecting the chassis length of the truck in order to fit whatever you’re going to carry in the space between the back of the cab and the crane.
Yes and the other thing is you get to dance with your load as you bring it around you. I've done it both ways. It really is nice to hang a tag line on there with the rear mount, it just gets a little dicey in tight quarters. As far as the spend, you just have to back off from the ultimate knuckle a few models. It's not like you don't have some other cranes lol.
Remote control fixes that.
Nothing fixes being stuck between the cab and the mast in tight quarters. That was the fun I was talking about. Edit: I sure see a lot of Tadano RTs out here.
Ive found 12" wood crane mats work great for setups almost anywhere.I like Knepptunes steel mats,looks like they are built from H pile. A hiab wounld be nice to deliver and handle them,but its another truck.The 910 Cat loader i have with quick change forks bucket and a trailer hitch is my Swiss army knife .I keep an X plate on it so i can drive it to site sometimes.I can unload trucks ,level a crane pad on a rough site,pull stuck things and move the small trailer. I guess the 6 ft jacks are like everything else to with cranes ,more boom , more capacity would always be good but you work with what you have.
That 910 is a really cute loader. I saw my first one last year. Very handy to have the quick change and forks for it.
Its old and a bit tired but super handy around jobsites . Just made brownie points with my neighbors in our latest snowfall ploughing the road and a few driveways.
The 910s are sure a nice size little loader just wish they put something other that a 3204 in them... if memory serves me right the 910,D3 and 931 were all made by Mitsubishi in Japan.
In the interest of full disclosure those ramps were owned, delivered, and set in place before the crane ever got to the river. How they got them in place I don’t know and didn’t ask. I set the crane up on the nice level spot, broke the crane down when I was done and drove away. It was for a boat show they do every year. I’m sure the ramps were cheaper than paying crane companies to fight the slope every year.
Sewer lift station down a nasty spot. We transferred the boxes from semi's to my straight trucks. Truck drivers were a little hurt they didn't get to go to the hole location, until I mentioned that I really didn't want to go there in a straight truck, let alone get a semi in there. It was the base section at 11'x14' and then the wall section. We'll have to come back later and set the lid when they get done with the plumbing.
New kiddie ride, and trusses.
Who's too lazy to swing jib? Its me that's who.... In my defense - with the trees there really wasn't room to swing jib, and it was only the first couple they had to push to set. They're up. Had a quality path through the trees to the house also. Was a little tight in spots with the crane.
After the house down through the trees, I had to go set these. We didn't get started until after 2:00, I had the amish boys moving, good thing it stays light a little longer now. They had a lot of help, and didn't mind me being into the throttle. Two hours later I was headed for the shop.
Movable glass roof skylights, at the new swimming pool. They set down in a track, and the "glass" isn't really glass, its some kind of clear thick vinyl stuff, aluminum frames.
Spotted this nifty custom fuel tank, one of my customers had. And I hate this tread pattern of tire. It seems to pick up our specific rock size, and then they get locked in, and just drill right into the tires.
We've had quite the weather swings. Got pretty cold and froze the lake. Then bad fog for a week while it was warming up. Had the plow on the old ford, and then got ice instead of snow. Been high 60's and low 70's here last week though.
Left the western star in a parking lot, and evidently someone swung by a little close. Its not the first time its been bent. One of the guys put jib on in a bad spot in the trees. He didn't get cabled down far enough before reeling up main line. I got this straightened out, unfortunately, the brake pack is leaking on that winch also, which I didn't get fixed. Funny story- took one of the link belts out to set some units the other day, and it had the funniest smell, only when I would brake? It was like the drivers side steer shoes had something horribly nasty on them, but it didn't really smell like brakes. Well it wasn't brakes, one of the guys ties his lunchbox on, and it was laying loose, so when I would slow down, it would lay up against the exhaust, and the wind would flip it off when I would take back off. Cheap bungie bites the dust.
In other news, I just sold two cranes, a 40 ton RT grove and a old 25 ton grove truck crane. Same buyer for both. We were still using the rt all the time, but the truck crane hasn't left my yard in a couple years. I was going to buy a replacement RT right away, but the buyer only gave me a deposit, and would pay the rest in a month on possession. I told the guys, that I really expected the sale not to go through. But he showed up this week with a check for the full amount, so I guess they are going down the road. They are headed to Louisiana. I've already replaced the truck crane with newer models, but I will need to replace the RT. We don't use it a lot, but it works great on longer term jobs, or if its a mudhole jobsite. So I'm RT shopping. I'd like to stay around the same size, because I don't want to haul any larger of a crane in the places we go.
Nice! you sold the 25 ton temptation
Buyer asked me "what will likely go wrong with it?" Well ****- its a 1976 anything could go wrong with it, but realistically, I couldn't really say there's anything to go wrong. They are just a simple strong machine. There's no complicated canbus/ electrical/ computer B.S. I don't think I've ever run anything that has more hours on it. I used it daily for years, and that was far from its first go around. Its still a smooth running crane from the upper. The carrier steering is shot. The Rt has a swivel that leaks (minor drips) , and the buyer knew about it. He wanted me to fix it, and I just don't have time. As is Where is.
Saved me from it too lol
Ha, I still got a mack with a national on it for skyking, and a 6v92 70 ton for junkyard. No shortage of old iron around here. Get to checking under mattresses for stray $100 bills. I'm in a selling mood.
Does Grove even make a newer comparable RT? I'm not an RT guy but looks like a rt540e has a pretty scaled back chart from a rt640c. A rt650e has a more comparable chart but it's a 50ton and weighs closer to 80,000lbs. I see another link-belt joining your fleet in the near future.
I got some S&H Green stamps around here somewhere.......
70 ton for 25 ton price…….?
My RT was a 700b model. I think its around 72,000lbs rig. 650e models are just a 105' main, and I'd rather have a 110' like my 700b. I've looked at a 760e model- it had the optional hyd. removable counterweight (12,500). But then I've got to send a extra truck with the counterweight, its 1' wider, etc. But its only 76,000 with counterweight off. A link belt rtc8050 is just under 80,000. And I think that's the top end of what I want on my current truck and trailer. The biggest problem is the Rough terrain market has really gone away from the 40,50,60 ton cranes. All the renters want a 75-90 ton crane. The renters don't have to worry about hauling it, and just want a bigger crane. It means fewer smaller ones for sale, but it helps - the prices are pretty depressed for that size of a machine. If I'm bringing a 90 ton around here, its coming on its own wheels- not a trailer.
Can't say "no" until I've seen green setting on a hood. It hasn't moved in my yard for a couple years, and I'm sick of looking at it. You'll notice I haven't mentioned my tms300. I've got visions of where I want it to sit in my back yard, and become my yard crane for loading bars and swapping counterweights and mats. Just need to get rid of some more stuff, and a little time.
Ha- you just need to sell some of that beach property and get your retirement gig going. Couple hours a day setting trusses or a HVAC unit, supplement that new house build, and a little cash in the bank.
I was just guessing off old pictures I'd seen of your RT I figured for it's vintage it was a 640. I guess I just assumed a rt700b would be a 50ton like the tms700b. Still not a lot of good replacement options.
there is a guy out there with a boom truck already. I'd need a 30 or 40 ton truck to capture those bigger jobs.
U need a job like Tony Beets on Gold Rush.. Work like an animal for 6 months, bank all the money and go to the Islands for the remainder of the year.. That work will be there when u get back..
That's how it starts, next thing you know, you're shopping for a 275 tonner and some more counterweight trucks.
Tony Beets oldest son, Kevin called his dad out for being so disorganized and everything was a **** show. He's doing something else now. He was the head mechanic and got fed up with everything being an emergency repair when Tony knew a long time ago things needed maintenance and repairs. I was kind of surprised they aired his beefs but they had to explain why Kevin was missing. I like Kevin, he doesn't have a lot of fake drama like most everybody else on the show does. They seem to be trying to give Parker a better reputation. I couldn't understand why anybody would want to work for him. The stories involving the equipment are ridiculous. Anything Volvo is supplied at really low lease rates. Parker just happened to have a fairly new Volvo loader, from the new property he bought, he could supply to Rick Ness. Next thing you know Rick Ness has a big Volvo excavator and rock trucks. Most is from Great West Equipment. Volvo actually has someone count how many times the Volvo name is shown on each episode. It's interesting though that Volvo excavators, especially, seem to have weak tracks. Been a few times track pins have broke or something else and they just happen to have a spare to fix it. The show would be better without the fake crap. Worst was the rock truck that flipped on flat ground. They have video of the truck driving right before it flips but not the flip. Then they show the back half on its side and it has somehow emptied itself of the full load it had before the flip. Fabricated BS! It's interesting just watching the machines working without all the scripted crap.
Sewer boxes.
Are those pre-cast tanks out of level or just the pic?
Just the picture, I'm standing on a pretty good slope. I'll be honest though, that's as close to the hole I got, other than sitting in the crane. I did see them have out a level, but I couldn't see the bubble from 60' away.
Some guy who does not need to mobilize 1800 miles will give the Mack Daddy a new home.
I had to do a 120' long building, with 50' trusses this week. On 16" centers. Almost everything is 24" centers anymore. I had 2 truckloads of trusses and I didn't think I was ever going to get done. Set trusses like a madman for over a hour and I was 25' down the building. In other news, the KW counterweight truck is down. N14 has a pushrod dropped. I haven't decided if we are going to try to fix it, or take it somewhere. It dropped the cylinder about 3 miles from the shop, I heard them coming down the hill with it. Lots of little repairs, hoses, seals, one winch diagnosis and repair. New LMI screen in one of the link belts. I bought two screens in the last year, one PAT for the grove and this one for the link belt. Its kind of ridiculous that they are $4,000+ each. But if the crane have a LMI, they need to have a screen that works. They haven't come and picked up the rt and 25 yet. We've been busy, lots of truss jobs, steel work, and also the 100 ton and 90 ton have both been out working pretty steady. Been thinking of a 50-60 ton truck crane or all terrain, instead of replacing my RT. I think we would use another truck crane or AT more than the RT, but (there's always a but) neither of those will do- or go- where a RT will. I didn't really mind my RT sitting for a while between jobs, but I didn't have as much money in that RT- as what I will have to have in the RT I want to replace it with. And I don't know if I can justify having that expensive a machine, to sit as often as my RT sits.
Someone did a oil change and a fuel pump by the corner, in front of my gate, last weekend. They weren't much for clean up. I knew I was going to be in the sun on this job, but no where else to sit, so I just squinted my way through it. Got some new precast lifting brackets. I don't think they've ever been used. New ones are over $400 each, I gave less than that for all 4 on ebay. Last picture was me plumb bobbing on a dirt road. They wanted to see what a 110' tower was going to look like.
I'm starting a riding arena next week, big girder trusses every 10 or 12', but like the one I did before for the same crew, I'll have to sit there for a good hour after setting one, while they put all the purlins in. I'd suggest just putting every other one in to still brace it adequately but get me outa there sooner, but at times like that I have to remind myself that I'm not the carpenter running the job, and to just keep my mouth shut and do what they tell me. Counting the money made helps make up for the old carpenter frustration. Like when I see some crews putting every single Teco nail in a joist hanger, while I watch, while the other truss end is nailed solid to the plate, I guess they think the truss may jump up in the air or something, if so, one nail would be good, put the rest in when I'm done, would save them money. Any reasoning given for that 16" layout?
I asked- my customer said that's what the truss company recommended for their building. Its a church building with a stage in one end, a big open area, and then some bathrooms and maybe a small kitchen in the other end. Its only a 50' span, and I would think 24" centers would have worked, but maybe there's some kind of sound deading going in the ceiling that would be heavy? Who knows. All I know is that it was two big piles of trusses.
People fail all the time. They fail to come back and add the fasteners, or just miss a few. It's less likely to be a pile of kindling in the morning after a sharp wind, doing it their way.
16" spacing might have something to do with fireproofing like 5/8" fire rock on the ceiling or something similar.
It'd be 5/8" rock for sure, as in any public use building. But that alone wouldn't account for 16" OC Maybe it penciled out better making more light duty trusses than fewer more robust ones? The most overbuilt buildings here are the Mormon church houses and temples, I've seen 16" OC there. In 24 years of setting trusses in Idaho snow country, I've only seen it a very few times. But yeah it's weird how they seem to take FOREVER to set.
I've seen 2 layers of 5/8" fire rock spec'd or something similar to shaft wall on a ceiling as well. That would require 16" OC.
I have a set of clutches like yours for pre cast. Amazing things ,some of those slabs get pretty heavy. How do you like those slings on the septic tanks? they look marginal,but everyone here uses the same ones here to.
We've used the clutches quite often, but the precast company is getting stingy about sending them out. So I just broke down and got my own. I wouldn't mind some sets of the ball style that lock the bolt head imbeds, but there's a couple different sizes of them, and I know I would never have the right size. The low angle cables aren't great with the precast boxes, but like you said, its what they all use. I always make sure to have a big round up or shackle along, because the crane hook won't ever fit their spreader bars.
I do wonder who designs those tank spreaders ,most around here are strong backed with some rebar. Those clutches are the most common here for bridge panels. Sometimes we use more with equalizing slings to get the capacity. Rigging right is always interesting.
I do wonder who designs those tank spreaders ,most around here are strong backed with some rebar. Those clutches are the most common here for bridge panels. Sometimes we use more with equalizing slings to get the capacity. Rigging right is always interesting.
As an old carpenter once told me if it is to strong you will never know it. Now I am older than he was when he told me that, amazing how that happens and so fast.
Just went and did a lift station, and the new clutches only fit two of the three boxes.
Talked to a guy yesterday about his old lull forklift. I need to help him for a little while monday, because the forklift is broken. I know the lift, and knew it was a little detroit, customer thinks the fuel pump is down, of course its in the way. I think its a 3-53 or similar. They called all over looking for the pump, I've got a 6v92 hangar queen in the back room, so I'm dropping it's pump off this weekend. I think its the same pump. Every time I've thought I had a fuel pump problem on a detroit, its actually something else. There's not much in those little gear pumps to go wrong. I'll head back there later on Monday, and help them for the rest of the day, they've got a time crunch to get finished with what they needed the forklift for.
As you know, priming a two stroke is a chore, even when everything is working correctly. About have to find a way to force feed them until they take. I wonder if it could be as simple as that.
I thought if you fill the filters Detroits take off pretty easy?
We temporarily plumbed in a primer pump off a thermoking refer into a 318 to get it to go. Running one out of fuel was a horrible mistake. Just changing filters wasn't so bad. That was my experience anyway.
I watched a guy get a 6V-53 running in freezing temps (that had been sitting for a few month's) by taking the filter off and filling it completely full of diesel. He said Detroits were one of the easiest diesels to get going in the cold. As long as they had diesel you could get them started. It's OK to use a shot of ether too if you're getting some smoke out the exhaust.
We had a few that were a real pain the ass to start with filter changes. The best way to get them going is air pressure in the fuel tank.
That's what I've always done with a troublesome prime. I think one of mine has a 90 degree fitting installed right by the fuel filter base, So you could add fuel right there to get it going/ priming.
I don't know that I've found detroits any easier to start when its cold. Especially if they are a little worn out, most like a little sniff of starter fluid. And good batteries so they can spin fast enough. Detroits do run so much fuel through the heads and back to tank, that they are nice to keep running, once you get them running in the cold. No worries about gelling up on the road or at the jobsite, because the fuel tank will be warm to the touch. Its actually a nice place to warm you hands if you are cold, Just kind of give that big fuel tank a hug.
Just imagine a wood boat with several thousand gallons of fuel tanks on either side of an 8-71. After a couple days of constant running the fuel tanks are all warmed up and the wood hull acts like insulation.
Hey crane operator, on your tms500e does your lmi have a spot in it where you can select over the rear or 360? I went to look at a tms540 today and I only see the 360 charts for the crane. In all of the Grove literature they show it as having over the rear charts so I was just curious if this is an option that it doesn't have or if there's a different spot in the lmi I didn't see.
If it has it (my tms500e does): There should be a rotational pot in the top of the swivel. Above the electrical portion of the swivel. Its set to show rotation of the upper, in relation to the lower- to the lmi. It is also what's used to set the imaginary wall limits in the lmi. It will auto change to "over rear" chart, when you are rotated to over the rear. I do not know if the 540's have that function in the computer. I ran a mid 90's 870 that had it, but my 92 RT doesn't (both PAT systems) . Are you looking at a 540 with the 115' main, or the 90' main? The 90' ones have a way better chart at radius, but I always felt like it really doesn't have enough counterweight to handle the 115' main. I want the 90' boom chart, with a 115' main boom. But they don't make that. There's a ATS 540 with the 115' boom, about 4 hours away from me, for sale right now. And while I'm enamored with the all wheel steer and those big tires, with cross lock axles- the turning radius is absolutely terrible in the regular driving mode. You have to go to the low range of the drop box, and engage the rear steer if you need it. And then lock it back up for "on road" travel. The ATS 540 is 49' 3" curb to curb turning radius. My tms 500e is 34'10". My 90ton is only 44'. So the ATS is kind of out for me.
Our local college has a tms540 with the optional 6x6 front axle, all on 22.5 rubber. Its a 90' main. I've run it with jib on when they were short a operator. I thought it seemed light in the ***, and that the boom up/down was really fast. Once you got onto it being that quick, it was okay, but you better be on your game.
My customer's broken lull has a 3-53 detroit. They borrowed my old fuel pump, and got it running with air pressure on the tank. Customer says it runs terrible, and is making compression in the fuel tank. Story has grown and its actually been running real hot also, they ran a while back until it actually locked up. Let it cool down for a couple hours and fired it back up again. Got warm enough to burn all the slobbered oil off the block that time. "But its been running again for a while". I'm guessing cracked head causing the compression in the fuel tank? But I also told them I know just enough about detroits to be dangerous. Unfortunately, engine is under the traveling carriage on the lull, so that's got to move to even get the valve cover off. They wouldn't mind me fixing it for them, but I got plenty of my own problems.
Okay well it looks like it doesn't have it then. Which is kind of disappointing. The ones I'm looking at are the 90' main boom. The 115' main boom makes it a 10ton road minimum where the 90' can strip down to make a 9ton road if needed. The 113' boom setup on my tms300 gets just a little too short for 100' legs and towers which is a pretty common height for me to work at. The 90' boom with 30' jib puts me at 120' and at 40' radius it's a 12000lb chart.
Don't have room for dead stick? That gets you 136'. Or does yours not have the extra main section? Or you just want something newer?
I am trying to update from 1975 haha. I have the dead stick and I'm sure I'll miss it for the 104' main boom but once you swing the jib to 136' its only good for 9500lb which is fine for a leg head section but after about 6500lb the winch gets a little jerky and without a lmi/scale I don't push the jib real hard. I'm kind of hoping to be able to lift the top 50' section of a 100' 10x10 tower which are usually around 8000lbs. I'll probably still chicken out on that pick and just bring in a rental for that pick.
I have two tms300s myself. I got the update bug and bought a gmk3050-1. I kept the tms300s as backup. Figured I'd use them as yard cranes some, etc. I'm so glad I kept them as I have had almost 9 months of downtime with the gmk due to electrical issues. I have wanted to add a load cell to my tms. Theres several good ways to do it it looks like. I can just add a load cell above the ball. There also a company that makes wireless load cell pins. That seemed like a nice way to do it so no reels and no change in ball height.
Your big winch should be smooth to at least 10,000lbs. Unless its stuck in the high speed side. You will never get the kind of performance you are looking for with the smaller 540, those are only 5/8" winches. I've had great performance from cranesmart load cells. Horrible support/ reliability from the old LSI ones, which is now trimble. A load cell is the best money you can spend on one of those old cranes. No more guessing. If you have a load cell and boom angle indicator and boom length (by lines painted on the boom), you should never get into trouble. Without the load cell, you are always flying by the seat of your pants.
The CraneSmart load cell I bought for my first boom truck (the 4 later ones all had factory LMI's, thank God) 23 years ago, is the reason I'm probably still in business, plus they gave me a free coffee travel mug. Once you operate with one, you'll never want to operate without it.
No way to two part to the jib? That cures all sorts of jerky hoist issues. We think the pressure was set too high on GLY's national and that made it a little nasty in the high end of the winch capacity. I two parted and got the line pull down for smoother operation.
Those grove winches are two speed. I wonder if he's stuck in high or has another problem. Mine are smooth to stall. 14k rated line pull.
the national has a high speed pushbutton on top of the hoist lever(s). If I recall correctly it was limited to 3000 line pull. It was only 7700 and 9/16" rope. It was a bit of an arse around 4500 on up. Here is as spot I two parted for. That little end piece was about half of the rest of them, and we had to drag and beat and cajole them under the edge of that glass wall. The next one sucked single part so we changed it up.
It might not be quite as bad as I made it out to be but it has a old Detroit 6-71 and throttling up does help smooth it out but the winch isn't what it once was. Its not stuck in high speed but it does act a little funny when its in high speed its like its fast on the cable up but cable down isn't much faster than when its in low speed. The actuator and valve are working and you can feel it shift. I guess most things I pick with it are probably less than 5000lbs or over 10,000lbs and typically I'll add a part of line for every additional 5000lbs maybe just out of habit but it just makes the pick smoother. With the tms540 I know the winch isn't as strong but you can two part the 30' jib so it should be capable, what the pick actually feels like might be a different story.
Purchased a grove rt this week. A RT650e, which is similar in weight to the 700b I sold, 5' shorter main boom. Its a 2001. I had a linkbelt 8050 I really liked spotted, another 5 years newer and all repainted, a really nice looking machine, but it was another $60,000. Which I just couldn't justify for our usage. One of the guys this week was "what if the phone rings and we have to have a RT to get where we need to go". And that kind of got me off my rear. Some work down at the railroad. first picture we are lifting the car to change a wheel set. The second one I'm using the broderson to change a coupler.
Hot tubs, these are nightly rentals, and are all a lovely shade of black.
Some metal trusses on a hotel, and roofing project down in the middle of the fancy mall.
I like the buying an rt because you might need it. I really should buy a low boy so we can haul my rt230. Wonder if I can get away with a tandem axle low boy or if I got to get a triple. 57k lbs is what the rt230 specs at for total weight.
I've had one for 10 years. When you really need a RT, a truck crane isn't getting there. It sat at a school project for 6 months, 2-3 days a week usage last year. Real busy for 2-3 months of it, less at the start and finish. That project was a flat clay mudhole that wasn't walkable after a rain. We never would have gotten it done without the RT. I have no idea what your state rules are for oversize/ overweight. If they will let you have 20k on a tandem you should get it on a tandem. 57,000 for crane and 20,000 for truck and 15-18,000 for trailer is 92,000 gross. Max, no permit, is 80,000. Rear axles of the trailer and your drives will be the problem. For me in rental, the biggest pain with the RT is the hauling. There's never room to drop/ unload, its hard with narrow roads and tight corners. So we only take the RT if its the only thing that will do it. Which means I just didn't want a terrible lot of money tied up in one, but I still like having one. We have roaded ours about 3 miles at the most. I know some guys road them much further, but you want to watch transmission temps. Ask a local dirt guy/ equipment hauler. He'll know what he needs for a 60,000lbs excavator.
I've been doing some checking. 100k annual os/ow permit here is $100 annually. I will have to have one since this crane is 8ft 8 in. 8 ft 6 in is out max here without permit. 88k lbs gvw is our limit here on state roads. With the permit, I'm allowed 22k per axle. Unfortunately, it basically looks to close to call. Have to load it and go to my local cat scale. It's close enough trailer tare weight is going to be a factor. The safe bet is a triple axle. Just more weight and tires to drag around. My semi has a 370 hp C10 10 speed so its gonna be pushing it already with a tandem. I'd rather stay away from a triple for maneuvering where we need to go.
The size of well you need, will determine more how it goes around corners. The triple axle doesn't hurt as much as the big wells do. I think mine is a 24'6" well, Those 230's aren't very big, you might get by with a 20' well. Front outrigger box might be over the tires a bit, but that doesn't hurt anything. You're going to want a little more truck though.
Yeah we have some possibly of buying a larger excavator in the future that would take a lowboy to move. We might buy a 50 ton rt crane one day so I should probably go with a triple axle lowboy. I dont want to have to buy another lowboy later. I see us moving this to 3 to 6 jobs a year. If we could find a local reliable hauler, I'd just contract it out and buy a fixed neck lowboy for our other machine hauling. We have a cat steel track loader and have given up on trying to get it moved when needed. It just turns into a huge headache. I can probably start with my current truck as most of my moves will be 10 to 15 miles away so I dont care if it's slow. At some point if we are doing it all the time, I'll upgrade my truck.
Three axle with a raised air lift back axle will handle like a two axle. If you have a spare wire on your trailer plug, put an electrically operated valve on the trailer and a switch in the cab. Come to a tight corner, pick it up, turn, and put it down without missing a beat.
Looks like the rt650e gives you pretty nice bump in capacity for a similar weight machine. Not sure how often you'll miss the 5' of boom but it seems like it doesn't matter how long it is there's always a situation you wish it was a little longer.
After I found out I could get a (approved/certified by National) 1400 counterweight for my rig, I did. Then I found out I was going across the scales at over 40K, just enough to get called in and talked too. I was told the solution was a annual pewrmit that would only cost a few cents a mile, 8 I think it was, so I signed up To my surprise, maybe because I'm cheap, plus I travel a lot, that added up pretty quick to real money, that's when I decided to take the jib off, and empty my rear dunnage racks out when I know I'm going thru the port, now I go across at 39,800 lbs or so and best of all have not been called in since!
Driver damages construction project in Springfield, Mo. by driving through wet concrete A construction project at a busy Springfield intersection may take slightly longer than expected after a driver went around the cones and ended up in freshly laid concrete. www.ky3.com
That's a case where there should be a ticket and a fine for stupidity. Make the driver pay for redoing the concrete and impound their car until it's paid.
and don't let anyone wash it!
I wouldn't want to own that car any longer than tomorrow.
Well my 40 ton RT and my old 25 ton truck crane got loaded up and hauled off this week. Kind of hard to see the old 25 go. I wore out 3 3208's and finally got tired of that game and repowered with a 8.3 cummins. Its headed to warmer weather in louisiana, as a yard crane. Kind of a working retirement (probably its 3rd or 4th retirement). Its got to have 50-60,000 hours on it. Most likely more. Front end steering is beyond shot, and it hasn't been safe to drive in years. It didn't owe me anything, and it gave me everything I ever asked of it.
New (to me) RT is here. 2001 rt650e. 105' main, jib, 5.9 with a manual injection pump. Lots of little things to fix, but doesn't look like anything majorly wrong. Winches seem slow, but neither drum is full of cable. Test picked, and overall structure inspection. Not quite ready for a job, but close.
Shop is full. KW is still down with a N14 after it dropped a pushrod. Got used crank installed, now waiting on heads. One of the link belt 40 ton's is in the other stall, its got a hyd. pump rebuild going on, and needed some driveline work. The other 40 link belt required a on the job suspension rebuild- again. We keep breaking off the arms that go from the top of the axle housing to the frame rail. Both the ones I own have had troubles there, and had been worked on before I got them. I think they are just too heavy on the back for the suspension. Of course he was out in the middle of nowhere when it broke off, and then as usual it wipes out a air bag. fortunately we just stock them now. Sent the welder and a couple guys, pulled tires for access and they got it back home. Until the next time. We've been busy, I dont' think quite as busy as we were toward the tail end of last year/ last fall, but still plenty to do. I find that we are traveling further away all the time, which is also putting a lot more travel wear on the cranes.
It's good to be busy. Some machines you get pretty attached to. I've got a 1965 MF135 UK that we got in about 1980. I found a loader for it and a cab off an MF20. I had to make the back window frame and the lower door for the cab. It has a 3 cyl. Perkins and is the most reliable machine I have. It will be really hard to see it go when the time comes. I imagine it's good for a few more decades.
Thats a pretty good epitaph the old girl
Its kind of stupid, but I left before they came to get it with the lowboy. I just didn't want to be there when they loaded it up. Rebuilt pump did not solve all the issues we were having with one of the 40t linkbelts. Got it narrowed down to a issue in the winch valve stack. Removed it and took it to local hyd. shop. Something in the valve sector was bypassing oil back to tank, not allowing it to build pressure to release the winch brakes. The Hydraulic shop called this afternoon, they found where the problem was, and have it fixed, hopefully have it back up and running tomorrow. Was great weather this past weekend, went kayaking down in arkansas on the upper buffalo. You have to hit it mid spring, and right rain patterns, or the water is too low. Water level was great. Of course my wife and youngest daughter just floated through the rapids, while my kayak was overloaded, and I would just go "thunk a thunka thunka" through the rapids, hitting every rock in sight. I need something with a little better floatation and higher sideboards.
Haven't had the best luck lately with trusses on projects. Both of these blew down in the last two months. Both went down 3-4 days after we left. I think both were underbraced, especially the walls. Both were around 70' long, but one set was vaults, and you have to brace the dickens out of those.
This is a old building in a tight spot that needed some repair.
Broke the rollback trailer a while back. Its been not rolling like it should, and I did a number on it with the carry deck. We've got it welded back up, but I've got some new rollers and pins and we're going to try to get it back in shape. Had to load the carry deck up on the double drop to get it back home.
Problem was in the valve stack in one of the 40t linkbelt. Got that fixed, winches are now back working again, but still slow and not getting full line pull. So there's something else still jacked up there. KW was close to running, its all back together, but the guys said it isn't showing oil pressure, so still chasing down that. Western star has a clutch control arm out of it at the moment, waiting on some parts for it. I have invested in two little toys that we're going to try to get hooked up. One is a camera system for the boom and winches, the other is a tire pressure monitoring system. Natman's love of his camera has got me curious enough to try one. The tire monitoring- maybe it will save some tire issues in hot weather, and spot a low tire before it shows visually. Pictures are the 90 ton setting some steel, one of the 40 tons replacing the roof trusses that blew down the first time. Setting some floor joists and beams the other day.
Went to indiana a week or so ago. Spotted two spools of 3/4" cable at $1 per foot, so made a run to purchase it. About 1/2 way to st. louis I was like "I smell fuel".. It went away, but came back with a vengance. I got pulled over and to a small diesel shop, and replaced a return line. It looked like old faithful under the hood, it was spraying fuel pretty good. Luckily it didn't get enough on the hot turbo to get a fire going. Made for a nice ride on the 550 headed home. Good thing, because the interstate in indiana is on a par with southern oklahoma for smooth road conditions. They are terrible.
Bet the builders risk agent is none to happy with those two projects.
That break looks like it could have been higher carbon steel, maybe a flaw in the steel. In another thread I mentioned grain structure for flat bar goes lengthwise and plate goes in multiple directions. The grain structure only going in 1 direction may have contributed to the break. It is an odd break, like it suddenly just snapped.
Separate customers. One was to replace a hay barn that burnt down, and from what I heard, the owner/ farmer turned it in on his insurance- and they were covering it. That insurance company may go after the builder, but I haven't heard anything about that yet. The other one, the trusses are still all laying in a tangled mess, and I think its headed for ugly business, lots of finger pointing.
Good thing it's a diesel truck. Sounds similar to what happened on my track loader but in my case it was a defective fuel filter that developed a tiny pinhole spraying diesel under pressure all over the firewall and exhaust manifold. Gas I think I might have lost the machine. Even with a fire extinguisher it would be hard to put out with the engine side shields on.
It did, when I was jacking around on the trailer with it not fully slid trying to get the carry deck off. The trailer didn't care for having 35,000 of carry deck putting it in a bind, and finally the top flange went. I think the bottom had been cracked for a while.
It must have been restrained that it had no way to bend. Still could have been the wrong type of steel for the application. It snapped pretty clean.
Was it high winds on the trusses ? Had a lot around here What is that building with the all terrain and manlift
Those building collapses, as an old carpenter, break my heart. On the other hand..., maybe they learned something from it and next time will brace them better. I think some don't get that going just a bit bigger span and a little higher walls, seems to expotentially increase the forces involved. Like the way the force of a 20 mph wind is FOUR TIMES the force of a 10 mph wind, not just double, at least that's what I've heard as a pilot. If you were done and gone for a few days, you probably won't be blamed, good for you! No one hurt?
Ive done very little truss work as the truss outfits around here all have thier own picker trucks for the small stuff. But i did do the trusses for my own 28X60 shop on the ground and sheeted them and completed most of the finish work. Roofers did the shingles after we placed the sections on the walls.I did another shop for a friend in one piece including roofing . Both went very well . A large dairy farmer down island from me has done a few huge barns by building the roof in sections on the ground . It takes a bigger crane and some fore thought on the rigging ,but from what ive seen its a great way to complete a roof. Plus it eliminates a lot of the tie off and working at Heights that framers are always getting in trouble over.
You need to plan for high winds or bad weather because if you don't you'll have problems. Trying to be in a hurry to stay ahead of the weather and not putting enough enough braces in is what caused some massive steel girders to buckle on a bridge project here. They had to bring a 550 ton crane to remove the buckled girders. If I recall there are only 2 of these cranes in Canada or it might have been only 2 in N. America. Not cheap, they had to bring the crane in in sections and also put mats down because it is so heavy. Better to take a little longer to brace better than take chances the weather cooperates.
no injuries, both sites empty overnight when they came over.
Old unused building at a amusement park. Had to get creative with getting the crane in there. Building has been there for 30 years, and the trees have all grown up around it.
Be interested to see what your thoughts are on the tire pressure monitoring system. I've got a couple of trailers I put Cats Eyes on and I like them, but you still have to look at them. Two trailers have the onboard inflation system. That system is cheap on a new trailer but I don't think I could afford to retrofit it to an existing trailer.
I don't like tying duals together with a cat's eye. Then if I get a flat, having duals doesn't really help much. Now I've just got two flat tires instead of one. Or do you just have indicators for each tire?
Duals tied together. Cats eyes shut off at 60#, iirc. Its 6 of one, half dozen of the other. My trailers are almost all occasional use, 10 months setting, 2 months working hard/long with occasional neglected maintenance.
Got another 40 t grove. Auction purchase. Going to give it a whirl tomorrow on a tree job. This 40 t is to help out while one of the link belt 40's gets some work. The older of the two needs a head gasket and is going to get a paint job. I'm tired of it being a sun faded orange that almost looks pink, so its getting painted. KW with engine issues was put back together, but now its putting fuel in the pan, new orings going on injectors tomorrow with fingers crossed. Been busy working. Small concrete batch plant.
Lid for a lift station we set a while back. It was low range getting back out of there, road takes off to the left in the driving picture. We had to drag the generator delivery truck around the corner with a track loader, he was just sliding down the hill and couldn't turn because of the angle. Fuel tanks and a prefab gas station building. We set the fuel tanks, but couldn't handle the prefab building, I think they were over 70,000lbs per half, and couldn't set very close.
what did they use to set the prefab?
They were looking for a 150 ton I think?
Looks like a pretty clean 40ton. What year? I ended up buying a tms540. I haven't had a chance to use it much yet but I can see the electronic over hydraulic will take some getting used to. The cable hoist seems real sensitive on a single line. When I test drove it they had the block with 4 parts so it wasn't as noticeable. Do the 500e have electronic over hydraulic controls?
If you bought one of the late 90's early 2000's grove tms 540's, the joysticks are not electric. They will be pilot hydraulics. I've found the grove pilot hydraulics to be pretty smooth, but the winches tend to be not as smooth starting and stopping. Getting the hydraulic relief settings correct can make a difference. See if yours has a switch on the arm rest labeled "boom boost". If it does, turn it off. That will sometimes help smooth out the winch. My new to me tms500e was sold as a 2004, but I suspect its actually a 2003. Most of the 2004's were cummins and eaton automated manuals, mine is still a cat with the allison. Grove switched the engine and transmission combo right in that time frame.
The big plus of pilot hydraulics- they give a resistance to the function of the lever. You can "feel" the valve opening and closing. The newest design is "electric" over hydraulic. In those, the lever activates a hall effect or similar controller, sending a signal to a ecm that will send another signal to a electric actuated hydraulic valve. Pilot hydraulics give much more feel, but today, its cheaper for the manufacturers to run wires than run pilot hydraulic controls. So now everyone has gone to electric controls. I don't think they are better. Except- liebherr electric controls and valves are top notch. But they don't use cheapy hydraulic valves like the current boom truck series. My liebherr is smooth and precise. But the newer boom trucks were built to a different price point.
If you can get a revolution indicator in front of you that helps tremendously with lack of feedback. That is another gaping hole in conventional boom trucks.
New greer rotation indicator are $2,300 last I priced one. They are still the best solution. All my pilot hydraulic rigs use a small "thumper" in the joystick, that pips up and down when the winch is turning. They tend to be not very durable.
If it were my National 1100 series I would put a rubber contact wheel against the drum edge, and a drive band off that to a shaft under the boom where I could see it from both stations. KISS.
Hmm, I had another guy with a tms540 I was talking to before I bought mine and he mentioned that they were electronic over hydraulic. Now I'm curious ill have to do some reading in the service manual to see what they are. Mine was sold as a 99 but had a lower serial number than one i saw posted as a 98. It has thumpers in the joystick, it just seems pretty sensitive. Like I said I haven't really even run it yet, I ran it a little before i bought it and I've set it up on a jobsite but it's been too rainy or windy and I just haven't got to use it yet. I didn't notice any speed toggles, I know on the left joysticks it has the swing lock and a toggle to disable the aux. winch, but I don't recall anything on the righthand side.
I thought all the groves of that era were pilot hydraulics. Look in the armrests and winding around the seat, and see if there's a whole nest of hydraulic hoses running through there. I've run a crane that had a drive wheel on the drum running a cable, like a old mechanical tach cable drive, to a wheel in the cab. I can't remember what it was on. My old P and H has a mechanical drive set up also, but its a little different.
Sorry, I don't think I was clear- both my 500e's are pilot hydraulics. The only thing I have that is electric over hydraulic is our liebherr.
Demo’d a gas station once and didn’t know it was prefab until we found the steel frame under the floor. Looked just like a site build store.
Well I finally got a chance to play with my new crane a little bit. Took a look under the arm rest and found nothing but wires. It can be pretty sensitive but after running it a bit you get used to it. I wonder though if enough people didn't like them that they went back to pilot hydraulics in the tms500e.
That's fascinating to know. I've run the one the local college has, but really didn't look it over. I didn't know that grove tried electric on the 540's. Better hope the electric holds up, because they didn't build a lot of those, so I don't know what availability is on parts. Did you get the 115' main or the 90" main boom? I always thought the boom selection on the 540's was a goldilocks kind of deal. The 115' are too much and the 90' too short, and they were missing the "just right". They don't have enough counterweight to really use the 115' at radius, and the 90's are just a little short to get things done on main boom. The chart with the 90' main and jib on is pretty good. I want the chart of the 90' with jib, when using the 115' main. As far as the elec. vs hyd- I find the pilot hydraulics pretty responsive and durable. The only drawbacks are- they make a mess in the cab if they start leaking, and they can be like sitting in a radiator when the oil gets hot. 150-200 degree oil running through the armrests can become uncomfortable. Grove still builds a 3 axle truck crane. Where I think they are really missing the boat, is not putting their longer main booms in it. They have the booms from the national boom truck line, from the 50-60 ton nationals, and could easily use them. A 127' main would be nice. I image there are customers that would do the 141' also. I think they would rather just build the national line, and let freightliner and pete deal with the constantly changing emmissions requirements and transmission options. Two things that national has finally got right on their line, is offering a extended length/ height outrigger jack, and offering a third outrigger pinning width, to stay under 20' width instead of their usual 24'. The outriggers have always been too short, and I can't use a 24' width most of the time.
So what your saying is Grove mechanics arent like your typical Maytag repairman ? Stuff is way too complicated now. Lifted unknown tons, driven 100s of piles ,clammed thousands of yards with this old girl. Shes still going ,never had a mechanic called out on a job ,just fixed the odd airline or hyd line on the carrier myself. I know im a dinosaur.
From what I hear, the newer ECOS controlled locking booms are problematic. Grove used to be the gold standard of hydro's. Grove has been run for the last 10 years by a group of bean counters and lawyers who don't care if its cranes they are selling, or paper towels. None of management has any history in the construction/ manufacturing of construction equipment business. It shows in the quality of equipment that they are building today.
Thats a sad fact of the equipment business. American cranes were run down by Terex. In our area we lost Madill ,a smaller company that built the best in logging equipment. All run down by bean counters. It seems that Liebherr is one company that has stayed focussed on real quality,even if they are pretty complicated.The developement and production seems to keep ahead of the bean counters there.
Boy, some days the truth does hurt.
Yea I hope they hold up as well. I got the 90' boom. The biggest reason for getting the crane was its ability to be 9 ton road legal. With the 115' boom it can get to 10 ton legal but that's stripped of the jib and counterweights but it can't get down to 9 ton. We're just a small construction company and not a crane rental so the cranes typically sit on a jobsite for a few months before moving. My dad's gotten away with sneaking the tms300 around on backroads under the guise of being construction equipment. In my 20s I went along with it but as I've gotten older and wiser I stress at the thought of moving it. I know the 90' main is a little short but in comparison to a 500e the 95' isn't much better and when when the jib is swung, which will probably be quite often, they're both 120' but at 40' radius the 540 has 11,950lb of lift and the 500e has 8,200lb of lift. Yea none of the manufacturers seem to be interested in trying to make a 40-60ton truck crane federal bridge compliant. I guess they've just decided the boom trucks have taken over that market. Which I wouldnt mind but if i had half a million stuck in a boom truck it would have to be working as a rental everyday. The newest Grove tms500-2 has a better chart but it can't make a 9ton road anymore as the front axles just under 20,000lbs. I see link belts coming out with a new 40ton 4 axle truck crane and it looks like it'll have a good chart with 115' boom, essential the newer ht65 but derated with less counter weight. But stripped down it still can't get to 34,000lbs on each tandem. Maybe Minnesota laws just suck for cranes and permits and other states are more lenient.
That is a great picture. My wife is a sunshiny day kind of person. I like a little clouds and cooler.
you could plug Boeing in there and it would fit to a tee.
Its pretty sad to see a great outfit like Boeing going down that road. I hope theres lessons for future management in these businesses or we are never going to build or get anything done.
I like the new Grt groves. I like the new Manitowoc CCS systems. I will say, manitowoc and potain have their stuff together when it comes to diagnostics. The Grove and Gmk lines have a ways to go. On the crawlers and towers you don’t need a computer other then looking at manuals. You can see any diagnostic information right on the displays. Grove you still need the service tool software but I’m betting it’s a software update away from doing everything on the display. And I hope that update comes soon. But, it may never come.
KW has been booted to the back yard, I think its got a miss in it, and its possibly electrical, but we just don't have time to dick around with it. Mack with a flatbed showed up on a auction, and big shout out to @Junkyard for giving me a hand getting rolling out in Tulsa. Of course with a auction buy, you know there's going to be a problem, this one's seems to be a blowby smoking habit. It runs like a top, no black smoke, its just got a lot of blowby. 2000 model CH600, 600,000 miles or so. E7-460 hp with a 18 speed transmission. I haven't looked for a tag on the rears, but they are low, top gear 1500rpm is only about 62mph. I think they were using it as a sprayer tender, whatever they were spraying made for a rust layer on the deck, and we had to cut all the hoop body off the bed. I've got it all stripped down to a flatbed now. Probably going to add a axle behind the drives to get a little more bridge. But its already made it successfully through a couple jobs.
Whatever they were spraying, it ate up the chrome wheel caps on the tag, I've got them beat off the wheel, but I think we are going to try to battle the nuts off at the shop, rather than on the road somewhere. I covered the cab good when I was cutting off the hoop frame, but at the last I wasn't paying attention cleaning up the headache rack. We're going to need new mirrors, I've slag sprayed the glass and ruined these.
If you look close, that's me on the big screen, they've been building a big concert venue south of town. Schedule is unbelievably tight, I'm set up in front of the stage, hanging a flagpole about 2 hours before the concert was supposed to start. They had the floor seating (folding chairs) set up right to the crane. They started doing sound checks when I was about done, I saw the cab glass move when they fired up the bass. The video guys came and asked how much longer I was sitting there, they had video cues to set up. Of course, all I could see was a hose blowing or some other catastrophic break down, and the big theme of the concert would be my broke down crane, right in front of the stage. My angels were watching over me, and the crane held together. A welding guy we work with, welded all through the night getting the stage ready.
Flying glass and scissor lifts into the building.
Big storm went through bentonville/ rogers arkansas area. I got talked into sending cranes down there for a couple days. I've really got things to do at town, but I'd like to think that if I had a tree laying on my house, someone would come and take it off. So I had 3 cranes down there late this week. We already brought one crane back to town, and I think we should be done with the worst of it by the end of next week.
Good on ya.
Glyphosate and UAN are hard on most metals. Then there are the guys that spray sulfuric acid for various reasons.
Good on you for helping lift trees off houses. I dont wish it on anyone but it's good to be able to help folks get them off their houses. We have been doing it for over 3 weeks since a tornado hit our area hard. Today was our last storm tree to take off a house.
No doubt it was rough in central and north AL last weekend. Lost power at home for 14 hours and at the yard for over 24.
We weren't finished picking trees off houses from the tornadoes 3 weeks ago Wednesday when that storm rolled through. We had probably 100 trees down in the 5 points area of Huntsville. I'll post some pics in my thread when I get a chance. We had multiple large oaks down. We took a 52 inch one off a house. Looked at another white oak that measured out to 61 inches.
Edmonton tornado footage was used in the Twister movie. The tornado was headed for our acreage but turned just before hitting us. A mile West a granary was flipped over and a barn had 2x4's sticking out the side almost looking like a ladder to climb on the roof. Our next door neighbor took some pics. from their deck and successfully sued or got some kind of judgement because the pics. were posted in a book about the tornado without getting the neighbors permission. I was racing home to look after our dogs but my dad got there ahead of me. We lived in a mobile home too so very glad the tornado took a turn. The sky was green at one point and then went almost pitch black. There was a huge oil storage tank flipped over. You had to look carefully to realize the name on the side was upside down. Most bizarre was a McDonalds straw through a 2x4.
I've seen playing cards stuck in wood siding in person. It's just flat our bizarre. In the 2011 tornado outbreak, a farmer just down from where we were working had a cow with a 2x4 through it. It was still walking around. Same storm, I found a 9 cubic yard dumpster wrapped around a large oak tree. The front and back walls were about 2 ft apart. Some of the weird things we find doing tree work that dont belong there were probably left by tornadoes.
Weirdest thing I saw in a tornado aftermath was the 2013 ones that came through central AL. It was a split foyer house where you walk up to the main level into the living room with the kitchen on the left. Living room intact like nothing happened. Walk into the kitchen and the exterior walls and roof were gone. Just to the right of the door to the kitchen there were some shelves on the wall with an open bottle of toothpicks with the toothpicks still in it. How does that even happen? Took a garden home down just up the street that was hit as well. The front windows were blown out and there was grass and mud plastered on the walls of the hallway to the kitchen and living room. Kitchen intact however the entire roof was gone on living room adjacent to the kitchen, only the rafters were left. Weirdest part was the ceiling fan was still hanging from the rafters with all the globes with bulbs intact.
Not saying we never get wind storms around here but nothing like those mentioned. I guess I'll deal with a bit of snow off an on over the winter. At least most of that goes away on it's own in a month or so. This last winter was almost disappointing, got new snow tires on my little Ford Ranger and don't think I ever really needed them.
Got the camera dialed in a little better.
Unless you have a zoom feature (mine does not) you'll find the field of view will differ a lot with how high above the load the camera is, obvious I guess, but sometimes I'll run some more stick out just to get my tip of boom mounted camera a wider angle/ Usually if I want to keep an eye on both sides of a large truss, so I can watch both nail benders finish nailing off their stabilizers, and as one of them (and they may switch off) shimmys out the truss to unhook me I can be cabled down by the time they get there. It sure beats them yelling (and me not hearing) or having a signal person, your regular customers will quickly get spoiled with your new capabilities.
I don't think this has zoom, but I'm not sure, its got a lot of menu options and the manual isn't in my native language. I would say this one is more wide view than it probably should be, I was setting trusses on a 40x60 today, and I could see the whole house in the picture. Honestly, the camera is kind of neat, but for flying trusses, I end up just running the crane by eyeball like I always have. I'm kind of looking forward to a HVAC unit in the blind, and see how that works. But similar to watching a LMI screen, or watching what the hook and load is doing, I chose to watch the load and the hook. I bought two cameras, thinking I'd have one looking at the winch, and another one on the boom. I don't think I want the other camera, it will split the screen, and I want the whole screen for the boom camera.
What I find fun, is when I drop the hook directly over a pick, while a guy is standing there waiting to give me signals, but then he realizes I've nailed it and he doesn't need to, but how, as I'm behind a wall or whatever? They don't know I have a camera, I sometimes tell them in advance, depending on the job, but the camera allows me to do a job, drive off, and leave them thinking I'm some kind of wizard. I don't think I've come across anyone yet I've worked with that has mentioned they have worked before with a camera equipped crane or boom truck. If I had the financial need and the inclination, I'd attempt to package up what I did and market it, but that sounds too much like work. I think mine cost me around 3 K, not sure, the hi def wireless transmitter being the single biggest ticket item, the camera itself less than $200.00, the in cab 10" monitor about the same. I at first tried lithium batteries, but for whatever reason had issues with them and found plain old sealed, bur rechargable, lead acid work better, still don't know why that is, but at least they are cheap, $30.00 or so, last at least a year. Besides the 10 watt solar panel I usually will plug it in overnight, I have yet to run out of power on a job.
Simple enough to keep some spare batteries just in case.
I'm still trying to figure out how to make the camera work on a boom truck with two stations. A bracket that I could pivot between the two sides would probably work but depending on where the sun is it might be hard to see the screen. I was thinking today that a magnetic mount would be better. Just stick it wherever is best
Center mount , swings to both sides , pivoting ball mount on the end and a small hood over the screen
I don't think there's much market there. While mine is a "cheapy" off amazon, its 1080P and pretty clear, 7" monitor, solar and USB charger for the camera. I bought the 2 camera, and the next one I buy will only be a one camera system. Two camera is $259. One camera system is only $159. I don't think I would get the extra money out of a $3,000 system. Amazon.com
I think that's the way the old LMI systems were mounted on the standing cranes.
Been a busy week again. Thursday was a big "sit around and wait, then work late" kind of day. Setting a video board head. Set the pole earlier, came back and set the head frame first thing, video board was supposed to show up at 12. Come to find out, the video board didn't leave atlanta until that morning. He doesn't show up until almost 4. Supposed to be 3 hours to put it together, but surprise! Not everything fits right. Had the lights on before we got done, crane was folded up and ready for the road by 9:30. I had taken my pickup to the site, so I didn't have to drive it home. 6-10:30, I even snuck off and looked at a tree job while I was waiting.
Flying skylights with the suction lifter. After we finished setting skylights, the installer came and told me, someone already dropped a cordless driver onto one of them, shattering the top layer. Triple paned 1" thick and hard to get. No one was very happy.
Sewer plant guys had the city manager tell them to install their equipment with a 5k telehandler. The 5k are rigid frame machines, so no room and on a slope means they ended up tipped up against their facilities shed, stuck, and out of options. I just rigged to the equipment, and pulled it off the lift, then we got the lift drove out. If the building hadn't been there, they would have tipped the lift over right onto the cab. I made clear how lucky they were, and they were "this is the way we were told how to do it." Yeah, just because you were told something stupid, doesn't mean you should try it. And of course, they didn't call me until 5:30 in the evening to get started on it.
Trusses and the camera view over the house.
Yeah, lets build the mother in law's house so close to the garage and driveway, that its a pain in the *** to get out of the existing house's garage. There was plenty of room to turn the addition building and move it, looked to me like the homeowner went and drove stakes and said "this is where I want it". He better get used to parking that crew cab outside, because its a 7 point turn to get it in and out of the garage now.
Could be one of those times when you keep your friends close and your enemy closer
Having said that I had a good Mother in Law
My first camera was a wireless backup camera system, for 3 or 400 bucks. It worked, but it had latency, a bit of a lag time, not "real" time, close but just off enough to not be optimum. The screen quality was OK, but nothing write home about, but it all worked well enough for me to realize the potential, so spending relatively big bucks for zero latency and a crystal clear 10" picture works for me. It's still handy even when I can clearly see and don't really need it, I like being able to eyeball down the loadline to the top chord of a truss to see if it's lining up with the bottom chord, so dead nuts vertical, it works in conjunction with my LMI and eyeballs, just another tool in the box. It's more than paid for itself just in fostering good customers relations, as in I'm still the only op in my area that has one. Just a few hours ago, picking a 25 K container, llooking at it sideways, 12" from my rear bumper, in the pre camera days I would have jumped off and checked my line angle from the side, or yelled at the crew to do it for me, but probably still climbed down as I probably wouldn't have trusted them...! Lots of ways to insure it would move a bit away from me on liftoff and not towards me, but with the camera it was dirt simple to see I was a foot off center, away from me. The longer I use it, the more little ways I find it helps in small details like that. Sometimes I'll set up and climb up in the op cab, and then can't remember if I unhooked the ball up front, if I see the sling laying on the ground that secures my hook in transit, it saves me jumping down or looking like a fool when I start to boom up, still hooked. That's as bad as getting in the plane, starting it, while still tied down, most pilots have done that!
Knock on wood I never had any broken glass, but none of it was skylights either. City manager with that telehandler deal needs his ass chewed clear off. People at the top of the heap need to look out for everybody and if they don't know, stay in their lane and delegate to those that do.
I'm guessing that could get wild if the wind started to gust.
We did have to quit for a couple hours one day. If you can get the glass hanging horizontal, it doesn't catch much wind.
Plane was about 2" larger than the gap between columns. But its up. Took all day, but its turned at the right angle and pitch, and its wired to the ceiling. Cheated this time. Last one of these I did- the roof was on the building. Talked them into leaving a hole in the roof and that made things a little quicker, but we did fight the wind a little.
Fighting some old precast beams. Need us to demo the old drive under porch. Remodeling the building. Last one took more time than the first three combined. It was wedged in by grout overhead. Hammer drill and busting brick and we finally got it out. After we had the first one off the building and on the trailer, at 18,000lbs, the trucker decided he wanted a crane on the other end to offload them, instead of the "before" plan of dragging them off with a excavator. So we ended up with cranes on both ends- loading and unloading.
Wait a minute, did I miss something? Where did the link belt RT come from?
I left some things out, it was discussed elsewhere. I had a customer that wanted me to come to Dallas to hang this plane. I hung the first one in his building here in town, this building is more or less identical. We've been loading up most of the items here, at the local fabrication places, for installation down there. The big tank, and most of the conex's got welded up here, and the climbing towers. I just took a bunch of rigging in the back of my pickup down there to hang the plane, and used the ironworkers that are hanging the building, and their crane and operator. Which was actually easier than if I had to run the crane too. This way I just got it rigged and flown. So this plane and building is located on the north side of Dallas. Right next to the big nebraska furniture mart development called "the colony".
The trickiest part, is the fuselage is jammed up against one column, and the wingtip won't clear the other. So you bank it up like its making a big turn, once it is 30' up, and slide the left wing over top of a I-beam, once its past the column. Scissorlift and boom lift access. At least with the hole in the roof, you don't have head height issues as bad, you still can't get into the upper header beams, but it gives you more room.
To be honest I wouldn't have wanted to drag that off my trailer with an excavator either. However I sense some **** poor planning was involved on the "truckers" part?
Either a crane or rigging and two excavators to lift it off. Dragging it off without damage seems problematic to me.
The "trucker" is a local contractor, has a dirt/demo business, and a roll off dumpster business also. He's got a big excavator with a thumb, and kind of a trash yard where they burn tree/ yard waste where they were getting offloaded. I measured out the precast, after getting no response from the general contractor on a weight, and came up with around 13,000 for the beams and slab, but that's just concrete, no steel in the slabs. I guessed the slabs would weigh more like 15,000, and they were actually 18,000. The trucker/ dirt guy asked me what they were going to weigh, and I gave him my rough estimates, but said I wouldn't really know until I got them lifted up. He didn't want to get his lowboy into the jobsite, so brought a big gooseneck behind his f550. We had about 6 or so miles to haul them. I would have brought my semi truck and trailer to haul them, but it wasn't my deal. It would have been easier if I hadn't had to deal with the 10:00am/ middle of the job- "hey we're going to need a 2nd crane". I kind of thought that might happen, and I had a crane sitting still in my yard.
Been on vacation for a week, and really haven't had anything special going on to take pictures of. Lots of trusses and HVAC. Big shout out to terex herder, who gave me a heads up on a truck selling at auction and junkyard for a little more info on where the truck was from/ history and advice. "no such thing as too much truck" he says.... Its a 2011 former heavy haul, its got push pull bumpers, and it really is more truck than I really need- but who knows what the future holds. Mack Titian- MP-10, 605hp, 18sp, 4 speed aux, 20 k front, SISU planetary rears. Supposedly only 100,000 miles and 4,800 hours. I suspect a ECM replacement, but the interior is clean enough that the miles could be right. Going to need some new tires, and some modifications, but we'll see what its like when it gets here. In other news, one of the 40t link belts is still down for paint and we stole the radiator out of it for the other one. Won't have new cores until 2nd week of august. Head is back on, and we're throwing the old radiator back in, to get it mobile to finish painting. Got a new 2nd oil cooler for the 90 ton. Adding a electric fan downstairs on top of the hyd. drive fan has really helped, but I think if he gets to doing a bunch of winching, its still going to warm up. We're going to mount it in the return line from the winch sector, hopefully that will help with the cooling in august. Ordering a couple more cameras, battery life on the camera's isn't the best, but I really need to set up a better USB charging system, rather than just leaving it on the boom head.
Good Lord, 18, 4 spd aux AND planetaries - you ought not out grow that one too soon! Congratulations.
Thanks, If I can get 60-65mph out of it, I'll be happy. We don't run on the interstate highway, so stay out of the 70mph plus nonsense. And we're usually within a few hours of home. Those planetary axles look nice, but I bet they are going to be $$ if we need parts. Who wants to guess what its going to weigh empty? Its triple frame, and I bet those rear housings are going to be heavy. I'm thinking/hoping for around 26,000, but I've already heard a warning whisper of 30,000lbs.
I would have guessed around 27k I suppose, but I've never been around planetary rears for road trucks.
Sisu's are the better planetarys for sure. Havent done anything to the few trucks that we service. 4 speed aux gives you an overdrive for a better road speed. Should be a solid truck. Frame corrosion is the biggest concern with it.
I'd guess a little over 25k too. My double frame L9000 dump truck is around 25,000lbs. with an M11 and a 9 speed. It has a 16K front axle with dual steering boxes and 40K rears. Not a really huge box, 15' but low sides. The Mack sounds a lot more heavy spec.
That's a former Perkins STC truck. Does it have hookups to run modular trailers like Titans from the Mack booth at ConExpo years ago did?
I sent Junkyard a picture of just the axle capacities, and the first thing he asked me "is that a perkins truck?" After I sent him a picture of the truck itself, he knew by how it was set up what it was. It has air and wiring/ hyd. running to the front and rear bumpers, and its set up to have a weight box. I think it has a front crank pto set up, with electric clutch, so they could seamlessly turn pto on and off to run a big trailer. I think that's whats hiding under that big front bumper. I'm kicking around whether to just go get it, or have it hauled here. Its $2,200 to get it here, and I know its got weather checking on the tires. And I suspect it isn't going to have the greatest road speed. Its going to be a lot more expensive if I drive it home and break something, or even have a roadside tire call. I'd really rather just have it hauled here, address the tires and check all the fluids, essentially give it a good looking over. Even if it costs me a little more.
There is a dealership in Minnesota that has 4 sister trucks to this one for sale. They were advertised on truckpaper. Only difference is they are equipped with allisons instead of this one's 18 speed. I called that dealer before I bid, they were asking $110-130,000, which is way out of my price range. They were 300-500000 mile trucks, and were up to two years newer. I think the allison would be better for my particular application, but my budget fit this truck.
Where is the adventure in having it hauled? I can understand having it hauled i have had several adventures but with some help i have lived through them .
How far is the trip back if you drove the truck?
Its 400 miles to where it is. I know from the pictures that the tires aren't great. I'm empty, but 1 roadside tire call for a 425 steer will make it a wash. And if I tear up a low oil aux, or one of those planetaries, that's probably a 5 figure repair. So its just a cost/benefit analysis. They didn't cover that one in school.
I'd haul it. Too much risk and gotta factor your time in as well.
If I tie up two guys for a minimum 12-14 hour day, or it goes into two days (because of problems), the hauling will be cheap
We drove one from Manhattan Kansas to salix Pennsylvania in derate at 50 mph pulled the exhaust off the dpf unplugged the speed sensor and with my laptop hooked up it stayed running then the c13 got on out and the trusty c12 installed. Good fun!!!!
I drove our last mack home from tulsa, which is a 5 hour drive, without a hiccup. But its standard size tires (that were good tires). 11r all the way around. And a lot more common drivetrain. I've sent our truck to western kansas with our lowboy hauling military trucks (which cost 2 trailer tires, on the road), I drove the western star home from oklahoma, and took it to dallas to pickup our double drop. Lost a air line coming from oklahoma, and caught a overtight wheel bearing on the trailer, which I chained up to get home from dallas. This new truck is 425 steers and 315 drives, which usually aren't as easy to find on the road. I've driven cranes home and I've had them hauled, and if the numbers $ are any where close, I'll have them hauled. I would rather fix problems close to home.
My Dad and several of his buddys bought and sold everything. So they needed trucks to haul stuff and they bought and sold used trucks if they found a deal. Even before I had a licence i would go and do mechanic work to get stuff home. Nobody had much money so if they could make it home under their own power that was money saved and most of the time money they didnt have. I enjoyed it even though i know there was a really good chance i wouldnt get paid right away or in money but when they treated me good i always got fed and if they had something i wanted it was mine for the asking. They all know i liked tools and if they ran a cross any one guy sold tools i could have or buy them cheap. I dont blame anyone for hauling an unknown home but those were good times we were very lucky.
Send a pickup with a couple spares a jack and some tire irons to follow it back
I bought one of my boom trucks in Tampa FL, late on a Friday, somehow I pulled into my Monday morning job back in Idaho at 8, exactly as scheduled, Monday morning. Years ago, I don't recall if I even had a CDL yet, my earlier rigs didn't need one, and I sure didn't know about the required rest periods. I'm pretty sure the statue of limitations on getting charged for that have expired?
Big mack showed up yesterday. The guys unloaded it, said the inside is pretty nice. One guy texted me "that's the nicest truck I've ever been in". We run mostly older stuff. More info has surfaced about the truck. It got damaged on the passenger side sometime in the past. Wiped out a fuel tank and hit the rears. Its been kicking around damaged for a few years, and now it got band aided enough to sell it to me.... The aux box is damaged, and one rear may have a crack in the horizontal weld in the housing. Need to get out a stringline, I think the one frame rail has a slight bend at the rear. The wet kit/ all hydraulics have been removed. I've got a wet kit, but I don't know what Mack uses for gears on the inside- if they are a straight or beveled gear. It does look like there are two SAE ports on the passenger side of the transmission. The other option is a external gear on the back of the engine, for a constant on PTO. Reminds me of the rear aux. drive structure on a detroit. I think for our purposes a trans. mounted one will be fine. Has a bolted on/ swiveling 5th wheel plate, which makes for a really tall 5th wheel. I've got a short slider we should be able to put on it. So its going to need some work. So far, doesn't look like anything we can't fix. Its the tallest cab truck I've been around. Reminds me of getting in and out of a cabover. I think you could almost crawl between the bottom of the cab and the top of the transmission. There's also a huge doghouse opening if you needed to pull a head. I'm not really sure why they put the cab up so high on these trucks. I'm kicking around shortening up the wheelbase, but I'm guessing that wouldn't be loads of fun redrilling the triple frame....
You can see how tall it is , compared to the pete and kw
Got three steps up to get inside, plenty of room under the cab. The broken aux box, and it's got some oversized brake cans. They are the size of rotochambers, but I don't know if that's what they are.
The aux box is broken out where this mount bolt is. You can see where they have some weld goobered on the top. the back of the box is broken out also.
Back side of the box, by the broken mount. I don't know what's all smeared or welded in there, but its getting dropped and checked out, before we take off with a load on it.
Surely with the 18 speed and the planetary rears you could spend a bit on drivelines and do away with the aux. Thinking out loud here.
I've already had that thought. The rears are 5.02's, so the extra overdrive in the aux would be nice empty. There's actually a guy in Florida, that owns the sister truck to this truck. The trucks are numbers 1&2 of 2 made alike. We've already talked on the phone, and he would like to fly someone out to look at it. If he really wants it, I would like to sell it to him before I butcher it up to make it what we want. There's not that many of them out there, and if I was doing what he does, I think I'd want this one sitting in my yard for parts, or using it. He's doing coast to coast heavy haul, and it would be tough to be down in that game. I can find a different truck, if he wants this one.
I didn’t know what your rear ratio was. You would be a bit gear-bound without the overdrive in the aux.
Titans were originally designed for the Australian market and the high cab helps with low-speed cooling. Aussie designed Kenworth SARs are also 3 steps to the cab.
The brake pots were probably haldex ksc36's now replaced with MJM mjs36 pots. Most of the SISU axles had those weird pots.
Got a used Spicer box. Now to build one out of two. One of my guys called and said the outrigger beam wouldn't retract. Here's the problem.
Getting close. Boom is back in it now, and it's going to a job Monday. Don't have the jib back on, but we don't need jib for Monday. Mount it when we get back.
Busy setting trusses
I had to stare at this for a while, and press some buttons before I got it all set up right. It isn't as complicated as a liebherr Liccon, but you have to press the buttons in the right order or it won't work. I admit to seeing if the bypass key was still working, because that would have been simpler.
Shoved the nice, new painted boom in that tree ,all day long setting trusses. Hot tub guy on the next job , asked how we liked our brand new crane. I admitted it was 20 years old with a fresh paint job. Got a new tester, my old one disappeared to the other shop. O Riley's new computer system doesn't identify what switches are like, I needed momentary -off -momentary. So anymore we just order 5 different ones and see what shows up.
Setting a generator. 100 ton in a communication site. One of the guys went and picked up this lift axle for the mack lowboy puller. I need another one for the mack counterweight truck also, I can get by without a drive line drop on that one. Chasing down pump specs for one of the Grove 40 tons. It's shucked the power steering/ outrigger constant pump. Grove wants 15 days and over $7,000 for it, so we're exploring options. I don't know why the ps isn't just on a engine mounted pump, instead of combining with outriggers with a priority valve, but I'm not a Grove engineer.
Do you have a picture of the pump in question? and which one on the drawing. Is it gear or vane fixed displacement?
This is the book drawing, pump is at my hydraulic shop. It's a parker pump, and parker will make one for like$5,000. They probably sell it to grove for 4 and grove doubles the price. Shop is looking at aftermarket solutions. On the hydraulic schematic, if you start at the bottom left, it's the upper one of the two pumps , "without disconnect ". Has the flow divider that runs to power steering gear. Pump #2. Book breakdown
Can't get the housings separate for rebuilding, at least not from grove. We may end up reinventing the wheel a little bit to make things work.
One of the link belt isc cummins was throwing a code. Derate and intermittent. My little diagnostic magic box said trainsient suppressor on the harness. Cummins had one, all the lights went out, so fingers crossed.....
You can use a 2 stage gear pump with a seperate priority flow divider / relief vavle to handle the power steering. I did this years ago on a Leturno artic truck. worked like a champ. Geartek in Corinth MS can probably help you with the pump.
We may end up going that route. I was up there today talking with them, and they are going to have a few options put together for me in the next couple days. Thanks for the help, I appreciate it.
Look at Surplus Center, Prince Priority Flow Divider RD575.
Were rebuilding another Grove 25/35 and I'm resealing the winch and brake, called a manitowoc factory owned store with seal part #s, 140 to 170 days out. Told them that I guess Ill be measuring they said yep their having to do just that more and more every day.
Spicer aux. had a little piece floating around in the bottom of the box. Evidently they didn't do the best clean up when they last repaired it. Need to order one new mount stud, they welded the other one into the box, trying to repair the crack.
New tool, it's a old used frame drill. I've always gotten by with hand drill , bridge reamers, or used mag drill. I've got two axles to install, one through the triple frame mack. The other one has the flatbed installed, and I think this will be easier to drill with, rather than removing the bed. Also got the planetaries and rear third member pulled. Found two broken bolts holding third member in. But everything else looked great.
Found a guy online with some vinyl sets for the linkbelt that got painted. They are on the way, so hopefully I can get them installed straight and not with huge bubbles in them. One set of safety stickers, and one set of manufacturing ones.
One of the guys volunteered to go for a ride Friday and Saturday. There was someone selling a lot of big shackles and rigging, and the price finally dropped to where I was the buyer. Of course it was in Texas, so my guy didn't have to do a lot of arm twisting, for me to let him go. I haven't seen the stuff yet, but I bet he has a pickup full.
Wow.. nice haul.!!
I wonder what refinery turn around is missing all their rigging? Haha. That’s good stuff.
I had that same exact thought. That some project, when it got done, all those gang boxes fell into someone's truck. It has been for sale at a really high price, for over a year. So if it was stolen, the former owner has had plenty of time to find it.
Try flint hydraulics in Memphis for the pump. They can normally make it by the grove part number.
I got a pump from them once, it was not a great experience. After installation, and discovering it wasn't working, I disassembled it, and found that it was put together wrong. At least I think it was them in memphis. I'll have to look back. I'm wrong, I think it was a different place. I'll give Flint a call tuesday and see if they can help. Thanks.
I don't know that I'd completely write them off based on that. I've gotten bad stuff out of the box from multiple places. Right now I've been sent the wrong part twice. They keep transposing the part numbers. 1275 is what I need. 1725 is what they keep sending.
I don't think it was Flint that sent me the pump that was assembled wrong, sorry if I wasn't clear about that. I think it was a different memphis shop.
I would however like to voice a separate complaint. Its gotten harder and harder to call a business, and actually talk to a person at that location. I recently had a go around with a local rental car company, and the only way to talk to someone at that location, is to drive there and walk in the door. There's a local phone number, but it only gets you to a AI response, then a call center in southeast asia. Years ago, you had to take the horse to town to talk to someone. Then the telephone eliminated that. Cell phone meant you weren't tied down to your own house, to call someone and talk to them. Now we are back to having to drive to town, to talk to someone. Ain't progress great?
There is a KBR equipment yard here locally that regularly auctions tools, equipment and vehicles. Apparently once a large project is completed all the tools go to one of their yards and sold. Auction company puts all the gear in lots to bid on. Pretty common to find rigging like that in the lots. KBR International Construction Company Surplus Auction - Tools, Equipment and Safety Gear Pearce Auction Online KBR Construction Safety Gear Equipment Industrial Tools www.auctionbypearce.com A guy has opened up a small store in the strip mall down the street re-selling the items KBR auctions off.
What's the store called? Might have to check it out in my travels south.
IIRC it's called Tools and More located in the strip mall on HWY 31 close to KBR's yard in Saginaw.
Trying to load this oversized tank, on a pretty pete. First we were going to lay it down. Then they decided to keep it upright. So we loaded it upright, and no one's happy. After a bunch of measurements, kicking rocks and hem hawing around, we're back to laying it down.So it's getting laid down but in saddles, but they have to build the saddles.... Anyway, nice truck, the trailer is pretty fancy too. It extends, rear steer like a goldhofer, and has a deck insert. If he puts the insert in, says he can almost get 60' in the well .
4 hours later......
I wish these Link belt 40 tons had a heavier rear suspension. We've worked on both of ours, and they were repaired before we got them. It's a raydan suspension, and evidently they put a lot of strain on the top arm. We are pretty heavy on the rears, but I've had no trouble with our groves which are similar weight, with a real similar Hendrickson suspension. But we struggle holding together the raydan.
Is swapping suspension to a Hendrickson a possibility to resolve your issue?
It would all have to be welded into place. The frame rails are a boxed structure and the suspensions are welded in. It could be done, but its not quite like drilling a couple holes and bolting it in. Just probably keep shoving the damage around to a different place. They were originally bolted to the third member. Kept breaking bolts, so its now welded up. You can see in the second picture that this one has already been repaired by a previous owner on the frame rail. I've got it rewelded onto the third member, and I'm going to gusset it all. Probably break next on the frame rail, it looks like the next weakest link.
I always like to make the weakest link in the chain something easy to repair. I have experienced making one broken part stronger only to discover the next weak spot.
That break looks like a very poor attempt at welding. It should be beveled with a slight gap to ensure 100% penetration. Preheat wouldn't hurt either. Looks like there wasn't anything holding on the bottom for a long time. I've looked at several suspensions when looking at dump trucks and some like Neway(sp), Rayco and others look very light duty compared to Hendricksen or Mack suspension.
Who made the frame drill? I have never seen one, sure looks handy. Can you post more pics of it?
I'll get some pictures of it. A local big truck shop has one that is built very similar. I'm sure this one is homemade. Looks like the axis' are made from a old mill. Vertical and horizontal.
No frame drill pics, sorry I forgot. A crane that I got splattered with ancient 80-90, working on a asphalt leg. Pulled motor and gearbox off the top, and it rained all over the crane. It stunk way worse than it looks in the picture. Security system at a jobsite. Says it monitors 24-7 and it direct calls the sheriff if it has motion. How it doesn't pick up deer, I don't know. Maybe it sends signal to a 24 hour monitor station first before calling. Jobsite super says it already got some copper thieves. Who didn't get charged, but they may just move to easier pickings. And a flagpole set. Ironworkers had a 185' lift and I had to put jib on.
A cedar barrel sauna we put on the backside of a house. Hobbit door on one side, and a big window to look at the lake in the other side. Trusses. A fancy arborist lift, we had to put it on the other size of a retaining wall, so they could access a tree. We couldn't get to the tree with the crane, because there were power lines in the way. A vehicle lost its enclosed trailer going down the highway. It went across a parking lot, across the truck scale, and crashed into the feed store..... No one got hurt, it was before the feed store opened, but we've got downspouts and feed bins to scrap.
Those Spyderlifts are crazy expensive. I tried renting one last year for a job and was quoted $3,000/day. I ended up getting a towable 72' lift for around $600/day.
Seems a little dumb to advertise the security system. Gives thieves a warning but can also make them look at ways to disable it or get around it.
But they will go places that you will never get a towable lift into. I think for a lot of arborist, they are more useful than a bucket truck. Sure nicer to put into a yard. But yes, they are not cheap. I think this one was around $130,000.
The idea isn't really to catch the thieves. Its to direct them to easier pickings.
Had a few trees taken down at my personal home a few years ago that would've been climbers but tree company had one of those. Brough it in on a little KW roll-back and they were in and out before lunch. 1 of the trees was a pine 3' dia at breast height that was struck by lighting. Super easy and very safe compared to climbers and rope.
That's the hope anyway. Some thieves are pretty brazen.
Frame drill
New generator. 17,000lbs. Was told I could set right beside it, so I took the 40 ton. Jobsite trip= 45' radius= making one of my guys go get the 90ton to set it. Bought some new chains and binders, I don't know where all the chains and binders go, but they seem to grow legs and walk away. Also in the corner you can see my junkyard purchases of a hyd. pump and PTO box. Setting up pto on the mack titan. Trusses and trusses in the trees.
bit late, but a photo of a crane inside the mall. this time for the scrapping of mind bender
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That RT crane is a little smaller than the 30 ton P&H truck crane that installed the spinning coaster. I'm sure they reinforced the floor from underneath with jack stands in a similar way. I'm curious how much the dismantling cost. A little bit further right of your pic. is the dented H beam support marked RIP for when a rider was killed and others seriously injured when the cars came off the track. A couple years ago there were pics. in the paper of where my former boss, who was an ironworker on the Mindbender, wrote a love note to his wife and kids. I think a pic. of the RIP on the dent would have been more interesting. I think the owners should have been forced into bankruptcy. Only a bunch of absolute morons wouldn't think to translate the maintenance manual from German to English!! Unbelievable is an understatement!!!
it was translated I believe, but was translated poorly, same thing happened over 40 years later in mexico. on a clone of the ride called "quimera". this video explains it quite well.
Conex house shipped in, tight site with trees and power lines.
Hvac units, a pool, and a problem.
Engine oil leaks at rear, between block and flywheel housing. Have a used housing found, have to find my rear main seal installing tool. Housing has seen better days.
Any idea on the cause , surly not frame twist is it ?
Bolts weren't overly tight. I would guess it was moving. 4-5 years ago we did rear main, and it had broken bolts in it then., It had two broken bolts in it now.
If you cant find on local i have one thats headed to for junk. Yours for the taking.
Thanks Tyler, we got one picked up from our engine parts guy on Friday. I appreciate the offer. It uses a gasket where the pan meets it, but there is no gasket available for where it bolts to the block. I think we are just going to permatex gasket maker on it.
If in not misstaken loctite 2892 is whats called for. Permatex probably has a cross
What's down over that hill? Well there's a crane down there and a bunch of boxes. Semi's with the boxes got unloaded a mile away. Straight trucks making a loop bringing the boxes down the hill. I didn't think they would get them all set in a day, but they did.
Spicer 4 speed has a bad shift knob and needed some seals in the rebuilt gearbox. No availability from spicer / tremec on the knob seals. Well, actually available just not for 90-120 days. Kind of stared at the knob, and its the same knob the mack 12 speeds, just different labels. Thought maybe the mack man would be able to save us. mack dealer parts guy said "we don't really deal with any manual transmissions anymore".... Fleet pride man came through with some extra part #'s, and I actually found a reseal kit from weller's. So that's the solution for the air shifter. This is what the old mack one's look like, and its the same as the spicer.
The guys whipped out this one the other day. Tight spot and no headroom. Its a dehumidifier for a indoor pool room . There's a 4' concrete wall, so it kind of dropped down into that room.
Two days moving conexes this week. 12 on one job and 7 on a different job. Hauled most of them on the pete and rollback trailer, so between that and the concrete box job, spent 1/2 my week driving truck.
It’s great that a lot of us (especially you) have become really good at locating parts because more and more places are saying things like… "we don't really deal with any manual transmissions anymore".... The fact that they say that makes me laugh, they may not but a lot of people do….
In a lot of ways, the Internet has made it much easier to locate parts, because there's a much wider area, that you can search. But somehow you still need to come up with a part number. And unfortunately when companies change hands, a lot of times the old numbering system goes out the window, and your looking for updated/ superceded numbers. That's when it gets fun.
It will be a Unhappy Thanksgiving at crane operator's house if I don't get my rear in gear. We been having sewer issues and it's just going to get all new. Look out you ditch diggers, I'm branching out. I'm going to need a good laborer though, I can tell this morning, that I haven't run a spade in anger for a long, long time.
Oof, sounds like a poor time of year for that to happen.
Look at you - Rented a mini now all you need is a dually with custom extended studded wheels and a dump trailer you can haul that mini around in unchained and you're in the big league excavating business. Are you on sewer or septic? What do you think the problem is?
Dam from the looks of that I could have got to it with my plastic play sand shovel. Haha. -
Be glad the ground isn't frozen and covered with a foot of snow. How does running the excavator compare to running a crane?
Septic. And the problem is the big maple tree, that is right at the corner of the box. Which I should cut down, so it doesn't grow into my septic system, but it shades the house all summer, from about 3:00 until sundown. So I'm not going to cut down the maple tree, and this is the result of my refusing to cut the tree down. So the old line is all under rocks and tree roots, and I'm so glad I just got the mini. It would have taken me and 5 mexicans to dig it by hand. And I would have gotten worn out just watching them. I've run one before. Misspent youth and all. The machine was set up for idiot control pattern, and lucky for me, the Kubota has a pattern changer, which changed the controls to what is evidently the only pattern I can run.
It can be weird using different controls than what you're used to. I'm glad my Cat backhoe has excavator controls. It made running a mini-ex much easier.
If you look to the upper left , you can see my tower of concrete blocks. Which is the only thing holding the deck up , because it's rotted out where it attaches to the house. The offending maple is to the right. New pipe is in. Only thing left is to grout the PVC where it goes into the tank. Septic pump man is scheduled for Friday, once he gets the tank pumped, I can backfill it all. Looking like Thanksgiving may happen. The Mrs thinks it's a little cool for peeing in the woods.
Got the skip box doing extra duty, as my rock bedding box. Unfortunately it's kind of hand unloading only. It's a plywood bottom.
Bring it on. I'll save you the backfill and a turkey leg for your trouble
OK - You can't conjure up the great excavator pattern debate without saying which pattern you like better. It's just not proper HEF hijack etiquette. Seriously - See you added a clean out close to the house which it needs. I'm no plumber but you might want to change that 90 bend out where it goes into the tank with 2 - 45's. Poop and stuff tend to get clogged up in 90's. Where can I get one of those skid boxes? That would be handier than a shirt pocket for exactly what you are using it for. We need one that our CTL's can load and move with forks when we are laying small dia pipe with the 305's. One of those would've been a labor savor on the current project we are on.
Well, there's no debate on pattern, I'll settle it right now. I can only run excavator/ISO (left hand swing and stick, right hand bucket and boom), backhoe/SAE doesn't make sense and makes my head hurt, and everything goes the wrong way. I'm not sure why there's any debate. There's a second box / ledge over there where the 90 is, I could probably change it around, but that's the way it was. Of course "the way it was" shouldn't be the standard, because it was all jacked up. Now it is all PVC instead of green and a super thin flexible white plastic I've never seen, with mostly broken joints. Also it all runs downhill now, originally the long run was actually uphill to the box. Which I'm sure wasn't helping things to flow. I guess I ain't no plumber either, but I know I probably work cheaper than a plumber. I figure the new pipe cost was equal to hiring a roto rooter man. And now it's all new.
Well, bless your heart!
As for the steel box, it came with a bunch of steel chokers, from a auction years ago. It's made me more money than probably anything else I've bought. We use it mostly for commercial roofers. All their tools/trash/materials from the ground to the roof and back. I've got a fancy one now , with a hydraulic dump bottom, that we use for trash, but this one has given good service. It originally had a steel bottom on top of the forklift pockets, but it was all torn up when we got it. I cut it out and put in 3/4" marine plywood, and just put in new plywood when it gets bad. If you want to dig out of it, you would need a steel bottom. Sheet steel, angle iron, and some square tubing for the forklift pockets, and you'll be set. This one is roughly 4'x8' x 12" tall. You could put a arm and bar on it, so you can move it with the excavator bucket, just like the big bedding boxes.
Fascinating tidbit, there's 8 different lever / control patterns, just in cranes that I own. And I can run any of them without too much thinking. Which should tell you exactly what a poor unskilled dirt digger I am. I should probably only be allowed to use a shovel.
Looks like you did the job without any carnage!
In the dark last night, I put 2 dingers in the bark of the maple tree. Don't tell anyone. In my defense - the only light on the rental was on the bottom of the boom. Which is exactly the excuse, someone with less than stellar skills will make, when tearing things up.
I thought those fancy orange ones could run themselves?
Looks like some fencing work is in your future.
Oh there is debate. I think backhoe is better. I think there are 6 or so different excavator patterns around the world. Crazy on the crane patterns. The thin green pipe is probably the sewer and drain pipe they sell at the big box stores. Rubbish for anything draining something important like poop from your house. SCH 40 is the only way to go from house to septic IMO.
I need to start back perusing IP and see if I can pick up one. Probably wouldn't want to mimic a big one with a pull/lift arm as the mini probably wouldn't have enough ass to pull it much less lift it. Fork pockets would suffice since the CTL's are constantly going from bucket to forks.
To be honest, I have to really stop and think which does what with my pattern of preference, but if I get in one that is wrong I can't hit the ground with the bucket.....unless I don't want to. Funny thing is, if I get on a rubber tired backhoe I can switch pretty easily, but something with tracks I just as well get out and use a shovel. Years ago, before pattern changers, I worked for another contractor. They rented an additional machine for a bit. The husband/wife owners each ran equipment, but the wife actually ran excavators more than anyone else, and she had to have what we called John Deere controls (backwards!), so she had Cat switch the lines before going to get the machine. We needed to haul rip-rap from a source to a job on the river, and then we would move the rented machine over to the job from the source. I can't remember why, but she decided that I should load the rip-rap - on her dad's trucks - in which he had just installed new side boards. I profusely objected. So there I was loading this rip-rap. Ever so carefully, and literally doing one function at a time trying not to drop a big rock in/on the trucks. After a couple of days I could mostly be functional using the WRONG pattern, and we finshed hauling the rock without destroying the trucks. After that I was really screwed up regardless which pattern I used. My pea brain evidently does not have the capacity to compartmentalize joystick patterns. It took quite awhile running things the RIGHT way to become smooth again!
^all that is why I really like Case backhoes. No brain bending required. It is a whole different set of brain/machine instruction. EDIT: I really should say "case controls" because the first Cat 416 I operated had Case pedal and lever controls.
Seems I end up on Deere Backhoe to move Topsoil, Cat or Deere Track to load either raw fill dirt or clay, then Cat and or Deere Rubber Tired loaders then between a Oval D6 or a 7F to a HiTrack 6 and controls is what they are and I have to sit and toy a minute or three to not put a bucket tooth or cutting edge into something I do not want it in.
My Kubota excavator is the same as cat control. That is what I learned. At work we rented a mini to dig a little trench yrs ago that was the other flavor. I was ok with it until I forgot what machine I was in then I would bang the side of the trench. The good thing was I never hit the new building with the bucket.
Nice job saving Thanksgiving! Hope you had a nice day. So are you going to just change your screen name to “Operator” now??
Not quite. I know where my meager skill set lies. Although CM1995's suggestion of the wheel spacer, lifted, f450 with a fat tailpipe, custom tune and dump trailer, with a rental mini- sounds like the path to success, riches, and dancing girls, I'll muddle along with what I know.
One step away from being in da' big bitness! If you have any money left over after customizing the 450, Cat Financial is offering 0% for 36, 3.73% for 72 on all mini's - Practically giving them away!
The owner of that truck probably won't even drive it in the rain let alone pull a trailer. Just the opposite, carry it as a trailer queen.
Was this on Wednesday, NO lights, NO chains, one strap sort of across the bucket arms. Local Contractor, Half Ton pockup. I could see pickup tail lights but anything lower than the Road tractor I was driving they would have been blocked by the bucket.
You haven't seen the grass cuttin' young bucks around here with a dump trailer and a rental mini about to be a big time earth mover. Big bling wheels on spacers and a 10" exhaust pipe like Crane Op said.
A normal DWV 90 is acceptable there. SDR 35 is fine as long as it's somewhat deep and bedded well. The latter rarely happens in residential plumbing around here. Back when 4" SCH 40 was over $5/ft I welded together 100' or so of SDR 11 HDPE pipe that all had to sit on ledge rock down to the tank. It was under $2/ft and you can't hurt it.
A lot of the boxes are built like this, and a taper on one end makes them a lot easier to clean out, than what mine is. I would probably put some better pockets underneath it (square tube on the ends and at pallet fork distance). Angle iron or square/ rectangular tubing around the top edge will stiffen up the open edges if you build a box like the one in this picture. This is actually a picture from the KBR auction that you mentioned a while back. You missed out on this one, but it wouldn't be very hard to make one, or have a welding shop build one. Well after CM1995 mentioned it, I decided I would change it before it got buried. So its two 45's and a short straight section now. If its wrong its all on him.....
Not really a big deal here. We've been kind of cool, but 20's at night and mid 40's in the day. No snow or frost to deal with.
Pierce has a KBR auction a couple of times a year so I'll be on the watch. Probably pick up one cheaper than building one. That one looks wide enough for a CTL bucket not to spill out while dumping. I have several tons of angle iron mostly 3x4 and 4x4 left over from a Field and Stream built here several years ago that would work great to beef one of those up. If it were my sewer line running from my house I would've used two 45's. Some muni's here will not allow a 90 on a sewer lateral, DWV or not. Has to be 2 - 45's with 2x pipe diameter between them.
I haven't seen that requirement yet, but It's not a bad idea.
Hey Crane Op, is that cleanout a two way? It's not a huge deal if it isn't, but might make a plumber's day in the future if it is.
it is. Its a pretty open crawl space, and I don't see any reason one would have to clean out back into the house, but I was replacing it all and thought "why not?"
I had a low time U 25 mini for a couple years, so small but impressive in what it could do. i don't recall the op pattern, but after i learned on it, it's now the correct one. I only found out later as a new operator I should have never learned while on a steep slope and one with a side slope to boot. I sold it for what I paid for it, after putting 100 hours on it. I used that SDR thermal welded stuff on my 3" hydroelectric supply line. Laying right on the ground, real rocky ground, exposed to UV except where it's gotten overgrown, 1/4 mile, for 18 years now, zero issues.
TN State Law requires 4" schedule 40 from house to tank. We have to bush up from 3" at the house to 4" to the tank quite often. We alwas use two 45s to make a 90.
Hey Crane operator. Do you ever use these type of lifts. I saw this one set up at low country JCB in Savanahha, GA. I have seen similar units, maybe bigger, set up lifting materials and concrete buggies into 100' tall plus buildings. This says 80 but.. 513-67R and 513-83R PRO | JCB Rotating Telehandlers | JCB Introducing the 558R Pro – the new rotating telescopic handler from JCB. Boasting an additional 660 lbs of lift capacity, it has the strength to lift more, move more and help you get more done. www.jcb.com
Yeah, there's none here local. There's rentals available out of Kansas City- 3-4 hours away. A roofing crew brought in two of them to do a big apartment complex. Manitou and Merlo are the two I've been around. I think they are probably okay when they are brand new, but they are super finicky and complicated machines, not nearly as robust as a standard telehandler, they don't handle mud and poor jobsites like a lull or jlg telehandler. I think they would be okay if you treated it like a crane and just had one operator who knew the machine and kept after all the little things. But I think one would be a disaster as the "jobsite" telehandler with everyone and their dog running it- which is what happens with all the rental telehandlers. All that and they are eye wateringly expensive.
They look as if they would be pretty top-heavy for moving things around a site, which is probably part of what you meant by treating them like a crane instead of a telehandler.
They have a man basket that goes on them. Would be very handy for building a house.
I think a rotating telehandler ends up trying to be multiple machines (telehandler, crane, manlift) and in the trade offs involved- they end up doing none of the tasks well. It a pain as a manlift- because you have to have a operator in the seat all the time. They stink as a telehandler, they don't have the frame articulation and off road capabilities of a standard telehandler. Or the robustness. And they are a poor crane. They're slow and awkward, you can eat their lunch with a real crane. But, similar to a backhoe, you get to combine several machines into one. But I wouldn't spend my money on one.
I have seen one at a sales/rental yard in the Fraser Valley (BC) but never on a job site.
I was more referring to the idea that not everybody on the jobsite just jumps in the crane and makes a lift. Whereas with a telehandler, here a lot of general contractors just have one onsite and everybody feels free to hop on it and move pallets/ unload trucks etc. The rotating telehandlers are just enough more complicated, that I don't think just everybody should hop on one.
Seems like hiring a crane would be a much simpler solution if there's anything heavy to lift.
90 ton front glass in the upper is curved onto the roof. Rock got it a couple days ago. Link belt is $5,300, and a 3 week lead time. The crack was all below the curve, so we took it to the local glass guy. Cut it just below the curve, and made it a two piece. It actually looks much better than I thought it would.
Brilliant!
My guy running who runs the 90 ton, was sick about the glass being broke. I didn't think it was that big of a deal, and we would just get a new one. I really thought it would be $1,000 glass, then I just doubled it in my head, because "parts are expensive". He called the dealer and got the $5,300 number and I was a little shocked. I bet its a 1,500 glass, link belt doubles it from the glass company, then the dealer doubles it again.
After three or four excavator windows from rock cracks while hauling them I finally got a padded window cover for the front window. It's a pain in the rear to put on, but I haven't bought a $450 window since!
Wonder if the replacement was tempered glass? The glass guy did a great job!
Problem with glass is quite simple, couriers don't treat stuff with respect, so you have to charge double because the chances are the first pain is going to be broken when you get it, courier will wriggle out of paying for it by saying you didn't insure the individual consignment, so you have to bear the cost as the supplier, hence the price is so steep. we now just don't supply glass parts, it's easier than all the hassle involved.
I have a diamond plate windshield cover for my cab, people think it's for rocks or something, but it's for summertime bugs. Now in the habit of doing it, I use it year round. The first thing I do when setting up is take it off, the last thing before hitting the road, I have to deal with enough bugs on my plane's windshield already! When my lower cab window got broke, parked overnight at a truckstop (??) after some thought, trying to remember the last time I ever needed to look down at that angle, I replaced it with more deck plate, permanent. Only later did I worry about it passing my annual inspection, but it's never come up. Those newer single piece curved units look pricey! Mine's flat and if I ever do break it I'll go to a local glass shop I know of, I bet National wants at least 1 K for it.
The younger guy working for me is headed for operater certification next week. Written class and practical test. So got a test course set up and he's been practicing.
Been foggy and wet lately. People are going to be lost trying to find Taco Bell until the sign gets put back up. Porch beams and trusses
Yes, that road of broken boards and stacker rocks is going to be fine for equipment. Now if you could only get the lift past the septic tank
Now what boss
They had to lift and shove it back off the tank and hole, with a telehandler they had on site. Then regraded it all to get it to the other side of the house. I'm sure they broke some pvc lines. I think they stopped before they pushed the tank out of place.
Second pic. a multi-loop roller coaster? They tore apart the Mindbender triple loop coaster at West Edmonton Mall last year. It pretty much shook itself to death but was in operation for over 30 years. Tragically there was a fatal accident when the cars came off the track. I did a little welding on it back in 2007.
Just some maintenance.
you're a good man for raising them up.
I got no budget for rock! you got a budget for damage and broken things and lost time?
LMAO! Looks like the job we are on.
I'm sure they successfully avoided disturbing any utilities. A quick pass with a skid steer and they'll be ready to pave.
How did you know? They poured the slab inside the steel yesterday, a little #57 stone goes a long way.
Oh, you play the game a little while, and you can kind of see the future. Its amazing how easily that concrete cracks, considering that well prepared paste subsoil they use.
And speaking of concrete cracking, I'm not sure what sort of cheap filler quackery the concrete plants are using today, but I've been seeing a rash of really stress cracked fresh garage/ house floors. And its not the installers, because these guys have been pouring slabs for years.
Around here flyash is more expensive than Portland so they use slag now witch seems really stupid cause everything cracks anymore Not to mention subgrade prep sucks anymore
EPA put the hammer on Fly Ash here, contains "Some" Mercury. Clays are being used Extensively which make the Concrete more porous as been told.
What's with the curved I beams? Is that a house? What will the roof be? Or is it going to be a huge skylight?
Big lake house. I have no idea what the end plan is, and no one on the job site is really sure either. Because there are no plans, or dimension drawings, just a architectural rendering of the dream. They are making it up as they go along. There's no strict planning/ permit process out where the house is. Most of the framing and steel has been moved at least once. Walls gone, beams installed, steel columns moved. Owners come look and things change.
Daughters Prius laid down while she had winter break from college. There's a somewhat local expert on Prius, he's got a graveyard of bent and broken ones. But he wanted $600 just to do a diagnostic check, so a little Internet sleuthing and some parts cannon (it's not this, this or this, so it must be that). Anyway, it's running, and good thing , she's got my wife's Honda pilot, which evidently now won't start. So I got my cardboard box of tools, and we're going to try to swap broken toys this weekend.
The GC won't keep the lulls and manlifts off the subgrade, it rains they get on it and he we go. Schedule is more important that quality these days.
the undisturbed clay under 18" of borrow is fully plasticized and pumping in my carport, due to the wrecking ball of a forklift. When the forklift is gone, it will start to heal up. I can probably place that concrete about June.
You just need a crane guy to show up, and refuse to go in the mud hole. No crane, no rooftop HVAC. Presto- rock path from the road in to the crane set up area. Every job site needs a crane, we got to eat. The brickies can tear it all back up after we are gone.
I wish most GC's would get a crane to erect the steel. Hell we'd pick up extra work building the road and pad then use the rock later. Interesting side note - Bidding a Chik Fil A and reading through the owners directive absolutely no forks on the HVAC they have to use a crane and certify a crane was used.
Likely a fork tip in a coil ... and nobody said anything... Needed a crane to replace it. So, a crane in the first place. Of course, it was a forklift that put the unit on the truck to get to the site.
Whataburger is like that. We had to set something back down, so the site guy could restart his tablet, if his pictures/video wasn't right of the lift, they were going to spank him and take away his birthday.
They just don't pay you.
No one wants to pay for anything because apparently they know better than I how much money I am making on the job and need to just get it done
Probably the difference in a warehouse forklift operator loading units all day compared to the 18 year old newbie on the HVAC crew they just put in the seat of the forklift.
Suspension work. It's a raydan air over walking beam. I don't think the bushings were in as bad of shape as I thought.
Appear pretty solid!
They mostly had a lot of side to side play and wear. The uppers were totally shot a year ago, we replaced them, and I decided we needed to do the rest. It really needs a alignment, and I couldn't see that doing a lot of good with worn bushings. We had trouble getting the upper one, but all the lower stuff was in stock at fleet pride. We've got the press moved out of the back room, and going to try to get the beam loaded up into it tomorrow and push bushings. Can't really get the forklift in the back room, so press in main shop with the forklift to hold the beam.
That looks pretty similar to this retrofit for rubber pad suspension. Our lowboy tractor has the pad suspension and I considered converting pretty strongly about 6 or so years ago. At that time the kit was around $8k if memory serves. I wasn't sure if it would be worth it then. How do you like the ride of yours?
The raydan has the upper beam built a little different than the hendrickson. We've got two on raydan and two with hendrickson air over walking beam, and the raydan's are nothing but problems, and the hendricksons have been trouble free. The two with hendrickson, aren't as heavy (10k lighter gross) than the ones on raydan. My raydan's had been worked on before I bought them, and all the used ones I look at have been worked on also. I don't know why they don't hold up, but they don't. The hendrickson air over walking beam we have is similar to your picture, but I think the bags are slightly more rear of center, and the center pivot of the lower arm looks different. If I was replacing a pad suspension, I'd probably just buy a cutoff rear with neway or hendrickson 4 bag, and call it a day. You can get 46- 52's in 4 bag. Our new lowboy truck is 75,000 rears with 4 bag neway. If 4 bag just doesn't have enough articulation for your use, I'd do a chalmers. Find a cutoff with the same rears you have, and its a great spare parts source, or get rears that are a heavier, or a gear ratio you want better than what you have now. Used cutoff's are usually $2,500-4,500. I bet that rubber pad beats you to pieces empty. I used to run around all the time with just a walking beam under my old groves, but they were never empty. We put a air tag on the rear of one, and that tamed the bouncing a little.
We have chalmers on our dump truck. It really needs new beams and saddles welded on. On our lowboy tractor we have 2 speed 46K rears that I really like with 4.10 and 5.29. We don't use the low ratio that often but it sure is a clutch saver when pulling our 345 out of soft ground. If it weren't for that I'd do as you say and get a cut off with lockers. It is a bit rough empty, but rides decent loaded.
2 speed eaton rears? If you like what you have, just find a cut off with the same axles you have now, and you would have a instant full set of spare parts. Axles, diffs, housings. You would have to get used to dumping and raising suspension for loading and unloading. And I guess to answer your original question, if I was retrofitting a road tractor, it wouldn't be with a air over walking beam suspension. They are overly complicated, and don't ride anything like a 4 bag. They are kind of nice in the crane, because if someone forgets to dump the bags when going up on outriggers, they don't have enough articulation to burst the bags. They do have a little better offroad traction than a 4 bag. None of my 4 have crosslocks.
Kick the tires and light the fires boys, today we're on the (cue music) "Highway to the"
This gauge encourages you to push the limit by it's design. I can visualize someone, somewhere taking a Sharpie and marking it, or just knowing they can take it to the "R" haha
Government changed the cement specs last year. Running change, didn't you get the notification? It won't hurt anything if we put 10% unfired limestone in the cement. New spec is type 1L, type 1-2 is no longer available. Gotta be green folks, even if you have to run 10% more cement in the batch.
Looks like the gauge off of a rail puller
They skipped telling me. I have no idea what it came off, but I can't help chuckling a little when I see that gauge. I'm kind of simple, its the little things that make me laugh.
Guess who isn't as ready for cold weather as they should be. It's started to snow, wind is picking up, and I'm out discovering if the RT we got last spring even has a block heater. It does, but the cord isn't going to pass inspection
I dealt with a gelled fuel filter and a frozen starter on my personal machines last night. I gave up on Bobcat fuel filter. I was able to get a propane heater on the backhoe starter for 30 minutes which had the block heater plugged in for a couple hours already when I found the starter was froze. After getting the starter to roll, I still had to give it a whiff of ether to light off. I'm glad it did because I had 12-24" drifts all along my 550ft driveway that needed to be cleared last night because I couldn't get the vehicles up to the house. I'm glad next week is supposed to be 40°F.
So the reason I'm out finding a way to plug in the RT. A customer was scheduled for wed, thurs friday of this week, and we are getting snow and cold. I called and "how about we start monday?" Well, they are behind on the project and the general is up their rear, "we need to make it look like we are trying, can you skip wednesday and try on thursday/ friday?" 2 below wednesday morning, Thursday's forcast is 10 below F in the morning, with a high of 13. Supposed to be 55 degrees on monday. I think if they "want to make a show", they can just show up and shovel all the snow off the steel and clear the pad. Monday sounds a lot more likely to get some work done.
Too cold safety concern!
Amen to that- I don't even know if the heater works in the cab! It would be one thing, if it was going to be 10-20 degrees for the next two months. But its going to be in the 50's next week.
Yeah, when it’s that cold nothing goes well. You’re spot on to wait. It’s not your fault they’re running behind and need to put on a “show”. You’d be the one wishing you hadn’t. Monday sounds a lot better to me.
I get this every time there is a storm, "generator broke during the storm can you come fix it right away?" How much snow is on the ground? "about 3 feet and 4wd Subarus have packed it to a bobsled track" Did commercial power come back? "Yeah it's back on but it might go out again at any minute" I'll come when the snow gets plowed. Get there after the snow is plowed. Did commercial power go out in the meantime? "No it stayed on the whole time"
I really don't enjoy the "everything is a emergency" type of customers. I ran into a guy a week or so ago, who only uses us, when he needs someone with insurance, his regular "crane guy" doesn't have insurance, but he's cheap. Whatever, he "needed" me first thing monday morning, because the cheap guy isn't available. Well, he's not available because he dumped his crane for the third time, and we had to go load out the quarry equipment he dumped his crane on top of. So his emergency, isn't really my problem. If I'm available, fine, but I'm not moving jobs around to fix his problems. In other news, the NCCCO test went good for one of my guys, so he's one step closer. Also, monday wasn't a great day, car ran into the lowboy (just a scraped bumper). And one of the other guys had the HVAC cart in his pickup, and dinged the awning at Sonic, forgetting he had it in the back (its not over height, just taller than the short awning). Things happen in 3's, so I'm waiting on the last one.
Raydan suspension is back in. Steel job for the RT is starting monday. They wanted friday, but called thursday because they stuck a manlift. So we're right back where I thought we would be. I told the general to push all the snow off the pad, so it wouldn't sink in as it melts, that jobsite doesn't drain well. They pushed 1/2 of it, parked the compact track loader with the tracks full of snow, and (surprise surprise) it was frozen the next morning. Left for Kansas city at 1:30 on friday afternoon, the rebuilt steering box was back in, and this way it can get reinstalled on monday. Love Friday afternoon traffic, but it wasn't that bad. Weather is looking good, 50's and 60's for the high's this week.
Those are the types of clients we don't want nor need. Let them get by the with bottom feeders. The other can be cheaper if he's not carrying the insurance. Congrats on your guy's test.
Guys had the 100 ton out, and I've been setting steel in a mud hole.
Been having a little work done on the house. Lumberyard delivery forklift had a hose blow, scattered a pallet (no check valve on the donkey?)and evidently left it run a little, figuring out what was wrong. Of course it was Friday afternoon when it blew, I got home and wife was " they said they would be back Monday to fix it". I got a bunch of oil dry, they're lucky I don't have a brand new driveway, and that I've seen a oil leak before.
So what was in Crate that appears exploded?
left over siding. They had it all stacked on the pallet, I think the forklift guy was turning and it was over the carpenters job trailer when the hose let loose. Be surprised if a bunch of it isn't broken.
That sucks. And they just thought it would be OK to leave all that oil until Monday...the risk manager inside me just got full body chills. They are lucky you are the customer and not someone out of the general public. Morgan and Morgan would love a slip and fall from a lumber company with a big GL policy.
I sent a picture of the spill to my contractor, and the "we'll be back monday" info. He texted me back "I've made a call, they're coming". Of course I already had it all covered up, but it happened about 2, I didn't get home until 5, and they really weren't going to do anything until I sent pictures to the contractor. I think the delivery guy understated the mess he left, and well- it was friday afternoon. Another truck showed up around 7, and loaded up what was left of the pallet, and the regional rep was with the driver, apologizing, as well as hoping I wasn't going to throw a fit. But I really shouldn't have had to make a call about it. I understand things happen, but I wouldn't have left someone else a mess all weekend.
It would be one thing to do that on a commercial or industrial job but to leave that at someone's residence is ridiculous. Should have been out there with oil dry or pig mats or steam cleaner right away
Any truck dragging HE around here has to have pig mats or bundles of absorbent sheets or oil dry or all the above. Ignorant they did not have. Also ignorant they were not on the phone to the office and awaiting cleaning help.
Old place that I used to work, spill kits showed up one Monday morning. They were in a nice plastic container with a lid, had socks, pig mats and some oil dry. Only problem was the container was the size of a 55 gallon drum cut in 1/2. I didn't have room in the crane for my lunchbox, let alone 1/2 a 55 gallon drum. I think they all ended up in the out building and never did get put in anything- except the boom trucks, because no one else had room for them.
The 15' tall wooden stand under this playhouse is all rotted out. They said it would sway 6-8" in the wind. We got it rigged up and set on the ground in a different location.
Not much for Diagonal bracing either.
That was a big part of the problem. When we originally put it up, framers and I both told them it was wrong, but that's how the designer showed it on the drawings.
What did it weigh? 3-4k pounds?
Arky Tex, no basic knowledge of rules to build things, just design them Dogpatch USA stuff.
Its kind of deceptive in the pictures. That's around 12-13,000 lbs, just the upper house part. Upper part is over 20'x20' (the white spreader bar is 20'), the base of the house part is 12'x12' built of timber framing. That's my 100 ton crane with 114' of boom. Rigging, beam and block I was over 16,000lbs gross. It was over 45' tall. Would have ruined a bystanders whole day, if it would have come off the stand in the wind. The corner poles of the stand should have been 5"x 5" steel or 6x6, and then they could have welded in the xbracing, and then sheathed it all in wood to get the timber look. As built, it was a accident waiting to happen. I'm glad they decided to bring it down.
Nicely done. Keep that stuff out of the news
Lowboy trailer needs some work on the neck. The more I look at it, the more problems I see. It's got some cracks where the cylinder mount crossbar is. It is going to need a new 5th wheel plate and pin. Has some problems down in the pivot pin area also. I'm going to quit looking at it. One of the guys went for a little run in the titan, once it got warm, discovered the radiator has been poorly repaired, so new radiator is here. Radiator repair shop said the old one wasn't really repairable. And the last picture is a little paying work at the asphalt plant.
Blending drum Blower?
Yeah, they put in a new one, and the outer drum wasn't quite fitting right. I gave them just enough lift to get it shimmed.
Old plate isn't setting very square on the 5th wheel anymore, with this much bend in it. Been thinking about adding some crossbars in.
Been a Little Rough on the RGN
Yeah, trailer was pretty used when we got it. I think a little welding on it will help. Unfortunately, most of the used trailers I look at, are in far worse shape than mine. So, either fix what I got, buy someone else's different set of problems, or save up for a new one. I don't use it enough, to justify a new trailer, so fixing it is. My main rails and cross members are good. It's got good brakes, tires, and deck. Some 1/4" plate and a pin and we'll be back rolling.
Are you happy with your king pin setting? Be a great time to change it if not.
We replaced the plate and king pin bosses on mine last summer. I agonized for weeks about relocating the back pin and was going to have the welder move it forward a few inches. I decided to leave it where it is because there are lots of times I want to maximize the weight on the drivers when crawling around in the woods and some things like the grader are already as far forward as possible. Now there are times I wish I had moved it forward about 4 inches to move the 5th wheel forward a couple more notches and get a little more weight on the steer when the drop axle is down but overall it works pretty well the way it is. I even thought about adding a third boss somewhere in between, maybe six inches ahead of the back boss but there is a crossmember in the way. In the end I still can't decide what would be best, except the third kingpin location would have been sweet. My ideal lowboy would have three pin positions and any combination of axles that could be lifted or lowered, but I think that would be a plumbing nightmare.
We have two settings on ours. I have the pin in the front setting and never move it. I would have to move the fifth wheel back quite a ways to use the rear setting for swing clearance. If I had a load that was just barely heavy on the trailer and light on the drives I'd move it, but most all of our loads are on our permit anyway, so we don't need to mess with it.
I don't think I'm going to change the pin location. The neck isnt very long on mine. If anything, I would want another pin further ahead, but the 5th wheel is right on the front of the plate/ trailer nose right now. So I would need to build on to the nose to add on. Or build a flip nose. I did a little job this morning, and been making smoke getting the plat cut off. I knew it would be a pain. It was. At least I have the galion shoved in the door, and with it and the forklift, it's not too much work to flip it around.
Then the gas axe came Out!
I looked at that before I went back and read and thought,,,,, whorley flock. That is quite the contraption.
I might have wanted to get both ends of that bar disconnected and down the road before a breeze comes by
This solidifies my choice to hire all our big iron moves out. Pay from point A to point B then send him on his way. Helps we don't move that often..
I have a plasma cutter, but this has old grease/paint/ hydraulic oil all over, and I just get along better with the torch. You don't just need a truck, you need a whole fleet of trucks. My schedule changes all the time due to weather/ shipping/ building schedules, and its just too hard to hire. I occasionally have my stuff moved, but its just easier to have my own truck and trailer. If I moved less than 10 times a year, I wouldn't own a truck either.
I think I may upsize the steel thickness for the kingpin plate. The old plate wasn't even 1/4". I could easily get a plate of 3/8 or even 1/2" Would make it much less likely to rebend.
No kidding? Not the place I would figure on skimping on metal.
I have had no luck hiring it out. Part of my problem is I often dont know until I need it tomorrow. Moving our Rt crane to an emergency job is what I normally need. I have ended up driving it 6 or 7 miles at times. Crane op, Did you go back with a heavier plate? I still need a trailer like yours. This gives me another thing to look for when buying a used one.
This didnt show up until after I asked the above question. Using a higher grade steel plate would also help.
I haven't bought plate yet. They make different kingpins for different thickness of plate. I thought I would see what I can get for a kingpin, before I bought the plate. I actually don't think this is original plate, I'm under the old plate now, and I can see where they cut one off before.
3/8 AR should work fine for that.
Totally under stand that in your and CO's type of work. If we moved monthly or even weekly I'd have to have a lowboy. I'd like to buy a new/newer dump truck to pull our small stuff around when we need it but trucks cost so much that it would have to be rolling all the time to pay for it and I don't have the time as the only CDL holder to keep it busy. The cost to move that 325 to the HD job you removed the trees at was less than $1K one way. That's like 4-5 hours round trip for the lowboy.
That's pretty reasonable cost wise for the HD job move. Thanks again for the tree work on that. I already have a tandem axle international 8100 semi but I really dont want to spend $25k or more on a trailer I need 4 or 5 times a year. I have a smaller fixed neck tilt lowboy for smaller equipment such as my steel track loader. I really don't want to deal with an rgn for that kinda stuff. I also bought a dumpster trailer for hauling behind the same semi. Maybe one of these days I'll buy a dumpster. Due to some employee changes, I'm now the only cdl holder, again. Cdl stuff has been a thorn in my side for years. Having to make a return trip to our shop so I can drive the second cdl vehicle we need on most jobs is getting old pretty fast.
I'm not sure if an Arcair gouger would have made removing that plate easier or not. They're great for removing welds but not if the shower of sparks comes back on you. Still a bunch of grinding which is never fun. Good that you could flip it. Would be a royal PIA if you had to cut overhead.
Ive been a torch guy all my life to. I used to scoff at plasma cutters ,the kerf is always messy on hand cuts compared to torching. After working around the ship demo projects and watching the burners using plasma on rust paint and oily steel i went and bought a Hypertherm 4500,it cuts up to 3/4 plate and gouges pretty well on lighter welds like your 5th wheel plate.You need the right tips for gouging,but when you get onto it theres a lot less smoke and faster starts than the torch. You cant beat my old 400 A.Lincoln and some 3/8 carbons for plowing off heavy welds but its pretty noisy and dusty. Id watch AR plate ,it can be brittle and crack. QT (quench & tempered) 100,000 yield would be my choice .
I think my hypertherm is rated to 1". But anything over 5/8" and I can cut faster with a torch. I like using the torch because I can wash down the weld and old /scrap portion of plate, and see when I'm up to the material/ beam that I want to keep. I don't know if I can do that with a plasma. I'll have to try it sometime.
With a gouging tip you could.
I just worked on one of our mulch delivery trucks replacing the steel sides that were stitch welded onto the 3” channel uprights. I used the gouging tip on the plasma cutter to blow the welds off and you could see perfectly where the sheet steel was welded to the channel while blowing the welds off. Takes a minute to get the hang of it but once you do, it works very well.
You're welcome, ya'll did a great job.
I bought the hypertherm to split some H pile into long Tees that neede to be dead straight . I bought the consumables with it including the gouging tip. Gouging never worked at first,I thought it was BS that you could gouge with them. Finally read the book and discovered that faint button on the front panel that switches it to gouge .It worked like a hot dam . I know what you mean by being able to spot the base metal when you wash with the torch ,you get warning when your close. The good thing is ,the plasma usually wont melt those plastic air lines you forgot that were on the other side of the plate.
I have washing and gouging consumables for my plasma and like the plasma more for both tasks over a torch, but I'm weird and have been using a plasma just as long as a torch. Hypertherm makes a flush cut tip that's pretty cool too, but It might be just for their SYNC machines.
I'm gonna have to try a gouging tip next time I have to cut a bearing off a shaft. I prefer plasma over torch for everything except that but maybe they would make it easier
Cutting the bearing race off a shaft is one job id be very careful doing with plasma. The plasma will cut the shaft a lot quicker than a torch in a finnicky application like that. with the torch the bearing goes red hot just before you get into the shaft. Every tool has its place.
yes I can't imagine licking a part off like that with a plasma. That is what torches are for. I have done and watched things like licking a bolt out of threads without harming them.
Thanks to you guys, I now spend my nights agonizing over my pin location. I could move it ahead a little, but then I need to gusset the plate off the front, and it will be worse on my other truck. 3" forward, 3" back. I didn't even know I had a problem until you guys brought it up.
We're here to help.
2020 Ford f150. 10r80 transmission. Bought used with 100,000 miles. Has always had a hard 3-4 and 7-8 shift. Dropped pan, changed filter, reused pan gasket (supposedly the rubber gasket makes it reusable). After changing it would go into neutral in 10th at high speed, and puke the new ATF all over the exhaust. New gasket today, and come to find out, the guys put in LV motor craft ATF, instead of ULV transmission fluid. ULV is thinner than LV. New gasket and the correct fluid and it's back shifting correctly. Good thing because replacement transmission for these 10 speeds are $$$. Local transmission wholesaler doesn't even offer them, dealer is $5,300 reman and 5,700 for a new one. I didn't realize how bad this 10 speed was shifting, but I drove one of my guys 6 speeds the other day, and didn't have the typical "shift kit" hard shifts that this 10 speed kicks you with. The 6 speeds are a lot smoother transmission.
Hmm, I've driven my father in laws 2021 F150 with the 10 speed. I couldn't hardly feel it shift, that entire truck is smooth, but for $50,000 or more, it had better be.
It shifts sometimes pretty nice, but start reading up on cdf drum issues, valve and adaptive learning, and you'll get the idea that it's only a matter of time until a 10r80 needs replaced. When it doesn't shift nice, it clunks and hits hard . We're going to fool around with forscan and the adaptive learning system a little. But the 10r80- they don't have a great reputation. Surprisingly, gm trucks share this transmission, and there aren't near the problems in the gm, which leaves me thinking a lot of the issues are with the programming, which gm and Ford don't share. I bought the truck at 100,000 miles, so mine is a $20,000 truck instead of a $60,000 truck. So I suppose I should be able to swing a $5,500 transmission. I think the 2017 that one of my guys now drives, was a better truck than this one is .
I haven't studied any of the newer trucks. My newest is a 2012 Expedition that runs just fine and I have no intention of replacing.
Those 10 speeds were a "joint" venture with. GM & Ford.....up to a point. Theres many differences between them internally.The cooperation only went so far. Ed
If you get the right setup, Plasma is easier to do that with than the torch. I have both and still use both. Get the right stuff for the plasma and you'll wonder why you hadn't already been doing it that way. Plus with the plasma you never run out of gas in the middle of the project.
First time I watched an old timer do that with a torch on the rear axle housing of an Allis Chamblers road grater, it blew my mind.
You can always get a kingpin that drops in and two sockets so you can move it to whatever location makes the most sense. That said, I have never run a removable kingpin trailer so there may be some downsides. I've mostly seen them on folding neck low boys and stuff setup to use a jeep.
I would think removing a bearing race you could stop short of gouging/cutting all the way through and then use a chisel to break the little bit left. Being able to see exactly what you're doing is the most important.
A good friend of mine is the shop foreman at a Ford dealer that sells a lot of trucks. He has a loaded 2020 F150 with a 10 speed but wishes it had the 6 speed. He said the 6 speed is a better transmission. I haven't had any issues with the 6 speed in my 2015 F150. It has approx. 175,000km. There was a recall on some early 6 speeds where they were downshifting abruptly but it never affected mine.
5 or 6 speeds is all that is needed for an automatic in a vocational truck with a narrow range engine. No way more speeds than that are needed for a pickup with a wide range engine, this is all just overcomplication for one reason or another.
Is there any pics that show Crane Operator actually working? I'm suspicious he is sitting in a recliner on these jobs with a foo-foo drink under an umbrella taking pics.
He's virtually working.
Transmission changes come down to model change where in 9 years all parts previous use can be discontinued, Planned Obsolescence to Sell more New(er) machines.
I had a Hino with a 6 speed that could have used more gears or a 2 speed axle. 1st gear and reverse were too high for anything off pavement. More HP would have helped too. I would have kept it if had lower gearing. It got great mileage.
Most vocational trucks are geared too high. For instance they often come with something like a 5.3 but a 5.8 would often be more useful. Allsion has a 0.65 OD ratio in 6th, even then it's OK if the engine is spinning pretty fast at 65 mph because you hardly get up to that speed, it is not a large car that needs to stroll on the superslab across Wyoming, you would rather have it work good down and dirty in the mud.
Just for you big boy. I figured you for a titalating feet picture kind of guy.
I'm thinking about getting a couple of these t300 bobcat crawler tower cranes. They look like they would better match my deteriorating skill set.
Missing the coffee cup with an umbrella in it........
There used to be a crane outfit I worked with, that had one of these grove truck mounts. It was on a little mack if I remember right. This one popped up for sale. Its got the great detroit 8.2 downstairs. I think ford industrial upstairs. 60' of main and 20' of A frame underswing jib. And a narrow outrigger footprint. They're asking $30,000 for this one, which is absolutely crazy, but she's been taken care of.
Did Ford use the 8.2 boat anchor? It looks like too small of truck to normally be a tandem axle?
It's cute!
I didn't think they did. Have seen several with the 7.8 Brazilian though. I always thought they were fairly descent engines until the parts supplies started drying up.
Good question Dave but yes was an option for Ford as well GM where have seen one Corn Queen IH/Navistar with the engine at the Utility I worked at. And yes ALL the above leaked as a typical DD. As to the Tandem version, that is not a non typical in the states, many city or state services used this size as tandems and are still a large number in farm service.
Seems like 30 would be a bargain.
Sort of. The 10R80/10L80 are identical other than GM started using their own valve body. The 3/4 ton and up 10L1000 and 10R140 are weirdly similar for not being a joint venture.
I haven't seen very many 8.2's in Ford's. I've only ever been around them in gm medium dutys. It's not the original truck under the crane. Grove didn't make very many of the truck mounts, I think they are 1969 to 1973 or so. I would say that Ford is mid late 80's. I don't think they made 8.2's later than that. They aren't very hard to change the truck out of.
Oh yes they did, out here they loved them. In fact I thought they were a trick that GM was playing on Ford to make people hate their trucks. They were probably the cheapest base engine to put in the medium of the era, but I don't know that. I am not aware of any old F-series of the era with an inline Ford engine in them, can someone confirm? I saw them in L series. Later when the inline dropped they started putting Cummins 5.9 and 8.3 in the F-series.
I rans some single axle dumps with the 5.9.
Ford had an inline 6, 6.6L Diesel as an option. The farm owned one for 20 years, and I still see F-Series trucks come for sale with them regularly around here. I would own one. They were not a power house, but they were very reliable. Ours ran over 20 years and we never did anything but change the oil. It started and ran great still when we sold it, we just needed bigger trucks. I kinda wish we had hung on to it for odd jobs like small deliveries or hauling scrap.
I remember the 8.2 Fuel Pincher, I think they were called, being an engine to avoid like the plague when I was looking for a single axle dump truck. Basically a grenade with an unpredictable fuse. Can't remember but weren't they basically a converted gas engine or designed like a gas engine?
8.2 wasnt a convert it was ok at best 3208 was better 7.8 was the best roll a set of bearings in at 200,ooo and keep rollin
It seems like in my area, the common for the smaller ford f500-700's had 5.9 and the bigger ones the 7.8. If someone is selling one, I want a picture of under the hood, because there could be anything under there. Oh for the days when you had myriad choices of engine in multiple body manufacturers. Today in the big truck world, its all railroaded.
The 8.2 and 3208 were from a prior era of engines than the 5.9 and 8.3. Not sure how the 6.6 and 7.8 fit in, probably a little in between. They had 3 axle water trucks around here with 6.6s, 54,000 lbs, up and down steep hills with a 10 speed and an exhaust brake, just the way it was back then.
Picture a 78 KW water truck with a 318 Detroit, a 3 axle tilt trailer and a JD200LC. Thank goodness it was flat ground.
We move our Deere 590D with an '85 L8000, 7.8L with an Allison MT653. it'll go, but it doesn't go fast. We rarely move the 590 though. Usually only in the winter for property line maintenance, and that's been a few years since we had to do that last.
Concrete contractor on my pours has a late 80s LN8000 tandem dump with a 7.8, been very reliable for them so just keep it working. Nothing out there has shown them any better.
I was talking with an old concrete guy the other day and we were laughing about how modern diesel pickups have more HP and torque than the early big trucks did. 1,000 ft lbs from less than 7 liters. The world went and got itself in a big damn hurry. Bonus points to anybody that can name the movie that line came from and double points for the character that said it!
Brooks in Shawshank James Whitmore
Winner winner chicken dinner!
No applause... just throw money!
Love that movie
Well we had two not make it home under their own power this week. KW t800 laid down with counterweights on the deck. Driver was on top of it and got it in a parking lot, crane pulled in beside him. I brought them one of the other trucks to swap the counterweights to, and then tried to limp it home while they went to a different job. I made it another 2-3 miles and went and got the rollback. Traced it down to a problematic ECM. I think. The liebherr gave up a 1/2 mile from the shop. Total dash blackout. Its got a emergency driving mode (toggle switches under a panel), and we hooked a different crane behind it for some hold back power and got it walked down the hill. Thanks to liebherr tech support, have it traced down to a bad dash panel, that has all the pushbuttons for the transmission, transfer case, suspension functions etc. Parts are supposed to be at my place tomorrow. All in all, both of them could have gone down in much worse places, and they are both back at the barn. Double drop plate and pin are back in, had to have a cylinder rebuilt also. Going to get a test load on it monday. After the liebherr gets put back together.
It looks like you're Mig welding with solid wire and welding left to right "pulling" the weld. Mig runs nicer and gives a flatter bead when "pushing" the weld. Try welding right to left with the Mig gun/nozzle pointed slightly back over the bead you just welded twisting your wrist slowly side to side to ensure good fusion on both sides. Some guys do little circles but a slow weave is easier in my opinion. Pushing with the arc ahead of the nozzle also let's you see what you're doing a lot better. You can see the joint you're welding and watch the arc at the same time. Keep the arc on the front of the puddle. It could make your welds look more consistent and flatten the profile. A little more wire speed/amps and volts would help too. More volts helps to flatten the bead. Just thought it was something you could try and it might make your welds a little nicer.
I didn't weld it Dave. One of the guys did.
It's something simple anyone could try to improve their Mig welding. Metal-core wire is generally pushed as well.
Sometimes I feel like , all we do is work to buy parts for the liebherr.
Rather Expensive?
Uggh. The reason I divorced Bobcat years ago and haven't looked back.
Oh, not as bad as you might think. It's a $2,000 panel. Liebherr had it in stock, and I had it the next day. And no dealer tech needed to hook a laptop up for any of it. It just seems like that is minimum price for fixing anything on it. It's never a $50.00 sensor, that I can get at O'Reilly's. And even though I whine a little about the cost, it went down Thursday afternoon, tech on the phone with my guy Friday morning, and parts Saturday morning, is better service than I would get with any other brand of All terrain crane. I might look at a grove or demag, but I will probably only buy a liebherr, simply because of their support. Any other brand, I would still be waiting until next week to see a tech, and the grove techs can be pretty hit and miss for their skill level.
Do you have any experience with Tadano cranes? The operating engineers training center here has a Tadano RT crane. They also have a Liebherr AT and Kobelco crawler. All bought brand new. The crawler was about $1.2 million and the Liebherr not far behind. I think they said around $800K. Don't know how much the Tadano was. I think it's a 25 ton but might be bigger. Those cranes don't get much use at all. I don't think the crawler has ever moved. The boom has been raised and lowered a bunch though. Must be nice to have that much money to buy all new current machines for training. I'd guess they have over $5mil. worth of equipment. .
After all my bragging on liebherr tech support, the liebherr part didn't fix the problem. I think its a relay or power module not sending power on. Unfortunately in all our goofing around, the dash came back up, and we can't recreate the original no dash power situation. We've got a fused jumper and toggle hooked up, so if it goes down again, we can hopefully get it off the road. Stormy here tomorrow, so no work, so some test driving around is in order.
Can you return the panel that didn't fix the problem or better to just keep it just in case?
Can offer, 90% of Electronics once bought are fully owned and most companies will not accept returns.
Supposedly, they will take the panel back, no restock fee. Just shipping. But I'll believe that when I see it. I think its probably ours and can go in the back room.
Something I wish I would have done and hope I start doing is writing on parts why we have them ? I have a new pair of boots in the box under my bed that I know there was a reason I didn't return ? or haven't worn them ? Its not that big of deal to lace them up and put them on I will do that but if I would have written a note i could have figured it out real easy.
Use the boots or drop them at a thrift store! My father went to his grave at 90 with 2 brand new pair of shoes in the closet because and I quote "there is nothing wrong with my current shoes". His "current shoes" had the sole litterally held on with 12ga copper wire rather than the stitching that had disintegrated from age.
If I can remember i will try them on tonight. It's just a funny deal . I need to take my Dads suits some were . I have gave all his and moms stuff away but the suits. I think there is 90 of them.
Oh yea... And ties... There were a couple hundred of those. Different world.
Been raining half of last week, so of course we can do all last weeks jobs Monday morning. Had to get a tree Sunday morning at a resort, it was lightning hit. But I don't think it was really healthy anymore, lost of rot in it. Monday I was at the quarry working on some crushers. And just so you think we weren't sitting at the house in last weeks rain, I was actually thinking we needed more shop space. Everybody had a project going on.
Seen a new style stemco cap today. Even got a tag on it, it doesn't have a oil hole, because it is for a greased axle. Of course once the tag is gone, I could just see someone trying to figure out how to put oil in it
Sitting and waiting on trucks this morning. The boxes were originally supposed to weigh 25. Then 28. Then 33. I was beginning to think I didn't have enough crane with me. But we are making it work.
Roll truck over in ditch check oil in high side hubs. C.O. your going to have to get that RT out one of these days , you havent even scratched the paint on top of the boom when you put the new cable on
It's been out to a few jobs. Enough jobs to find out all the things wrong with it. We got cable swapped, high / low working on the winches. Next on the list is to figure out why the transmission is stuck in high. Have fwd and rev and 4wd. Just no low range. I'm thinking/hoping it's coils, and not in the transmission itself.
Our crusher rebuild party.
You guys need to check out the vise on the back of the quarry service truck. It's a fireball hard tail, I think it's some machine shop/New company making a vise in the USA Quarry guy said it wasn't cheap ($1800) but it's a stout looking piece of hardware.. I have read about the vise, but this is the first one I've seen in person.
nice! a good vise and a good anvil are basic but rather important tools. Fireball Vises are expensive! Not sure which model that is, but it can range from about $1500 up to $5000 or so! That Fireball on the truck *can* be made in the USA, but the half price model that looks identical is made in Taiwan.
Fireball Tool has a utube channel. I got a kick out of him destroying vises.
gah, he destroys a lot of vises there. I have a Yost 865-DI - last of the American Made model of this vise. The new 865-D2 is made in Taiwan. I've had it 20+ years, doing well. I have a piece of 16" RailRoad tie from when they laid new rails here about 4-5 years ago. It's not American steel, not sure which country it came from, but you can sure beat the hell out of it, and it works fine as an anvil.
Fireball tool has a great series of videos regarding this vice and its creation on YouTube. I've been drooling over it for awhile, but I don't have that kind of coin available
As big as the vice is, it sure has a short handle.
It's like anything else, it depends on what your priorities are. On a $200,000 tandem service truck with a 14,000 lbs crane, a $1,800 vise or even twice that amount, is probably worth it. He uses it every day. When you are trying to buy cows and farms, a high dollar vise doesn't make a lot of sense. There's too many other places the money needs to go to.
If it's something that is used often and you don't want to be without then it's worth spending the money on high quality tools. On the other hand there are a lot of people who buy expensive tools like Snap-On as kind of status symbol rather than something they really need. I'd rather save the money for tools I really need. You don't need a $40 or $50 wrench to loosen the odd large hydraulic fitting.
true. I'm still using these odd wrenches that go from 3/4 to 3" in about 24 increments. Something I got from Harbor Freight 10-15 years ago. They look like fixed size blunted spud wrenches - the intent being to use them with cheater bars or pipe wrenches. I used them with 2 2' 1" pipes that have been kind of squashed at one end to hold the wrench handle. they work pretty good! cheap too.
The only snap on wrenches I own are their 4 way angle wrenches, the rest are napa or gearwrench but I also keep a 5 gal bucket of cheap auction wrenches in the back of the service truck because at least every other week I wind up having to cut one or bend one to get in awkward places
Disposable, modifiable tools from sales or HF or Anywhere cheap are always handy.
A lot of fireball stuff is really nice. I have some of their clamps. I don’t recall the name of them but one pair uses 1x2 rectangle tube and the other uses 1/2x1. They are stout and you can make them any size you need. No more carrying tons of clamps to cover all the sizes. Also have some of their squares.
I have really been close to pulling the trigger on a set of squares and all of the optional accessories that you can get with them but I just can't seem to do it yet.
it is doing a bully job holding up that short adjustable wrench and the smart phone! I have an old vice or two and an an old anvil. They are standing by for the new shop to come.
You got plans and room for a shop at the new place?
Mack Titan has some goofy looking air filters. They say Donaldson and Mack on them. Have some ordered that are supposed to fit, we'll see about that. I guess they had to have the cab aired up, just to get the passenger side one out. Also have some new steer rims and are going to play around with the steering boxes and axle stops. New rims are going to throw the tires out another 2", hopefully that can get us around some more corners without backing up. It turns a little too wide . If we can't get the turning radius down, next is sliding axles, and drilling triple frame is going to be a fun job.
Water wheel axle was mounted really poorly, broke the axle shaft. It was a all day deal reinforcing it.
The guys got a cell tower added onto the other day.
hey I know this is an approximation of a waterwheel.. but even so, the proportions look really wrong. good sized outside wheel, tiny spokes, tiny axle, immense columns. why have a column 2 or 3 feet wide to hold a 4" (at most) axle? pillow block bearing wouldn't take more than foot total really.
are there people in that basket doing the bolt-down? I never really thought about how these are assembled when they put up the tower. that is impressive. I've had to be around these things when they are live. man, you can get insane headaches from these rigs. was just setting up the radios on the ground for the LTE-based internet. the power these push is something else. Hope the lower baskets weren't lit up when you were working! I know there's no voltage on these towers, it's just the RFI that sucks to be around.
Not my circus. Not my monkeys. They can fix things any old way they want. All I care about is how I'm getting ahold of it to pick it up, or put it down.
yes I want a shop but I have not settled on what it will be. Plenty of room here. That first cell tower pic looks like it is a mobile tower growing out of that truck
If you need to drill the frame a compact 90 deg. Mag drill and annular cutter will make easy work of it. I spent a few month's building winch trucks and that's what they used. Could fit between the tires and the frame.
I think CO has a frame drill.
That shop is way to clean ..
Pretty easy to tell, its not my shop... Yes we do, and it works pretty slick. If you want to drill through brackets, its the ticket, vs using a mag drill. I think we are going to be okay though (with the titan), the new offset rims have made a big difference in turning radius. I'm hoping to hook up the trailer tomorrow and go for a run. It seems much better with just the truck.
Been a banner week. I hit a bump in one of the 40t linkbelts, and I tore the steering column. Had a customer drop a bolt from 150' and shatter a window of a building next door. Been working on the wiring for the outriggers of the white 40t grove, they headed out for a job, and evidently didn't get the wiring loom rezip tied up correctly. It pulled a 40 wire- electrical loom from the frame to the swivel, wrapping it nicely around the driveline. The yellow grove 40t had a commuter suv cut across two lanes and impale itself on the front bumper. No one got hurt, took a little rosebud, sledgehammer, and some gentle nudges from the broderson, and we have the bumper, and front end fender straightened back up. Galion hyd. tank repair refuses to do anything but perform its impression of a spring.
Buzzards were keeping a close eye on this job. It's up on the ridge and I bet they roost up there all the time. Pretty nice view from up top.
Damn CO,
Last Friday I finished a job for one of the guys who was going away for the weekend. I started the crane after lunch, and was just sure I smelled burning plastic. I was right, I had set my lunchbox right under the exhaust.
That wiring just looks like a nightmare to have to fix and a lot $$$$$$ too. There's wiring issues and then there's WIRING PROBLEMS! On the hydraulic tank if you can see where it's leaking use a torch to heat it so any oil residue that's in the immediate area is pushed away from the crack. If you have a stick welder I'd grind a slight groove and do a pass with 6010/6011. These rods have deep penetration but more importantly are good for oily, dirty or painted steel. You use a back and forth kind of whipping motion basically burning into the steel and then backing up to fill up the groove you just burned. Then I'd clean it good with a wire brush. If it looks good give it a light grinding. Best way to check if it leaks would be dye penetrant. If no leaks then you could run a bead of 7018 or even Mig over it. Trying to repair (oil) leaks with just Mig there is more chance of pinholes because it uses a shielding gas. I think stick is much better at shielding the puddle from contamination as long as the area to be repaired is cleaned and preheated to keep any oil residue away from the repair. If the leak was below the oil level would have empty the tank and it would be harder to keep oil residue away from the leak area.
Took me a practice tree but this one went right down the middle. I didn't want to move a bunch of junk. I was going to do this "later" but had a couple trees I couldn't really park a bunch more junk under and they were ,"when" and not if.
BIL called me Fr night, tree that sat alongside the old bus camp cabin gave up, fell on its own lengthwise to the bus luckily, rolled what was remaining of rootball up. May need my Allis farm tractor and forks to aid in removing sections of tree then drag off rootwad/stump. Old bus is more sunlight exposed now where he is considering CONEX box structuring to either side then trussing across them for permanent shade. Told him to reconsider a permanent Building, be cheaper in long run and more friendly overall.
That shack was safe. It was other stuff but we recovered it from another job and put it here as a "wood shed". Right now it's the mule shed. We are going to stack it full of processed , going to fill some of our other stuff. Stuff that and sheet over some and then paint the mule and possibly sell it depending on how/when/if I build a new stove.
having a rough go with shizzle, CO. Glad nobody was hurt with the accident and dropped bolt. 150' it is up to speed before that. Slim had a little car crossways of his bumper for a bit at a pretty good clip with a similar accident. They got put on there perfectly and out of sight from the seat.
Been working on taking down this amusement ride. Hopefully get it done this week
The guys got the wiring sorted out on the white grove. Took two of them two - three days to get the wiring straight, but it's fixed.
Parakeets Pete’s is no more. Was broken most of the time anyway. Lol
Looked like giant rope seal puller
Much rather take that down than put it up. " lets see, Tab A into slot B?"
I really want a grove 2535, but @HATCHEQUIP keeps snapping them all up. This is a Grove 1012, and it's going to be a yard crane for us. For swapping counterweight and spreader bars etc. Hopefully park in one spot and nest stuff around it. It came out of a local factory, supposedly a 1991, 3208 n/a cat, some kind of 5 speed auto. It's rated for 30,000 10' radius off the front. Weighs 54,000 lbs. It cut some nasty ruts in the rock yard. No worries about flats, because those are solid tires. I wasn't sure if I could get it on my side drop RGN, so I had a local company haul it. Broke trailer deck boards all up, so they had to make a run for more planks.
Mean little bugger!
those steers are wicked slicers!
Hey @crane operator , I have been asked to haul this Linkbelt HC-108B to a scrap buyer. Upper and lower run, and it was last used last fall sometime. It is going to scrap, and I only have to haul it about 15 miles. I asked about being able to set the upper counterweight on the carrier, lowering the gantry, and spinning it around and they said that that is what they do when they have it hauled. They thought it weighed close to 100K but it doesn't look like it to me, however as it sits from what I can find it should be around 90K. Does that sound right to you? Height should be about 14.5' when loaded with the steers on our bolsters as near as I can figure, so that is doable for where we have to haul it. Thanks!
This is what I found, about 92K. you probably found the same fly sheet on crane specs. Too bad you can't gank the counterweight and toss it in a dump truck. That is what we did with the Lorain truck. It had some rails and cars we set it on and rolled it back,and loaded it with the butt section.
Yeah that's what I found. We certainly could haul the CW on our other truck if we could pick it after setting it down on the carrier but they already hauled the block and boom sections away. We can legal 92K, so if that's what it is we should be good. It's a shame to see it go. The owners used it to install grain elevator legs that they manufactured, but they are retiring, so time to let it go.
Please tell me it’s got Cummins upper and lower. I can’t even wrap my brain around somebody scraping Detroits…..lol
Hah, I didn't look at the upper but the lower is a 671!
I wouldn't know any better than what the book says. Looks like clark planetaries. I think a lot were a 5 and a 4 box. And its probably detroit up and down. Likely, they spent more on rubber than anything else recently. Those old friction rigs were tough, they wore out three generations of operators.
Is your trailer a 9' wide? That is probably a 10' carrier and wouldn't fit on most bolsters very well. You would be fine in the well with your outriggers, its the bolster that's going to be the problem. It might be pretty heavy on the steers, especially the front one, to get it up on the bolsters. (if you are a 9' trailer). with the ctw. toward the front, its going to squish pretty good. For 15 miles, I don't think I would fight getting it on a trailer. Have a big wrecker jack up the front. Especially if the tires are any good. Big wrecker and you could pull the ctw. off also, before you started. If it runs and drives, and can stop itself, get yourself behind the wheel. At 15 mph, you're there in a hour. And I can see screwing around a lot more than a hour getting it on a trailer and tied down, and then back off the trailer again. Unless its on the wrong side of a mountain.
The steers are narrower than the drives and should fit the bolsters ok according to our measurements. I honestly don't know how drivable it is other than the owners said it will drive enough to load, but they always have it hauled. We may end up driving it if it has brakes.
I would guess there is more than one reason they have it hauled. Bad steering, underpowered, heavy, bad rubber, and worse brakes, no lights,no clutch, and a hot noisy small cab, with 6' long shift linkages, that go to two boxes without a shift pattern for either one. If I was closer I'd give it a whirl....
I remember the Lorain when it was only 20 years old, similar vintage to that thing. It was a bear then. Air shift 5 and a 3 brownie with long linkage, and a 250 HP Continental 820 CI gasser. I too would spend a little time exploring driving it or getting it towed. If it will roll, a heavy tow truck is the best bet dollar for dollar and time spent. Sometimes it is good to let the pros have at it.
Originally we were going to have to haul it about 60 miles, then they changed there minds. They have a Grove RT58 that they would like to trade for hauling this and a smaller crane too. We will learn more on Monday!
So you're saying you'll do trucking, for people trading you old iron? You've got my interest.....
These guys are long time friends of one of our operators who has worked for us since 2008. We are trying to help them out, and if we wind up with a yard crane...........
To be clear, we have our authority and cargo insurance, so it us on the up and up!
We decided it was too heavy on the back to leave the counterweight on the carrier, so we unloaded it and removed the CW with our loader and hauled it separately. The weighed 76K and the CW was 22K.
And now this RT58 powered by what appears to be a 4-53 is sitting in our yard!
That's how it all starts, just one in the yard, next thing you know someone finds out you have it. Then it's all "hey can you come over and x,y,z...".
Oh btw, our hot tub needs shifted, over the house!!!
Nice looking crane. I worked at a tank shop in 1981 and they had two RT58D's. One was apparently a 14 ton and the other a 20 ton. Yes, they had the noisy Detroits. Used the retractable boom to pull a truck through a muddy spot in the yard. Not sure if that's a good idea or not but wouldn't think so.
It has a lot of oil leaks and barely had enough umph to get on to the lowboy deck, but it will be handy for loading stuff in the yard when we don't have any excavators there. It sat since last August though and fired right up with just a bit of smelling salts yesterday.
So you bought yerself a “Drip-Troit”.. (lol)
Having something like that at the yard all the time to load stuff is handy as a shirt pocket. We have a Gradall 534D-6 at the yard for that very reason. Yesterday I moved around a trench roller and a job box then loaded our bedding box and a tote with bricks for storm sewer work. Did it all by myself. Very handy. Detroits are like Landrovers they do not leak - They just mark their territory.
Who wants all that dust anyway?
The little crane in the yard is handy, until the insurance man sees it. That's the big advantage of a telehandler, everyone gets to run the forklift.
And we even have certs for the tele.
Yeah, we do the little cards for the forklifts too. The crane certification is a whole different deal. 400 questions, different tests for every category of crane, and different practical tests for every different type. It's around $2,000-$4,500 depending if you want to go somewhere and have a week long class, or just go somewhere and take the tests. There's little diploma mills set up for it, but it's hard to not feel like it's all just a money grab. My CDL and OSHA 10 cards are for life, but I have to retest every 5 years for my crane certs? Accident rates haven't changed since certification has been required for 20 years, so I don't buy the idea that certification means safer. If you have the money, you can find someplace that will give you a card.
Hey crane op, so a year ago I bought a tms540 and when I bought it I was a little disappointed to find that it didn't have over the rear charts in the load chart book. I believe I even asked you about your tms500e and you said they would have a little pod on top of the rotex cover if it did but mine didn't. So I just moved on and I know where I can find the over rear charts online if somethings close I know I have a little extra cushion on the computer over the rear. While running it last year there was one time I had to grab something over my front right side corner and I knew I was close on my weight so ran a tape and looked it up in my load chart and knew I was going to be right at my 6500lb limit but when I swung the crane over my lmi was saying a had 7500lbs max lift which was weird because I knew it wasn't right. Well I picked it on my boom and it was 6500lbs and had no issues. I thought it was weird but kind of forgot about it until the other day. Similar situation I was picking off my front right side, I knew I was going to be close to my limit so I looked it up in my load chart book. I think my pick was like 11500lb and I had a 12500lbs chart but same thing when I swung over my lmi said 14500lb max. So I started looking at all the parameters thinking something must be off but my boom length, radius, boom angle where all right on with my book and lmi but for some reason the computer was saying a could lift an extra 2000lbs. Today I had some time to investigate a little so I set up the same way I was yesterday over my front right corner and sure enough my lmi max load is reading 2000lbs too high compared to the chart. So start to swing over my side and as soon as go passed 90 straight over the side the max on my lmi drops 2000lbs and reads the correct max. So I swing back to the front and it jumps back up 2000lbs until I rotate 90 degrees or just passed straight forward. So it turns out after having the crane for over a year I'm just now figuring out that the lmi is actually set up for the over the rear chart but it's out of calibration so it gives the over the rear chart from straight forward to 90 degrees over my right side. I guess my next step is finding the sensor and then figure out how to calibrate it. Funny thing is when I bought the crane I questioned the old owner about the load chart not having the over the rear charts and he just said oh it only had 360 charts. So apparently he operated it for a long time and never noticed the lmi reading goofy.
The potentiometer is typically under the cover, on top of the electrical swivel. They typically use that same sensor, if your PAT can be set up with invisible walls with alerts.
At some point the previous owner replaced the lmi with a PAT iflex5. From a manual I found online it looks like it may be as simple as setting the zero point in the lmi, but it requires a pass code to be able to calibrate sensors. Makes me wonder if they just never calibrated it when they replaced the lmi but it's definitely sensing rotation in the lmi.
I knew I needed this little RT! Happy Memorial Day, and thanks to those that served and especailly those who gave all!
You better have spent the weekend practicing, because now that the neighbors have seen it, the phone's going to ring.
Also, have you bought ear plugs?
Ha, fortunately the 2 stroke is on the other end! I already lost some of the hearing in my right ear after 3 straight years of sitting right next to a 671 in a John Deere 870A elevating scraper in the early 80s, AND I wore earplugs. The boom rams, or at least the right one, leaks pretty bad. When we get a chance we'll take them out and send to the hydraulic shop. We are lucky to have a pretty good one nearby. Everything works as it should on the little thing, except you have to keep an eye on the hose reel when retracting the first stage of the boom to make sure the hoses coil correctly.
I think the sound of the 53 series is much harder to live with than a 71. I think the 6-53 are the worst. 3 and 4-53's aren't as bad.
Do they at least sport mufflers? The H3 is just a straight piped Ford 223... For the odd use it will see, I could, and may just live with it (and use good ear protection) but if I have some spare time/money, I'm going to put something on there to tame it a bit...
I don't think 6 mufflers could make a 6V-53 quiet.
We had a Pettibone with a 6v53. Still have a tms300 with the 671. The 6v53 has a higher pitch scream to it.
Mufflers don't matter to a Detroit. You could pipe the exhaust clear to china and it wouldn't matter. Them things are just mechanically noisy. Get rid of the exhaust note and the mechanical rattle will be more noticeable, and just nearly as loud.
Probably a good thing 8V-53's are pretty rare. I couldn't imagine another 2 cylinders adding to the noise at 2650 RPM or more.
Wish it was closer Id buy it for parts. Being a truck crane its got Pll on one and maybe two, did it by chance have a third drum or the second CW.
Thats just wrong putting that poor Detroit in that Deere , made the Deere worth more though.
My link belt 90 ton is still down, going on two weeks now. Have it narrowed down to the main boom/ telescope control valve, I think. We're having a relief issue causing a pressure loss. Makes a heck of a howling noise. Only in the boom circuit. We've been in and out of the crane a couple times and back and forth to the hydraulic shops test bench Unfortunately the new $10,000 valve from Link belt, is fine in the boom circuit, but stuck in telescope out. We are back out now, and probably going to build one valve stack out of the two. The guys had a small incident Friday, the ruined a steer and a drive on the forklift. Ran over a piece of angle iron...
Got the 100 ton in and out of a tight spot. It's been putting in the hours while my 90 is down. But this spot was a AT only kind of job. Had to take the outrigger pads off so they wouldn't drag on the road . Weights on the old Ford for turning radius. Had a steer off the ground making the corner at the switchback.
Picked up a new (to me)set of spreader bars. They were still expensive used, but you're not really paying for the steel, your paying for liability and the little stamped tags. They are 12' collapsed, 20' extended. Rated for 50,000 lbs each.
A lot of shops like vessel shops will build their own spreader bars. I'm guessing as long as they're engineered they are approved for that shop. Getting a certification is why a ROPS on equipment is so expensive. The testing facilities know it's mandatory so can charge ridiculous amounts for the testing and certification.
Found this on YT. I thought it was interesting seeing as @crane operator has a Liebherr.
A week from leaving the shop until they got on site. Matting the road had to take forever.
I watched the video and when I saw the actual lift the first words out of my mouth were “Why use a crane at all. Why not skid it into place.?” It’s not as if it was even that heavy.
We have some companies that demand extra safety factors and they want to tell you how to do your job. I'm not sure they couldn't have used two smaller cranes and tandem picked it. But some companies, a tandem lift becomes a "critical lift" and the safety people freak out. We tandem pick all the time. Two smaller cranes would have been easier to get on site, they had a small 3 axle city crane in the background.
Emergency work, aluminum billet factory. Their overhead crane went down, so we got the rt shoved inside. One of my guys is catching days, I went 27 hrs yesterday through the night. I caught a 4 hr nap this afternoon. We been alternating 8 to 8, but I got other stuff going on too. Supposed to get overhead fixed tomorrow morning, and I can't wait, cause if it ain't fixed, we're doing this 24/7 until it is. I'm feeling it.
So you ended up doing it lol.
I don't know why. They were trying to do it with a telehandler, it was talking 4 hrs to clear the rack, we do it in around a hour. I think it's costing high 5 figures every day in lost production.
It is amazing what down time is worth. An extreme example: The Transalta coal fired generating plant put up a fancy new smokestack with scrubby bits. It was a continuous pour for some weeks as they jacked the forms up. When it was up, a 500T mobile crane came in to lift that massive elbow into place, and some other stuff. For scale that stack is 90' in diameter and the elbow is 135' up. While they were set up, another crew dug a trench for pipe and backfilled it. They pulled away from the pick with the boom elevated, it sunk into the soft ditch line and flopped over, severing one of those conveyors. The fix was ~100K. The lost power production was 23 Mil. yikes! The insurance companies went round and round about it. The incident was lost in the noise of the big Nisqually earthquake, that happened the same day.
Overhead is fixed and they are back to full production. I got a short nap yesterday afternoon, and I was somewhat able to sleep last night. Hopefully I've got my system reset back to day mode. Between days and nights I think I'm at 58 hours straight with about 5-6 hours sleep. I've had longer weeks, but I think that's the most I've done in a short stretch. It wasn't super busy last night, so I did catch a hour nap in the truck between batches. I was pretty wired yet yesterday morning, so puttered around the shop and went and ran for some parts. One of my guys set the hoist mid day yesterday. Thank goodness its up.
Going to have to do some work to our rented building gravel yard. Its clay under a thin layer of small rock, and we are quickly turning it into a mudhole. The more we drive on it, the more it pumps. We are going to get something stuck. I'm thinking we can peel off as much of the small rock as we can. Get rid of 4-5" of the clay. , Then fabric, a 6" layer of 1-3" clean rock. Hopefully leave the clean for 6 months of driving on, then top it with base rock. I've got a customer with a asphalt millings yard, its hard as a brick, but I know it will be hot in the summer, and I don't think you ever get rid of the dust/ tracking it around. I think I would rather have rock.
I've got fall away from the building, both East and South to big ditches. All the ruts and about 1/2 the yard has water sitting in it after any rain, and it will sit for a few days after it rains. If we big rock it, I'm hoping that the water can be down , and the big rock bridges. I don't really like spending my own money fixing a rented yard, but we can't walk our forklift around at all now, and I'm going to have trouble with the cranes shortly.
It really sucks having to do that to a yard that you rent, but if it’s not usable and the owner of the yard won’t fix it, you’re not left with many choices. Any chance the guy that owns it would split the cost with you? You’re only making it better for him in the long run anyway. Probably better spending the money, fixing it than spending your time pulling your trucks out and not being able to utilize all the space.
Now I know where our 6061 aluminum rounds come from, for our tooling.
Around here, a muddy yard like that might be fixed by putting down some clean crushed 2, 3, and/or 4 inch and letting it mash into the mud. The rock provides the strength and the mud itself is the fines. Then once it is solidified, top with nice rock. Maybe cheaper and "good enough" for a rented yard. Only treat the problem areas.
Since it's a rented yard that's what I would do. Get a load or 2 of #24's and spread them out over the problem areas and mash it in. Rinse and repeat on the other soft spots as they show up. CO you'll need big rock 2-4" size whatever that is called in your area. Now if it were a yard I owned I would cut the mud out, place fabric then #24's topped off with 1.5" crusher run. Wouldn't have to worry about it again. Our yard has 8-12" of finely hammered limestone (fines to 6" large pieces) from a gas station project topped with #8910 fines and some 1.5" crusher run or DGB over the years. Our wash area is #24's that need to be top dressed.
That's how I fixed my dirt driveway and also how the gravel pit is going to fix a soft section of a township road they haul quad dump trailers on. Put some 3" rock down, drive on it a bit or pack it and then cover with 3/4" road crush. Building it up a little before the large rock isn't a bad idea either but you can put extra rock to build it up. Having a slight swale or slope for rain and snow melt to run off would be ideal.
The yard isn't huge, only like 150' x150' or so, of the main area that needs fixed. There's a small area out behind the building that I'll do also. There really isn't just one problem area- we just mainly park in one area, but we drive in and out on the rest of it, and its all weak. So- I'm doing it all if I'm doing anything. And I kind of need to do something, so I'm doing it all. I guess my main choice is if I try to remove some clay before I start, and if I do, then if I want to put the fabric down or not. What we had under our old yard, was a heavy black woven felt like stuff, probably a 1/8" thick. It was tough to cut. All I'm seeing used and for sale now is like a heavy plastic mesh. Can you get the old woven heavy stuff? And where from? The plastic I can get online. I haven't priced the fabric at all, the rock won't be that expensive. I can rent a vibratory roller, or walk my rt all over it to pack, or any of the truck cranes. I think I'd rather rent the roller, I'd like flat for the forklift and the industrial yard crane I just got. My other yard is all 2-4" rock, covered with base rock- which is what we call 1" minus with fines. Its all solid. What it has now, is clay covered with 1-2" layer of 3/4" chips, which doesn't hold up under anything heavy. It just mashes the chips into the clay.
I just priced 12k sq. yds of fabric for the same purpose and it was $1.79/sq. yd delivered - just for reference. I think 13' x 300' rolls of 9 mil filter fabric are around $700. If you are going to that extent of effort and cost, I would recommend like CM suggested and ex out enough clay to get at bare minimum 1' of cover without rock. I think you will push through 6" pretty quickly when the rock gets over optimum with moisture from rain/snow.
I don't know what the dirt is like there, but if I was trying to fix a bad spot in a gravel lot sitting on anything other than silty black clay at reasonable cost I'd over-ex at least 8" and put in 6" minimum of what KDOT calls Type 1(and everyone around here calls base rock ) pack it in good then cap that with 2" of 3/4"-. I don't know what you have access to for aggregates, but anything with 20-40% 2"+ down to <.25" would be my choice for a base layer. Sieve Size 4" 2" 1" 3/8" No 4 Type I 0-5% 10-40% 25-60% 55-85% 70-95%
Get a couple loads of 2-4" rock to put in the soft spots and a load or 2 of 1.5" crusher run to top it off. This ain't rocket science.
I just put 13’ by 1500’ of fabric in my driveway and believe it or not, got it delivered from Home Depot for free. It’s the Vevor woven geotextile and it was quite heavy and held up great over 1 1/2” crush, before the 3/4” mini pac. Was only 80 bucks a roll but only bitch was it was folded but ended up be easy to lay out. Each box of 13’ by 300 weighed 52 pounds.
It must be light weight fabric. The roll we used were like 150 lbs. Thats crazy cheap though. You could double it up and still save a ton on money. Edit I did a search that's landscaping fabric.
According to the reviews and manufacturer, it’s designed as a driveway fabric. That’s why they offer it 13’ wide. For the money, I’m extremely pleased with it, at the moment.
Ok thanks That's a great find. It been a while since I've used any. Someone on here said rolls now are like $700.
Depends on the fabric spec. Woven, non-woven, tensile strength, permeable, non-permeable, etc. Kinda like asking how much does a car cost?
The rolls of fabric we laid down were the thicker fabric, about like a kitchen scrubby pad. The rolls were 20-30' wide and it was a forklift event to move the rolls around. Run a chain through the cardboard tube and drag it out with a skidloader. If I remember right, it was a pain to cut. Too thick to do it easily with a utility knife, tough enough it was hard to cut with a hack saw or hand saw.
Most common geo-fabric comes in 13.5' wide rolls. 20-30' wide is out there. Remember the brand? Mostly buy Haynes since they have a distribution hub not far from our yard. Civil Nonwovens TerraTex® nonwovens meet various classifications of AASHTO M288 for subsurface drainage, separation, stabilization, and erosion control. hanesgeo.com
I can't remember some of what I did last Thursday. And the fabric was 30 years ago. At least. So I don't really have any idea what it was. Think if I go ask for the fabric that's about the thickness of a kitchen scrubby pad, that is just like what I used 30 some years ago- they'll know what I'm looking for?
Link belt 90 ton had a relief howl that we narrowed down to a problem in the main control valve. New valve was almost $10,000, and when installed, it instantly stuck in telescope out. it blew out the boom locking pin, and fortunately didn't 2 block and ruin a boom section. We took the new block back out, sent it to my hydraulic shop to bench test it, and they couldn't get it to make any pressure. Brought it back to our shop, and we tore down the new $10,000 valve. So the small hole is supposed to have a o ring, so it seals against the next section. Instead, someone left a metal disk from machining or covering when on the shelf before assembly. This was assembled incorrectly from link belt, who probably got it direct from Husco like that. With no o ring, it gets flow from the lower portion, which is what flowed the tele. We've been waiting on the hydraulic shop for bench test for a week and a half, we should have just pulled it down ourselves. But at least I think we've found the problem with the new valve. It's very likely that link belt has more new ones sitting on the shelf, that are misassembled.
Let’s see. I had a tub shower valve that I had installed in my daughter brand new bathroom and after doing a custom tile job and actually installing a 2”x6” tile that my daughter had hand painted in daycare 15 years before. Used the tub for floating the grout and clean up but never used the shower valve. After we moved her into her new personal bathroom, she decided to use the shower valve and no flow. Turned out the sand casting to the shower output had leaked and had to cut the newly installed finished drywall apart, on the other side in her bedroom to get to the valve and take the valve out and punch the cast brass that was in the way. Aaaarrrgggghhh. We had about 10 failures on a hydraulic pumping unit. Management just kept buying new pumps and tried to get the Super Duper Engineers to find an alternative. Pump would run for a day and overheat and blow the seals out and I would spend half a day, cleaning up 20 gallons of spilled hydraulic fluid. Finally got so pissed off, tore a blown pump apart, to find the cap plate was installed backwards, so the HP seals were on the suction input and the low pressure seals were on the HP output side. Pump is still running 24/7 7 years later. Aarrrgggghhhh. It happens, not often but when it does, it’s not like you know, until it’s too late. Lol Good find.
Well I'm 2 for 2 in loading up the new little industrial crane. 2 times on the trailer, 2 times of busting trailer boards. It's steers must be 25k plus. Had doors off making new skins and it's half sanded for a paint job. But a emergency factory repair job, so on a trailer it went. We can finish painting later. Repair job is on a fancy 5 axis CNC cutter. They had some kind of program error and crashed the spindle into the table. We pulled the table.
When I get our trailer and the crane in the same location, we're going to figure out what kind of blocking we need to clear the center of the trailer. Then I think we'll pull some boards and put down some 8" c channel to keep from breaking boards.
https://www.facebook.com/reel/619140533929859
Setting rocks over a cliff edge. I was down in the hole signaling, and it was a hot bisterd down there.
What are the rocks for?
Decoration. Its a fancy golf course.
explains why they did not just waltz down there with a 400 excavator
Fred Flintstone gold course?
No, it's pretty high dollar. They have a big media day event on Monday, and that whole area will be all sodded down and groomed by then. Wouldn't surprise me if they are working all night tonight to finish. This is the view the other direction. The creek at my feet runs full of pumped water.
Its always fun with them. They want to know how big of rocks I can set, before I even come. I give them a number- 8,000lbs (it could be any number), then they will either bring a rock that's 12,000lbs, or want to go another 30' away. I just tell them, "it can go here, or it can go back up the hill where it came from". Don't get me wrong, they are good guys, its just they are used to setting them with a excavator, 5' from their tracks, and expect me to bounce them around- 100' away. And its just not the same. If they don't like where it is with the excavator, its pretty easy to tip it around and get a chain back under it, with the crane, once its set and I pull the chains out, there it is.
They got the course put together for a media day. Yellow marks are where the rocks are. I think we set 7 or so. All nicely sodded down and water flowing.. The center yellow arrow, is the tee box. They stand in the cave, and hit out and over the waterfalls, over a couple little ponds, toward the red flag in the foreground.
very fancy.
Concrete plant and setting steel
90 ton is still down. Even had Link belt tech down, he says it's boom chatter, and some cat friction modifier would fix it. Which I've been around one with boom chatter, that friction modifier did fix. But I don't think that's our problem, but we're going to do some more testing on our own and try to figure out what is going on. Yellow 40 came home on a hook, it has a injector or two making it run poorly. And in other news, another grove Industrial popped up for sale 3 hours away. It was in a little better shape than the one I just bought. It brought just a little more money than the last one. So now I own two. So it seems now we are going after industrial work. The new one has had someone going around welding extra 1/4" steel on the front, rear, and sides. And someone also spent a small fortune putting a electric swivel, pressure transducers, a2b full lmi on it. And a red dot ac. We will see how much of all that stuff still works.
Been having it easy this morning. Crane was in the shade until 9:00.
The guys are at the quarry this morning, moving around conveyors and setting them.
Swim spa, premade hollow concrete columns. And a pitman from a jaw crusher with a broken shaft. The premade columns were fragile, one was already broken in shipping.
The picture at the quarry is the guys using our new to us mack. Just wanted to say thanks to @terex herder - he sent me a link to our mack titan, when it was up for auction. He knew I was looking for a lowboy truck, and thought this one might work. We had to do a little work to it, to get it on the road, but we've really got to using it in the last 2-3 months. The primary two guys who drive it, are both really happy with it. It handles our big RT much better than our old truck did. We had to add a wet kit, headache rack, get rid of the pusher bumper, rebuild the 4 sp. aux. Added a lift axle ahead of the tandems. New steer rims with a little less offset, which threw the steers out a little to make it come around corners better. Put tires on it all around. Still need to fix the A/C, and may put on a little shorter 5th wheel, with a slider. Its got a tall pivoting 5th wheel like a military one on it now, and its fixed- no slide. Here's a picture from when we first loaded RT on it. This was before we swapped steer rims. The guys said it was great at the quarry for moving around the conveyors and moving the crusher plant set up. With the deep reduction, 75,000 cap. rears and the low gears trans and aux, its great for placing equipment, and it doesn't grunt with the load on. Just put her down low and let it walk.
Do you still have the yellow Western Star?
Yes, it's been moved to the rollback trailer, and my white Pete is sitting lonely in the corner of the yard. I'm not much on selling stuff. What if I need it?
That’s heavy, hot, miserable work, did that for a numbers of years, real good money, but it a toll on my body lol
400 miles from home. Going to load the counterweights in the morning with it, then put the boom in the dolly and head for home. It's a liebherr 120 ton, just a little bigger than my 100 ton with a little more boom and some more counterweight. So cross your fingers for me and say a little prayer that everything runs right. We got here about 4 this afternoon, got the crane out of the dolly and on outriggers. Seems like everything runs ok, but you know there's always a reason that someone sells it.
Had to go to the local college and take down the ROTC rappelling tower. Got to move it across campus to a new location. 18'x18' x 53' long/tall. Put it on the lowboy and raised some wires and trimmed a couple trees. We were a little oversized, but no public roads.
Taking down a long dead tree. Had dot there closing a lane of traffic in case we had some brittle branches go. Nothing ended up down there, but better safe than sorry. Setting a pool. On a Saturday, and of course the truck was late.
Congratulations on the new addition! I would think dealing with the unknowns would make tree removal one of the riskier challenges for a crane. You don't know for sure what you have until you have it!
So far so good.
Made it to shop by noon Friday. Weights are loaded on the trucks, and I'm gathering rigging, and equipment to head for a job Monday.
You get better at it, the more you do it.
Looks like a clean unit, but sometimes I wonder who's picking paint colors haha. I prefer stock colors. That being said we own three groves and all three were red when we bought them. Two have been painted back to yellow but the newest ones still red, I think a paint job is in its future though.
"Babe the Blue Ox" we call her. It wouldn't have been my choice for color, but they aren't for sale on every street corner, so baby blue it is. Its going to work for a while before it gets paint.
Looks clean but sky blue!
Why would you bother painting it? It would be good advertising. When they saw the blue crane they'd know it was your company.
We had 2 Drott yard cranes at our shop. One time when our owner manager was out of town for a few days our 2 charge hands decided it would be nice to paint one of them. Yes they did it in 2 tone blue. The boss was less than impressed. It did make it easy to identify which one you were talking about though. The Drott or the blue Drott. d.d.
Got two jobs in the books for the blue ox. New rock crusher set up, and 6 trees out of a back yard.
Changing out HVAC units this morning with the 100 ton
Maybe I missed it, but how many tons is the Blue Ox?
How many cranes you running now? Is the broken or hydraulic challeged Liebherr fixed yet?
120 ton. 171' main, 77,000 of counterweight. 62' jib and two 23' inserts. Put it all together and the tip is just over 270' up. There's a lot of tires on the ground around here. We're still struggling getting the 90 ton link belt truck crane up and running. The 90 ton being down has pushed all that work to my 100 ton liebherr, and that kind of prompted the 120 ton purchase. The 120 ton was at a price point for its age and hours that I could live with, and within driving distance. There's 3 industrial crane/ carrydecks. A 15 ton galion neckbreaker, a 23 ton boom truck we don't use, 4-40 ton truck cranes, a 50 ton RT, and 70 ton we don't use anymore. Then the 90ton linkbelt, and 100 and 120ton liebherrs. Oh and my old 35 ton grove is out back too. So there's 3 cranes that need to head down the road, and 12 we are using. The little industrial rigs are pretty specialized and don't go out much. Same with the galion. We really use the 40 ton truck cranes the most, and then the 90/100 ton big cranes. The 50ton RT goes to the jobs where we are moving around, or ground conditions demand it. We've been kicking around if we are going to keep the 100 ton liebherr, the new 120 is similar in size, and has a lot fewer hours. But I have to get the 90 ton truck crane back running first. We have 4 operators, two counterweight drivers/ riggers/ signalmen, and a full time mechanic. So 7 in the field, and 1 full time and we are adding 1 part time in the office, so 8 1/2 people. I could use another operator at times, but we mostly get everywhere we need to. I feel so fortunate that I have a great group of guys that are willing to work for us. Its been a real zoo lately, and I couldn't do any of it without them.
One of the little grove Industrials is finally painted. There's a guy who's been doing it for us, and he does a great job. One of the guys got it loaded on the trailer. We're going to need to replace some of the wood boards with c channel steel. It's headed out Monday.
Do you keep one Liebherr at your main yard, and the other at your second yard? Or both at main yard? How does your yellow Liebherr compare to these specs? I remember it has a fairly long main boom as that was something you discussed previously, but I couldn't find the page you listed the specs on it. I know you've added several trucks over the past couple years, does each crane have its own dedicated truck to haul weights now? I never worked around crane operations so I'm just curious about what you've found works best. How do you install/remove the counter weights on site? Ive seen big crawler cranes with a hydraulic lift deal that can set their stack down when done. Do your cranes have something like that?
Today they are both at one yard. Ideally, they are split. The 100 ton liebherr is 157' main, 62' jib, no inserts, 35,500lbs of ctw. We always take all the weights. My 90 ton linkbelt is 140' main, 58' jib, no inserts (they are available used), 39,500 ctw. We usually only take 32,500ctw, the last of the weights is cheeks, and it doesn't help that much in most situations. So they sit at the shop, unless we know we need them, we can fit them on the truck. For us, its easier to have the counterweights on straight trucks, a lot of crane companies use tractor trailers. Its cheaper to do 3 trucks and 10 trailers, than 10 straight trucks. The other option is to be constantly loading and unloading counterweights. Which is a huge pain last minute. I want to hop in the crane and trucks and go. At my size (and the fact I'm not buying new trucks), I think I can stay dedicated trucks. The big advantage to trailers, is lots more deck space. But its sure nicer getting around a medical clinic, when the architect put islands and trees all over in the parking lot, with straight trucks. I'm going to need one more ctw. straight truck, if/ when the three big cranes are all up and running at the same time. The 90 and 100 ton are single truck loads, the 120 is two loads. I have 3 legal straight trucks, and I have a older ford tandem that is too short of wheelbase to legally haul the ctw's, but the truck will handle it if we have to go to a super mean, tight spot. The legal trucks have extra axles. The 90-100 and 120 all have cylinders on the rear of the crane, by the winches. You park close, use the crane to pick up and set the weights on the deck behind the engine compartment. Then spin the upper around, and pick the weights up with the cylinders. The cranes have a chart for no ctw., and different combinations of ctw's. You can split the weights into smaller picks, if you can't get the truck quite as close. You need to at least get within 30' or so. They are all made to road travel with some weight on, but I just prefer to get it all off the machine. I'd rather haul the weight on a cheap truck, than a expensive crane undercarriage. The liebherrs are designed to road travel at 26,000lbs per axle. Which is european specs. The US is all over the place, with permitted loads, missouri is 20,000 per axle. That's where boom dollies and lift axles come into play. Most will jobsite travel, with all the weights on.
I know that was a lot of questions one in one shot. Thank you for sharing about your operation and what works in your world. The only big crane I've seen in my world, was from Capital City Crane last fall when they set the globe on top of our town's new water tower. I should have taken pics, because it was quite the crane that they brought in. Huge stack of counterweights, offset jib, etc.
You are supposed to be paying attention, when you open up the Michigan division I'm expecting you to remember all this. I could use a engineer on the payroll to stamp stupid stuff I need to do, without looking too close.
We had a couple nice days a week or two ago, but it's warm now. I'm trying to get some work done, but I have to fight DW for a spot by the fan for break time.
Hot Mutha here, just nasty outdoors
Yeah, the weatherliars are saying cooler toward the end of next week, but I'll believe that when I see it.
The weather turned mid week, and it has been great. I apologize to the weatherliars, they got this right. Supposed to be nice all next week too. 90 ton is currently working in all functions, except boom down. Which is better than we have been, but still not ready for a job I've been building a netting wall. 95' poles, limited access. Had the 120 and RT there all week. This is to replace poles and netting that blew over a year ago in a windstorm.
Going to have to figure something out for the little grove Industrials. If they need to turn at all, when loading or unloading, the steers hit the trailer. My side drop trailer has the inner rails sticking up, and it chews the steers. Either going to need to build deck inserts, or another lowboy trailer with a flat deck, for hauling them. I am leaning towards deck inserts.
There’s a place on I 70 towards Kansas City that has had some heavy spec day cabs for sale look like ex oil field trucks but I can’t remember the name of it
What's the netting for, golf balls?
Yes, tee boxes are right next to resort, kind of had to watch it while working, some people aren't very good at golf.
I'm still looking, so if you think of the name, I'm always game for a drive.
Kc wholesale is the name of it just passed by yesterday
I was going to guess the place in Oak Grove, but couldn't remember what it was called.
Looking online, I'm afraid they are in a different price range than I am. Been putting big blue through her paces. Small HVAC unit, a long way away. Sewer tank in a basement (why they want it there, I don't know). Big HVAC unit, and a cooler mixer at a feed mill
Got a little carnage in the rear axle of the Titan. Cross axle lock somehow got engaged, and hung up there . Driver heard it pop at the s curve by the shop, I heard it at the bottom of the hill. The ring and pinion, and all the planetaries look good. Spider gears are all gone. A big clean out, and all new bearings, races, and spider gears are the plan. Going to see what parts availability is tomorrow.
The spider gear carrier is going to the machine shop, hopefully it will clean up enough to reuse.
On the Mack planetary front: If the carrier will clean up with the machine shop, which they think it will be fine, I've got everything located except for 1 side gear. My regular supplier is saying 30 days for that 1 side gear , but a shop in the PNW thinks they may have one on their shelf. The PNW shop has a diff rebuild sitting on their shelf also, but it's just a whisker under $40,000. So I think we're going to piece ours back together. They also would like me to send them my diff, so they could rebuild it for us, expressing lots of concern that we are wholly incompetent to put it back together. Which we probably are. If I can't get the carrier cleaned up, my local supplier is saying 90 days lead time for the carrier. Which means I may be lucky if I would get it before Christmas. The price for the carrier was $2,100, which was less than I expected, it's the 90 days that's the killer.
Been putting the roof on a condo building.
Been a Monday. RT loaded up behind the Western star. Shop hill and the driver isn't sure what happened, but the yoke is in pieces. Two of us were in a pickup behind him, and we heard it go. The guy with me was "that didn't sound good". Rolled the truck to a flat spot, after I tied driveline up. Dropped trailer in the road, and I went and got the white Pete. Pulled w Star to the shop, and delivered the RT to the job. Its getting rough when you are down to the spare of the spare.
Brought in a different crane mechanic, spent all week and we still don't have the 90 ton going. Can't make pressure yet for boom down, but I think we got a issue found yesterday. Western star has yoke and driveline back in. Fixed a2b on one of the link belts. One of the little Grove 40 lost lower throttle, got that sorted. Parts are mostly in for the Titan rear, got the carrier taken to the machine shop. Will be the first wheel bearing I've set at 700 ft.lbs. They call for a special socket, but at $2,500 for the socket, I'm going to try to make one from some key stock, and a 1" drive socket. Can't do worse than the last guy in there, he tightened the nut with a chisel. Which I'm sure wasn't 700. We're planning on opening the front one and checking it. Book says dial indicated, and rolling resistance check, and shim to get tolerance. Should be fun.
Right at 80,000 lbs. 15'x40' building. First crane company went over there with a 165 ton, and didn't have any rigging to pick it. We got it with big blue. The other guys charged a full 8 hours for driving over there and not making a pick. I'm probably doing something wrong. Also check out the Mack titan delivery truck - I think that's a aftermarket sleeper - because they didn't offer a big sleeper from Mack. Also set a fuel tank.
So the socket I need to make, is going to be like a overgrown dana 4x4 nut. The spindle nut has 4 key slots in the outside. 7/16" wide key slots, probably around 4" or so diameter. I've got 7/16" stainless key stock, using the old nut as a template, I'm hoping to weld 4 pieces of the stock to the outside of a big old 1" drive socket I have, shimming if I need to for a tight fit. Unless someone has SISU number 7543-050-020 sitting in their drawer, not using it... Online it's around $2,500. There's another 3-4 pages of assembly/disassembly instructions, and I'm not sure why SISU decided to literally reinvent the wheel, but I've never seen such a bunch of nonsense just to put on wheel ends. If either one of these axles gives us trouble again, I'm probably going to get a set of 52-56,000 Eaton or such rears, and put the planetaries in the boneyard. The parts I got weren't cheap.
That's crazy the other crane company charged a full day and never did anything. They had to have known what the pick was. As for the special socket could weld "teeth" on the outside of a standard socket that fit fairly tight in the notches? You could also cut a piece of plate to fit the special nut and weld a socket or even a big nut to it so you could use a torque or impact wrench.
For a differential?
Not getting cheaper
If it was holding up the move of a 8 million dollar transformer, it doesn't matter what it costs. I however, am poor enough to wait.
So are they attempting to price gouge whoever needs one, or is that what a planetary diff costs? It’s not uncommon to see planetary trucks go through Ritchie Brothers Edmonton sale. I never would have dreamed they cost so much to replace.
I don't know that I would call it price gouging. More like they are serving a niche market, and have invested in the time to rebuild one and have it sitting on a shelf. For a specialized heavy haul, or production mining, the $40,000 is a drop in the bucket. For me, the $40,000 is more than I gave for the whole truck, and I can "afford" to order parts, send parts to the machine shop, and have the truck down for a month. The truck being down for me , doesn't stop all revenue, I've got a spare truck to run. I'm probably going to end up spending $10,000 or so fixing my problems. I hope. I personally think 1971 broncos are a $10,000 truck, but restored ones are listed at $70,000. I don't think that is "price gouging", it's just more than I am going to give for one.
I thought of you the other day when we drove past this: Unfortunatley I didn't do a very good photography job @ 70 mph, even though I wasn't driving, but that yellow one in the third picture looked big to my layman's eyes. Mountain Crane has quite an investment sitting there.
Appears all the trailers loads in that set of photos is for the Single Yellow Monster to be assembled at somewhere else.
Probably headed for wind farm work out in the sticks, looks like one of the army surplus 8x8 tank transporter trucks in the background, which means they are going somewhere that's hard to get to.
same thing, thought of you Op as I waited for a ferry. I had not noticed Kobelco crawlers before. Darling Wife drove all day yesterday and they have tons of road jobs going on. I saw another Kobelco crawler LOL. Check out this temporary bridge structure with a big crawler out on it, on the west end of Lake Washington. That is some massive temp works. It's nice to be shotgun now and then
Big crane little roof unit a long ways out. I was early for the pick.
They were working out at what we call "the site" which is the Idaho National Laboratory (INL), which is a government nuclear research facility. Lots of big stuff goes on out there.
I think Kobelco crawlers are top of the line for crawler cranes. The Operating Engineers training center here has one that cost about $1.2 million. They also have a new Tadano RT and Liebherr AT. I think the Liebherr was almost as expensive around $1 million. All 3 don't get a lot of use. You can see my L9000 dump truck loaded with some clay they provided in the background of the last pic. It's loaded a little more to the back because the hoist will struggle on the 3rd stage if it's overloaded.
I wish all crawlers were Kobelco’s. Easy to move, easy to assemble, operate nice, have no idea how to work on them because I never have to.
Been behind on pictures, sorry guys, been busy. This tree was dead for a while, part of it fell on the trailer house the week before we got there to take it down. Tree guys had to go in the trailer and get one of the logs, they said the floor was moving with bugs, and covered in excrement. One came out puking.
Got the rotc rappelling tower set.
Setting generator, flippin tanks and working on a boom section
Sewer pump station
Glamour shot of DW Taking down a billboard. and a house project up on a hill, had to sneak past the lawyers fancy Scottish highland cattle
I fly over the site quite often, not on purpose but because it's on the way to other places, and there is a particularly huge project going on right now. Several of the biggest cranes around anyway. One buddy who was an ironworker, leased a little 15 ton boom truck he bought after he retired, to a subcontractor out there some years ago, and there being so much guv money floating around, he managed to get paid some hourly rate for it, 24/7, for a period of time long enough to pay for it a half dozen times over, with little actual running time being put on it. It's a lot of time riding a bus to get out there, but pays well, I did a short stint as a union carpenter there, a day or two job that took less time to do than the bus rides and the safety lectures, but we got paid for all of it. I think I heard once that all picks out there are limited to something like 40 or 60% of the chart.
Sewer lift station, poor kw lost a injector on the way home
Of all the luck!
I am fascinated by the amount of information provided on the screen in your cab! 40 years ago, running a 30 year old crane, we didn't have any of that that I recall, but we knew we were getting close if an outrigger started getting light on the old Loraine!
Its nothing like old school machines. Who would have thought you would dig by laser or satallite? But a lot of it is information I never use. The guys are always asking what something weighs or radius, and I'm : " evidently it didn't weigh too much because it didn't beep at me". Because I'm not watching the screen, I'm watching the load. I've never dug by gps, but I imagine you glance occasionally at the screen, but spend most of the time watching the hole or the slope, just like if you didn't have the computer.
It's back running, just in time for the Ford 9000 to chuck its front diff. But we have it back together also. 90 ton is also up, and has been to a couple jobs. The noise ended up being in the boom cylinder, the gland of the cylinder had wear that rolled the edges of the seals. That acted like a clamp on the rod. Had to use a Port o power to push the gland off the rod. Be nice to have x ray vision or a magic wand sometimes, but it's fixed now.
Good point. Most of the old stuff didn't even have cabs!
Bought a pig in a poke- actually 2 pigs. Local auction had these two air compressors, as is. We got the orange one to run, I think the other one is going to need a lift pump. Both JD diesels. Christmas tree And a local motel had a natural gas event, took out the block walls on each side, it's been sitting like this for quite a while. It had just been remodeled. I think it's going to have to get torn down, but I bet it's tied up with insurance wars.
Had to sit a big rebar cage on the top of the hill. New power pole for lines running across the lake.
Putting up roof steel, and installing a bridge at a treatment plant
Manbasket work on a water tower
You're kind of opposite of me Im always looking down
I did a little crane work a long time ago. I could never get used to having a man-basket or something real high for a grain elevator etc. The clouds rolling by played tricks on my mind as it was hard for me to tell if I was swinging or not. Kudos to those who can deal with it, but I would almost get vertigo from it.
Our new 325 has a set of scales on it which comes in handy loading trucks. Allows the guys to put 25 tons on a tri-axle every time or find out how much a structure weighs before we set it. The new technologies are quite amazing. Next up I want an autonomous roller.
A Roomba roller!
That sounds like a 3 stooges movie or cartoon from the same era, with what antics an autonomous roller would get up to.
Your moldboard is just a little closer, which probably helps. We're back at the sewer plant today. Two more bridges, and one of the ones we set a while back wasn't in the right spot. So we're moving it 8" over.
Got a just a little shot of white stuff this morning, but nothing like what they got further north. More sleet/ ice pellets than snow. Supposed to warm up toward the end of the week. Setting some steel for a back deck
that thing looks modular, right down to the porch slab.
Typical build around the Branson area, Stick built.
Center vaulted area was manufactured trusses, rest is stick built on a poured concrete foundation. The way the flashing sticks out under the zip system, I'm thinking they are putting some brick or manufactured stone up the wall. Three story deck on the other side...
Trees and a HVAC unit and a concrete pool ( think septic tank with no lid and stairs).
The concrete pool went between poured concrete walls on the patio. 1" clearance on each side. Which wasn't so bad placing it the first time. But became fun when they decided that the stairs needed to be on the other side, three days later. Fortunately we got it swapped without chipping the pool or the poured walls Contractor moved the pool on site with their homebrew shortened kw. They said it's almost a little too short, it won't steer if they get it loaded too heavy
Flipping tanks for testing. 68,000 lbs Trusses .
More concrete pools. They are evidently the hot new thing, or there's a new really good salesman for them. The one we swapped ends with, was 30,000 lbs, these were a little smaller and only 18,000lbs. It was a little crooked, so we brought some extra mats.
Picked up a roof and timber structure, it was on a second story, it rotted out lower down and was pulling off the building. 16,000 lbs, it had 2 1/2" oak sheathing under the roof tin. They are making a patio/ picnic area from it. Billboard head. 30,000 lbs.
Setting a 120,000lbs crusher.
A emergency tree on a house- Saturday morning. Building and installing the video boards on the billboard head.
You're getting your use out of big blue.
It's been good, we really needed it for a couple of jobs, and some of the other ones we could have done with the 100 ton. So we just take a single load of weights with big blue. We've had the 90 ton to quite a few jobs now, and I'm super pleased to have it up and running. It was rough having it down. Next on the list is a turntable bearing for the 100 ton. It's been getting progressively worse from mid year. I've taken it out of service until it's fixed. Liebherr has a bearing for $60k. And that's a lot of $$. I've found one in Germany aftermarket on the shelf for$20k. Questionable if it's built to liebherr standards and dimensions. And in the age of scams, if it actually exists. If it gets here and it's wrong, that's not going to be simple either. There's a place in ohio that will build me one, if I bring them mine. $20,000 but a 16 week lead time - minimum. I'm more sure that the Ohio one will be correct, but the lead time stinks. I really think the aftermarket one in Germany is out, I like the ohio price but not the lead time. Factory would be nice, but that price hurts. Having it on hand, and installing as soon as I pull the old one out has a huge appeal to me. Either way, I'm putting together a plan. Pull boom, pull house, down to bearing. Then dealing with a bunch of tight tight bolts. A purchased hydraulic torque gun set up (used) or a rental is going to be a must have. It will be a learning experience for sure.
Ordered this special pre-cast box for a funky junction box where a 30" RCP came in and 2 - 18" RCP's left. Engineers didn't do their due diligence with the 2 18's crossing the road and sure enough there was an 8" water line in the flow line of the 2 - 18's. This box had a curb grate inlet in the top so they eliminated this box and went straight across the road raising the 2 -18's above the 8" water line. So long story short - The $8,500 box was already on site so they paid for the box w/MU, hammering the box down and hauling it off. An expensive uh-oh on their part. The box - It would've made a nice little plunge pool just cut one end out and block some steps up then block the holes up. It weighed 15,000 so the only thing we have to move it is one of the trackhoes. Didn't make since to move a trackhoe to the dump to unload, then back to reload, then unload at destination. A crane would've worked great but ya'll know how much those crane guys charge to just think about lifting something for you.
Really hoping to see a thread on this repair, that’s a big project to tackle!
Just a arm, not a arm and a leg.
Happy New Year @crane operator ! May 2026 be the best year yet for you.
Same to you. Hope the best for you and your family in the new year.
You get in trouble like this in Huntsville, keep me in mind. I have something I could have used that for at the shop. I might have come loaded it up at no charge if you let me do it at my convenience.
Appreciate that! I'll keep it in mind.
Headed to the doctor today. Supposed to do a army corps job, and they won't accept my dot physical. Not because I'm not current, but because my last physical wasn't given by a medical doctor. We go to a local clinic, and their cdl guy isn't a real doctor, he's some kind of chiropractor/ osteopath or something. He's legally allowed to give the tests. But what's good enough for the dot, isn't good enough for the army corps. What a bunch of b.s.
Let's put a concrete pool on the edge of a hillside, it's only 30,000 lbs. We had to have them build us a pad. We offloaded the pools a couple miles away, and transferred from the 18 wheeler to our straight trucks to get onsite.
My limited dealing with the Corps on the dredging work was plenty. They have a way of complicating every step of a task.
Yeah I have an appointment in April with my chiropractor for my med card. Super easy but have to do it yearly since I'm on bp meds. The fact one has to go yearly for a dot med card if they are on bp meds is another crock of ****. I'm already going to my GP twice a year to monitor my blood pressure!
Perhaps tell a fib or forget filling out the paper to get the med card
Some people have to justify their jobs especially if it's anything to do with the government. Military standards can be as stringent or more than nuclear specs. Even on the most basic of things. A $30 shovel becomes a $90 shovel because it has to meet military specs. It's the same darn shovel! Years ago I read about some of the ridiculous costs of things just because they were for the military.
Well, for all my complaints, probably a good thing I went in. Doc says sugar in my pee test, so going for blood test today.
CO check with some of the bearing manufacturers they will rebuild your bearing more downtime but easier on the wallet
I would be interested if you have any contacts for that. The guys I talked to in Ohio only build new and couldn't suggest anyone to rebuild. Which I figured was a liability concern.
Rotek and Kaydon are who we have used in the past. We havent done one in the last 10 years but the last was a 50 ton linkbelt RT and its still out there lifting. Slewing Bearing Services Factory reconditioning and refurbishment Installations Startup and commissioning Laser Flatness and measurement Bolt-preload verification Wear measurement Lubricant analysis Failure analysis Long-term packaging Training Complete service and repair of all brands Learn more about how Rotek's after-sales service can enhance your product's performance. Call us at (330) 562-4000 or toll-free at (800) 221-8043, or email [email protected] to schedule a consultation. Kaydon Bearings 1500 Nagle Road Avon, Ohio 44011 440.871.2500 phone 800.286.6274 toll-free 440.871.2503 fax email us Kaydon's Bearing Remanufacturing Program gives new life to slewing rings of any design, configuration, or original manufacturer, from 10" (25 cm) to 20' (6.1 m) in diameter. Kaydon remanufactures some 1,500 slewing ring bearings each year for construction machinery and other heavy equipment, at cost savings of up to 50% compared to a new OEM bearing.
Thanks, I appreciate it. I'll check out those options
CO, know your pain on CDL Physical. I do use the Physician Side for my own, Mercy System here so is a Licensed Physician. The game was explained for the Chiro/Osteo side is they BUY their permits as do all the True Docs for Physicals, only those that felt would make any level of income did as such. Required access to a lab and certs not licenses for Applications. Mine was Challenged then that dismissed as found where mine was done so could haul into a CoE Site.
Well, blood test is back, going to have to go to doc, blood sugars too high. I was good a year ago on my last DOT, so we'll see what the plan is.
Well, here’s praying it’s an easy-to-manage fix…
Thanks, everything I read says it's slow to advance and slow to recede. Don't think it's going to be a quick fix. I get plenty of exercise, my diet is bad, and I don't sleep good. We've had a cat for the last year, and I'm allergic to it, so I've been perpetually stuffed up. Which leads to not sleeping good, which makes me cranky, and I'm pissed off about the cat. So I live with a nice cycle of adrenaline dump every day. It's also made my tinnitus much worse, which cycles into the sleep and stress. Either way, cat is becoming a outside cat, which has helped my sinuses, and I m going to have to work on the stress and diet.
I think diet is the most important part. Exercise is a major component as well. I am on the "high normal" spectrum so I have cut out pretty much all processed sugars and eating more vegetables. Haven't been back to the doc for a test yet to see how it's working.
Not good idea. The paperwork I have seen, is pretty much matching the one for the FAA, and falsifying is a no no.
Got a pump, no switch on it, but the price was right. Get a switch, and I can see if it makes pressure
Put some c channel in the new to us lowboy. Trying to keep the little industrial cranes from breaking boards. Old wood was pretty rotten, so new oak too. Going to make the ramps a little longer too. Industrial cranes won't make the hop up without hitting counterweight.
Parked too far from the shop to string a cord for the 24 v 110v charger. So here I am, making things work with $40,000 worth of battery chargers.
The truck on the left is what one of my guys drives. I didn't look at the fuel gauge when I hooked up the jumpers, and (you can see where this is going) I went to go look at a job while things were charging up. It ran out of fuel while I was gone.
That's pretty far up the scale for battery adventures.
doesn't that pump have a jog position on toggle switch on the top??
It didn't come with any manuals, and it has a cord for the pendant- with no pendant on it. We tested the wires and I made a little jumper, which activated the pump. And honestly, that's as far as I have gotten on it. It does have a switch on the top, and I have no idea what it does. IF you have a idea of what its for, I'm all ears, because I'm not sure what you mean by a "jog"? In one position it would just give a burst from the pendant- and in the other position its a constant on?
The jog position should be spring loaded we used that instead of the pendent when you were close to the pump we had faces we could put on pump that called out the torque when using a hyd wrench there were different faces for 3/4 or 1' hyd wrenches
Power Team is a quality pump. I bet they could provide a manual to you. Maybe there's even one online??
Doing a little maintenance work
What are you working on?
It's a amusement park ride. We do maintenance when they are shut down. They close for January and February. Open early march for spring break.
What does the maintenance consist of?
This ride uses 3 cables on each side, they get inspected every year and replaced every other year.
Are ya'll replacing the cable or just providing the crane?
Just the crane and operator.
New boots on today. I've worn a 2233 Red Wing in 13B for 30 years. Last time I went to the store, I got the word - no more narrow width - only D or E. I usually get around 6-9months out of a pair. So be prepared for a bunch of whining from me around Thanksgiving next year. Because I'm going to have to find somebody still making a narrow boot.
Plan a trip to the PNW and have them make a couple pair for ya. Probably not more that $400-500 a pair lol. My foot is slightly narrower than a D but my Thorogoods fit perfect. I looked on their site and multiple styles don’t show a B width.
I've been looking into that. I think I could get a little more time out of a better boot. If I do go, I think I'm taking one of my old boots with me, because these fit. Buy two pairs so I can send one to get resoled while I'm wearing the other pair.
Thorogood, Carolina and wolverine all used to make narrow, now none of them do. Red Wing used to make a narrow that has a stitched on sole, but they haven't made that for 20 years. The current style I wear are only resoleable at the factory, and I've usually got the toes all chewed up, so they aren't worth resoling
Whites and Nicks, both in the Spokane area, will make a last based off measurements. Whites sold out to other owners but I think they are still making the boots the same way. Pucker up when you look at the price, but mine last many years and then I get them rebuilt. Fair warning if you go that route; put them on and soak them in water the first time, and wear until dry. After that tremendously comfortable. Otherwise the break-in period can be a bit painfull!
What I would also prefer, Red Wing used to make the boot, then put on the steel toe, and then cover the steel toe with a second leather toe. I got a little more life out of that style.
You can buy toe protection covers. I think they come with glue to attatch them.
I do the same with the pull on Red Wings. I'll buy a new pair well before the old pair is ready for a re-sole so I can wear the new ones for a few hours every day then swap to the old ones. Interesting break in procedure. Give us more intel.
Well, they are handmade with numerous layers of leather in the arch, and heavy leather uppers and lowers. Some say that it takes the boots awhile to break your feet into them! Soaking them at first speeds up the process somewhat!!
I have heard that same thing with cowboy boots 40 years ago from an old guy. Soak the socks and wear the boots until they dry. The boot stretches when wet and then shrinks to your foot.
It's common to soak leather motocross boots too. They can be really stiff. I have some older Sidi boots that were super comfortable that didn't require break in but they are about the only brand that are good to go right out of the box. As far as work boots never really had to break any in but have some composite toe boots that are nice and light. I liked boots that weren't big and bulky with thick soles but they quit making them. I think they were Kodiaks.
I always put the toe cups on my Red Wings as from kneeling down, I used to wear through the leather over the steel toe. I always have 2 sets going and will have the older set re-soled and the heel inside done over. At that time, I buy a new set, put the toe cups on and break in. By that time, I get the rebuilt set back and wear them out. By then, the steel shank in the sides are either broken or so weak, my ankles start hurting.
I bought a pair of Nick's in 2020 and got them resoled in 2024. Expensive upfront for sure but very comfortable when broken in. Long lasting as well. For context I was wearing out a pair of Redwing loggers in a year or less prior to buying the Nick's. Also, my feet are a kind of funny shaped and in between sizes. These boots are the first ones I've worn that are actually comfortable. They send out a measure kit if you don't want to go to Washington. That's what I did and it worked great for me. I liked them so well I ordered a pair of dress shoes to wear to fancy functions.
My feet are relatively normal so I can buy boots off the rack. I have the same experience with White's and one pair of Nick's. It is kind of hard to stomach what is now around $700 for a pair of boots. My wife got me my first pair of White's in 1981 for $184 as an anniversary present, and I have never gone back.
Most of the oils used in equipment brakum in purty good to, then there waterproof
3,500 beams, skated through a door, up one 6' step level, and then spun 90 degrees , while hung from the ceiling over the other walkway. I think we had six chain falls up to hand over hand them into place. In They are expanding the 2nd floor, these beams will get pan decked.
That job must have took a while! At least when they put the new spinning roller coaster in the mall they reinforced the floor with jack posts so a 30 ton P&H crane could be brought in to lift all the pieces. They used an older P&H crane because it was more compact or had had a better chart with the boom at lower angles. Can't quite remember but there was a reason they brought in a P&H 30 ton.
They probably used the 30 ton, because that's what they had. I would have used my 15 ton carry deck, but we couldn't get it through the doors. We had 4-5 guys from the welders there, me and one of my guys. We started at 5 in the morning and I was loaded back up and headed to the shop at 11. My extra guy left at 9. So we had 10 man hours in it, the welders had 35. I spent a couple hours loading up chain falls and skates, and I'll have to do the same unloading.
CO I know you could look at the overhead beams and how they were mounted and tell if they would take the load of lifting the beams but just to CYA did engineers or somebody sign off on it.
Crossed my fingers and hoped for the best. The roof holds up a dome , and there were columns on both ends, it's not a free standing dome. But no, there weren't any engineers involved in our part. I think the beams themselves were engineered for the floor load, but not the install. In my experience, it's hard to get engineers to sign off on anything on a old existing structure, and a assembly process. The welder wanted to pull out a window and slide the I beam through from the outside. Which really wouldn't have helped, because that only gets it halfway through the wall. This went pretty slick.
If they were 15,000 lb beams, then I would have had some more questions about the roof, but the way we did it, we wouldn't have had 2,000 lbs on any point on a beam.
Getting an engineer to sign off would be more than the job and I have no idea what you charged. The roof beams look more than adequate to lift those beams, I would've done it.
fun gig! that is a cool building with those angles.
I think they needed the reach. The crane stayed in one spot and the new coaster had to be installed in amongst all the other rides including the Mindbender and a smaller coaster. They used a huge crane outside to lower components in through the roof skylights. The boss who was an ironworker almost lost his life but wanted to keep it hush hush. They were trying to put a tarp over the roof because rain was coming. He was walking across a beam pulling the tarp when wind caught the tarp knocking him off the beam. He fell on the scaffolding about 10 to 12' below narrowly missing one of the connecting pins sticking up to add more scaffolding. Real close to the edge. A couple feet over he would have fell 35-40' to the floor. He tried to be all about safety but his near miss was never reported. He knew that I was all over it. One of the longer term employee's told me the boss confessed to him he broke his arm but to not to tell anyone. He did tell me it scared him. No doubt! It was really stupid and dangerous to try and put a large tarp over a hole in the roof 40' up in the wind no less. I think the amusement park would have been shut down pending a full investigation if the incident would have been reported. It's still scary to think about.
any open hole thing scares me. If nobody else tools up, I do and they can kiss my butt about the time I spend. My house I was putting up rails the instant I could get started. My friend's cabin same thing. We stood this post and I did not stop moving till I had a safety deck.
Working at the feed mill this morning, fixing exhaust hoods. Had a busy week, after getting dug out from the snow last week. We got some big sewer boxes set with the 120, hot tubs set with one of the 40's, been working on a resort with the 90 ton. Also got the big Christmas tree taken down. Trusses set. Got a solar panel array, but it's been too soft from the snow to get that set.
During the cold/ snow we had, one of the guys has been making progress on the white lowboy. Couple new bolsters. New taillight brackets, and some longer ramps. We put some c channel in the middle of the board area, and new deck boards. Hopefully that will keep the little industrial cranes from breaking the deck up .
One of the guys has even got started putting some paint on it. For some reason, the former owners of the trailer, had shorter tires on the rear axle. Front two axles are 275's, rear axle is 255's. One of the leveling valves is disconnected, and there's a bunch of extra valves and switches at the rear for adding a stinger. I need to figure out how that is all supposed to work yet. It also used to have a flip over neck box , which didn't come with the trailer either. I don't really need it, but if I ever needed a jeep and rear stinger, it would have been nice to get it with the trailer.
Just out here being a sundial all day. I knew I would regret not bringing a lunch . Whenever I don't bring anything with me to eat, 2 picks turns into all day.
Does the back axle lift? I've seen smaller tires on lift axles to get more ground clearance when up.
Nope, it's almost like they replaced the rear axles tires at a different time, and somebody got the wrong tire size
Well if you ever got tired of the crane business you could get into the custom fab and repair business.
I used to keep a stash of granola bars, bottled water and some emergency meals in my work van just in case I got stuck somewhere.
Same here. Always have a cooler with water bottles and a few Kind bars scattered around the truck and my go bag.
A few coworkers got trapped by a washout while up in the watershed at one point. Keeping food and water became more import after that.
Looks like someone was whipping Mig welds like 6010. Mig doesn't need ripples spaced apart. Use a little more heat and/or volts to flatten the bead and just twist your wrist side to side to ensure fusion at the edges while moving ahead. Looks pretty heavy duty though.
That would change one's attitude about having a lunch along. I do always have a cooler with something to drink. And during the week I usually have a lunch with me. But this was a saturday "quick job", and things get away. Its not so easy to stop in and grab a bite, on the way home in the crane.
I had a guy bail me out the other day with one of those booster packs on the 75 ton carrier.2 dead 8 Ds and the booster cranked it right away . The thing weights a couple of pounds,can carry it with one hand,a far cry from the booster we used to have made from 8Ds on a hand cart that didnt like the ground in the yard.
Was down at Pacific Rim equipment last week looking at excavators and some machines had weak or dead batteries from sitting... They had a fairly substantial but light weight booster pack---very impressive the starting power & convenience.
Does his do 24v? We're about 75/25percent on 12v to 24v, and its a pain.
I believe it did 24v as well. we were only dealing with 12V so i didnt look further once we were fired up. One of these things is on my list to but now.
the 12/24 from NOCO is $2,000? In canadian, that's what, a arm and two legs? I could just buy more trucks.
Canadian prices are just ridiculous!
Never fails
That thing sure is annoying!
It was 76 degrees here today, so I really shouldn't be complaining.
Sounds stifling. You can keep it.
Down to t shirts
Up here, 76 deg F would be shirtless, shorts and flip flops….
It is here as well. 76 today as well and broke a sweat.
It may hit 76 here in May it was 20 below for a low got up to 33 or so late in the afternoon they claim we are done beimg in the deep freeze
DO NOT BELIEVE "them"! It's a trap and we're going to get more winter..
Wife texted she was going shopping? Because you surely weren't working
I don't have a big enough crane. Had to bring in a bigger gun .
How many tons is that crane and did you run it? Is the big tower an amusement park ride?
its a 275 ton that is owned by another company. Its their operator running it, I was running big blue on the other side. Tower is 200' tall. They don't really bare rent large AT type cranes. They are just too complicated and expensive to throw any operator in.
Ride is down.
Set a crematorium yesterday. 30,000lbs. Stuck it in the door, and skated it across the building. Used the air skates , it was a brand new epoxy painted floor, so I didn't really want to make tracks with my alligator Hillman rollers. A 20,000lb capacity forklift would have been super helpful, but we made the industrial grove work.
Never fails
Setting some precast. Ground is a little bit soft after the rain this past weekend.
That is an interesting composite construction building. Structural masonry, red iron, pre-cast with a wood truss roof. Don't think I've seen all 4 types combined together.
The roof trussing is all fire retardant treated wood. Its got a reddish cast to it. I don't imagine its cheap either. Most of these type buildings just have metal stud trussed roofs. I'm not sure why this one got wood.
Just like old times
One of my guys has been out here with the 90 ton and set most of these trusses. He told me that two of the steel beams seemed to be in the wrong spot, with how the trusses set on them. The framers set the trusses anyway, (because production/speed) so now we get to take them all back down, move the steel beam, then put the trusses all back up. Don't have time to figure it out the first time, we sure don't have time to do it twice. I'm lazy and have plenty of crane, so we aren't taking them down one at a time.
Got the trusses all laid down Friday. Going after the steel beams this morning .
Been moving around on the job site a lot, so if we leave part of the counterweight on the crane , we've just been stacking the rest on the kw. Got a load on. Unloaded a railroad wheel press. Took one of the 40 tons, and got there and it was spewing hydraulic, so went back to the shop and got one of the grove industrials. It pick and carried it, but I think the pump is weak in it. About the time it won't boom up, it's ready to pick the rear off the ground, so it's a old school weight indicator.
Broderson has a 4.3 gm with a oddball fuel injection, dual fuel, gas propane system. It kept running worse and worse, and we checked all the other possibilities. So off with the new and in with the old. It's now carburetor. I'll get a propane system to put on top of it later. 40 ton had a suspicious rattle under load. Checked top end. Dropped pan and opened front cover. Spotted the extra 6 exhaust gasket scattered around what turned out to be a cracked exhaust manifold. Why they didn't replace the manifold instead of bandages of extra gaskets is beyond me. It didn't make a lot of noise unless it was in a hard pull, and it didn't sound like a exhaust leak. I was worried it was a deeper lifter/ valve noise from what it sounded like. Could have been worse. New manifold and gaskets should have that sorted out.
Trusses went back up yesterday. Today is trash day. Filled two dumpsters of trash from the roofers so far.
My Saturday used purchase. Bunch of shackles and 4 -20 ton ratchet binders. Because everyone needs 20 ton binders, right?
Why not if they are cheap enough. I am getting ready for my farm/estate auction in April. I threw away 4 barrels of scrap unsaleable stuff. So far about 1/2 way through. Filled up 10 4X8 plywood tables of smalls from one barn. Will have at least another 10 tables of farm stuff. Already sold about 100K worth of equipment private sale.
I very rarely buy new shackles. I rarely buy used nylon rigging. The shackles last forever, the nylons, its rare that someone is selling 4 that match lengths, and don't have a snag in them. The guy was selling the shackles and the binders, I wanted the shackles, but not really the binders, then he said $500 for all 4 binders, and evidently that was my number. I don't know what we will end up using them for, but at that price, they can lay around until I need them for something. Chinese binders aren't much less than that. They are simplex usa, and new price on them is over $1,500 each. Which is why I'm not buying new, but don't mind buying used. There's a guy close to me that has a whole bunch of nylon round ups for sale, big stuff. Boss told him to get rid of it, and he sent me a list of what it is. All mismatched lengths, brands, capacities. One's and two's of most of it. Told me he wants $5,000 for it all. "Its a deal, just one strap can be $1,000". Yes, I know that, I buy rigging all the time, but to make picks with the crane, I need at least 2, but most of the time, 4 of the same length and capacity. He contacted me again, says they are going to throw all the straps away. I'm probably a buyer at about $1,500, but he said its $5,000 or they are pitching them. Okay bud, better head for the dumpster, because I'm not your buyer at $5,000. For that kind of $, I can buy new that at least matches in length and capacity.
Where's the dumpster?
Exactly, I would rather have $1,500 than pay for the dump. He can eat them. The people that expect new price for used , never ceases to amaze me.
My fancy lunch spot. Your sandwich comes wrapped in a sheet of paper towel. My wife likes fancy, but I love eating in places like this. And since I was in the area, I didn't have to think too hard to come up with a excuse to ride the ferry.
Set this ridge the other day Moved a big fuel tank Got a 5th wheel plate needing some attention. Got jib mounted on big blue. Need it for Monday.
Tearing down a two story building, it's built on a dock. They are replacing it with a single story building. Going to make a restaurant with a wedding venue. Had to get creative taking down the old stairs in one piece. It flew better than I thought it would. If you zoom in behind the tree, one of my 40 ton is out on the dam. They have had us pulling some gates out to get rebuilt.
Back at the big resort today, setting rooftop a/c units. Crane is set up in the future pool location. Some of these units may be fun to replace after the pool is built. There's a view of a small finger of the lake, from the pool/courtyard area.
Still been having trouble with locking system on the telescope of the 90 ton. Ruined another prox switch, which are $1,800 ( they're oddball and I've got another source now at$600). Anyways, they got it all working right, and unfortunately ,one of the hoses in the boom was leaking, so that means the boom has to come out of the crane. Then slide the carriage and telescope cylinder out, to replace the hose. And while we had it out, resealed the cylinder, as a "while we are here". My guys are going to try to get the boom installed back in the crane today. Yesterday they got the carriage back into the boom.
Made the news today, fortunately for all the right reasons. Set the cupola on the new resort and they had a whole big event. Big wheels from the company, speeches, and even fireworks. Silver Dollar City ‘crowns’ resort, unveils new details Silver Dollar City celebrated a defining milestone for its developing resort on Friday. www.ky3.com 11K views · 2K reactions | The heartland’s FIRST theme park resort got its crown today. The Silver Dollar City Resort will open in 2027 with seamless access to America’s number 1 Theme Park, exclusive park privileges, full service dining, indoor & The heartland’s FIRST theme park resort got its crown today. The Silver Dollar City Resort will open in 2027 with seamless access to America’s number 1 Theme Park, exclusive park privileges, full... www.facebook.com
It was kind of a all day ordeal. Get there early, get all rigged up, pray that the crane doesn't let me down in front of a audience. Wait around for 2 hours for all the people to show up, gave their speeches and PR. Two minutes to set the box, then two hours for the fancy people to eat lunch and tour., They left around 2, and we could tie it down and cut loose. But it's up, crane is torn down and back to the shop.
Cool!
Instead of concrete precast boxes, local road and bridge is trying out these. 1/2 round steel barrel, with steel floor. Going to put concrete on top. Supposed to be 1/2 the cost of precast concrete boxes. I'm sure the bottom is going to rust out, but the barrel part essentially just becomes a form for the concrete. I'll ask them when they get done how they come out $.
Apartment trusses. They said the pond was firmer than it looked, and I could set up anywhere in it , that I wanted to. Turns out, there wasn't anywhere in the pond that I wanted to set up in.
That’s like them saying “there’s a ton of traction in all that mud”. Unbelievable.
Feed mill, got jib on and have alternated offset in and out. , trying to work around the downspouts. Got manbasket on the other end, welding patches on the wall of the mill hopper. Last time we were here, one of my guys had to take some old spout out of this area, and we dropped the worst of the spouts that is in the way. They didn't want to have to drop and reinstall that spout this time, and all we have to get in there is the basket, so we're fighting around it. I think I would have just rather dropped the spout down.
We had your basic 4’ galvanized steel culvert for a creek under the road just south of us that lasted about 50 years. The bottom was worn/rusted out when they finally replaced it. Those steel ones as a form covered in concrete should last a long, long time
Well drilling rig caught on fire. They wanted me to just lay down the mast, and then they were going to drag it out with a couple track loaders. I talked them into picking the frame, and pushing outriggers in, and lifting it and putting tires on it. I don't think they would have ever got it drug up the hill and through the trees dragging it like a boat anchor. They are taking the remnants back to their yard as a parts machine.
Culvert boxes. Had to drop one power line, and cover a second one. I just rubbed up against the phone and cable lines, because we crossed them.
This foundation was put in the ground in 2008. Was supposed to be a winery, lost funding, and has set with nothing built on it since then. It's finally sold, they are cutting off the top of the elevator shaft, taking some columns out of the basement, and cutting the top of the walls down. Going to be a flooring sales company moving in. Concrete saw is remote control.
Took this picture for you @crane operator
I've never run pilings. @Tugger2 has spent a long time doing it. Looks like a railroad bridge?
Yep. I think they are working on the pier. It has had chains wrapped around it for several years.
Was talking about not throwing out old parts on here in another thread, now I'm buying old parts and dragging them home. This is a set of sisu planetaries I found for sale. I think they are the same, except for gear ratio, to the rears in my mack lowboy truck. I bought them because we weren't totally happy with the carrier that we had cleaned up at the machine shop , that we tore up in the Titan. The carrier was some silly price and outrageous lead time from sisu. I'm hoping this used set will give us spare axles/ planetaries and shafts, essentially a spare parts set up, just because they are kind of rare drive axles, with limited availability.
I'm half Finn. I like to think those axles live up to the name.
Rebuilding the lift cylinders on lowboy. Pulling pony motor off, to use the wet kits on the trucks. Also moving the 5th wheel pin back. Pins on the top /rod were bent, so getting new pins made also. I prefer the way my talbert neck is made, over this trailking.
90 ton working at the resort, and the 120 at the marina building. My guy at the marina with the 120, said he was at 199' radius pulling the far lvl's off. I think he was good for 2,200lbs. We've got some more to do at the marina, we may put a jib insert in, which would gain another 1,500 lbs of chart or so.
Great thread! I started on it a few weeks ago at the very beginning and having the weekend off recovering from the flu, or whatever this is that’s got me feeling like one of the cranes in the photos ran over me, gave me the time to finish it. It’s been very interesting. I come from a drill rig background and turned to yellow iron the last few years. I know nothing about cranes but I like to look at new stuff.
This was always my preferred type of crane back when I worked on drill rigs. Of course, I wasn’t paying the bill on it!
Glad you enjoyed reading. I'm pretty fortunate. I've got a great group of guys working with me, and good customers.
The great crew part is really hard to come by these days. Hang onto them the best you can! Most people are struggling in that department right now.
That's a stretch! Reminds me of setting parapet steel with the boom truck, all the way out to chart nothingburger. I had to do it over the nose to get close enough for the last 20', blowing and raining, just snotty weather. The ironworkers had been complaining about our availability for a while, so when they hinted that maybe I would call the weather? Oh no, I'm fine. this is fine.
Had to straighten up a wayward rail car. Built a little goofy piece of exhaust to replace a rusted out piece. I love finding free tools on the road.
Loaded a lathe. Tree on a house. Glamour shot of the new flatbed counterweight truck. Running around with big blue out in the trees.
Moving a rock crusher. There's a whole new setup at this quarry, so the old one is headed to a different quarry.
Rail Road axle lathe, spent 4 years maintaining & running one, in 2000 a spindle brg was $35,000. In 2004 we moved both axle lathes ,plus all other wheel shop machines from Squamish BC to Prince George BC for CN new wheel shop. That was the end of my Railroad Day’s 35 yrs as a millwright. That CR Jaw is the same size that I worked on after I left the RR, That’s tough work, just changing the jaw plates was a challenge everything is big and heavy. Hope that truck & trailer wasn’t going very far, that lathe is heavy. Cheers
Roadside tool finds are great. In the last couple years, I've found a Milwaukee 19 oz framing hammer, an Estwing 22oz framing hammer, a smaller size channel locks pliers (slightly bent, but able to be straightened) and an aluminum concrete rake. Many years ago, I did an internship with MDOT that had me walking the sides of roads on a survey crew. I found piles of rubber tie downs, screwdrivers, a chain and two 4 lb hammers with broken handles. My dad still has that chain and I have both of the 4lb hammer heads, though I've never fixed the handles
They are a independent axle/ wheel shop. We've loaded and unloaded a lot of machines for him. The big lathe is out back, it will chuck a full axle with wheels on and weighs 100,000. The one on his gooseneck is 25,000lbs or so.
Looks like you have been working around the Railroad some. What is the story on the rail car?
They have a spare set of trucks, that they temporarily put under cars. That way they can roll the cars around when they are rebuilding the trucks. The temporary trucks don't have the right bolsters for that particular car. So when they started pushing it down the rail with the forklift, it started to rock and flopped crooked. There's some wedge blocks they should have put in. The old guy that worked there for years has just retired, and there's some learning going on.
It is often interesting how expensive that learning can be, when a simple phone call could have alleviated the heartburn
Bought a couple shackles the other day. Been also working on getting all the equipment gathered up for pulling turntable bearing on the 100 ton. Pump is set up and working. Hydraulic torque wrench. 41mm x 1 1/2" drive socket to fit hytorc and my 1 1/2" drive impact. Big thanks to @Junkyard for finding the hydraulic torque wrench.
Interesting enough, the socket is dual marked. 1 5/8" and 41mm. It's a handful.
I got a service guy with a hydro wrench its so much nicer than storing one for 3 years between uses and having to fix it
I got a quote from united rentals. Would have to come out of the Kansas city store. I am sure the cat man and another equipment place has one, but they are both a hour away. The rental I would probably need two different times, once for out, once for back in. I'm at about 1/2 price of the rental, in my ownership costs. But I'm with you on the storing until I need it again.
They are $2,500 for the one week, and I'd end up at 2 weeks with the second rental.
So what your really telling me is the independent guy I use is handy and cheap We need his help on some counter weights on excavators when my 4 to 1 multiplier wouldn't get it cost less than 500 both times granted there was only 6 bolts each time Did the circle on an excavator a few years back I thought it would be harder granted we red necked that pretty hard to make it work but I don't have a crane and I bet a crane is not very forgiving in how you handle it
Cat Rental more than likely wouldn't have had one. Rented a mag drill to install the pintle hitch on our L9000 and United was the only outfit that had one. For what you are doing and your ability to do it - I would have bought it as well. Just makes sense. Now how about that CTL?
A good independent would be handy, but we just don't have that option. As far as the crane being forgiving? I guess we're going to find out, because it needs changed. If I wasn't buying a turntable bearing, I could probably swing a CTL. Liebherr wanted $62,000 plus freight from Germany. Plus another $2,100 for bolts. We're going to try to get it rebuilt, or built new here.
I hear ya' on that one. Been looking for a good independent for a long time and might have found one. He's a former Cat mechanic that went out on his own running 2 service trucks with 3 other guys and has his own shop. Got 2 angle cylinders on our D5G that need to be repacked. Cat quoted $715 each! So we're going to give this new guy a shot. We'll see how it goes.
We used Kaydon on our swing yarders. Don't remember ever having a problem except when a machine burnt up They don't like that. It happened more often than one would think. d.d.
A little feed mill work. Leg and downspouts are all coming down, and a new taller leg going in.
A little paint and body work with a used box. We had replaced the front quarter already. One of the guys hit a patch of ice this winter, and we're getting that cleaned up. It's like a 2009 with a 6.0, with a lot of miles, but it still runs good, so $500 for a box and a good painter will spruce it up.
Went all night at the aluminum plant. They called at about 11:00am that the overhead crane was down. One of the guys had got rained out , so he hauled the RT over, and ran noon until 10:00pm. I was on a different job that morning at 5am, so I pulled night shift -10:00pm until 10:30am the next day, when they had the overhead crane back up. I went ahead and left the crane there. Good thing , because the overhead went back down again the next day too. One of my guys went back, ran 12-5pm, and I was thrilled with the text that they had it back up. 38 hours straight with two 40 minute naps is about all I want. I was figuring they wouldn't get it fixed, and we would have to pull 24 hours a day all holiday weekend, until they could get the overhead mechanic to fix it. But they got it together and I am off Sunday and Monday.
Does it get a little fumey working inside like that? I guess an aluminum plant would probably have pretty good ventilation though.
Building is open on a couple sides, and I can't say I really noticed anything. But I've got a funny sniffer. Diesel, brake clean, eye watering exhaust fumes, 80-90, sewer treatment plant, no problem. But I can smell my wife cutting a cucumber a mile away, and don't want to be anywhere near it.
I bet the pipe with the chain fall hung nice and straight up and down when they cut it loose. Maybe I'm wrong but that's the type of work I do and it just looks off. I always hate taking downspouts down it isn't always easy getting them hooked up just right.
I prefer to take down old long, really worn out spouts with 2 pick points. Especially small diameter ones like these. They've been patched before, and are thin on the bottoms. Its too easy to fold one up, and then you have a mess. You don't have to worry about that with new pipe, plus you can kind of play around with the new pipes on the ground to get them hanging right. None of these pipes were guy wired either, and that makes them weak also. The bad side of two pick points, is you have to have a second crane or lift. Just to get it rigged up. There's no way to get a lift close enough to work out of at this mill, so that's what the second crane is for, manbasket to rig up. The old leg was really shot, large holes in the trunk and not super stable, so we left one spout, and actually had the head on one crane, and the last spout on the second crane, both rigged, before unbolting the spout. That way we didn't have to worry about the leg collapsing, when we took the last spout off. You can see in one of the pictures that we were single point picking a shorter spout, its easier to twist one out with the single pick point, to walk it in. But like you said, the odds of being right on, so it doesn't tip one way or the other are slim.
Definitely get the two pic points, just thought it looks like your rigger could have moved the chain fall leg down the pipe a little lower. Those are some pretty long pipes to not have any trussing. I don't get into feedmills too often as I'm mostly on farms but it seems like feedmills are good at wearing things out and they're always rusted out and sketchy. It's never fun to be on top when you cut the last pipe or bolt. Having the second crane is the way to go. Sometimes you just never know what's holding what up on demos.
Old school water tower build. Stiff leg derrick. It's local to me and thought you guys might like to see it, they don't build many like this anymore. They mostly build the bowls on the ground and bring in a 400 ton crane and set them.
Somehow the picture didn't post of the water tower, here it is.
In other news, both Link belt 40 ton are down. One has a throttle problem in the swivel, the other one has broken suspension - again. I've worked on these stupid raydan suspensions more than anything else I've ever touched. They are always torn up.
That's interesting. How thick is the steel that is used for water towers like that? Around here water "towers" are just concrete tanks in the ground.
The tanks that I've been involved in demo on, are usually 1/4" or 3/16" at the top, and heavier as they go down. They can be 3/8" to 1/2" at the bottom. Those have all been "silo" style. I don't know how thick the steel is on this tank, but I would guess it is similar
Did they build the water tower on site from the ground up? I worked at a tank shop where they got a contract to build some large storage tanks on site. I wasn't involved but some components like the man ways were built in the shop. The bottom row of steel was 1" thick if I recall. I don't know how gallons the giant tanks hold but there's a lot of pressure pushing on the bottom when they're full. There's a lot of huge storage tanks at refineries and tank farms close to where I live. They have to have large earth berms around each one capable of holding the full amount incase there's a leak or tank failure. It's probably a good job for an excavating contractor just building the berms. There's also a few spherical tanks suspended on legs that are pretty cool.
Stem was built in sections, set in place with a large hydro. Large hydro set the stiff leg on the top of the stem, and it builds the bowl.
Putting up a cell tower today.
Working on bushings, and had to get into a tight spot with the galion.
Setting trusses with the Amish framers. Back side of the house on the porch, gets one of the fancy 10' tallx20' wide folding patio doors. General contractor said it was a $60,000 door.
A little jib work on a condo, and a oak tree.
Setting a couple mausoleum's. Sycamore went through a shop roof The guys setting a billboard pole with big blue.
Offloaded the pole a week ago, until the ditch dried up enough to get in there. Since I don't have a 53' step deck, had to do some creative blocking to get it loaded. Stuck over the end of the trailer a little. But one of my guys got it over there and down through the ditch.
CO, Sycamore tree didn't help but those rafters are a little spaced out aren't they, especially for your snow loads. Also something I faintly remember from eons ago was a osha joke about all long pipe had to be labeled long pipe on both ends so inspector didn't have to walk the full length of pipe or something like that. There was a whole page of those rules on the wall inside a job office trailer.
I don't think his shop is very old, maybe 2-3 years. I don't there's any inspection to code out there. It's a tin roof built like a pole barn
10' OC with 2x4s purlins on edge is normal for post frames here I know we have a higher snow load than CO. 2x6 trusses are kinda small, but it also doesn't look like a very big span.
Thanks Mike that was the list
Wait a minute, where am I?
Turn around!!
Cheap tacos & beer follow the signs
What are you doing up there….?
El Paso ? You driving one of those junk car caravans ? Joe H
Wheww, that was a close one. MEXICO, missouri.... Been up to Iowa to see my parents. Looking at moving them from their house (which they don't want to do), to a apartment/ assisted living place. Dad's driving is getting bad, he's getting lost, confused. It hasn't been sudden, been coming on for a long time. Mom is still sharp, but getting worn out taking care of him. My sisters are closer to them, but the reality is, if something happens to mom, dad can't be home alone any more. Mom is planning on them going straight from their house to the graveyard. But mom doesn't drive, and she doesn't really cook anymore. So we are exploring options, I was up there 2 weeks ago, and we toured one facility, toured another one this week. I think they are really past being able to live in the one, which is "independent" living, basically a apartment complex- you have full kitchen, laundry machines in the basement- no medical staff. The other facility has levels of care within the same building. You can start "independent"- you have a car, only one meal provided, live the rest of your time in the apartment, next level is assisted with 3 meals, help available for meds, showering, they do your laundry, nurses on site, and they also have a third level of full memory care on site, with card access, for when/ if he starts wandering around. I would love if mom would be here to transition dad to the facility living. vs if something happens to her, he's going to be lost in a new place by himself. One of the big deals is dad still smokes. And he's never going to quit. But the place with 3 levels has nurses that smoke, and there's a spot by the dumpster with a outdoor ash tray, which pretty much seals the deal for me. He's going to love standing out in 10 degree's, but for him, that's better than not lighting up. Also went up to waverly Iowa to get parts for the electrical swivel on the link belt 40 ton. Link belt wants $8 grand and minimum 60 days for any parts for the swivel, or a whole swivel, doesn't matter. The oem for the electric swivel is in waverly. They were super helpful and are getting us some parts.
One of the biggest issues, is the decision making problems. Dad always made all the decisions: money/ car buying/ house/ - mom is totally incapable of deciding to do something, she'll turn herself in circles worrying about something, and in the end- do nothing. Dad is incapable today, of making any decisions. His short term memory is totally gone, and understands about 1/4 of the things going on. He knows mom is upset right now, but not really why she's upset. He knows they are looking at places, but he'd just rather stay at his house. The rub is that mom- won't let someone else make the decision for her. She's got the reins in her hands now, after 60 years of having dad running the show. For example: They need a smaller car, so she can end up driving it, dad is enough there, that he's mentioned to me trading cars. But mom would be totally incapable of going to a car dealership and buying a car. So we're stuck with them in a 4 door expedition el, and a 4 door 6' bed f150. Neither of which she has any business trying to drive. And he's going to lose his license. So here we are, two huge vehicles, dad can't drive, she shouldn't drive, but she won't buy something else- and is adamant that "what we have is just fine". So the current plan, is I'm probably going to have to go and just buy a vehicle, and put it in their driveway. Mom will throw a fit, but then a week later they will hopefully end up driving it. And I'm going to have to go put in the deposit on the assisted living place, and start paying for it. And mom will throw a fit "they are far to young for such a place- everyone there is 20 years older than them (they are 80)", etc- etc, but in two weeks it will all blow over. Hopefully. Fortunately, Dad was a great planner, and made great investments, and the $ is going to be fine. So at least that isn't one of our issues.
Don’t really like hearing that but it’s life. My dad will be 86 this year and he’s got 65% grey matter in his head. Alzheimer’s runs in our family, his father made it to 87. My step mom just came out of the hospital for Afib and is so overweight, she can’t do much. Very soon we will be in your position. At the moment, they live in their own house but it’s deteriorating rapidly. Money, fortunately isn’t the issue, it’s my father’s stubborness. It’s at the point now, he doesn’t report any more minor accidents because insurance is pretty angry with him. Getting old sucks. Doesn’t help, I will be getting a T7 to L2 fusion in 2 weeks and can’t really help them out as much as I’d like. Good luck.
Getting old sucks. Crane Op at least your dad took care of the finances so you and your family don't have to worry about that. My father is the same way. Spent Friday a week ago at the hospital with my Dad. He needed 2 stints and has been on medication that from a layman's perspective is draino for your veins that removes buildup. Doc got in with the camera and tried 10-15 times to reach the 100% blocked one and couldn't get it. The other one that was 60% blocked look good enough he did not put a stint in so it appears the medication is working. Said all of that to talk about this new medication. If it works like they say it can this stuff can change a lot of peoples lives.
54 is in El Paso Tx, if you **** up you'll end up in Mexico. Joe H
Sorry to hear about your parents. We have been through it with both of our Mom’s a year apart. Both not happy about being locked in. It is a lot to get them somewhere and deal with all the stuff that needs to be dealt with. My MIL didn’t have anything arranged and that added a whole other hassle. My Mom got everything in order just in time and it is easier. Wishing you patience, I certainly could have used a little more several times in the last few years.
Thanks guys. Mom was pretty chipper this weekend, they got invited to lunch by the director at the facility we like, and they had a great time, met a bunch of people that they already know, that are residents. We've moved from (mom) "we're never going there" , to "we don't need the three meals a day, they serve enough I could just take some back to save for breakfast". Dad told my sister that the food was great, can't remember what they ate , but it was good. He did remember, and tell my sister that they have a place he can smoke at. Which tells me that has really been on his mind worrying about it. Of course, none of that means mom is any more ready to move, but it's progress.
Climbing on a plane to Los Angeles this morning. I bought another Link belt 40 ton at a bankruptcy auction last week. I'm not sure condition/ getting loaded, and so I'm going out to get it loaded. I spent quite a while studying the chapter 11 numbers, after I looked at the auction sale bill. Reliable Crane out of las vegas was the seller. I guess I should say that the bankers are the sellers. Debts of around $60 million. About 40 million of it secured by the lenders. The other bankers are out of luck/ praying for a good sale. They had bought 10 tower cranes in 2017 or so . And never made a single principal payment on them, only interest. Payments on just those 10 cranes has gone from 60,000 to $140,000 per month. Bankruptcy documents in September showed $4 million in cash , vs their+50 million of debt. They owed money to everyone. Had a bunch of newer equipment, locations in Vegas, la, Arizona and texas. But they didn't own any of it . I feel sometimes that all I have is 20 year old worn out iron, but at least most of mine is paid for.
Show us some pictures when you get a chance!
Resting for 10 minutes in Denver between flights. Any more, I don't want much less than a hour layover, because otherwise you are never making a connecting flight Left the house at quarter to 4. I'm wishing I would have had time for breakfast. But I don't think my boots are what you are wanting pictures of...
My middle son always takes a photo of his feet whenever he’s travelling and shares it around the family group. Not sure where he got that idea.
Extra $75 for the exit row. I was too late buying my ticket to get aisle or window, so two poor people are going to have to deal with me taking their armrests. Because there isn't anywhere else for my shoulders to go. They make these seats for the munchkins.
Took a flight last month paid $24 for extra leg room,damnit life got me again. Flight attendant was a honey moved me across to empty seat next to her jump seat after boarding but no "dear penthouse".
Well it starts and runs, and it was actually on a job yesterday.... Good thing I wasn't early to pick it up. It's also blue. Really blue. Which isn't my first choice, and I knew that when I was bidding, but beggars can't be choosers. Looks like it has a little blowby, and it is leaking a little hydraulic at the swivel. But it still had rigging in the boxes, way better than "we haven't used it in a long time". I don't know how they were dealing with emissions, but they must have been creative with the cali paperwork, because it's a 2003 and it doesn't have any extras on the exhaust. And they've been running it every day. So we're planning on loading up in the morning. Probably going to have to wait a day on the transfer truck in ehrenburg Arizona. He's having issues getting unloaded in Phoenix. But we're going to go ahead and load it here and at least get it to there. Fingers crossed.
Only used on Sundays by a little ol' lady
Looks like they detailed it for you, it's nice. As clean as it looks why not just hit the highway? Week or so and you'll be home. Joe H
Yard boss said they do a lot of work down at the studios. Unfortunately, he said that they are closing this yard, and consolidating in a yard that is a lot further away. I don't know what they are using for iron, because they sold all the mobile cranes, supposedly they are going to try to hang on to the towers. In reading the bankruptcy documents, this yard was actually making money. The vegas location was what was really taking the losses. But you don't know how they are reporting everything either. As soon as they declared, they closed the texas and Arizona locations. The losses from that iron sitting after the bankruptcy, may have been put all onto the vegas yard, which would have made vegas look bad. Either way, supposedly two years ago they were generating $100 million gross annual revenue. They showed from 5 years before, going from something like 30 to 40 to 60 to topping at $100 mil. But the only numbers that are available to view are what has happened since September. And those gross revenue numbers by month, only work out to $30 million annually. So either they have really been cooking the books, or some huge project finished, and nothing started up to pick up the slack. Articles said they were heavily involved in the raiders stadium project, and that works out timeline wise with the big growth and drop off. I think it helps me to read all that, just because it puts the brakes on me on wanting a bunch of new cranes.
It's crossed my mind. But the reality is that they don't travel very fast. Lots of desert between here and home, and not very many mobile crane mechanics to fix it if I get in trouble, between here and home. I just figure that the hauling is part of the purchase price, and then I can deal with whatever it's problems are, when I have it within a hour of home. If I have to fix one on the side of the road, I'd like to be a lot closer to my shop and tools.
I said week or so but if it decides to o-heat somewhere around Barstow things could get pricey in a hurry. Baker, that's another favorite quit running spot, gets over 100º for weeks at a time. Joe H
Looks like a nice one!
Can you tell us what you paid compared to what you think it's worth? Or maybe just a percentage of what it's value is?
So there's one right now for sale on iron planet, in Wichita Kansas. It would have been much closer, but it's black which is a bitc to paint over, a little older, and a lot of belger's cranes are run into the ground. They want $100,000 for it I'm at $42,000, auction price plus fees. I'm going to spend another $11,000 getting it hauled, plus $1,500 in plane tickets. So I figure I'm $55 for sure, and probably at $60,000 as a round number by the time I fix a few things. Which would probably be 105,000 if I bought the belger one from witchta. The hope is that I can be home at $60. And then sell my oldest tms500e. Which I think I can probably get 50-55,000 for. And then I move up a couple years and a California machine . Most of the used 500e go for between 60-80. There's guys asking 100, but I don't think they get it. Mine could use paint, but everything works. The three axle link belts work really well for the work we do, and they only built them for 3-4 years. There's no new ones out there, so I shop the best used ones I can find.
Think you did pretty well at $60K all in back home.
Considering a new national boom truck is $650-750,000, depending on if you put a pete/Freightliner/kw/int/mack under it and how you option it out. That's a lot of $. And I can't charge any more per hour for the brand new one. So for me, I can own 4-5 used ones, for the price of one new one. And go three different places on Monday. And have the ability to leave a crane at a job a extra day if they need it. But I also then need a shop and yard and mechanic to keep everything going, which isn't free either. With two yards now , I'm hoping to keep things a little more split, to save some moving equipment.
Feel your pain - new equipment prices are nuts.
It's a dry heat
CO, sorry to hear about your parents. Been there, done that, still doing that, still carry scars. My mom was moved from Assisted Living to skilled nursing last year, against her wishes. My son was able to reach her with "Grandma, you need to be here before you have to be here". There is a couple in the facility that only she needs skilled, but her husband moved up with her to help keep her world together. If your sister is local and capable, let her make the call, then she can be the one to get the phone calls in the middle of the night "your mom has fallen and she is on her way to the emergency room". It's real easy to get ptsd every time the phone rings when you are the contact person. Feel free to contact me to vent frustrations if needed.
Thank you, I appreciate it.
I thought I was done for. I saw 112 degrees on the rental car thermometer at the worst. We unloaded about 3:00 in the afternoon. I did a few things to the crane, to be ready for the next truck. I went back to the motel room, laid on the bed and thought " my wife has no idea where I am, I'm going to have a heart attack right here and they won't find me until they smell me" . I got way overheated, feet/ leg cramps, the whole mess. I took a cold shower and forced a bunch of water down the hatch, but it was touch and go for a little while. I talked with my local trucker who was bringing it to Missouri, they were making a drop in Phoenix, and were going to be delayed minimum one or two days. He had multiple trucks there, so they said they could send two guys over there and get it loaded. Didn't have to tell me twice, I popped in the rental minivan and headed for LA. It was 100 degrees at 9:30 in the morning. It's 4 hours to LA, and the temperature dropped 10 degrees every hour West that I drove. It was 75 degrees at the airport, which is right on the Pacific. Caught a late flight la to Dallas, and the last flight from there to Springfield. Last night trucking outfit called called, can't get a permit for Arizona, it's too heavy. Got lucky, and truck drivers and a tow truck got 5,000 lbs of counterweight, 1,000 lbs of block and spreader bar dismounted and thrown on the other truck. Arizona permit came through this morning, and it's headed this way. Sitting by herself in the flying J, my hot rental minivan ( it was actually a great ride), and the local ehrenburg Arizona crane rental rig. I didn't have him come swap weights out.
Good looking crane Co and I see you found a little diamond at the yard sale, cant ya picture your everyone's faces if that came home before the Grove.
Oh by the way salt packets from the burger joints, save um. 18 speeds atlanta rush hour long hot day and out a nowhere leg cramps
There are day's the boss even has long hard days.
At our age you gotta take heat and exhaustion seriously. Glad it turned out ok. How much is the extra break down going to run?
Shouldn't be too bad. When the truckers came over to load, one guy came earlier, and the second guy had brought his truck and trailer, to help load. So- bam- the fall off counterweight slid right on his truck and it's all headed this way. $1,000 for the tow truck, and I'll work it out about the second load. The crane was 2,000 lbs heavier than factory specs, which is what I gave them for a weight. So it was 2,000 heavy, from what I told them. But turns out Arizona wouldn't accept their trailer configuration (every other state would), and they wouldn't have been legal at spec weight/what I gave them. They needed to be 3,000 lbs under the weight I gave them for a Arizona permit. So 2,000 lbs is on me, and 3,000 is on them. Doesn't really matter, it's too heavy. I've got a good relationship with these guys, and we'll work out whatever is fair. I'm not to worried about it. They could have got a permit for the actual weight, but it would take two weeks to get that, and the trucks were already there. Load it up and get it home, we'll figure out the $ later. There's a lot of guys that would throw a fit, and they are the guys who "I can't find anyone who will haul for me". No **** - no one will haul for you, because you expect them to do it for nothing " it's a haul back so the trucker should do it for free". What comes around goes around. I understand that things don't always go according to plan, and everyone has to make money, so I try to figure something out. Everyone has to eat, and I don't need steak every day, and expect everyone else to eat ramen. In other news - turntable bearing is out of the liebherr, and the guys I talked to last fall about building me one, I think got bought out, or are no longer in business. So I need to get on the phone and get someone to building one, or rebuilding this one.
Setting units today. Truck driver was early, threw a fit at the HVAC guys after he was there 5 minutes, that he was starting a back charge for unloading time, even though he was a hour early. So we got him unloaded, he flew into the truck in a rage, and promptly drove out the gate he was told not to. Got stuck, HVAC guys wouldn't have anything to do with him. General contractor pulled him out. He promptly drove into a plumbers ditch, and drove over their PVC risers, breaking two of them off. And is stuck again. Now the plumbers are pissed off too, general contractor is taking pictures of everything, no more talking about back charges for unloading, now we're talking digging back up all the buried lines, and damages. It was a show.
The funniest was the six times it took the driver to hook the chain on the bumper. The general superintendent was ready to tell him to call a tow truck after the hook fell off for the third time, but they got it done.
Set a billboard torsion tube this morning. And just for everyone's education, the scenic event in Blythe California/ehrenburg Arizona is a bunch of ancient stick figures outlined in the desert. No one knows who made them, when they did it, or why. I know that they sweated their asses off making it. The one animal looks like a kindergarten drawing of mine. They aren't sure what animal it depicts. But it's probably not a horse, because they don't think the Spanish were here yet. If you drive yourself out there, it's a fence and desert, so the real view is from Google Earth, a plane or a drone. Save yourself the drive.
on a job I was working on bout 2 yrs ago
Sounds like the truck driver was a complete a-hole! Should deduct all the damages and towing from his invoice. As for your parents maybe the facilty you looked at provides transportation or the city has special transportation for seniors. It doesn't sound like either of them should really be driving. Some assisted living facilities are really good with nurses on staff and Dr's readily available. My mom was in a place like that and a room had just opened up at another place that provided even more care but my mom took a downturn after falling and breaking her hip and ended up going into continuing care at a hospital. It was really nice just outside of Victoria on Vancouver Island. She had dementia but not full blown Alzheimers. She stopped eating solid food and they moved her to the "Garden Room" for her last few weeks. I was very glad I got to see her in time to talk to her when she was pretty coherent and remembering things. Felt like asking her if she wanted to try eating but knew the end was near. She passed away a few hours after I talked to her.
Looks like a lot of work. Glad to see people keep older machines running. Your my kind of people!
Which one is the driver? I tell ya' there are way too many drivers on the road that shouldn't have a CDL and that guy is one of them. Those 4" PVC pipes sticking out of the ground painted bright ******* green for a reason are very expensive when one runs over them.
CO you picked a rough week to try dry heat i live 2 hours east of blyth and it has been below 95 at night in 10 days Arizona doesn't recognize a tridum axel group for 60000 only 57000 everyone here uses west coat style trailers with 16 tire groups after that you go to 9 axels and that's a little over kill for your crane
Driver is the guy in the bright blue shirt. It really grinds my gears, when people stand between moving equipment and a trailer, like he is when the forklift is backing up to hook up a chain. Too easy to get smushed. Oh and wrapping the chain in the middle of the bumper? Wrap by the frame rail.....
My cali hauler was a 16 tire group. I think my local guy just messed up on what they can haul, I don't know what they were delivering in phoenix, but I think they just goofed on configuration. There's a reason I don't mess much with hauling for hire, every state has different regs, and I just don't have time to mess with it. We get pretty humid here, and it can get warm. But I was up early and traveling, and not drinking fluids because "getting things done". The super dry really bit me. It could have been much worse, I was close to bad shape. The trucker called this afternoon, I think I'm unloading tomorrow.
Around here we start at 430 or 5 in the morning this time of year and wrap by 1 if possible 2 gallons of water is probably the minimum for working in this heat everyday and there is nothing more fun than being on the side of the road in the afternoon working on a truck you literally bake laying on the asphalt
We start at 6, and do that usually middle of june through end of august. Done by 2-2:30. The worst is usually 2-6 here in the afternoon. Heat index warning starts this week, its been pretty nice here this spring, so we haven't gone to 6 start yet.
Cell antenna work . I'm running the 90 this afternoon, good thing the 120 has the man basket, I'm just sending materials. Because I suck at running this 90 ton with jib on. We're kinda snuggled in right beside each other.
Press in a building this morning. Was going to bring a industrial grove, but I was not feeling like loading it up, so I just took a 40 ton. After I had my boom touching the ceiling, I was wishing I had brought a industrial. But I got it.
The boys with the shiny trucks got the crane delivered Sunday afternoon.
5,000lb fall off load. Buddy sent me pictures of wind farm in the dakotas. They got a little too much wind. He said there are a bunch down.
Right on top of each other.
They've been sandblasting the new water tower. They have quite the tarp.
Nice pictures and updates. Sorry about the folks issues. Been there in some form but 25 years ago. Neat new used rig. Sensible 3 axles. You have heavy covered with the 90 and the 120 and the Leeeb-her. Heat stroke is a bugger. You get that poison rolling around through all your muscles and it takes an age to get right again. Crazy bunch of work there in SD. Makes me think of Farmerlund.
There are times at the quarry, where a 60-70 ton truck crane would be handy. The 50 ton RT is kinda unhandy to haul around for one or two picks. Usually, if we can't get it picked with one of our 40 ton truck cranes, a 60 ton probably isn't going to get it either. So we're really happy with our current set up. Do I wish they were all 5 years old instead of 15? Sure, but I sleep better at night without that kind of a debt load.
The worst part about putting up hay in this part of the country is there's rarely any starting early. When it gets real soupy we're lucky to start baling before 11. Between the mild temperatures and the storms every 3-4 days, I hadn't done any hay until this week. Made 350 21 bale bundles between Saturday and Wednesday. It's not a great hobby. That storm was wild to watch the loop from the GOES satellite. https://satlib.cira.colostate.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/06/20260629113117-20260629194617_g19_abi-glm_conus_vis2-ged_SD-and-MN-storms_labels.mp4
I spoke too soon yesterday about not running basket. It wasn't 20 minutes and we swapped. The 120 went to the other tower, and I had to put the other basket up. I don't think I've ever run the 90 with jib on, but I'm learning fast. The cell guys can death grip the handrail. We were 8 pm again before we left. Going to do today also, I'm not sure I'm going until 8 tonight though, traffic will be busy, and all the cops out looking for drunks. 6:00 sounds plenty late enough.
Let's hear it for double bubble holiday pay!
You ought to get some bonus for working a really stupid cell antenna placement. Sheesh! A fella is supposed to be able to drive right up to those and not need a jib.
Sounds great. I want all my jobs to be walmart parking lot flat and no light poles in the way, and designated 4 pick points with welded on lift lugs, and a metal tag with the weight. 8 hour minimums, and high enough rates to pay for new machines every three years. Put in the order for me will ya?
you were doing OK till that last one.
Man basket going up is the time to talk to the customer about the rate & "wind" up there. Some good work
They're back there somewhere. I think. Unless their radio is dead. Which could be, because they keep asking me to move them 2" in random directions. I've been just revving the throttle before I actually move, and half the time that's enough- "stop-stop".
Good thing I stopped and got a couple pieces of pizza, looks like I'm needing supper.
If the crane had a fridge and a microwave, would you ever go home?
Gotta go home, I'm a terrible cook
I have little experience compared to most crane operators. It was a serious freakout when the guy on the roof in the blind had his radio go out as I was bringing in a load. I was getting ready to go running up the stairs to check on him when we got back in communication. After that incident I made that an item, have a helper or second radio please. The roof was safety lined off so nobody could come to the edge and signal me.
Everyone having cell phones has made it so much easier if the radio dies.
Flipped a water tank and carried it down the road a half mile or so. No room with the trees to get a lowboy in there, and had a couple power lines to go under. Crane to lay it down and two telehandlers for the road. They are going to sandblast and paint it for a new campground.
Bunch of cabins and bathrooms made from conexes. Had to shove them back in the trees. Had to tug one in place with the pickup, not enough room under the tree to pick it all. Going to be a wedding venue. Don't tell anyone, but there was a 6' blacksnake under one of them. He's going to startle someone on a late night potty trip..
It's a wonder I didn't take off my A2B cable in the trees.
Front jack isn't doing me much good, but Im not picking over there anyways. Drove in front of the house, but it was all puffy clay and I backed out quick before I couldn't get out. Had to give it a couple tries to back up the hill, crane wanted to spin out in the clean rock. Had to teeter totter to get the blocks in. You always want to be a little cautious going up on the rear, because when it steep, the crane will start sliding down the hill when you get weight off the rear axles, because that's where the park brakes are. I'm usually ready for it to do it, but it's still not fun standing by 65,000 sliding down a hill while you're running the outriggers down. I probably could have used jib, but I didn't really feel up to putting it on, for a extra 10'. The carpenters pushed them.
Got hot yesterday afternoon, and I could see they weren't going to get done. So we're starting early today to finish.
Who made the conex boxes? Very interesting.
Guy out of Kansas City. We did a 4 box that was built like a modular house, all pre built cabinets flooring window doors, we lifted an slid it all together
The conex boxes don't make much sense to me, anyone who's been in one on a job site knows they are hot in summer and cold in winter. They insulate them, but by the time they insulate, wood line them, sheetrock wire and plumb, you could just as well built wood. Plus then you don't have to try to build out of 8'x8'x40' long cubes, not to mention the pain of welding/ cutting in the doors and windows. Floors aren't much fun to put plumbing into either. If you don't put them on a full foundation, then you have the same problem as a trailer house or rv with the water/sewer freezing up underneath.
They're cool and Green, shut up and eat your peas. Joe H
I should get to work on building you some hobbit holes out of windmill blades. Bury them back in a hill and put a little round door in it. You get better on roller skates and you could do loops on the way to the bathroom.
I like it, but I'm kinda old for roller skates. Joe H
Oh I don't want to live in one - I'd like to make a camp ground out them and rent them out along with a mix of RV spots. Print money. The durable outside is what's attractive for low cost maintenance over the long haul. Freezing is not an issue down here other than the odd week or so where it stays cold enough to freeze stuff.
A relatively unknown fact about the conex boxes is that the 48' and 53' boxes are 102" outside, as opposed to the standard 20', 40', and 45' boxes which are 96" outside, therefore giving a bit more space inside for insulation and drywall. These larger boxes are also North America only; that is to say they never get on a boat, and are moved solely by truck or rail In remote locations, they can be cost effective if done smart.
111K views · 863 reactions | In this video, our team is fabricating a massive 3-1/2" x 72'-6" wire rope sling using Crosby G-416 Open Spelter Sockets and WIRELOCK® socketing compound. This assembly was built as a BLP-602 with a 496,800 lb rated capa In this video, our team is fabricating a massive 3-1/2" x 72'-6" wire rope sling using Crosby G-416 Open Spelter Sockets and WIRELOCK® socketing compound. This assembly was built as a BLP-602 with a... www.facebook.com
That does not look like fun. Joe H
Show the kids were bird flu & COVID come from & I'm sure it's fun & magical on a 110* day. Old south side of Las Vegas,Nv
For the people that haven't done it - wrestling 3" steel chokers is no fun at all.
148' main, 62' jib and 23' jib insert. 205' radius Had at least 6' of radius change between loaded and unloaded boom from boom deflection. I got to go up and signal , one of the other guys got the pictures from down below. Fish on!
Ohhh, lotsa lotsa multi color wires, someone was having lots of fun...
Impressive bow
Old downtown Harrison AR, setting a unit on a building they are remodeling. And setting a HVAC unit at a condo, and one at the lazer tag building. It's warm and everyone wants their A/C.
So I had a birthday this past week. I'm now 54. I was telling one of the guys, that I still feel like I'm 28. I know that I'm not, and I sure wouldn't be able to keep up with 28 year old me, but I really feel pretty good. I'm active, and I enjoy what I do. I actually feel better now, than I probably did 30 years ago, when I was working a lot harder than I do today. I was taking a lot of Tylenol and Aleve back then because I was running myself pretty hard. My "feeling old" event has happened late this week. I'm taking off tomorrow, not quite as planned for a little vacation with my wife, but instead, going to bury my little sister's husband. He was a year older than me. My wifes younger sister lost her husband, around three years ago. He was a couple months older than I am. So that's two brothers in law for me. One cancer, one kidneys. The birthdates of the obituaries I'm reading about in the paper, are sometimes creeping up on my own. If the next 10 years goes as fast as the last 10, I'm going to feel like I could sign up and start drawing SS next week. I've got a lot of things I want to do yet. I'm hoping for daily work until 70, but that's only 16 years from today. I better get busy.
Happy Birthday Crane Op! The work smarter not harder mantra is worth remembering. Unfortunately ***** happens we can't control. Even if you take really good care of yourself things can be going on you're not aware of. It seems wrong Dr's. don't do more tests to check for issues that are going on that don't show symptoms. If the Dr. would have done an ultrasound on my partners other leg while she was there anyway could have found the deep vein thrombosis that lead to her passing and maybe done something to help prevent it. I'm having trouble with that. She was right there getting the other leg checked and just had surgery that can increase the chances of getting a DVT.
Check out the new "deluxe utility jugs" I just got at Lowe's. I'm not sure what I'm going to be doing with them, because they are labeled- "not for gas"...
Happy, Happy. You are 6 months ahead of me.
I guess I'm fine until you start catching me.
I just had my 57th birthday and have a back, with neck brace and a metric **** ton of staples in my back. Enjoy your youth and have fun but remember, some of us get old and it’s really gonna suck!
He’s bound to catch you! At one time, you were twice his age….
Those look the same as quick fill cans they sell at motorcycle dealers just a different colour. Maybe they just weren't certified for fuel?? If it's like anything else probably costs a fortune to get all the approvals. If gas doesn't affect the plastic I'd use them for fuel. Have never seen anyone check containers at a gas station. Propane tanks yes but not gas or diesel. Curious if it says not be used for fuel molded on the container?
They need an epa approved valve for vapor to be called gas cans today.
You mean they need to make sure it takes a mechanical engineer to get a dribble of gas out of the can. Lol
I am 76. Just retired end of last year. About 18 months ago my doctor in Nashville put me on a Statin even though my A1C was in the 6.6 to 6.8 range. After my move to South AL. I got to feeling bad and my strength was way down. I could hardly walk. My new doctor (a young fellow) checked out my blood work and discovered that the Statin had triggered by body to attack my muscle mass staring with my largers ones first. Don't let the DR. pill pushers get you.
Doc wants me on a statin for slightly over normal cholesterol and I refuse to take it. Eating better and getting more exercise to see if it helps along with some natural supplements. I'm not downing a hand fill of pills every day.
I apologize for going off topic up front but I've been going through this for a few years. I think I was around 50 when the doctor at that time in my life gave me attitude and told me he was putting me on metformin and statins for A1C levels. At that time I was in the mid to high 5 levels. Told him no and said I no longer would use his services. My levels climbed a little at a time till I turned 70. Got into the 6 level when I started changing diet and doing a lot of walking. Then for some reason the reading came back at 6.6 and the doctor said I had diabetes. Told the doctor that reading was wrong but he put diabetes on my records anyway. I did the research and found that it takes two consecutive readings of 6.6 or higher or a specific glucose test to arrive at a diagnosis of diabetes. I had been checking blood sugar for about six months once a day. They wanted it checked in the morning and I was wondering why it always showed above 100. It was consistent and I didn't know why so I contacted the doctor and asked for supplies to check it twice a day which he said yes. Found out it was natural and that your body always brings up blood sugar at around the time you wake up in the morning. When I checked the level at night before I went to bed it's nearly always below 90, many times in the seventies. I sometimes check flood sugar in the middle of the day and found it always below 100. Then I started experimenting with different foods to see the effects. Two things affect it the most. Type of food and portion size. Rice, processed wheat flower dishes: think pasta, white breads, any kind sweat deserts and some deep fried foods. I also walk around 3 miles a day when possible which I was doing before. My point is everyone is different but a doctor only will advocate prescription drugs for an issue that naturally happens as we age. Figure out the facts for yourself and make an informed decision on what it best for you.
I'll throw what I know into the ring......... I'm Type 2 diabetic, have been for over 25 years. My pancreas gave up years ago and I am on metformin and injected insulin. My diabetes specialist says that she wants to see my blood sugar levels in the range of 90-120 when fasting - before breakfast in other words, and in the range of 108-144 immediately before lunch or the evening meal. Those number come from converting the units used in the UK to those used in the US. My HbA1c levels are currently stable in the range of 50-60 (this should be 23-47 for a non-diabetic), or 6.90-7.65%.
It's good to question why you are on certain medications, especially if they are controversial. Some people though are anti-medication and anti-vaccine and they are gambling with their life or their kids lives. People have died because they didn't get vaccinated or take certain medications. I take a bunch of rather basic meds. and a trial drug that slows down and an can kill Myeloma cells. I've been in remission for over 2 years and the cancer is non detectable. I'm staying on the trial drug Letalinomide. There is a bunch of precautions with it but it appears to be working so I'm not going to question it. Apparently Multiple Myeloma can come back and they can prescribe another type of drug. That's my biggest worry but so far doing great.
I think we’ve hijacked Craneops thread enough. Lets get back on topic.
How's this
Had a suspension cylinder, shear the lower saddle bolt off the axle on the 120 ton. Had to get creative pushing the pins out. They were stuck. Lower pin has to come out to replace bolt, it was rusted pretty good, so gave up and pulled top one, figuring we would end up in the big press. Ended up getting both pins with the porta power and frame. Would have been easier for access,if we would have pulled the tire, but the rims rarely come off. So we fought our way around the tire.
Nice set up with the Porta Power.
It's sure nice when you can make your own custom tooling to make difficult repairs.
Had a tie rod end give up the ghost. Operator called me and said it wouldn't turn to the right. Turn left easy, but no right turn. I thought we had a master or slave steering box with the relief stuck. They got it up on jacks and started testing with it, said it just kinda fell off. I'm so glad it happened on the second to last right hand turn from the shop.
Hydraulic swivel out for reseal. Took the barrel to the hydraulic shop for a clean up hone. Turns out - it's a hard chromed barrel. We had one old grove that was a hard chromed barrel where I used to work in Iowa. They run air upstairs in these Link belt 40 ton, and I think it's to keep the water in the air from eating up the barrels. The old groves ran air throttle and were bad about pitting the barrels. Big blue setting some tiny houses.
Good work, nice to see that all the work benches look the same around the world. A little space around the vice to work on and the fully packed with staff
I'm taking the easy way on a Saturday too. Pallet jack helps with putting on the 465 steers
We've got 80' of benches, but I always end up sliding something out of the way to get to the vise.
I don't have anywhere near 80' of benches, but do have several 2" receivers under various spots on the benches where I can plug in My big Wilton vise (on a stinger) and got to work Also have a Rigid chain vise on a stinger to plug where I need it Working on an 8" 3 jaw lathe chuck on a stinger for the odd hard to grab item
Tell us about the tiny houses.
X2 - ^^ Are they for rent, for sale?
Well, there's the nice version, and there's what I think of it. The nice version is that they are for the homeless. Apply to the program, do some hours, and you get to live in one of the tiny houses. What I think: I wrote a whole bunch, most of which I've since decided I'm not going to post. here's the short version: They say to build all the homes, they are going to need $10 million. They have already raised $5 million with 3-4 million in grants. They are going to have 70 homes. Each one is 400 square feet. That's $357/ square foot. $143,000 each for the 400 square foot homes. They are going to charge the homeless $400/month rent. And rent them scooters for another $300/month (because they didn't make any parking spots- homeless dont' have cars after all) How they got them through fire code I don't know, because they are like 6' apart from one another- if one gets going- they are all going to go in a heartbeat. And dont' ask about the reliability of homeless people becoming employees, riding scooters to work in the rain at 30 degrees. We're a old tourist town, and there's a pile of old motels they could have snatched up for way less $ if it was really about housing homeless. But if you really look at the numbers, it doesn't seem to be much about housing the homeless. There seems to be a lot of overhead wages and new suburbans for the directors, non profit shennanigans etc. etc. But I come at it from a profit/ costs point of view- and not a non profit foundation point of view- those people have a totally different mindset about money than I do. That said, I really like the idea behind the project. There are a lot of people donating time and money to further this project along- and that's awesome having good people behind a project. I myself have the thought of "there but for the grace of God go I" - every time I see a homeless encampment- or see a guy panhandling. A lot of them have mental health- war wounds- and drug problems, its definitely a worthy cause, I just feel like when I run the numbers on it- the whole thing kind of smells.
"Non-profit" just means the organization doesn't make a profit however there is no cap on the salaries of the directors. I'll leave it at that.
From observation, running a non profit is a great way to become wealthy...
The wife and I have been thinking about starting one...
Same thing in California, billions on the homeless and there are more than before. But lot of high salary directors that are related to politicians, like half a million a year. Got a bullet train too, more billions gone and not even 10' of track. Joe H
Tired of making an honest living already?
Its worse than that. Non-profit simply means there are no profits that are distributed to the owners. It does not mean services are provided at cost. You have already mentioned one place where large amounts of money go so the bottom line is small. But there are often profits even after enormous salaries. Those profits can only go to other non-profits, not to owners. So once you form your non-profit and align your mission statement with whatever is in vogue today, you hire grant writers to solicit donations from other non-profits. Its a grand circle jerk. Any time I am solicited for money by a non-profit I ask for copies of their last years, (or sometimes last 3 years) federal form 990 submissions. I state it is a requirement for contributions from my family office. I have received a couple, but most who don't send the 990 also remove me from their contact list.
Many years ago, probably 50 years, I had a neighbor who was a paper hanger. He told me he was hanging $700 a roll leather wall paper in the local non-profit hospital. Joe H
Non profits are also eligible for a lot of grants that for profits can't get. I'm wondering if there's a way to be a non profit but get paid for rent of the land and for work I do for the non profit. Is it a conflict of interest if I own the land the non profit needs to operate on?
Appears there is no such thing as conflict of interest in California. Every politician has or is married to someone who is the owner CEO of a non-profit of some sort. You, probably not. Joe H
Remember seeing a report on the news about Value Village where the CEO was making over a $500K salary. Might have been close to a million but I can't remember. I thought it was disgusting considering most of the stuff Value Village sells is donated and it's all a lot of customers can afford.
Where's Crane Op and his pics of lifting all sorts of interesting ****?
Sorry man, we've been working hard, but its been a hot hot week. I am so ready for fall. I've got some pictures, but I'm not sure that my phone hasn't melted.
Reset a Fence line today, My phone got TOO Hot, Shut down.
One of the guys helping the county with a bolt together culvert. Lake can get up on this creek, and the creek can also come over the road on a hard rain. They said this one has been in the planning for close to eight years now, because the feds are involved, because of the army corps lake elevation. We're two county road directors past the ones that got the ball rolling on this project in the first place.
Was a little short handed, so I got to set some trusses with a 40 ton. 4' centers makes it go fast. The first picture is setting the first deck truss in the back, header and sheeting kind of limits the visibility, but if I ducked down, I could see the bottom chord.
The guys got another wheel lathe unloaded for the railroad wheel shop. 92,000lbs. I sent the big triangle bar up there, but they ended up not needing it.
Heard that on the heat! It's regularly been over a 100 here with humidity to match. A hard hat basically makes a distillery with sweat that drains hotter sweat back down on you. Miserable. Currently sitting outside our RV on the highest point in AL for the weekend. It's kinda bearable up here.
Putting up some sheetrock and remodel materials in a condo. Also working on a new terminal at a local airport. Setting glue lams in the entryway. Actually one of the other guys set them, I came and took the beams back down. The steel guys thought painting the columns was good enough, but the drawings show bright hot dipped galvanized. The engineer caught them, and I think it's going to get expensive. Lams are coming down and steel is going to the galvanizer. Supposed to go back next week to put it all back up. I'm less than impressed with the guys attempt at a airport flag bracket. I had to do a little tie wire work to keep it from falling off, or getting tangled up in the winch line.
Got my quote for the turntable bearing for the 100 ton liebherr, at the machine shop. $15,900, should be done sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Factory bearing was over $70,000 last winter, I suspect with the new tariffs it may approach six figures if I was getting it from Germany today. So I'll wait. Steering arm needed new tie rod ends, and the master steering box is going to get rebuilt. I suspect the relief is stuck or has debris in it, because it only makes pressure in one direction. We had the slave rebuilt a year or two back, so we were probably on borrowed time with the master. This is out of the 90 ton Link belt.
You guys won't get much for action shots next week. Tuesday morning got to be at the courthouse, I've been on the jury list since July, and my number is up for a trial. They sent a letter that "no food or drinks in the courthouse", I need my liquids pretty regular in our current weather pattern, and if the judge is getting water and I ain't, I might end up on my own contempt of the court charges. No water for me - and there better not be water for anybody - so we'll see what happens with that.
Just wear your "kill'em all and let God sort them out" shirt to the jury striking and you'll be back to flying sheetrock and trusses before you know it!
Do you rebuild the master steering box yourself or send it to a shop?
This is the wheel set lathe we were talking about?
Its one of them, we have two to move eventually. Steering box will go to a rebuild facility. I've read the book on rebuilding one, and I just think its better for the guy who does it all the time to rebuild mine, instead of me guessing what looks right and what doesn't. Plus they will have all the parts on hand. I hope.
That's good. Some years ago I had to rebuild the steering box on my 15ton. No shop was willing to do it cause Japanese brand and no parts or knowledge available. I did with a friend mine works but feels a little bit as if not bleeded a 100%. When you the option to get it done in a shop that's much better.
What is the lifespan on the Bolt together Culvert? MODOT Here is going more double wall HDPE for Smaller sets and Concrete Box on larger.
The plan is to pump it surrounded with flowable fill. Which should harden to a concrete consistency. they think. So then the culvert becomes essentially just a form. Its all a rock base at the bottom of the creek, so I don't think it matters as long as the road holds up above it. The road dept. head would have rather just built a bridge, but the feds got involved, and here we are. This is the first bolt together of this size, that I have assembled. We do a lot of precast culverts, but they are kind of expensive, and if the creeks get wild, they will move them around.
Flowable fill is just fill that comes in a concrete truck instead of a dump truck. It seems to have very little cement in it. After it's set it's easily dug with a normal backhoe/mini ex bucket. I don't think it'll stand up to water scour at all and I doubt it has enough strength to stay in place long-term should the culvert rust away. It works great for filling under structures that have been dug under or odd shaped items that it's difficult to get good compaction with normal fill materials because it's poured as a liquid then hardens in place. Looking at that big culvert I have to wonder how they plan to hold it down while pouring the flowable fill. And it seems to me with a pour that deep it'll take at least as long for the FF to set as it would to backfill it with road base... I've never worked with FF on a pipe as big as that but I can tell you that any pipes you're backfilling with FF need anchored very well both vertically and horizontally before starting the pour. Hopefully you can get some progress pics for us.
Thanks, Fed involved stated a Lot, always seem to be experimenting using locals as Guinea Pigs. Used FF at the Nuke for safety related Buried Piping 'For Storm Presented Missile Resistance' or more overkill as much of it buried over 5 feet! Could still access with Excavator as stayed Some What Soft.
Did you also do the bolting? For us very unusual that a crane company also does bolting
I'm not really involved enough in it to know what the exact composition is of the flowable fill. I know that the whole design wasn't run by the county. They plan on a concrete inlet. The drawings I saw showed compacted rock up the first 1/3 of the tube. I won't probably get any more pictures of it, it's out in the sticks. If you Google " thunder road" in taney county Missouri, it will drop a pin pretty close to the location. It's just east of the cemetery. Bull Shoals lake is what will back up.
No, the county has a crew. We just did the lifting. I had a misspent youth building galvanized bolt together grain storage bins. So I gave a little advice.
7 similar sized culverts were replaced within 2 miles of me within the last 5 years. All were built in the early 1950s. They were originally placed directly on the clay bottom without any rock and had rusted out. Were replaced with concrete box culverts.
Didn't have to serve for jury duty, lawyers settled on the morning we were all there. Just a brief comment, we had a full room for jury service. I've been before, when no one shows up. The news and online likes to portray everything as divided as a country, and no one wants to do their civic duty. But I'm going to tell you, I was , I don't know - proud, honored? I'm not sure what the right adjectives are, but a group of citizens showed up, and I'm so thankful that they were willing to show up to do their duty- if I was behind a table needing justice from my fellow citizens. What a amazing country , that I know I'm not as thankful for as I should be.
As a country we need more criminal jury trials vs plea deals.
If you watch some of those jurors from the trial of the woman who killed her 3 children I'm not sure of that. One said on camera about the one guy who held out for guilty “He had the hardest time getting off the fact that Lindsay viciously killed her children.” How did she get past that she viciously killed her children, she was an older woman and she was fine with killing the children. Joe H
Setting trusses for a church with all volunteers. My tag line guy is 28 years older than I am, and actually , aside from me worrying about him falling and breaking a hip, is doing a great job.
How old is the guy?
me snickering
He's 82.
We got them all up. Going to put the hats on in the morning.
My dad is also 82 and still working .that's why I asked. The building looks interesting to me. The link belt is 35ton?
HTC 8640hl- so a US 40 ton. 105' main boom, 51' jib. The building used to be a bank, and now its a church. They are adding on another room.
Im not much on starting a project late on Friday, but sometimes you have to do what you have to do. Railroad derailed their new big engine, right at the switch for their spur. Of course at 4:30 on Friday afternoon. I hadn't lifted this engine yet, it's bigger than the other ones that they have always had. They told me the whole thing is 400,000 or so. Fortunately only two of the three axles from the front truck had gone off, so it wasn't too bad, they are just crawling when they go through the switch. My 90 ton is still waiting on a steering box, so I scrambled and got a wrecker guy we work with who has a 50 ton rotator with a slider. I knew he would have to be right on top of it. Tore out some chain link fence, so he could get backed up to one side, and I got two of my guys to come in and bring the 120 ton and a load of weights down for the other side. I had the rigging for both sides, the wrecker guy doesn't have anything big enough, he was pretty short of having enough gear to get reeved up, and another wrecker guy came down with some more stuff. We each picked half, had around 210,000 between the two rigs, when the wheels finally cleared the rail. Used the second wrecker to help pull the trucks straight. The railroad boys showed up at the same time I got there to look at it, the engine had the main line blocked, so they were in a toot to get the line clear. I told them it was me and a big wrecker, because I knew I wouldn't be able to get another crane until Saturday, because of permits. So they better cross their fingers that the wrecker can handle his end. They started up with "Hulcher/ RJ Corman" and sidebooms, but those boys are Kansas City or Memphis, so 4-5 hours driving, and I doubt they would be sitting in their trucks with the engines running. We got done about 10:00. Could have been done a little sooner, but I brought too long of rigging for the wrecker, he wasn't wanting to put any boom out. And we had to wait a little bit for the second wrecker. So I had to make a run back to the shop for a shorter big choker for the wrecker, we had a pickup load of rigging, and still not exactly the right stuff. I'll just say this also, I've got a great group of guys I get to work with. My guys went home about 2:30 Friday, but I put out a text looking for some help, and several guys responded right away, and two headed on their way back to the shop to get with it. How awesome is that? I unloaded the big rigging this morning, we left the crane down there for the weekend, it can just go from there to its job on Monday. The 50 ton shackles and all that big rigging is a handful.
That rigging is not light and hard to manhandle
Rigging list: 4 -50 ton shackles, one 85 ton shackle , four-35 ton shackles. Two 1 3/4" d rings, two 7/8" snatch blocks, one 3/4" snatch block, four 1 5/8" steel chokers, two 20' and two 10'. Two 12' black round ups, four 12' orange round ups, two 20' orange round ups. What we ended up using - 1-20' 1 5/8' x 20' steel choker, two 35 ton shackles and two 20' orange round ups on the crane. One-10' 1 5/8" steel choker, two 35 ton shackles, one big D ring, two 17 ton shackles and smaller d rings, and I think like 5 or six snatch blocks on the wrecker. We used both his big winches, and married his hooks together. The sliding in addition to the rotator, got the wrecker right up on the engine. I think we were probably a little past what he really wanted.
They figure out source cause?
Don't mind if I share this post in case it humours anyone here regarding the locomotive itself.. Heres a nice side photo of the unit itself. And (I may be wrong on something as I'm not a rail historian nuts so I don't know a lot of general sources online to use on short notice naturally) this is actually like a "tourist diner train" sort of railroad that owns trackage right over existing freight-using rails of someone else's, so this seem a little unusual for them to own an(this) EMD SD40-2 which is generally considered a heavy freight locomotive [for its time, when compared to that passenger trains would had been behind F-units or the passengerduty-fitted GP-series] And yeah them boys were not wrong, the 'dry' weight would had been 368,000 but when you add up everything especially full fuel tank I imagine 4000,000 indeed seem about right.
Cranemasters has a shop in KC as well. Even with how their cranes break down for transport, they're still oversize and I don't think they would have made there before morning either.
The 120 ton is the one with the main bearing to be replaced? Is there a higher risk of failure with the worn out bearing when lifting full load? I assume this was almost full capacity at the throat ?
My 100 ton liebherr is what is getting the bearing replaced. My 120 is lifting the railroad engine. We like our equipment to be working right. . I want everyone to get to go home at the end of the day. Now, I will leave the yard with unwashed, non armor alled tires and unpolished aluminum fenders, because I don't care too much about that. We had chart left on the 120 when lifting the engine, the wrecker on the other side was maxed out. There's a saying on this side of the pond- "if you're going to run junk, you better have a lot of it".
I was down there today, theory is rail width adjustment at the switch, but nothing definite. Scenic railroad doesn't own the lines, but throws their own switches. I think the Line owner would prefer it to be them not having the switch fully thrown, or a wheel flange issue, and the operator of the scenic railroad would prefer it to be a rail width adjustment problem at the switch. No one wants it to be their fault/problem. And there's really no way to be sure, we just know it went off . We helped them straighten out the switch area with the crane, and they were running engine over it already last night. Track crew was wrapping up as we left.
It was the same here with the crane hire companies till about 25 years ago. Now they changed the law. The lifespan of a crane is calculated in time remaining till necessary rebuild. And rebuild means new shafts new bearing and so on. Makes no sense to do that. Most companies buy new and sell after some years. Small companies went out of business, sad development.
Utility company I worked for was self Insured, legal side started down same path here on line or even crane equipment where machines in certified repaired or repairable were sold off as Junk so as to not retain any liability. Most of those ended up in S America or S Pacific islands utility groups fleets. Manufacturers here are extremely shy to renew-cert older equipment.
so that in the end means we send good equipment for a cheap price to the 2nd or 3rd world due to a questionable legal framework
Correct Typically get Spray painted “DO NOT USE, NOT INSPECTED” and Everywhere on them, shipped to ports loaded on ships, someone else’s problem.
A long time ago, I had a 1 ton Dodge work van. Before the company sent it to auction, they went through it and replaced all the brakes because they were “too far gone“. Then the problems came up(this is the van I drove for about 5 yrs). The rear drums were from an ambulance package but the shoes were from a regular 1 ton……oh the hand wringing! The shoes were 1/2 inch narrower than the drums if I remember correctly.
Well I'm kinda excited about this. It wasn't really expensive, but it seems like a extravagance that I couldn't ever really justify. My yard is kinda scattered, and the big cranes don't fit in the shop, so we end up working on them out back. My guys end up walking back and forth endlessly, and I went looking for a solution, and I'm hoping this does the trick. We're planning on a rat pack sliding drawer, and one of the Montezuma triangle tool boxes. Some bed side rails, and maybe a headache rack to hang extension cord and air hoses on. It's electric, I got it used from United rentals. It's a 2021 Taylor /Dunn, with 700 hours on it, built in charger. It was $5,000, which seems like a lot, but the gator/ mule atv's are three times that much, and you can't haul anything because of their off road suspension. My yard is all gravel, so I don't need off road.
It fits in a little uhaul trailer, so it might even end up on a job site
Old Guy Cart!!
Had several of those at the Nuke, machinist welding and electrical shops always using to haul from workshops to the plant. Did well a long time, have since swapped to Pickup Trucks for some foolish needs no one can ID completely.
You nailed it. Trying to save some miles on everyone's legs
What was the advice, glad you guys got stuck with it and not me?
Sleever bars, chain come a long, scaffolding and a bridge reamer bit. It actually went together better than I thought it would. The sheets were more rigid than I thought they would be, which helped with assembling. Got the steering box back from rebuilding, and have it shoved in. Steering column is rebuilt, just waiting on a cooling fan rebuild.
What is the capacity on it ? some of those run upwards of 2 tons.
Ones at the Nuke had Tie Down positions on the Sides, Saw more than once having a 18" or 24" Steam System or Water flow Gate valve on board.
Now you're renting trailers...man I got a guy over at Big Tex..
No tags on mine, internet says 3,000 lbs payload and 7,500lbs towing. They pulled a crew cab 4x4 f150 with a bad transmission out of the shop with it the other day, and said it never even strained. But I'm not sure about throwing 3,000lbs on a plywood deck.
Ouch Spicer rear diff. This is a rp461, which is essentially a double reduction, a planetary inside the diff. I think this is also the rear they use on a two speed, but ours just uses the low side. Anyways it has a split gear, and ate into the shaft pretty hard. Reman diff is on the way. Double ouch. This is a Allison, it locked in third on the way home, we thought it was just solenoid issues, but there's a bunch of steel in it. Getting quotes for it now.
Not the best week for you? a quote for a rebuild or a new transmission?
ZOWIE OWIE!!!!!
Well crap, were you able to get um out of the road or did you have to call a tow
They are both at the shop. The Allison has been down for a month or so, we finally got around to it, the third member just happened. There's only $1,000 difference between the trans and the diff. $5,900 for the transmission, which was cheaper than I thought it would be, and I think the diff is supposed to be $4,900. Which was a little more than I guessed, but it isn't a real common diff.
When it rains, it pours.
Wow that's no good. Downtime can be worse than the cost of the parts. Hopefully they show up quickly.
This is the part of owining a constuction co I do not miss
The fame, glamour, and hot chicks make up for the little bumps in the road.
Joplin News First Branson Scenic Railway had a minor derailment according to Branson Police near Branson Landing Blvd and Long St. (comments) After a crane and big rig wreckers arrived things were ‘back on track.’ www.facebook.com Speaking of fame, here's big blue doing her thing. Branson Scenic Railroad derailment, already ‘back on track’ BRANSON, Mo. (KOAM/KJFX) — Branson Scenic Railway had a locomotive derail Friday at the Branson Landing. www.koamnewsnow.com
Dale Wells has an interesting comment in the FB link Joplin News First.
Yeah, everyone's a expert. Of course he wasn't anywhere around at 4:00 on friday afternoon.
Have dealt with the type!!! Armchair quarterbacks.
AKA sidewall superintendent
I had jury duty earlier this month as well. I was all prepared to ask about jury nullification, then I find out it was a civil trial. During selection plaintiffs attorney mentioned a $24,000 investment in animals that died would have produced 7 figure returns. I knew more about what happened than the plaintiff attorney appeared to know during selection so I asked to be excused as I couldn't evaluate the evidence without bias.
Working on getting my little cart set up. I've noticed that harbor freight is now selling a better class of tools made in Taiwan, so I splurged on some new tools for the triangle toolbox I got for the bed. We've planted and lost more tools than I want to think about, so I skipped buying these from the snap on man. Got a rat pack drawer and the box mounted on top. 1/2" drive is all impact. Sae and metric, shallow and deep. 3/8" and 1/4" in chrome. We're going to put the wrenches above 1 1/4" in the rat pack, with hammers, pry bars, and maybe a 3/4" drive set. The small sockets on the pegs, all lift up and I'm hoping to put all my pliers in a little wire rack with my electrical stuff under there.
I have a similar designed toolbox and the only complaint I have is the wrench pegs could be a little longer as I have 2 or more of each size. I haven’t lost as many 10mm sockets either as it is so easy to make sure I have all the pegs filled back up when I put everything away.
This box is a 36" width one, and I picked it because it had two rows of wrench storage- one standard, one metric, and long enough pegs for two wrenches to fit. We still use a lot of SAE as well as metric. Some of the socket pegs are a little too close together, they don't fit impact sockets real well. And I had to cut one peg down, because the door latch hit it. I'm not sure how that made it past design.
My box doesn’t fit the impact sockets as well but there are a few more pegs than I need so I just skip one and then I can squeeze them all in. I have a few magnetic hooks on the vertical outside that I keep the most used (10mm, 1/2, 9/16, and 3/4) wrenches on.