The Craftmans Shop > New from Old
Thwaites 2 Ton Two Cylinder Dumper Running On One Cylinder
awemawson:
Hi Smiffy thanks for your posting. My wife walks the dogs at least once a week at Fairlight :)
Small world - I'd be interested in those photos that you mentioned.
awemawson:
Pivot bearing kit not arrived yet, so I thought I'd get ahead of myself and cut out those horrible welds.
First I whipped off the floor board to give better access, then unbolted the steering orbitor and the cylinder that I re-built, and swung them out of the way onto the body of the machine, protecting the ram with thick cardboard against sparks.
Then I had at it with my 9" Makita angle grinder, followed by a bit of finesse'ing with the 4 1/2" grinder in places the big one couldn't reach. I had intended to remove the master cylinder and have it swinging on it's pipe, but in the end decided there was just about enough clearance to go under it :bugeye:
Finally cleaned it up with a grinding disk on the big Makita - I've not yet touched the column itself.
I'm tempted to make it 'bolt on' when it goes back - the column will need extending anyway as it's lost material (The steering orbitor was a jam fit, squashing it's hoses), so I'm thinking to weld some heavy angle to the column, slightly off the bottom, and drill and bolt it to the dumper chassis. Then the welding can be done on the bench even if it is raining :ddb:
awemawson:
This afternoon I attacked the Steering Column Stanchion. I'd intended to just grind back the grotty welds, but I decided it would be more satisfactory to slice off a section back to clean metal. The base angle was a bit squiffy - I decided to try and make it so that the face of the stanchion was approximately parallel to the back of the skip, as that's how they seem to be in various illustrations.
By the time I'd 'adjusted' the angle and got back to solid metal, at least 1" has gone from the length. This doesn't matter as the steering hydraulic orbitor mounts on a bracket that fixes on the two holes you can see in the face of the stanchion - all I have to do is drill another pair of holes a suitable distance further up, and, as the steering column just threads through a large grommet in the top of the stanchion it will just poke through a bit more and the wheel should end up about the same height.
I've abandoned the 'bolting on' idea - I'll just glue weld it back on otherwise it gets too complicated
awemawson:
.... now about that bracket idea .... I used to be undecided, but now I'm not sure :lol:
My objection to fixing the stanchion back with brackets was having somehow to bend an odd angled one for the front edge due to the rake of the assembly, and getting a hand in to fit nuts to the bolts. But hang on there chappy - if you had a plate welded on the base, with suitable holes to fix it to the chassis, NO NEED for bending at all and the chassis is thicker than the nuts - so tap the holes :ddb:
I rescued a bit of 1/8" plate that had been kicking about in the stable for a few years - it was the back of an electrical control panel, so had a fair few holes in it, but is was available :thumbup:
Propping the stanchion up with a bit of wood to get the angle right, I marked out a suitable bit, cut it with the small angle grinder, and drilled M8 clearance holes in it. Then offering it up to the chassis I drilled and tapped the first hole to keeping it from moving about, then drilled and tapped the other eleven holes.
After a bit of a clean up it was reasonably presentable, so I welded it onto the stanchion, drilled the replacement orbitor mounting holes a couple of inches further up, then sand blasted it. It's really too big for my cabinet sand blaster, and too small to be bothered getting the full size one out, so I struggled in the cabinet. It fits but it's mighty hard to see round it to make sure everything is blasted.
It came out not too badly, and got a coat of zinc rich primer which I left drying while I made bacon sandwiches for lunch ... mmmm.
Then it got a top coat of bright orange. I have a few rattle cans of this colour left over from another job - it was a close run thing, it nearly got satin black :ddb:
It's hanging up in my improvised paint drying oven, otherwise known as a 4 kW fan heater balanced on some fire bricks :lol:
mattinker:
A better solution!
Regards, Matthew.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version