I want to gather all tips, tricks, special tools, pictures and ideas in regards to replacing slewing rings in all swing type machines. I know of tom v's post if someone knows how to move it here that would be a great start....theironoracle
Thank you! Will keep an eye on this thread!
theironorical, some time ago slew ring replacing popped up in a thread on this forum someplace??? I did post a few snaps of some of the ones I have done that I thought gave a good line on how I do them, I try to do them by myself unless the driver can be trusted to do as he is told, by this I mean no fags or phones near their head when I get all the bolts loose, it might be worth trying to track the thread down as there was some interesting info, the biggest 1 i've done was on a 245 CAT, I was told its weight was 45 '000 kg's but it was hard work on the jacks and made me cough a bit? if you cannot find it I will post some shots + a bit of script if it helps, Oh all that long pipe to the track motor stuff is a waste of time just send e'm up and block them.
We did one in the shop a while back on a 312 excavator. We used a 30,000lb forklift and the boom to lift the house. Used some 6"x6" square 1/2" wall tube to hold the front over the track frame. Big jack stands and tube in the back. We were able to pull the track frame out from under the house. Outside the grease cleanup, the rest was easy.
i done a 375 last fall. used lotsa cribbing, crane to lift it off, tractor to move track frame out. me & helper had it tore down & back together in 2 long days. It makes things go easier if u have a good way to get the bolts out, that will always seem to twist off also think saftey when you are working on things this HEAVY. if you have any specific questions just ask ill try to help
I only use Jacks and Timber to do Ring swaps, some Excavators are harder to tackle than others due to the bolting down style, as I have already posted the fact that I never drive or pull out the Carbody (unless bolts break) as the grease path is easy to clean out and freshen up, but we all do things in differing styles, I have never done 1 in a Workshop, a 312 CAT would only need 2 Bottle jacks (12 Ton) to sort, its all down to " The More You Do " but as already said by FSERVICE you need to work Safely with the least amount of help from others (Less People about = Less Risk) also a good heap of good cribbing ( Dunnage) this might sound obviouse but doing them on good flat ground makes things work well.
so here is my real thought process! i am thinking this would be a good addition to my mobile repair business, i would actively advertise in regional industry publications this service, why? 1) i have only heard o.e. dealers say no way to doing these in the field 2) this seems to be equivalent to say something like portable line boring 3) low do-over risk 4) a good set-up/process could allow high production (better money per hour) 5) easy to quote over the phone with few variables (low risk) 6) as with any mobile repair the larger the machine the more econimical it is to repair it on-site so i am thinking a target market above 80,000lbs which covers most everything in the forest industry and lots of construction.....can it work?....any more thoughts?.............theironoracle
Here's a YouTube video that's close to the subject... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjLheQjKsaI
Did 1/2 dozen or more Madill 075 log loaders on rubber in the bush. Never did one in the shop. Never used a crane or jacks either. Always pulled undercarrage out. About a 2 day job as I recall depending on site conditions. d.d.
If you post up Slop In Turntable (how much is to much) you will see a few posts that might help with bearing swap outs, I have done plenty and still cannot understand the need to pull out the Carbody, could someone please explain why this is done??? I would have swapped out 25 to 30 bearings with plenty of pic's posted on forums of this.
I agree with tctractors, I have never pulled the carbody out, the only reason I can see is if you had broken bolts. It's a simple job so why complicate it. Be safe.
thats why I had to pull the carbody out. there was 6 bolts that their mechanic broke off, when he gave up & said call somebody:banghead. around here not many guys want to do it, just the dealers & they charge accordingly. so we can just bout name our price. the more of them you do the easier they get. it takes ALOT of cribbing, I have mine stacked on pallets & it usually takes 2 pallets to b safe. I have never done any in a shop setting, I try to find a level hard packed surface to work on if avaible. Its been my experance that you should just plan on a broke bolt or 2, especally if its had a hammer on it. or its been used as a demo machine
thanks for the replies guys! i will search "slop in turntable" and see what i find. does anyone know how to move posts so i can get all relevant info here? thanks again all.........theironoracle
Have always pulled the undercarriage out and almost always had the underside of the deck and/or the undercarriage machined. Were talking excavators and log-loaders made from excavators. A neat trick we have is 4, 50 foot -6 hoses color coded. Pull the hoses off the centre joint connect the travel hoses to the -6 hoses then run them between the boom cylinders and down under to the hoses underneath. Disconnect the shift line and the case drain lines from below and put them in a bucket tied up by the centre joint. Now when we lift the machine we run the undercarriage out under its own power (At idle due to the small hose size).
i quoted my first rotec bearing replacement with plenty of risk & return in it, as i suspected my quote was excepted, due to the only other quote was from a dealer that was requiring the job was done at there shop. I will post pictures of the project when completed...........theironoracle
A few more details might be good, like make and mod info also your intended method of tackling the beast, the drive out the carbody way is a waste of time unless you have a big broken bolt issue, the coin thing in the U.K. for about a 20-22 tonner down would be around £600 to £750 on the labour, I hope you managed to check out the pic's I posted on the task, oh and machining the deck plates, stuff that get it swapped and get the coins and let things develope. best of luck tctractors
tctractors, the machine will be a mid 90's link-belt 2800c11 log loader, it has a high and wide undercarriage, 4' raised cab, 28' foot reach boom, i think i have a picture of it in my "all in a days (or two) work pictures thread. i didn't find your pics but if it is in your thread (using a bit of hydro muscle) i will go look again. i will use 3 20 ton bottle jacks and lots of cribbing this time or three porta-powers (i bought three pallets at an auction of pumps and rams a year ago) i will take it all with me and see what will work the best, i just purchased a hytorq wrench and power pack to remove and torque bolts, i've been waiting for a project to offset the initial cost of one of these.........i bid the project at 29 hrs including drive time and mileage (not very far from the house) and customer supplies a laborer, currently no broken bolts just wore out, we'll see what happens,.................theironoracle
What's a hytorq wrench? What kind of torque do you put on those bolts?
mikel, it is a hydrualic torque wrench. the one i am getting is an xlt1 which is almost the smallest they make as i see it, 3/4" drive capable of around 1300 ft/lbs with a 10,000 psi hydraulic pump. here is a link to the latest and greatest of the version i am getting http://hytorc.com/us/mxt-main-page , hopefully it works the way i am assuming i have never used one before..........theironoracle
theoricale, Timber loaders I never get set loose on so I cannot help you with any tips on this task, there is 2 good threads on this site about bearing swaps, the 1 was titled as pre' posted "Slop in turntable" (how much is to much) I only use 2 stage Bottle Jacks and timber Baulks cribbed up level and tidy, I would steer clear of power cylinders they would be to risky in my mind, your hydraulic Torque Wrench would be not a lot of cop to me, I have wrench kit upto 3'000 ft/lbs that is mechanical, to bother with wet kit it would have to be something of a Man Tool to be required??? the low torque capacity of your wet spanner would be hard work and time consuming to use, a standard wrench would have the job done faster, this is just my thoughts well all do stuff our own way, best of luck. tctractors
well tctractors, i don't quite understand why you don't think how using a hydraulic wrench wouldn't be a good way to go? my shoulders would be mush after loosening and tightening 60 bolts on this ring! i do understand that direct wreching would be faster not including the recovery time to get blood back in the arms, lol..at this point it is all null and void with the hydro wrench i went thru the effort of sending someone 5 hours drive today and the guy with the wrench is an obvious tweeker (to many drugs) and declined to take the check after saying it was ok yesterday now he only wants cash, that kind of crap wears me out faster than a 1" drive rachet. again thanks for the ideas and conversation i am here to learn from others and provide what i can...........theironoracle
tctractors, just went through all 27 pages of using a bit of hydraulic muscle and found no pics with bearing removal. help me again. and when is search "Slop in turntable" i don't find that heading anywhere..............theironoracle
never mind, got it!!! i will cut and paste it here: - slop in turntable, how much is too much? -.....theironoracle
Theoricale, the bolts on the ring are the part you have to graft at, some ring mounts are very restrictive and only a spanner or a short socket on a breaker bar with fit?? 60 or so bolts are soon undone and as you have a bit of help working with you its easy to use a chain on your wrench and swing the top with the engine to undo them all, just think about where to place the chain as it can save your back some, the bolts only take a few hours to remove on lots of excavators, you will need blanking plugs for the pipes going to the centre joint etc.
A 2800CII is a pretty small machine. You can break all the bolts loose easily with a 3/4" drive ratchet unless the last people put liquid lock washer on the threads. If that is the case I just heated the heads of the bolts some and then went right to turning them out. I have a 600 footpound torque wrench I've always used for bearing bolts. Also as I recall all the bolts on this machine can be accessed from outside the house. You don't have to pull the cab or fuel tank for bolts that come down from the house to threads in the bearing. If you work hard and have a good helper it takes around 30 hours to do it efficiently and right. I usually wouldn't work with jacks and preferred to have another machine to pick on the counterweight while I used the boom to pick the front. If you have the plugs and caps as mentioned previously the job is a nervous piece of cake. It's only the threat of gravity that makes me nervous when doing these. I have colleagues who do 4300 model loggers in less than twenty hours. Good Luck
Replaced slew ring on a pc 300 12 months ago as follows, unbolted superstructure from top circle bolts, capped lower hoses at rotary joint, used a 20 tonne crane to lift superstructure, counterweight and boom all in one hit, started machine and lowered boom to ground as top was raised to keep level, unbolted lower circle bolts and lifted bearing out with tele handler hooked up short. cleaned out new bearing bolt holes and bolts for loctite, replaced bearing, fitted lower bolts, cleaned out slew grease bowl and refilled, lowered superstructure back down, aligned, fitted & torqued top bolts, refitted hoses. All bolts done by hand, myself and customer did the job in a day. I have heard of blokes doing them with jacks and dunnage and not being comfortable, especially when everything starts to move. suppose it depends on the set up.
Wick, that was a long day I'm guessing but I'm sure you really went to town on it. How did you get the bolts under the cab?
the"O" and Wick, as I have already said we all do things our own way, its a shame the clip from the Slop in turntable thing does not click up, anyhow using a Crane to lift about a 30 ton swinger top bit would be very scarce to find in the U.K. the owners just would not pay the coins to Hire in the Iron, unless by some luck they had a Crane within their work equipment, I dont think I would bother to use 1 though, as I try to stick to what I can do by myself, I once did a bearing swap on a JCB 812 or 814 that took from 7.30 am till 12.30 on a Saterday morning to sort, but I had the help of another real hard grafter mechanic to help me plus we were covered in crap off the dirty pig of a thing, it often seems to me that the mechanics in the USA get some good stuff, take their work trucks, if I turned up at sites with a truck with cranes, compressor kit etc all loaded onto a long hood Mack, I would not get past the gate due to some site policy etc, plus anything to save the Man is not thought well of, the U.K. sites often dont give any consideration to repair work and dont like it being done within the site location, I was called out to a running fault on an Excavator a few years back, the machine was just a few months old, I found the fuel tank to be empty, the Site Agent said that the machine was crap as its broken down and he wanted it off the site, I pointed out to him they need fuel to run and he was going to be charged for my call out, this was the man in charge of the Site and he realy struggled to understand that the Excavator needed fuel to run, if he changed it for another 1 it still needed the fuel tank filling, I sometimes meet some amazing people, how do they get these fancy jobs.
i got the torque spec for this slew ring i am going to do but no procedure. do i just put them in and torque them in order? or should i worry about a cross torque pattern? any thoughts?......theironoracle
G'day John, the machine we did is a logging machine with a processor head and a raised cab there is a cavity below the cab (about a foot high) to access the top ring bolts in that section of the circle, you just can't get much of a swing with the socket, bar and pipe.
theironoracle, We usually just torqued the bolts down following the circle. Never had a problem with it. Wick I did a similar machine a bunch of years ago. It had an eighteen inch riser. It also had two Allied winches in the way as it was a yoder. Logging shovels with a tilt cab are a piece of cake. Excavators though are a real pain as I've had to pull the cab shell and floor plate.
so when does this project get underway?
the customer is finishing a project up with the machine then it is mine between jobs. its not working real hard but has to be available. he will probably need it done as soon as my schedule gets overwhelming, oh well there are worse problems to have than too much work......theironoracle
Bear with me as I may asking a stupid question, but why is is a waste of time to pull the trucks from under the house? We are in the middle of changing the same bearing on a 375L. We bought the machine knowing this was bad, seems the bolts came out of a rotation motor or two and really beat up the teeth on the inner race, more than 50% missing. Bearing still good. Found a good take out pretty cheap. But short of lifting the house 50 foot in air, I don't see a good way of getting a sling rigged over the top to lift and replace. Like many others, good tidy cribbing under back of house, and solid blocking under stick. Used power team rams and air over hydraulic pumps to push them. Brought stick all the way in to eliminate hydraulic creep there, lifted about three feet from ground and chained lift cylinders from extending any further. Bucket removed, used bucket pin with jack on both sides, and jacks on most outer pionts on back to have best control on lean. Jack and add cribbing. Jack and add cribbing. Pretty simple. Replaced rotation motors after bearing was out, as we were waiting on our bearing. Just can't see another way besides pulling undercarriage out from under house. We also use a hydro torque wrench, it's capable of 3300 ft.lbs. Impact tight, use the hydro wrench for final trque. Took us half a day to remove, a whole day to re install. Two poeple, sometimes three as the old man shows up from time to time to offer a hand. Not in a big hurry just steady and safe. Got pics too. But some explain why it's a waste of time to get the uc from under the house.
that's the way I done it coondog, im thinking (& iv been wrong before) that a lot of these guys are workin on small equipment not things the size of a 375bL. where they can get it that far up in the air to work on it or to man handle the ring out. its a different ballgame on the big equipment. I feel better working on it out from under all that metal over my head also
I have done some fair sized ring swaps and as I have already said, we all do things in our own way, but I would not drive out Nowt just for the fun, coondog if you have swing box problems/damage then I would have left them in untill all the bolts were cracked and the hard to get ones were removed, then with a Big Bucket still hitched and the excavator in the up-lift position, I would pull out the swing box/s as this saves a large amount of jacking up, I have a great set of Enerpac style cylinders with an electrical powered pump set but I always use screw valved jacks, as for getting the ring out and in, well thats the simple bit?? whats the big deal, in the U.K. we would not be allowed to fuss about like you, the Boss's want it done and back to work without all the fancy bits, like I said "We all do things our own way, best of luck with your endeavours. tctractors
Tc, I am sorry your bosses are not as endearing to you as the ones we evidently have here, this happens to be an era of caring about every bodies feelings here in the US and it seems that half of us don't FEEL like working. Having said that, I don't believe completing a ring swap on a 100 ton excavator with less than 24 labor hours can be categorized as fussing about. Including swapping both rotation motors, all in the field. I'll go up against any superior UK nonfussing boss fearing mechanics on this job. This was my first one, I already own the tools, have good hands and employees. Pulling the swing boxes doesn't help on this particular machine, I had no hard to get bolts. I am not complaining a bit about the job, I was only asking a simple question: why is it a waste of time to tug the undercarriage out from under the house? I understand now that UK mechanics are the best in the world, but you failed to answer the only QUESTION I asked. Try again.
We,ve changed a bunch of bearings and the easiest one ever was a 790 JD. We took some empty oil drums and put a 2" pipe through them about a foot down from the top, then filled them w concrete. These are the handiest blocking stands we ever had, with a forklift you just straddle the barrel w the forks and pick them up with the pipe. We took all of the hoses off the rotary manifold and plugged them so that we could run the excavator. We removed the drive axles from the final drives. Turn the upper 90 degrees to the undercarriage. Take out all of the rotek bolts but 4 or 6. Stick the boom out to full extension so that the counterweight starts to lift. At this point put the loaded barrels under the counterweight and block them as tight as you can under it. Lower and bring the boom closer so that there is no strain on the bolts and the boom is in its sweet spot for lifting. Remove the remaining bolts. Carefully lower the boom so as to raise the upper enough so the swing pinion just clears the bearing. With another machine pull the undercarriage out from under the upper. To clean the underside surface and remove broken bolts let the machine down on 2 more of the drums. Now you can freely service the bearing,grease tray etc. To put it back together repeat the process,and when its time to line up the bolts use the swing function to find the first bolt hole then swing a little more to line up the next ones. Just be cautious when lifting w the boom there is the possibility to knock the machine off the barrels. No jacking, no cranes, took about 4 hours.
Coondog, the swing box pinions have to be lower than the the top plate to act into the tooth gear on the bearing??? so by stripping out the swing box's you would save having to jack up the top works by at least 150mm if not more??? the swing bearing I leave bolted to the top plate by a few bolts to take up the bearing clear of the grease path, then I place timber under the bearing and unbolt the few bolts keeping it attached to the top plate allowing it to sit on the timber ready to slide out, no big Drama just useing a bit of brains I think??? the ring will pull out very simply, this will allow you to pack timber off the Carbody to the underside of the top plate while you sort out the grease path and bearing location, I would have done more than 20 ring swaps mosty by myself or with the driver as a hand, I will admit that the largest ring I have swapped was on an old 245 CAT and the Quarry fitter gave me a hand. To answer your question its simple, the jacks lift up the ring gear off the carbody untill the underside of the bearing is clear of the grease path then you pack under the bearing with timber, then by removing the few bolts that hold the bearing to the top plate the bearing easily slides towards the dipper arm/bucket, so now I have answered your question twice and I still have not driven the carbody an inch, I am glad you have all the gear??? I have little compaired but I would still manage to swap out a ring roller with a few bits of stick and a few slings, next time you tackle 1 of these jobs take a few moments to think how you would tackle it with minimal kit, I gave a pal of mine a hand to swap out a Komatsu ring once on a site, we lifted the counter weight off with a fairly big excavator that was not being used then undid the bolts and used the machine hydraulics and the biggish excavator to lift the top clear, it was O.K. but things get off line easy. tctractors
Logs, we considered this method a bit before we went the way we did. We did not ave all of the plugs on hand, could have made them but still would've taken time. Also the way the hydraulic swivel is put in it would leave little room to plug of holes. And the inside of the belly is deep, would've taken us some time to get in there to plug them off on top. But we really considered it. We also have a 988h with a set of forks. Thought about using it to raise the back end, but voted against it. I saw a YouTube video on a much smaller machine done that way. Tc, you are correct, the swing box pinions are much lower than the bottom plate, about 10 inches. However the hydraulic swivel is even lower. We ended up swapping both swing boxes anyways, because the teeth on them were as bad as the teeth on the inner race. Uninstalling the hydraulic swivel on this particular model would have taken more time than just jacking it up. I understand now about how you get it out though, you did a better job of answering. I do feel that would ave been a bit unsafe on a bearing of this size, but I coulda reached in and snagged it with that 88 with forks. I still would have had I jacked up about the same height as the bots were about 10 inches lng also. Some more of the story is I don't have a boss ramming me about getting it done because I own the quarry and equipment. One reason I have the tooling I do is to keep my guys safe and out of harms way. Anyhow thanks for answering the question, cleared up some confusion. Still don't agree necessarily, but I can se where it would hae been easier to line back up, although we did not have much of an issue here either.
Coondog, I have not ever even worked on a CAT 375 excavator,but I have poked about on some fair sized O&K iron, but no matters?? I always blank off the pipes that go to the Rotary Coupling (C/Joint) from the valve block, this allows you to use the excavator hydraulics to lift the front up, I have never heard of anyone jacking this bit (Fservice might do it ???) so with the Pipes blanked of and the R/coupling possibly lowered into the carbody? and the swing box's pulled out your job would have been just a bit of Donky Work on the ring bolts, lots of sites in the U.K. would not allow this type of repair to be done,the excavator would have to be moved off site or done over the weekend without eyes looking on, this is often the point when I get involved to get it done?? please dont think I am posing as Mr U.K. Super Spanner Man, as I dont realy care if I never swap out another Roller Ring before my 6 bits of Wood turn up to box me in, but dont think I would not like the challenge to test myself against a task, I can pay a plane ride.
Hello, we have done 3 ring changes in the last year, 2 Liebherr 904,23 tonne and a Fuchs350 30 tonne, used a crane to lift the top off, simple and safe, for the bolts one lad breaking the bolts loose with hydraulic spanner the other lad following on with a air ratached, there cant be a quicker or simpler way, takes two good skins two long shifts to do. you lads jacking and skidding, you have to go up a long way to clear the center joint, clean out grease pull bearing out etc and then put it all back Some people saying they have changed rings in 4/6 hours, well i think they must be strangers to the truth
Yes we have done them in 4-6 hours
log is a 709 JD a tonka toy ?
No it's not, sorry to correct you but it's a 790 not a 709. 220 size
so you started the job and replace the bearing and 4 hours later the machine was working ? in your process described above you would not clear the center joint
The 790 is a pretty basic machine, there's lots of room to remove hoses and bolts. the manifold stays w the lower so when you have clearance for the swing pinion you've also got room for the rotary. then slide the whole undercarriage out and use a big impact wrench on the bolts on the bottom. Bada Bing, Bada Boom !!!
so how do you get a at least 3/4 drive impact wrench gun in, do both sets of bolts go in from the top,
logs just gogle 790jd and it comes up as a compact tractor ?
KWD, I always price up for around the 3 days to do a ring bearing swap by myself (upto 30 ton), that includes loading timber to and from the site plus leaving no mess, the old ring bearing I try to sell to a reconditioner in the south west, but I have already said that once with 2 of us going mental we swapped a bearing in a JCB812 or 814 in a Saterday morning, they are very easy to work on with only a few bolts in them, as for J.Deere kit well its not about in the U.K. that I know of??? I once had a deal to swap a ring on an Hitachi FH200 and agreed a price with the owner, as soon as I had the top plate up ready to swap the bearing the owner turned up, from the comfort of his fancy car he started off saying that I was robbing him and his usual mechanic's would do it for loads less (about £300 less) and to not be thinking of sending him a Bill as we agreed, he drove off in the fancy Chariot, I lowered the top down and bolted it all back together and left it with the knackered bearing still in it, then called him to tell him to get his usual mechanic's to do it as I dont want to cost him undue expence, his usual mechanic's worked on Trucks it was these lads that put me in the frame for the job and are long time pals, they would not do it and the machine was soon sent to an Auction with the new bearing in the lot, the owner of the fancy Car now own's a Garden Centre near Swindon.
i have done dozen's of slew ring's on various sized excavator's very fun job if you ask me.
790dlc
I have always pulled the carbody out from under the house as I want to check the landing ring on the carbody and the bottom plate on the house. One could usually assume the ring is flat and there are no cracks in the carbody and the same for the house but I've had more than a few with definite problems that would have resulted in a short life for the new bearing. I'm not trying to denigrate anyone for not pulling the carbody out as there are plenty of people willing to take the risk of a short life for getting production running again. I do guarantee my labor though and if there were a problem that could have been taken care of while the pieces were apart I know my customers would have no problem asking me to pick up some of the cost of the redo. To my mind doing a job fast doesn't necessarily mean getting it done right. I prefer no short term do over.
Tc, your 245 is still 80k lbs less than my 375. I am no sure about your plane ticket comment, if you suggesting that this dumb dumb fussy American mechanic come to the UK so a real mechanic can show him how it's done, I pass. Not because I'm afraid I would get shown up as I'm sure I would, but because I can't take my gun with me. I don't g anywhere without at LEAST one. I still don't really see how doing it your way would save me any grief because my grease channel has a welded on riser in the mddle, so regardless if swing motors are removed or not. Still have to clear ten inches. KWD, a crane would be nice, however t get a crane that would lift 140k to come to my area would cost more than it is worth by a long shot. And jacking was not that bad. In fact that was the easiest part. Foot on the pedal and pump away. Lift right out and up and clear and easy. A jd 790 is about a 60k lb machine. That's like the most popular size of hoe, biggest thing you can transport without too much extras. Still overweight, but not too much. I feel that would be more difficult to remove the ring bearing on than the one I did, which is 4 1/2 times larger. All I had to do was remove 42 bolts(2hours), remove 6 hoses(30 minutes), removes final keys(1hour), jack up house ten inches(1hour), pull carbody out( 3 minutes!!!!! huge waste of time apparently), pull out 60 bolts with an 1 1/2 impact ( 20 minutes), and lift bearing out ( 10 minutes). Times are decreased going back together. Everything is simply cleaned in the middle there, did it all the cleaning myself, took me 2 hours. John c, I hear you barking, I agree that faster is not better. I was concerned going into this job. Once we got started it all went really smooth. And easy. Only about two hours of it did I ave to spend under something all stooped over because the ceiling prevented e from standing up straight. Just seems better to me in all respects to the job, safety, lifting, cleaning, inspecting repairing, everything. Mine mechanic, your right. It was a fun job, I enjoyed it very much.
coondog, are the bolts that retain this ring to the track frame inside bolting down perhaps? on these smaller machines mentioned i think most of the bolts are all external bolting up from the outside! most don't have room for a 3/4" impact let alone a 1-1/2" impact, just thinking of the differences between the jobs. when working on projects i usually don't have the luxury of having other expensive equipment around to help so i always make plans accordingly.. tctractors, great move bolting that machine back together!!!!! and it is always nice when others in your field have your back to give the customer what they deserve. my customers always have the option of time and materials or quoted, if they don't trust me then they can find someone else as i see it, i go out of my way to be more than honest with my customers.4 i can't believe this thread is on 4 pages i would still like to get some pics in it though, sounds like maybe this week i can get to my job, i pray everyone has a productive and safe week...........theironoracle
Coondog, the 245CAT was a tuck up to me as I had some work jacking it up (by hand) as the timbers started crunching down under the weight, I had to re-crib the job useing fresh Baulks and Steel plates, I was told that it 's weight was in the mid 40's Long Tons or 45'000kgs but it was hard work to poke up in the air, I later was told it was around the 79'000 kgs as rigged so my pants where pulled down on this 1, the plane ticket is for me as I could do with a Holiday, I dont have a Gun but I do have a Swiss Army style pen knife somewhere ? if I can find it, on the your way and my way thing, it all makes no odds as the job was done with no Drama's, the grease path is the common thing to find in most excavator Carbody build ups, if the swing box/s are removed you save a massive amount of jacking, height = danger on this scale, you said the pinion hangs down 10" so please re-think your comment here, In my mind I would have not even thought about doing your job as you did, but its your job and with this 1 and 2 more done you would have done 3, the main thing is driving/pulling out the Carbody, John C said he always does to safeguard his good name and the Customer, the fact is I never do I just get em' swapped and get my coins, if the Carbody is any good with no cracks or welds things are going back together, its not very common to find hidden damage other than rust areas these days.
ok, so i finally got to do my first rotec bearing job. Things did not go so well to begin with. After jacking machine up and repositioning blocks for the third time i had it about 8''s in the air and one of them broke and the machine fell to the right (super slow motion no crash or nothing) and stopped luckily before it slid clear off the carbody! Looking back at the pictures i think what an idiot i had two of those block courses parallel to each other, it didn't start that way but somewhere along the line i got in a hurry and it about cost me a career. Gathered my self went and got about 2x's the blocking i started with and proceeded with job not without tying machine to a larger machine with rigging (blue lifting ring) while i was moving it, never used the jacks again just kept teatering machine back and forth with boom movement. I did end up with a hydraulic torque wrench and used it to break all of the bolts loose amazing little tool!!!!
finished and back on the ground..........theironoracle
Looks good. Were you wore out after throwing all of the cribbing?
Nice job. Were you able to keep your time close to your estimate?
Looks like you did a good job w not a lot to work with.
thanks for the words of encouragement. as far as the hours I ran over quite a bit (my risk and return got eaten by risk). I was on site less hours than I figured but I had to drive to the site 2 extra times due to scheduling of the other machine after things fell apart, I also had to drive extra miles after the special rigging and all of the extra cribbing. well live and learn, all's well that ends well..........theironoracle
Oracle, well done for sticking at it and "Gettin er' Done" my advice to you is use man sized Timber Baulks that are are about 8 -10 ft long with cribbing in between about 3 ft long at the back of the excavator where you do your Jacking, useing little heaps of sticks is to unstable and danger loaded??? and will near always lead to the Wobbles, I would not attempt this task useing the cribbing style you used, anyhow the job was done and the experience gained was Mighty. tctractors
thanks tc, to begin with i tried to do to much with to little it almost ended with me looking for a payroll job. next time i will have even more blocking like you say "man sized baulks".....theironoracle
Ive heard my dad talk over the years that when he was with Preston Carroll Corp that everything started out hook and house rollers with center pin bushings then Lorain came out with rotec bearings and Koehring wanted the bearing but lorain had the patten rights sewed up and they couldn't touch it so Koehring bought Lorain just to get the bearing. They were big koehring users "1066 1266 1466 they had several and some of the smaller ones to" He said that one day cat was putting on a little dog and poney show trying to get him to to think about some cat excavaters and was going on about how much engineering they had put into the machine and that the bearing was a cat built item when he scratched the paint off the bearing id plate on the cat and discretly showed the engineer the rotec badge.
Any of you ever replaced one of those in a hydraulic crane. Now that's fun.
You got that right just a little more fun to it