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I'm curious who upfitted your truck. I've designed trucks like that (but without the crane) and I'm always interested.
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Mar 27, 2020 21:25
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e: Sorry, I read your post wrong - I thought you were asking about the type of company - not the exact company. I'll still leave my reply though - it's a pretty specialized industry. One of my good friends is part owner in this company. That's totally their jam. Their main website has been hacked by some chinese pharmacy or something but their facebook page is still up. https://www.facebook.com/ITBCoaldale/ slidebite fucked around with this message at 03:18 on Mar 28, 2020 |
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Mar 28, 2020 02:50
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CornHolio posted:I'm curious who upfitted your truck. I've designed trucks like that (but without the crane) and I'm always interested. We get them from Western Truck Body, out of Edmonton. Some of their work is... questionable. My last truck had lights wired in with just solder and electrical tape. Actually one splice didn't even have solder. Injectors in on the D375. Doing that poo poo outside, in -20 is an experience. All that steel just sucks the heat from you in no time. Supposed to be even colder tomorrow. Edit: apparently it was more like -27 or something. There's a dude out running an old Caterpillar D9 with no fuckin cab in this weather. Toughest man in the Yukon right there. EKDS5k fucked around with this message at 03:58 on Mar 28, 2020 |
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Mar 28, 2020 03:28
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Yeah, it's easy to get frostbite just from handling metal at those temps if you don't wear gloves.
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Mar 28, 2020 17:22
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God drat it has been cold lately. And colder overnight. It's been nearly impossible to get anything done. Just getting a loader to start can take hours, and involves heaters, tarps, boosters, new batteries, etc. And poo poo just breaks, for example:  It was working overnight, with the temperatures close to -40. I dunno what he was doing, but he managed to tear the track clean off the frame:    There are 17 M30 bolts that hold the track frame pivot shaft to the main frame of the bulldozer, and all but one of them are sheared clean off. The last one is ripped out, and will need to have the threads repaired. The operator only realised when he heard the track rubbing against the frame, which you can see in the third pic. Also it's in a pit, which is probably going to turn to mud in a week. Yayyyyy....
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Mar 31, 2020 04:39
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Holy poo poo  That's either a bit of torque or a bunch or fractures which were just pushed too far.
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Mar 31, 2020 05:13
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poo poo gets super brittle at those kind of temps, I'm not entirely surprised the bolts sheared off like that. We've already tapped 90F (32C) here at least once this year.  I don't think I'd take -30C over that, but it'd be nice to have more seasons than "spring" and " ".
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Mar 31, 2020 05:23
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Cold isn't doing that, but it's not helping.
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Mar 31, 2020 05:49
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slidebite posted:Cold isn't doing that, but it's not helping. Yeah, the operators we get out here are, uh, not the cream of the crop. "I believe the Earth is flat." "Hey, wow, me too!" Cue a 20 minute conversation about the flat earth conspiracy and how it ties into various others as well e.g. Rothschild etc.
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Mar 31, 2020 06:12
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Believing in a flat Earth while living that close to the Arctic Circle takes a special kind of stupid.
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Mar 31, 2020 06:34
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Platystemon posted:Believing in a flat Earth while living that close to the Arctic Circle takes a special kind of stupid. You mean the ice wall. I bet a couple of them have seen it.
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Mar 31, 2020 14:51
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Holy Crap  How do you get the sheared bolts out of there? You are the man because after seeing poo poo like that I'd be like "I give up" 
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Mar 31, 2020 15:34
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I assume you tap the sheared bolts but am also interested to know the answer.
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Mar 31, 2020 15:38
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I'm gonna guess weld another bolt on top of them then carefully twist em out [e] that pic needs to go in the mechanical failures thread
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Mar 31, 2020 15:42
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This thread is shoving in my face just how much of a giant pussy I've become over the last 20 years. As I sit here in my warm office avoiding work by reading about someone doing a way harder job.
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Mar 31, 2020 16:08
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That looks like a hell of a party to get loose. Do you even have enough oxyacetylene in the entire town to get that forging hot enough to matter, or is this a matter of setting up a mag drill on it and boring them out painstakingly until you can pull the remaining thread out? I assume they're all rusted in place, because of course they are, otherwise life would be easy.
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Mar 31, 2020 16:33
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Applebees Appetizer posted:Holy Crap There's a few steps, in order of how much of a pain in the rear end they are: Step 1 is hope the last guy put never seize on them so they aren't too hard to turn. If he didn't then everything will have to be heated with a torch to hopefully break up the corrosion. Step 2 is try to get pliers on the bits sticking out, and spin them out of the hole. Step 4 is, as mentioned, weld a bolt or nut into the face, and use that to turn it out. Step 6 is to drill down the center, and try to use an extractor (this almost never works, and odds are it will break the extractor this making it 10x worse). Step 7 is to, very carefully, drill out all of the shank of the bolt, leaving just threads which can be picked out after. Step 8 is to drill everything right out of the frame, and then use a helicoil or keysert to put new threads in the hole. This works all the time and is considered a last resort. It's also what we'll do to the holes that ripped out. Repeat 16 times! Also the welder found a huge crack in the frame also, so that has to be repaired too. It should be noted that I'm not the only mechanic here, it was a couple other guys who took the blade and track off. I haven't really touched this thing yet, I'm still trying to get my D375 going after doing the injectors. The starters failed, I assume from the extremely cold weather. Supposed to start warming up today though. kastein posted:That looks like a hell of a party to get loose. Do you even have enough oxyacetylene in the entire town to get that forging hot enough to matter, or is this a matter of setting up a mag drill on it and boring them out painstakingly until you can pull the remaining thread out? I assume they're all rusted in place, because of course they are, otherwise life would be easy. Fingers crossed that there is never seize on the threads. Otherwise, yes, we'll come up with the gas.
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Mar 31, 2020 17:36
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Looks like you can get one of them with pliers that's about it. Would be cool to see a time lapse of it all being done, how many hours you think it will take?
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Mar 31, 2020 17:50
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EKDS5k posted:
Can you not just rotate the flange 10 degrees and then drill and tap 17 new M30 bolt holes? (sounds easier than extracting 15 broken bolts) why does it also look like it was welded on in addition to being bolted?
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Mar 31, 2020 19:27
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Tomarse posted:Can you not just rotate the flange 10 degrees and then drill and tap 17 new M30 bolt holes? (sounds easier than extracting 15 broken bolts) No, there is a section with no bolts that butts up against the final drive. It has a spot and that's how it goes in. Plus we're not playing the structural integrity game with a 100 tonne bulldozer. Tomarse posted:why does it also look like it was welded on in addition to being bolted? This isn't the first time this has happened! Or second! I'm told like....fifth. Somebody in the past thought they were helping I guess?
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Mar 31, 2020 20:17
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Tomarse posted:Can you not just rotate the flange 10 degrees and then drill and tap 17 new M30 bolt holes? (sounds easier than extracting 15 broken bolts) Drilling a 1.125" diameter hole with a depth of at least 1.75" (Assuming the bolts are M30x1.5 and you want to try to get 1.5" [38mm] of thread depth. Courser pitches permits for increased thread depths if you want to exploit it.  ) 17 times on the same bolt circle and attempting to maintain some semblance of perpendicularity with the mounting flange doesn't sound a whole lot easier than extracting those bolts. And that's assuming there's nothing important between the bolt holes that you really shouldn't be drilling into.I guess either way, it's going to be a loving pain in the rear end that has to get done.
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Mar 31, 2020 20:53
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EKDS5k posted:No, there is a section with no bolts that butts up against the final drive. It has a spot and that's how it goes in. Plus we're not playing the structural integrity game with a 100 tonne bulldozer. This thread is great. Good luck with those bolts that looks like just a miserable job in that temperature. Is there any wildlife around the mine or does the swearing at heavy equipment and the idiots using it tend to keep it away?
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Mar 31, 2020 20:59
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I'm irrationally amused by the thought of some miner going "durn 'Dozer cracked 'er bolts again, I know what'll fix 'er" and then pulling out the buzzbox and laying one pathetic string of 6011 rod over the top of that massive casting.
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Mar 31, 2020 21:03
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I'm guessing the mating surfaces that actually carry the load got hammered to gently caress the first time it came apart, no one cleaned any surfaces or filed and stoned it flat or cleaned threads or torqued anything to spec, etc so it kept happening again and again because it was barely holding together.
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Apr 1, 2020 00:44
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Update: the welder got all the bolts out. Now he's working on the two massive cracks on the underside of the frame. And I got the 375 started too. New starters, heater on it for several hours, batteries topped up. Took a shot of ether to get it turning and build that initial fuel pressure in the rail. Now to change all the sprocket teeth. The rest of the undercarriage is completely worn out so it's like polishing a turd, but at least the teeth won't skip. Maybe. Hopefully. kastein posted:I'm guessing the mating surfaces that actually carry the load got hammered to gently caress the first time it came apart, no one cleaned any surfaces or filed and stoned it flat or cleaned threads or torqued anything to spec, etc so it kept happening again and again because it was barely holding together. There have been some decent mechanics here. The SMS guy I'm replacing was amazing: 67 years old, mechanic his whole life, worked on everything and seen every problem, and fixed things the right way despite being in the bush. And the head mechanic here knows what he's doing too. But you get some fuckups and guys who think they know more than they do, and since it's hard enough as it is to get staff up here, they get to work too.
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Apr 1, 2020 04:00
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EKDS5k posted:But you get some fuckups and guys who think they know more than they do, and since it's hard enough as it is to get staff up here, they get to work too. Sounds like the last place I worked
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Apr 1, 2020 04:36
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I saw this picture first in the Horrible Mechanical Failures thread and some one pointed out how the bolts show signs of fatigue failure, so I assume this would have happened sooner or later. To avoid all the hassle this caused, would it be necessary to swap the bolts in regular schedule, a quarter or half per year? Hoping that the fresh bolts will hold up before the old bolts fail completely. Would the amount of work and bolt expense be worth it if this kind of failure could be avoided? Would it be possible to take a random sampling of the remaining old bolts and check if they are experiencing similar failure, do some kind of dye penetrant test?
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Apr 2, 2020 18:41
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I would guess it is probably not so much fatigue (how and why would that be happening in this case anyway?) and instead the bolts are losing proper preload somehow. Under tightened, or over tightened, the wide swings in temperature causing them to deform and/or lose proper tension, trying to weld the flange on heated it enough to cause them to permanently stretch, maybe the vibration from operating causes them to back out. Just re-torquing the bolts periodically, or torquing them to the proper spec in the first place, could be the solution. Anyway neat thread. jamal fucked around with this message at 20:36 on Apr 2, 2020 |
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Apr 2, 2020 19:14
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Yeah I'd guess over-tightened after the first repair as well. I'm working in an industry now where you have to specify oversized grade 8 or better hardware simply because the mechanics have taught each other to tighten all bolts as hard as they can. It's ingrained and systemic. If a bolt breaks it's because the bolt was too small, not because they over-tightened it. LloydDobler fucked around with this message at 20:26 on Apr 2, 2020 |
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Apr 2, 2020 20:23
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LloydDobler posted:I'm working in an industry now where you have to specify oversized grade 8 or better hardware simply because the mechanics have taught each other to tighten all bolts as hard as they can. It's ingrained and systemic. If a bolt breaks it's because the bolt was too small, not because they over-tightened it. And here I've been, blaming POs all this time.
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Apr 2, 2020 22:24
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I am in fact, not dead. Just working 13+ hours a day, all day, every day. I took today off to I guess sit around in my pajamas, since we're all banned from going into town anyway. The sheared off track frame was repaired by building everything up through welding, then grinding, drilling, and tapping everything back into shape. The machine was back to work after a few days of work. I didn't really have anything to do with that repair, as other than emergencies I've been 100% on another project:  This motherfucker. A 2001 Komatsu D475A-2 (nearly twice the size of Killdozer). It has 39 000 hours on the meter, although I'm told the engine was replaced around the 34 000 mark. And the tracks and track frames are in really good shape. These are the only positive things I will say about this machine. Also that it starts and drives with basically no problem. So, it was used to push coal for its entire life, and then it sat, idle (in pieces, actually) for 9 years. The owner here bought it for $66 000, had it assembled, and then shipped to this mine. The biggest problem (that we know about) is that all the wires are rotted, broken, and falling out. So I'm installing all new wiring harnesses, as well as fixing poo poo that I find along the way.  This is how we thaw poo poo out. Leave it like this for a couple days to get all the snow and ice out from all the cavities and have it ready to work on. As soon as we took the parachute off it snowed again.  This is what the cab looked like when I got to it. There is coal dust packed into everything. Behind every panel, in every screw head, all the vents, switches and buttons. Every wiring connector has coal dust in it, so where a sensor is not being replaced, the connector is getting chopped off and replaced with new hardware. The wiring is a mess: aftermarket poo poo just bolted on where ever, and spliced into whatever wire they could find that had power.   This (Caterpillar) recirculation filter was just screwed to the wall with self tapping screws.  Just lovely, lovely workmanship on the repairs. So let's get the gently caress started!   All the panels and fuel tank off so I can get at all the wiring. It weighs just under a ton, empty. Then it's just a tedious, time consuming process of taking old wires out, and putting new ones in.   This is the kind of poo poo we're dealing with. This is the harness that connects to the alternator, and right hand glow plug relay. The insulation on the wires is so brittle that it's cracking open as I'm pulling it off. I don't have every harness that needs to be replaced, so I have to build some, with what I have on hand:  I don't have proper sheathing so the 4ga cables get heater hose to protect them. And I don't have red cable, so electrical tape it is.  And the small wires will be separate. Again, no sheathing, so I made this one with electrical tape. So a week and a half of this, I've changed some hoses, restored a bunch of wiring to factory, and the last thing I want to do before I start putting panels and the blade on it change the seal on the power train damper. For those unfamiliar, heavy equipment will often have a rubber coupling between the engine and transmission as a shock absorber. So when the operator eg slams into a rock then that shock load is dispersed a little before hitting the engine. It's on the back of the engine, and it has a bearing that floats in oil for lubrication. If the oil leaks out, that bearing is toast, so this is a pretty important seal.   That's the driveshaft, from the engine to the torque converter. It's about two feet long, and bigger around than my thigh. And heavy as gently caress, so it isn't coming down by hand:  It's also too high to get a jack, and there's too much above it to use a crane. So a sling to a cross member and lever hoist it is.  It goes smoothly, though there isn't much clearance so it's a bit of a bitch to pry out from between the yokes. Glove for scale. Then it should be a simple matter to pop the bearing cover off to change the seal and, "clunk"? Nothing should go clunk....  I can't find the smilie of the guy shooting himself in the head. I guess we're too late on this repair. That bearing is pressed onto the shaft, and pressed into the cover. And there's no room down here for a puller. Fortunately, I brought a special tool just for this situation: It's powered by oxyacetylene, and looks just like a cutting torch!  Pretend I had a good joke about fondling big balls here.  So the damper itself. It's pretty simple: the outer housing is bolted to the flywheel, the paddles turn the rubber pucks (there's 8 altogether, I just removed some), which turn the inner shaft. It's supposed to be filled with grease, but the grease is extremely thin and jet black from coal contamination, so I'll be cleaning it out and replacing the rubbers.  Also its missing a mounting bolt! It wasn't rattling around in the cover so I assume it was just forgotten when the engine was replaced. That or it ground itself into iron filings, but I don't see evidence of that, either. So that's where that project is at. Everything is removed and I'm waiting for parts to ship so I can put it back together. Best part is that it's likely nobody knew about this issue, and so it isn't the reason the bulldozer was so cheap in the first place... Some other miscellaneous Horrible Mechanical Failures content:  Pending failure, anyway. D375 (around the size of Killdozer) blade pins. There shouldn't be any clearance there, but you could fit your pinky in there. I don't recommend putting your pinky in there. This is part of a larger problem, where management won't put a machine down for preventative maintenance. Oil changes get done pretty reliably, but anything else that doesn't prevent the machine from being used gets put off and put off until it fails completely. Eventually, one of these pins will fall out, or break, or something, and then we'll be recovering this poo poo from a muddy pit to fix it.  That's a bottom roller on the same bulldozer. The cap bolts walked out and uh, there was some wear from that.  Ripper tooth. Up here these wear out daily, but the holder is not supposed to snap off like that. OSHA content:  This is fine.  There is, obviously, no garbage removal service out here. Everything gets burned and then buried. Paper, plastic, rubber, recyclables, etc. Best practice? No, probably not. But kind of a drop in the bucket environmentally compared to the rest of this operation.  Also beer is expensive. $50 for a flat of garbage-tier.  I did find this buried in a trailer full of junk, though! It works, and it might even hit harder after I clean it out and oil it.
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Apr 14, 2020 18:31
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that blade pin is something everything you posted is something. great stuff!
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Apr 14, 2020 19:28
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I appreciate the use of killdozer as a unit of measure. Fantastic thread.
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Apr 14, 2020 19:39
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You could do way, way worse than Kokanee. Even @ $2 a can. Why is wiring such a problem there? Does K use lovely wiring in general? Do other makes have similar problems?
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Apr 14, 2020 19:52
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i am guessing that at least most of it is related to the conditions it was used in. it's a 20 year old machine that has been run flat out for 4000+ hours a year by a lovely PO, got a hack job engine replacement late in life, and then left to sit for a decade. it's a perfect storm of bad environmental, behavioral, and maintenance practices.
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Apr 14, 2020 20:00
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That 475 is a loving behemoth. If that thing gets mudded in, how the gently caress would you even pull it free?
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Apr 14, 2020 20:51
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slidebite posted:You could do way, way worse than Kokanee. Even @ $2 a can. Komatsu's wiring harnesses are generally top quality. This one in particular was dragged through the coal and mud for twelve hours a day, every day, for ten years, and then left to rot for another nine in a climate where it cycles from -50 C to +35 over the course of a year. poo poo doesn't last long up here, no matter how well it's made. Oh, and given the thread title, I guess I could mention how we're affected. The Yukon government has declared that mining is an essential service, probably because there isn't a lot of industry up here and they need something going especially since tourism is basically done. But the usual groups who want to shut mining down are trying to use the fact that it attracts people from all over who could potentially bring the virus with them as more leverage. So anyone entering the Yukon from anywhere else in Canada or abroad has to undergo a mandatory 14 day quarantine, and it can't be done at the camp. So anybody coming up has to spend two weeks in a hotel in town before they can come out. As an added layer of protection, the owner here has told the government that he will go further, and not allow the staff to go into town and mingle (all the bars are closed anyway). Supply runs are done by one person, everything is ordered in advance and loaded onto the truck. So we're basically stuck here. I was supposed to fly home over the long weekend to see my family, but if I do I won't be able to come back easily. Bailing completely is an option, but they laid a guy off back home, and everyone else is slow right now. So at least I still have a job. But we're all worried about getting shut down, and not just by the government. Food is getting to be more of a pain in the rear end to order, and if that goes then so does the staff. Fuel hasn't been an issue yet, but there's only one supplier, and if that goes then operations stop. Parts availability is another sneaky one. Last year there were several flights per day from Vancouver to Whitehorse, and from Whitehorse to Dawson. So parts could be up here in a day or two, of not the same day with lucky timing. With the virus issues the flights are down to 2-3 times a week, and the timing is lovely so it can take up to a week (sometimes more) to get anything sent out. I feel like that's going to be the biggest issue: if we can't get parts then machinery is going to slowly grind to a halt and there are going to be too many people sitting around doing nothing. The owner, while he's a rich guy, isn't going to just pay everyone to sit around unproductive, so probably it'll be shut down and picked up again next season. Humbug Scoolbus posted:That 475 is a loving behemoth. If that thing gets mudded in, how the gently caress would you even pull it free? With another one, I guess? A lot of times they only need a (relatively) little push so you can get lucky using a smaller excavator. The real answer is that the operator needs to be skilled enough to not get stuck in the first place. EKDS5k fucked around with this message at 20:58 on Apr 14, 2020 |
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Apr 14, 2020 20:52
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I used to work for a company that makes portable boring equipment for worn out pins like that, do you ever use stuff like that? Like this:
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Apr 14, 2020 23:45
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LloydDobler posted:I used to work for a company that makes portable boring equipment for worn out pins like that, do you ever use stuff like that? Yeah line boring. We have a welder back in Surrey who does it in house, but up here I'm told there's like one guy in the whole of Yukon who does that, and he had a bit of a tiff with the mine owner a couple years ago so nobody wants to call him. So for now, it goes unfixed. It would have to wait until later in the season when they're done stripping anyway, they won't put a working bulldozer down right now. So since I can't go into town, I took a drive out to the highway, just to get out of camp and see pavement again. I mentioned before how once it starts warming up the road will turn to poo poo and it's definitely getting there. Muddy parts, packed snow parts, slushy parts, and like...this bullshit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kKqyrYg1TI All that melting snow has to run off somewhere and where it crosses the road it freezes again at night. Except it doesn't always freeze all the way through and so you get these.
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Apr 15, 2020 06:12
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Can't focus on that road, too busy laughing at you blaring russkaja.
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Apr 15, 2020 06:33
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