We seized the cat 3208 in our crane today and now the booms raised way up in the air and no way to spin it around to pull the motor. If anyone knows how to safely get the boom down it would be much apreciated!!
I think that if you remove the hydraulic lines going to the swing motor, you can swing the house with a chain or something. Have someone inside who can operate the swing brake., I have a RT60S too...
Ok thank you, we will give that a try in the morning. You wouldn't happen to know how to overcome the safety on the boom so we can get it down?
The boom has safety valves that need backpressure to open.I do not know how to overcome them. What I do know is that people were killed by booms that were freed up by mechanics working on them and went down suddenly and trapped the person -- beware and be extremely careful.
That should be a free swing crane, there's no need to pull hydraulic lines to swing it, it should go around with a pull. I guess I'll add this- unless its a really really early one, or custom swing- I've been around one early grove truck crane that was not free swing.
As far as letting the boom back in, there's two ways. You can make up hoses to go between a different crane and that crane, and use the second crane to retract it. You'll have to watch that you don't over fill the second crane's return tank. The second way is to pull the holding valve out. It's located at the butt section of the telescope cylinder. Second crane and a manlift, to hook the second crane onto the boom tip (usually use the jib connections for a sling point. Pull the valve and try to catch as much oil as you can, or route it somewhere, its a mess. Watch it when pulling the valve, loosen it and tap it letting the pressure go off. If you do it without the second crane, don't pull the holding valve all the way out, just loosen it until you can tap it and have it stream a little oil, and wait while it all runs out. If you pull the holding valve all the way out, it will really blast, and the section will come back like a rocket, slamming the sections together and probably damaging the attachment weldements for the cylinders, and the boom sections.