So I woke up this morning with a bright idea ! Take the QD fittings off the long hoses, fit them to the short ones, and you don't have to struggle manipulating long heavy hoses
![:thumbup:](https://madmodder.net/Smileys/default/happy0034.gif)
Well the best laid plans of men and mice . . . . turns out that the short hose have a cone fitting and the long ones a face fitting . . .ah well it was a good idea while it lasted !
So I dragged the long hoses out from the tractor shed, tried to empty as much water from them as possible then, like fighting an anaconda, got them into a wheel barrow for their journey to the foundry.
While the QD couplings were off the hoses I gave them a bit of a clean up while passing my buffing spindle with the new bearings - well you have to don't you
![:clap:](https://madmodder.net/Smileys/default/happy0065.gif)
Then it was a case of identifying what went where. The Driver end was easy enough as the terminal plate was marked, and I'd obviously labelled the pipes with a Sharpie before removal all those years ago, but only one mark had survived. Far end of pipe labelled to correspond and I started dismantling the terminal box on the Inverting Furnace Body.
I'd forgotten that my solution to a non-conductive, non-magnetic strong frame was to make a sort of 'Fish Tank Frame' from epoxy fibreglass - I'm quite impressed with my effort - I even have thread inserts to retain the panels. These were asbestos cement when I got the body, but I replaced them with cement 'tile backing board' - it's a bit friable and if this project continues I'll give them a coat of Sodium Silicate solution to firm them up a bit.
Getting the QDs onto their respective fittings was really quite a struggle - those pipe fight back at every opportunity. One of the QDs shows evidence of the retaining (stainless) ball bearings having at one time carried some of the current. That's what that huge copper strap and 70 mm cross sectional jumper is for as it shorts across the QD - IIRC it was a retrospective mod when I had the problem before. But those fretted balls made locating the fitting quite a problem. It's OK for the ping test but if I get as far as pumping water through this beast they will have to be replaced.
So - drives cables / pipes (whatever you want to call them) are now connected and I need to work out how to safely feed the big blue box with a bit of 415 volt three phase for the ping test.