This may interest some or might be totally boring to all..
I'll get a handle on uploading to the site...eventually! Used to using photobucket and just copy&pasting links and tags First post shows the V16 out of the Wirtgen 4200 directly above. Also seen in the first post is one of 3 pumps that got damaged on a Vermeer 1655. These are 250cc closed circuit pumps. Evidence of heating is seen on the brass in the picture Third post shows out new workshop and the drum from a Wirtgen 4200, with 2 of them in the background 2nd post shows firstly where these had to be pulled out of, a right rats nest of 2'' and 1 1/2'' hoses. It also shows the coupling that is used to drive the PTO box. There is two C18 engine in each of these machines. The final drive shown is from a Vermeer 1255. These have been going through park brake seals quite a lot and evidence of the nylon back up ring can be seen amongst the oil. The last pic is of the rats nest of pipes in the 4200. All had to be removed to get the V16 out. If it is wanted I can post more and I will try to put them in order the next time!
Thanks for sharing the Pics. Do you get a good run out of the C-18 (what are they Rated at)? I can't believe how far down you guys strip piston pumps in that environment.
The only reason they were stripped down like that was to see if any of them had broken up internally. They were f@$ked anyway as they had been dead headed for several hours by mistake. The c18 are rated at 600bhp in these machines. The only issue so far has been some worn thrust washers
Thanks for the interesting pics. Another thread to subscribe too.
This might be obvious to some but I am wondering what does a Wirtgen 4200 actually do?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_o1KuG3Y8A it creates dust
Hendrik is basically right! Although in practise the Vermeer is worse for rising dust into the air. Both the Vermeer T1255 & T1655 and the Wirtgen 2500 & 4200 use a rotating drum with tungsten carbide tipped teeth to surface mine iron ore here in WA. Where others use drill and blast methods FMG (the mine owners) utilse this method as they claim it is more efficent. When the ore is milled in this way the spoil can be separated from the ore before it is taken from the pits. In the video above it is being loaded as it is milled by conveyor. Here it is laid in windrows and dozed into piles by D10s and D11s before been allocated a loader and dump trucks depending on the quality of the ore. This is what I have been told anyway!
Thanks for the explanation, I've never heard of such a thing. How deep does it cut in each pass? How long do the tungsten carbide teeth last in the iron ore?
I think they limit the passes to 300mm. The go through a lot of teeth. At the moment there is about 20 machines mining and teeth use varies greatly on the ground conditions. In hard ground you can see them changing some of the picks every 30 meters or so, maybe even less at times http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-WQ2Qo8idg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVu3o4ZkIKw Apologies for the poor quality and shortness of the videos, they were just taken with my phone
very interesting. Those machines look and work much like the roto mills that take up old asphalt on roads. Its hard to imagine the costs involved in that mining process...no wonder steel is so expensive.
Perhaps but the ore is conditioned there and then prior to going into the truck. Think about the other way, drilled and shot, loaded out in various sizes and then put through the crusher to size it up, starting to make sense?
Nice pics and description. It is an interesting concept mining that way. I guess the numbers work out cheaper than the conventional method, but it looks like a high maintenance way to go. I wonder about the life span of the mills compared to the life of a crushing plant.
Not much interesting to report from my last swing on site. More parkbrake seals dying. O&K have apparently started to investigate the issue now. Main reason we have come to is excessive tramming without letting the hubs cool down. Above you can see a chain drive 1255 surface miner getting a drum replaced. Some of these are grease, the newer ones are oil filled. This one had split the main drum beside the inner bearing and was filling the drum with grease. The replacement drum was an old unit that had been reconditioned. Bearings at 5K a pop or so I was told anyway. For those interested, the dig chain is a D8N chain with 33 'slats' (could be 34, cant rightly remember) The slats weigh about 120kg each and the whole assy weighs 5.5t. Putting it in place can be a bit of a drama with the Health & Safety plebs around here..
Life of the Vermeers is 20,000 hours Hydrostatic rebuild at 6750, engine at 10,000 and final hydro rebuild at 13,500
A few years back Leightons had a fleet of those. I line bored those bores with the big bearings in them on quite a few. 450mm and 500mm bores from memory.They take a real beating and very few are in tolerance when they strip them down.
That type of mining is highly effective in gypsum as well. Softer rock though so they last.
I'll wager Wirtgen and Vermeer are doing Toyota-like leaps over their massive sales to FMG. I'm amazed that those surface grinders keep going with any reasonable % of availability. Few people understand the working conditions in the iron ore mines of W.A. Iron ore in the ground is harder than the hardest rock - ambient temperatures up to 50 deg C - iron ore dust so fine that it makes talcum powder look coarse. Iron ore dust penetrates paint and skin and it's almost impossible to get the stain out of paint. Most items of equipment on iron ore mining have a short life, compared to equipment working elsewhere. When the first iron ore mines started in W.A. in the mid-1960's, the average life of a set of D9G track shoes was 800 hrs. At 800 hrs, the grousers were non-existent, the track shoes were smooth. Ripper teeth lasted 4 hrs if you were lucky - by which time there was nothing left of the tooth. Strangely enough, powdered iron ore is not abrasive, and pin and bushing life was more than double any other application. siduramaxde - The reason steel is so expensive is because after the ore is mined, it's loaded on huge trains (more big $$'s in train loaders, GE locos, and rail lines), railed several hundred kms to a port, where it's unloaded into monstrous stockpiles (more big $$$'s in train tipplers, bucket reclaimers, port facilities) - then it's re-loaded into some of the biggest ships in the world - Cape-size carriers - and sent many thousands of kms to where it's once again dumped and then re-loaded into the steel mills. The amazing thing is, it's demand that has sent the iron ore and steel price soaring. Only 10 or 11 years ago, the iron ore miners of Australia were happy with around $25 tonne for their ore, and they were making money. Then the ore price started rocketing as the Chinese demand (and world demand) soared. It went to $80 a tonne, then to $140 a tonne. At $140 tonne, the iron ore miners started looking like Scrooge McDuck in his money bin, they didn't know what to do with their money. Since early September 2012, iron ore prices slumped to just over $80 tonne, and then recovered to just under $100 tonne. All the miners now wail that they're going broke - but they're still making substantial profits. The problem that many have, is the massive expansion to meet the demand, means they're carrying huge debts from financing those expansions. In another few short years, those debts will have been paid down, and the iron ore miners will be laughing all the way to the bank. Iron ore mining is hugely capital-intensive. The worrying feature is that massive expansion involving doubling, tripling, and tripling again of production, is making the massive deposits of iron ore in Western Australia disappear at an alarming rate. When the deposits were originally examined by an American geologist in the early 1960's, he proclaimed there was enough iron ore in Western Australia, to supply the needs of the entire world for 250-300 yrs. At the current enormous mining rate, they are talking about all the prime-quality, hematite ore (65% Fe) deposits being exhausted within 30 yrs. America ran out of hematite ore in the late 1950's, and had to turn to the much lower grade, and more-expensive-to-mine taconite ore (25-30% Fe), to source its iron and steel. Taconite had previously always been discarded as waste. WW2 actually depleted the Mesabi hematite reserves so severely, that U.S. miners expressed great concern in 1947 that they were going to run out of iron ore. The U.S. Govt became quite alarmed, and provided huge tax breaks and incentives to the iron ore miners, to find new sources of iron, either in the U.S. or overseas. A huge amount of U.S. research effort saw the taconite resources of the U.S. become an acceptable source of iron for the U.S. by the mid-1950's. Most U.S. iron is now sourced from the beneficiation of taconite ore. http://www.geo.msu.edu/geogmich/iron_iii.html Slidey - Thanks for pics and info of iron ore operations, up close, that few people get to see. Don't forget to post pics of the 500 tonne Powertrans Bulkhaul road trains!
Great post there Oz. At the moment we are achieving in or around 75% availability including GET changes which isnt bad. Some days are worse than others! Saying that, the biggest hours on one of our machines at the moment would be below 8k I would say. The bulkhaulers were been managed by BIS but I believe that have gotten the boot, will try and get a pic or two if I can. A D11 dwarfed by a pair of Bucyrus and a Leibherr 9400
One truck and 6 wagons is there that big of a shortage of trucks down under?
jdm - Nope - but there's a serious shortage of drivers to drive 'em - and the drivers get paid top dollars - so we make sure they do the work of 6 ordinary guys. There's a photo gallery and some videos of the Powertrans products in the link below. http://www.powertrans.net/2011/index.php/home.html The Powertrans T1250 tractor is Australian-designed-and-built, using mostly U.S. components (Cummins QSK19, Allison M6620, Cat 740 or 770 cab, AxleTech axle components, Hendrickson Megatrek suspension). It runs on 14.00x25 earthmover tyres, can do 75kmh (47mph) but cruises at 55kmh (34mph) loaded, hauling 275 tonnes (606,271lbs). It's not capable of being registered to run on public roads, as it's 3.158M (124") wide. Dedicated minesite haul roads are built for these rigs, and the public are excluded from access to these roads.
A pic of bores being welded for machining on one of Leightons surface miners
Ray - I'll wager when a couple of those drums rock up for line-boring, you must dissolve into tears - crying all the way to the bank! "A nice little earner", as Arthur Daley would say ...
They are a very easy job. When I submit the invoice I can see them wondering,how does he do it for the price? With those things and Liebherr diggers there will never be a line borer on the poverty line Of course Powertrans is right across the road from that workshop. Done some work there to. Decent people to work for. I think there is some pics of a WA700 axle pivot in their shop here in my thread on line boring pics.
The only thing that I have seen that could move a man to even more tears, would have been the tears flowing at Goninan, when Hamersley Iron had a 73 car pileup, in a 230 car, 30,000 tonne iron ore train, in August 2004. The tears must have been flowing thick and fast, as the Goninan blokes tallied the replacement bill. I don't know how the HI blokes managed to read the invioces, with all those tear stains on them. http://www.wamrc.org.au/gallery/yandi/ The pics don't give any idea of the huge size of that 68kg (150lb) rail line, it is absolutely massive. The rail line is over 185mm (7 1/4") in height and the rail head is just under 75mm (3") wide.
Nice pics mate, hows the work going at the moment? Bit of a slow down or all together stopped? Been up to chrissie creek once.
Work is hanging on a balance at the minute. Despite all the pissing and moaning that people so about the place I don't mind it there. Talk of cutting the maintenance workforce by 40% and as we are a contractor we will be first to get the chop. I'll keep earning and learning while I can though
That sucks mate, hope you get the chop. The company I work for is also up there. Cloudbreak and Christmas Creek, they've had a slow down, sent all the contractors out etc. Sure hope it picks up!
One truck, 6 trailers but one is a power trailer. On those its the same combo as the unit up front. QSK19, Allison auto etc. They do a few other "smaller" combo's. Kenworth C510's or 540's with either QSK19's or Signature. Roadranger in the 510 and allison in the 540. They also run a powertrailer, signature engine, allison auto and sisu hub reduction. Got some pics if you're interested. One of our sites runs a tri-drive up front with 4 trailers, 2 of them are powered.
Some pictures from a final drive in our larger machine. The hard facing had start to break off the outer set of gears and the pinion shaft. I got sent the secondary set of gears. Because I was on nights there was nobody around paid from the neck up, I rang and was told it was the right parts supplied and to fit them. I did what I was told but when they saw the photos I took in the morning they realised they had made a boo-boo!
1 to 4 show a 4200 that dropped a track in the strip No. 5 is a 1655 drum that got badly damaged by a chump in the drivers seat and required extensive boily work. Thankfully not a task I get asked to do
#1 shows our track press. Apparently a 160t jobbie it struggles to push out the pins unless you give it a bit of a hand by burning a hole in the centre of the pin #2,3, and 4 show a common problem on the 16's. They break the shaft that the bevel washers sit on and drop the tension cylinder on to the track rollers. Luckily they have come up with a modified design which should resolve this issue. Tracks are struggling to last 4khrs though. Because the machine balances mostly on the final drive they really take a hammering
A Cummins QSK50 that threw a leg outta bed
A ground drive issue led to finding what looked like a foam pellet in the oil cooler screens. Excessive heat in the case drain of these Sauer 100cc pumps led to a brass and steel bounty in the hyd tank. The pumps were pulled apart to see were both circuits affected. The fact the pump was still making nearly 3000psi and getting the track to move still was pretty impressive!
YES, please post photos of the KW C-510 & C-540's!!!!! Ap40rocktruck
KTA 50, didnt do too bad considering some bolts went through the turbos 6 months ago and destroyed them!
Another quality repair by Global surface mining
Very interesting pictures. It looks like they're good on repairing gears.
Tracks, tracks and more tracks... The other pic shows the results of a pump failure, this is the return filter box Drum maintenance The view from the cab looking at another surface miner. You can see the trimble mushroom which controls grade etc
Very interesting. Thank you for sharing
Slidey, great pictures and credit to you for sticking with those chariots, I would be Gone after a max of 3 months as I struggle to cope with the same paint shade fast, the cylinder that I have and cannot lift (its hard going to drag it) is a 150 ton job and is a fair chunk, I know what you are up against on these track pins as even CAT D6 1"3/4 can take some poking free, I have a very good selection of Dummy Pins sorted that are a hand push fit, I use these firstly to join the chain and position the track in the best spot to press, these pins are about 40mm longer than a standard pin so I can hook up the back press plate and collar head onto the bit of pin sticking out as it makes things less of a struggle by myself, my start to the new year could be getting a few shifts working on a Bucket Wheel Trencher, something I have not done for 35 years, they have changed a good bit in this time with lots of Hydraulic tack instead of gears, chains and cables on the Clevelands I used to work on near every night till Silly O'Clock in the morning. tctractors
Yup, there was a bit of monotony about it. I did take a break for about a year and was fettling with big 789 dump trucks , D10/11 etc. Some time I'll get around to throwing up a few pics This job is finishing up for me Tuesday. Iron ore price has taken a battering here so I'm on the hunt for a new master at the mo! The dummy pin we have is like you say, about 1.5'' longer and a real loose fit. They are easy enough to line up when you use the little hiab on the truck, its a godsend. We also have a little piston for spreading the links to get the bush in. Prior to this there was a lot of ignorance and brut force needed..
Smaller stuff... Did a service on my transport at home that I recently bought. It's a 4.5td V8 cruiser. 08 model I think I need a bigger garage!!
Kinda nice to see a cruiser that's not adorned with a massive lightbar these days. There were all sorts of horror stories around after the V8s came out, but I suspect they were mostly BS...we have two now and they've been ultra reliable. Cheers, Greg
Thanks Greg I heard those stories too about huge oil consumption etc. Fingers crossed this one behaves itself!
I really like that front bumper/guard combo, and am looking to purchase a toyo this spring. Could you get me the manuf name please ?
They're just a locally made bar I think. http://www.arb.com.au/products/prot...-bars-frontal-protection/commercial-bull-bar/ These would be a big manufacturer of those style of bars here. Not sure how you'd go with shipping or complying with local laws?
Well it gives me a start, and I can use that manuf as a reference in shopping for the Same thing up here. There are so many to choose because of the popularity of the truck, but I never really saw one that I liked. Thanks for the link.
Here's another for you to consider, dd. Bullbar design is something of an art form over here.
ARB products can be found easily here in the US. They are top notch quality. I have one on a 4 runner, and love it. Check any of the off road supply houses, like 4 wheel parts wholesalers, or many others.
You're not joking! In Australia if you don't have 100 kilos of fabricated sh1te hanging off the front of your car, it's a sign that you're somehow inadequate as a man.
Yes, that one is a "bit too much"... I like straight and simple, but don't want to bother making one. Made this one for the back of my other truck, I would like it (for the toyo front) angled but not "faceted" and made from diamond plate would be nice as well.
Pilbara very beautiful place! Nature there beautiful! Good mining equipment.
Final drive swop out on a 996, it was dry when we parked there but rained overnight. Made it swampy underfoot
500t track press on. Set of 9400 tracks A tool to hold the engine turning tool in while cranking over the donk with half inch ratchet. Means both hands are free to do the grunt work and no nice surprise as it works it’s way out
Complete refurb undercarriage for one of the diggers this week
Just another handy $20M tax deduction for BHP-Billiton! How wide is that undercarriage? Was it trucked up from the Big Smoke after reconditioning? Or did they just ship a whole new assembly in from Germany on a boat?
8.4m wide. Came up from Perth by road. They are refurbished there. It’s a brilliant idea really, very fast turnaround for the machine on site
The colours of the sky in the early morning/dusk of the photos remind me of working in the Andes. Probably the desert conditions have something to do with it. Happy daze.........
Anyone else seeing baby AT-AT, no, just me lol.
I like the dinky little support stand under the bucket, as compared to the humungous support stands under the car body! I'll wager the lowering of the car body back onto the undercarriage is a delicate operation, despite the huge size of the Liebherr!
We developed a procedure to lower the upper frame on to the carbody for excavators of that size class using a couple of GoPro cameras magnetically-mounted to the underside of the upper frame looking directly at the bottom end of the tapered locator pins for the bolt holes in the swing bearing. The images from each camera were Wifi'd to a tablet, so all the lift supervisor had to do was watch those images to get the frame to come down perfectly aligned with the carbody without the necessity of people being under the load while it was suspended.
The support under the bucket is on metal rollers to allow the boom to float as the car body is raised and lowered
Love that solution. When I was armoring the bank over the side with the long reach, it was out of sight if I stayed seated. I tried to rig up a couple of wifi cameras way out on the stick and put my honda 1000 genny in the toolbox. I could not keep the power plugs seated in the cameras I had. If I had committed with superglue It would have worked. I had a tablet suction cup mounted to the side glass.
Slidey, great pictures! Thank you for sharing.