.........You know, that one you just cringe when its even mentioned. When you get that call and know that's what they are calling about. The one phone call that you really don't want to answer, and hope they don't leave a message. That call about a machine that you hate so much..........you would rather take a vacation in Somalia in July than work on it. Hell, Ide work on a dam truck to avoid these.......... For me its conveyors on anything. I never get on one of these that isn't a basket case. This one dropped a carrier roller right into the idler drum and locked it up tight. The cage around the drive motor coupler so full of crap it was squealing after I got the roller out of the drum. No Access worth a dam, wind blowing 30 mph, every other bolt breaks off, half of the carrier rollers are missing and unaccounted for (Im sure they are in several building pads around town) and there is ALWAYS more damage once you start looking them over. Was a long 2 days of work but its going, for now
My dad was a one-man machine shop and used to make custom drive shafts for the local fabrication shop who specialized in fabbing larger conveyor systems and slurry mixing tanks. I remember him getting emergency calls to machine up new shafts due breaks like this....and I distinctly remember the installation crews who would come in to pick up the shafts were NEVER happy to have that job. Almost like it was punishment by management for those crews to work on 'em. I could only imagine how those things are treated and what you have to deal with.
For me it is a Feller Buncher. They are 10 pounds of crap packed in a 5 pound sack, usually it is a hose or something somewhere there is no access that makes any sense, and they are sitting 1800 feet from the road straight down a steep hill in the brush, packing in a ladder and everything else plus a bunch of oil....
Any tracked carbody machine with a tilting house. The other worst machine for me was a Terex loaded five high container stacker. They are Hyster now and nearly the same machine. They always work in a salt water atmosphere and everything gets stuck and seems to have to be taken apart with a thermal lance. Even the landfill machines were easier to work on.
You win.
Telehandler. Pure evil.
Skytrak? With the engine buried in the frame?
Asphalt plant bag house, changing the bags in the middle of a big mix. Really dark, really hot, and really dusty. Haven't done it in a long time, but it makes me feel dirty just thinking about it.
JLG/CAT aren't terrible. Manitou on the other hand.............
I don't much care for much of the stuff that comes out of Europe. All those metric and BSP fittings that NOBODY ever carries.
I despise dirtbikes atv/utvs id rather ride them oh and John deere tractors just flat sick of them
fertilizer equipment
got a thing against rust?
Anything where your arm is twisted into doing a crap repair that you know is a complete waste of time.
That would be my preferred brand if I have to deal with one.
My Manlift
In part of my misspent youth, I worked for a company that rented, sold and repaired these for the local farming community: See that nice little bolted back door for cleaning access? Guess how long that seal lasts in its native environment. Its spade work to get them clean enough to install the new seal. Or the back valve would freeze up and they would ruin it and the mount. Or they rust out the pipe valves and you have to get enough of the rust gone- to weld in a new pipe or valve. Fun times! Application work takes place in the winter, and so they would break when it was too cold to pressure wash them off. Pull them into the shop and they will thaw out, but it would tend to make the shop smell nice. Not as nice as when you would start cutting and welding on it- the scent of burning rust and manure still has a place in my olfactory memory. For those not in a farming community- they are vacuum tanks, for hog confinement pit building clean out and field application. A farm version of the septic tank pump truck......
A dairy farm in my area has the grated floor, and they pump the manure out of the basement of the barn, and into a tanker truck that looks like a monster truck. The pump goes on a 3pt hitch, and is driven by the pto. Seems to me there is a propeller on the end of the pump, must spin up the dung. Never actually seen it in operation. We were doing some asphalt prep between the barns, and there was a brand new New Holland tractor, covered , and I mean covered inside and out. There is a 90 degree fitting off the pressure side of the pump. The clamp failed, and the steel fitting took the back window out. I guess there was a bit of hesitation as to who was going to jump into the rapidly filling with **** cab to shut her down.
My old boss took a bath in a similar situation. Wrong PTO gearbox in a new stand pump, when the farmer put the rpms to the pump when loading the first tank full, the stand rose right up off the ground, and cascaded it everywhere. He went straight to the house, stripped in the garage, and to the shower. Smell of $$$$
Articulated dump trucks. Pavers. Anything that involves a machine with conveyors.
Same here. They seem to be the most mechanic friendly.
Anything that one, two, or three other "mechanics" have been in there before with all kinds of good ideas! Then again I like a challenge and conveyers don't even bother me and actually like crushers and screens.
I forgot live bottom beds for healing pavement I got one on the to do im the am.
Is it just me, or is someone's ladder on the back bumper of their pickup?
I forgot the little walk behind/ride on track loaders, the cousin of the devil. *** you mean I got to take the whole machine apart to change the starter??? LOL Yeah **** a bunch of Skytrak, and JCB, and Bobcat too. Last JCB I worked on we were inventing all sorts of new curse words.
Anything that sits so low to the ground that it's impossible to walk under it.
About the two worst things I had to work on first was a JCB 185 skid steer! Very hard to get access to simple things like starter and then when you needed parts they were on back order and priced like they were the Crown Jewels! The other thing would be the Snorkelift ATB-60ALCU! All those relays, wires and switches and a parts manual and service manual that only hinted at where things were and what they did. One bad connection could take days to find and long wires caused voltage drops that made it even more fun!
Served my apprenticeship with a company that hired machines to landfills. Nothing worse than a landfill compactor broke down in the bottom of a pit.
Or an asphalt transfer vehicle with a full load of asphalt in the hopper.
OK, Im changing my mind! LOL I forgot about the oil distributor trucks. Get some of this in one place on your body and its spreads everywhere. I have to spray my skin down with brake cleaner to get this crap off. This is absolutely the WORST case scenario for me........Messy, and its a truck!
My Polaris Ranger 6x6........half engineered pos. One cannot remove the tappet cover from the machine after it's unbolted is just one of its little nuances that make gas-match-insurance a viable option. Ed
Would that not be about everything us normal folks have to fix.
Forestry mulcher with out a doubt. Can't crawl under then even to do an oil change. Can't even stand a 5 gallon bucket under them. Having to manufacture tools so you can undo and tighten bolts and nuts. Designers who won't come out to the site to see what a POS they created.
I had a coworker try to kill me with one one time. He lit the burners off and didn’t ensure it had enough liquid in the tank it blew the hatch off the top and landed a few feet away from me.
I can deal with tight spaces and whatnot. It's rusted and seized parts that really aggravate me.
Cat tends to annoy me often. They seem to build stuff in such a way JUST to **** a guy off. Like who builds a skid steer that you more or less need to remove the battery to get the oil filter out????
You never worked on a Volvo. I believe that they are designed for you to get every tool you own out to remove any component. Almost everything looks to be easily removed. But every component has that one bolt that requires you to remove another component. These by far are the most aggravating things I have ever worked on. I avoided Volvo for many years before I decided to work on them full time. I am a little older and wiser now. So while it's still aggravating it doesn't bother me as much. And everything keeps its glass. For me it's working on cars and trucks that I absolutely can't stand working on. I would rather work on the smallest skidsteer or mini excavator before working on cars and trucks.
HAHA you reminded me of the one time I ran tack truck. I was never going to reply to the thread, but simply operating a tack truck means you work on it.
I recently changed the water pump on my GM van. Easy right? No drain plug. Then try as I might I could not get the fan clutch off the hub. Mechanic friend came over and we tried every trick in the book including a claw hammer and a baseball bat used in creative ways. Thing would not budge. Finally took the whole pump out fan and all in one piece. Chucked it up in the vise to pull harder on the hub (using the baseball bat as a cheater, aluminum one without an end cap) and that nut came right off easy, and the end of the bat which I was set to pull overhead for maximum oomph, hit me right on top of the head. I should have sent it to the car mechanic before even looking at it, but I thought, this will be easy....
One of the best special tools I ever bought was one of those air hammer fan wrench kits, one quick blip on the air gun and off comes the fan. Super handy any time I have to mess with that style fan.
Coming from the standby generator world, I prefer anything I can't get under at all. Last fan clutch nut I couldn't move (7.3 Powerstroke) got a quick blip on the edge of the nut with a .498 Air Hammer and spun right off. Probably the only way I'll do it (every 10 years) from here on out.
I forgot to mention every rib feels like it's broken from leaning over that top rail where the grille and radiator are, full of bolts to poke you in the rib cage at every turn. I prefer generators, they don't have fan clutches (except a few weird ones from you know who)
Let me introduce you to Komatsu some time.
to use as a learning curve so you can work on Rayco's
Don't like working on the electrics of package gen sets. Hard to get to items and they use parts that go out of manufacture very quick.
After hours of research............Im changing BACK to the Atlas Copco HCS 5515 screener conveyor (the ENTIRE machine for that matter) . Evidently NO ONE will own up to ANY parts being available for it. What company would create a parts book, which I have, show the pics of the rollers....and not even list a part number for them ......its just stupid! Ive sent several emails to previous dealers, the manufacturer........even a couple to some company in Australia.........just crickets so far. I had one guy bust out laughing when I told him what I was working on ..........he wished me the best of luck in my search. A small glimmer of hope I ran into this morning, a company in New York.....and my cell phone wont dial out for some reason. I should probably stay home today. SO........I feel like, in this little bitch machinery poker game we are playing here.........I have 2 Aces! Convince me you guys have a better hand!
Would a lot of those conveyer parts not be generic. I know we buy a lot of stuff for our crushers, feeders, screeners and even an old extec screener from Superior. They have a fab shop here. Mind you they don't build rollers, but they can source parts like that.
Very well could be. It wouldn't hurt to get in touch with Precision Pulley & Idler, I've been impressed with their idlers. My vote would have to be wash plants. All of the fun elements of conveyors, plus they're rusted out from forty years of neglect so patch jobs are usually a blob of rags and caulk. Typically, the only real question is whether the thing is going to have a mechanical or structural failure first! My fiancee witnessed a rusted-out conveyor collapse onto a screen at one plant she ran, and I've spent hours cleaning up threads on rusty vibrator mounting bolts with a file because the bolts were $300 each, site management hadn't thought to order replacements, and there wasn't a die set on the property. The "can't be tight if it's a liquid" joke was invented with wash plants in mind!
Or and old pair of coveralls and spray foam.
How about welding below the blood line of gut wagons . Better yet, clutching a gut wagon that tore the splines out of the hub in August. Same customer, had a tipping floor . The gut wagons would back in and dump onto a pair of augers screws. The screws were chain driven, kinda like paver chains. Thin and flimsy. Every now and again a big ol cow skull or goat head would jam the screws and blow out the chains. You had to dig through guts, find the jam, break it up then wade through it all to repair the chain. Good times. Loaders and backhoes in landfills, childs play! How about haul trucks loaded with dried sewage, oh yeah, good stuff. We all get stuck with a nasty job from time to time. It's inevitable. It's how we handle it that matters. Do we throw tools and storm off like a beyotch or do you buckle down and get 'er done, cuz yer family depends on you? I'm sure you all toughed it out like men (and ladies)
You win... I won't complain anymore about my job
Everything on this list is beyond the limits of mere mortals, all of you are truly "essential workers"! I'm gonna claim the forestry stuff just because everything is so freakin' heavy. I just put chains on this morning
It hurts just looking at those monstrous things
Chains aren’t too bad. We used to tie a piece of clothesline from one side to the other and then loop it onto a tire tread and back up. Pulls it right on. I’ll take the forestry stuff anytime. I hate the mini excavators and anything built by jlg or genie.
Anything with computers. Can't troubleshoot them without a lap top with the double secret proprietary software. Not to mention miles of wire and more sensors than you can count.
That is why screens and crushers don't bother me! Refuge, landfill, or rendering plant stuff has to be ace's in the game of poker, asphalt, oil production, and light automotive would be face cards. Motor cycles are duce's. Anybody going for a straight this week?
Almost forgot this gem. I was replacing a pinion seal on a transfer station loader. I felt something on my shoulder. Didn't think much of it. Then I saw the little white tail. I knocked it off with my wrench only to see it wasn't a mouse, but it was white and fluffy. (Mostly) That was probably the grossest thing that I ever experienced. I'm not going for a good hand, just sharing.
I’m letting my feminine side show in this thread. It’s a woman’s prerogative to change her mind.....right? Well, I’m changing my to landfill equipment. Too many bad experiences in the past to even list. Someone hand me a tampon
My last employer had sold several machines to the local landfill and we were "encouraged" to go get our shots up to date so we could service them. I never got the shots.........
if you’re working at a landfill you don’t need anyone to hand you a tampon. Just look around and you’ll find one
Oh no kidding. One time in July, a 40' gut wagon as you call it, broken back alongside SR167 in Kent with a cloud of flies around it and stuff oozing out. Poor guys had to jack it up loaded and dripping, and scab plate the frame to get it out of there. Dang.
ANY Machine living out eternity in a Landfill and the trucks that haul the crap in. Finally got a strong enough stomach to manage the odor but the maggots were a step too far. Crawling EVERYWHERE, looked like live rice spilled from a bag, bite often, get into places cannot seem to control. Tied off pant legs and shirt arms with whatever tape or string could find and the little bustards STILL found ways in. Lost many loads of stomach contents welding or repairing hydraulic IN THE DUMP.
When I started wrenching it was for an outfit that hauled sludge from wastewater treatment plants into our facility which mixed it with ash and sawdust to turn it into compost. Stuff will do wonders for your garden but the stench was overwhelming at times. They are now a customer of mine so I still work on their stuff. And yes I’ve seen plenty of corn...
My brother told a tale from his one season on a crab processing ship in Dutch Harbor. Being a farm boy, they rightly figured he could be a mechanic's grunt. The pump system that ran from the processing line with all the ground up crab guts broke down and then the liquid settled out, and the only way to clean the lines was to torch a hole in any bend and dig it out. Rotten crab guts stink, but apparently they don't hold a candle to burning rotten crab guts.
Land fill machines is at the top of the list hate the soup that is in the belly pans never know what you will find Then a skidder or feller buncher
OH one more in the south they use chicken and turkey litter to fertilize the fields the stuff turns into a fine dust so when you are under a loader and you get a bitter tast in your mouth you know what it is. Then when it gets wet it turns into a slimy paste
No telling how much **** ends up in landfills All so many people load their cat litter and dog waste into the trash Vets do not have to destroy animal remains and have found out that the livestock butchers dispose of all the remnants to trash these days, has to be rather odorous!!
The largest animal shelter in my region throws all the dogs and cats they kill into a dumpster and dump it at the landfill so we find dead pets wrapped up in the bellypans and such constantly it’s sad and undignified IMHO.
Our renter/roomie is a veterinarian who makes house calls to euthanize pets in the comfort of their homes. They all get cremated, either individually at a higher price or in groups if the pet owner does not want the ashes back.
Some people spend a lot on their pets. I had a cousin that had a funeral for her cat, with visitation and the whole deal. Been a lot of years since I have seen anyone walking an old dog to the dump with a gun under their arm. My mother was telling a story not to long ago about one of her childhood dogs. One of those "our dogs ate what we ate, and lived to be old" stories, because I was talking about dog food on sale. This one particular dog, "Tim", he was around 14 or 15. He went up the road, went in the ditch, and couldn't get up. My uncle, in his teens then went up the road to shoot him, came back, can't do it. My grandfather went up, couldn't do it. The neighbour, same thing. Guess he was well loved dog. Finally an old farmer up the road did the deed, and they wrapped him in one my grandmother's quilts, and buried him in the field close to an apple tree.
More than a few people do the home burial too.
I might get away with that where I live, but my sister lives in the suburbs of Toronto, and she can't even have a clothes line.
That's horrible. Sorry you gotta deal with that.
It seems this thread has taken divergent paths. One describes machines that are troublesome to work on by design. The other path describes machines that are repugnant because of what they work with. One stinks because of a designer, the other just stinks.
I couldn't have either.
The vet we have had put a couple of our old dogs down has been very reluctant to let us do a home burial because of the poison in the dogs body. They don't want the body being dug up by a wild animal. New vet now and I suspect regs have probably tightened up so probably won't be allowed to do it again. D.D.
Fishing vessels and diving vessels, they have every part you cannot find when something breaks. Marine engines are a challenge cause you can't slap a water pump on from a 350 Chevy engine vehicle to a marine engine. Unlike most if not majority I didn't stop at working on the mechanics of them I did the electrical too and that's after they had their hands on it (Apparently one doesn't know what the ABYC codes are or can't read a book) , want a wiring diagram... good luck it ain't happening. Doesn't stop there, I can weld stainless, aluminum, and steel, which trying to get power to them to weld is one challenge getting the equipment out there is another then you got the constant wind blowing cold temperatures trying to do aluminum as the vessel rocks. The hydraulics are fun since those hoses go everywhere using electronic controls and you have no clue on the GPM for replacement pumps or controls since the data is rusted off. Speaking of rust and salt water did I mention how fun it is to turn a wrench on rusted equipment, fix corroded wires especially on sensitive electronics like the navigation, or try to weld on salt infused aluminum. When you don't think it can get worse wait till they do a haul out and need a hull repaired, you have no way of knowing what's on the other side of the cut out you are going to do, and bilge water will come out with everything that falls in it, including fish guts Oh and it's considered a rain forest where all this done at, but I digress I enjoyed the challenge even though it was misery. Guess that's what kept dragging me back, but I must be moving on to live my life and not saving everyone else's.
But hey, we’re all livin the dream!!
One nightmare at a time!
Well I was a paramedic and captain of a heavy rescue for over 20 yrs, so I am sure I can out gross-out all of you; but, mechanically, I hate cars and pickups the worst.
Not a traditional construction machine, but it makes building construction machines possible. One time when home for a few days between projects, I volunteered to work with my tools on a short term taconite plant shutdown when the company was short of manpower. To show them I was just one of the guys and not afraid of doing a sh*ty job, I took two young guys and we tackled changing out the grating in the shakers. It took a crawl of 60 feet up the angled enclosed chute to get in to them, dragging each 2' X 2' square 4" thick grates in by hand and rope and sliding the 1-1/2" thick worn ones back out. All day pinching the toes into the walls to keep from sliding around. I could hardly walk after two long days, but we got them done in ahead of average time. I could have probably passed for a minority for the two weeks it took to wear that taconite off.
Cement mixer truck...after it broke down with 5 yds mix in the drum. Think my ears are still ringing,and that was many yrs ago.Took me 3 days get that load removed...
That'll do it. I really do not care for working on screens, especially those that rely on side clamping rails to align the screen cloth and put it in tension. Cramped, sharp, loud, often wet, and even more fun if there's enough of a drop out of the discharge end that fall protection is required.
Walking floor manure spreaders. The chains never break when they’re empty. Also anything in the front drum of a vibratory soil compactor, or in the engine bay of a Manitou telehandler.