We've had someone on here looking for a crane, well here's a dandy, just needs a little TLC https://www.purplewave.com/auction/220324/item/IY9110/Terex-428-Cranes-Truck_Crane-Oklahoma
Nothing a stick welder from Harbor freight and some steel from tractor supply couldn’t fix…
No! Duct tape!!!
Thats doesn't look like it was a fun time.
It may not have been fun, but it looks like it was too heavy…Or not being used for its intended purpose
Take the crane off and make it in to a dump truck
A lot of states- mine is one- the truck cranes don't have plates- because they don't have titles. Some states they are titled, and have plates. In my state- they are considered "Special Mobile Equipment" and don't fall under the regular classification. I could about imagine that DOT officer conversation with a dump bed on it. Honestly- the thought of it as a dump truck never crossed my mind. They are only a 8.3 cummins, and it would be a lot of work, and tough to sell to someone else. The frame is all a welded box beam, and pretty rigid. But you could weld in a rear hinge plate in where the rear boxes are. Its actually probably worth the most in parts, but it would take you forever to sell them. Outriggers, tele cylinder, winch, LMI box, engine trans rears, block and ball. I think the upper cab glass may be getting hard to get- its a flat piece that actually curves on to the lower front glass. With terex gone- I don't know if you could get them from load king or not.
Crane operator what if we mount a excavator on it too to load the bed
Oh- I know some guys that have run gradall's, and my mind doesn't work in that many axis of rotation. You're free to bid and dream though.
" Operational Boom Telescopic Boom length: 94' Sections: 3 Maximum lift capacity: 80,000 lbs" Liars! I only see two sections of boom there find an RT with shot running gear and make a frankencrane.
Cut the boom off and weld on a big azz pipe. Pumpkin launcher. That would be cool.
OK you win Crummy. Best use ever! The other fun one is to make a ginormous crossbow and use the winch drum to load it up. THUNK!
I've seen a truck with an excavator mounted on the back a couple of times around MKE. (Wasn't a Gradall, might have been a Deere?) I've always wondered what they used it for as the applications have to be fairly limited. But I could see this chassis making a great mount for something like that. ISZ
It's a deere 80 on a chevy it's been for sale for years. If it's the one I've seen that is.
Crane operator....you said Terex is gone...As in out of business, or sold out? I have two to repair, so looking for some tech docs and likely a few parts. They both have Greer instrumentation, one of which seems a bit flakey and I have no manual on it either. I'm not a crane specialist, but the owner was told there was a simple switch failure on one of them that prevented the boom from retracting once it was extended. Friday I played with it a little and had no problem with that, but somehow I got the thing boomed up and telescoped out and could not get it back down. Maybe that switch does have a problem. The Greer unit was telling me things I didn't understand, like "Exclusion Zone" and "Overload". I had nothing on it but the block. Somehow I need to find some books on this thing. Well two of them. One is an RT 230 and the other a CD 225. Naturally the owner wanted them fixed to use over the weekend. I said NO before even looking at them. He had an old time crane op come look at them a while back and he said they were in pretty good shape. Last inspected in June 2020. But they came from Purple Wave, like the above example. Just walking around them they don't seem to be too bad, but cranes aren't my thing. I do see they have some safeties built in that disable certain functions at unsafe positions. That I like, unless they end up stuck like that one did Friday. Took a while to figure out how a certain safety functioned and defeat it just to bring it down. We were supposed to get some bad weather and I didn't want to leave a lightning rod sticking up in the air.
Terex no longer builds any cranes in the U.S. They shut down the factory and left all the dealers hanging. Load king out of kansas city took over the truck crane and boom truck lines, but not the RT lines. Greer - some of it is available- some isn't, but there are aftermarket solutions available- just not very cheap. A full LMI (load computer system) could set you back $10,000- if you have to retro fit a new system. If I was stuck needing help- parts or books- load king out of kansas city is where I would start.
I saw where Terex abruptly shut down their Waverly facility and moved everything to OK back in 2016, and Terex has a sizeable web presence ( https://www.terex.com/ ), but after trying to contact them through their customer service dept and being totally ignored I sensed a problem. I'll look into Load King and see if I can get some assistance. Thanks for the reference. Supposedly Scott Macon Equipment up in DFW is a dealer for the RT line, so I may try them again. I no response from them yet.
Scott macon was a terex crane dealer, and terex was always hard to get parts from. I know a lot of the dealers were upset when they closed the new oklahoma facility, and the dealers were stuck with brand new cranes to sell, that no one wanted- because they were now a dead line, with no support. I would hate to know how much $$ they wasted in the move from waverly to oklahoma, but the only one that made $$ on that was the VP that got promoted for making it happen. Terex in the last year or so has tried to re enter the North American market- they still build a RT in Italy, and they were not very well received in the US. Too many people left hanging last time. Load king is going to be your best bet- they've got new stuff they want to sell- Scott Macon can't get any parts from terex, so it would only be stuff they have left on their shelves- which probably isn't much.
Oh boy! Sounds like my kind of fun! From what I've been told, this switch, that disables the boom retract under certain conditions (assuming I can locate and test it), is probably a popular wear part and isn't likely to remain on the shelves. I'd bet I'm going to strike out. Hopefully, Greer is used on more than Terex equipment and if I really need some help with it I will have better luck. Just got started at 1:00 Friday, so don't know much about it yet. Took a it just to get it started and the swing brake to release. It has been sitting for at least a couple of years since the auction. I probably would have voted against it if I had known about Terex. Not being a crane guy, I had no idea of what was going on with Terex. I also have artic offroad dumper in the yard. It will probably sit for a while now. Thanks, crane operator
Typically, there's nothing electrical from the lmi that will stop the crane from retracting- the LMI will stop boom down, cable up, and telescope out- all to stop overload. There's typically nothing to stop boom up, cable down, and telescope in from the LMI. That's not to say that there isn't a solenoid control for pilot pressure that has to work for individual functions in either direction, if its a pilot or electric over hydraulic machine. If its electric over hydraulic joysticks, it could be a joystick issue. Either way- it shouldn't be anything exotic- Terex wasn't making the valve stacks themselves, so you should be able to source the solenoids without too much trouble. If it is the LMI shutting you down, you should be able to work around the system by 12v bypassing the signal shut off. Of course the LMI won't turn you off for any overload conditions with it bypassed, but it would get you running.
Both of these machines are pre-joystick versions. Just a handful of levers. Seems like it ought to be simple to figure out, but this isn't familiar territory for me and I won't take any responsibility for work done with them. I do see the mechanisms used to disengage the lever to prevent movement in a particular direction, and it has a few wires on it, I assume to signal engage/disengage. I ended up manipulating the rod leaving that device to raise the cable and once I had it up, control seemed to be restored to the other functions. I'm puzzled on the behavior. What I don't quite get is why, with the boom up and out, I could only lower the cable. The block was almost in my lap and I didn't want to drag it across the fenders by swinging around, but I could not get the winch to spool up, or the boom down enough to get the block away from the machine.
Levers should just control push pull cables that run to the valve stack. Any wires on the lever themselves, are probably just the wiring for the horn on the swing lever, and the winch rotation indicators on the winch lever. LMI not set properly and/ or a2b switch, will kick out the functions for boom down, winch up, and tele out. I think on those- the kick out occurs on the valve stack via solenoids. But its been a long time since I've been around one.
Wish I had taken a couple of pics. The lever does run by cable to one of the switched devices. There are too many wires for it to be just a horn. Maybe 8 wires. I was tired late Friday. The cable actually moved this device and it seemed maybe that when the lmi allowed it, moved a rod protruding from it to another cable, likely to the valve bank. It was as though it disengaged internally and the entire (switched?) device moved, but the exiting rod/cable would not. It seemed to connect/disconnect internally. I assumed that was the safety system at work. I just grabbed the output rod where it attached back to the cable and operated the valve. Several assumptions here, obviously. Guess I'll be trying to get some docs on the control and the machine itself.
So the way some of them work- all the levers rest at the bottom of the dash until the lmi / function enables, then they kind of "spring" up. I think thats a electric solenoid- that just engages on the push pull cables. No power and they fall free (no function)- powered up they magnetize and hold the lever engaged (functions work).
The solenoids on the cables going to the valve banks are the lmi kick outs. If you put power to them they should allow you to run you lmi kickout functions. The winch valve pack on the t230/rt230 is right between the two winches behind the boom. Both those should have kickout solenoids. The boom tele/boom up valve pack is kinda a pain to get to under the boom. Have someone sit in the cab and cable up on the winch while you watch the linkage going into the solenoid. For some reason I’m thinking you can put a vice grip on them to bypass it. It’s been awhile but I’ve been there, and I know I was able to bypass the kickout on the function I needed. If memory serves me correctly I feel like there’s another kickout solenoid under the dash that the wires can get kicked loose from. I may have my crane models mixed up but for some reason I think Ive had trouble with that solenoid. All the information is one the rt230. I don’t know anything about the cd225 off the top of my head. As for Greer computers. Call crane warning systems in Florida. They have/can get any part you need for a Greer and have guys that are absolute legends on Greer computers.
Thanks for that information, Knepptune. I'm thinking I have some issues with the Greer box so I'll contact those folks. You are correct in thinking that there is a mag connect/disconnect in the cab on the right side, just about where you would put boots. In fact, that is the one I had to manually manually manipulate to get the thing off high center and moving again. Had I understood it at the time, I could have simply jumped 12V to it rather than wrestle it, but I was unaware of it's operation. I expect to return to the cranes project next week. Always hoping!
Knepptune, just wanted to thank you for that contact in Florida. Spent about an hour on the phone this morning and learned a lot about the controls and instrumentation I have. Feel better about letting someone use the machine now. Calibration still seems correct and I cannot find any bad switches anywhere. All seems to work. There were some incorrect selections on the Greer box. Fellow named Gene, who was with Greer, helped me.
Gene is absolutely the most knowledgeable person I’ve ever talked when it comes to Greer computers. Very nice guy as well. Glad it helped.