The Craftmans Shop > New from Old
It's BIG, Yellow and digs holes! JCB 3CX Project 8 is joining the Tractor Shed
awemawson:
When I'd finished removing the breaker return pipe I steam cleaned the oily bits where it came from, however my Karcher HDS550C was playing up. It would fire up every time water was blasted but would stop firing or pulsate, and the water although hot was no where near the intended 99 degrees C.
So first job this morning was to sort it - I've not had this machine long - bought locally on Facebook Marketplace I used it a couple of times last year then it got put away for the winter to save it from frost. Sounded like fuel starvation to me, so possibly pump coupling slipping, blocked jet, or maybe it has a fuel filter. Oh yes - tiny little gauze affair in a die cast housing. Filter removed, blasted with compressed air and seems very free to certainly my blowing ! Re-installed and yes we are up and running and can get on with the intended task of the day which is to prepare for replacing the seals in the offside bucket ram on the 3CX. Fingers crossed this is the only remaining significant leak left to fix.
Now this ram has the 'Return to Dig' feature clamped to it - this allows the bucket to be lowered from on high back to exactly ground level plus a tad by pressing it's control lever over into a detent position allowing the operator to concentrate on aiming the beast at the pile to be scooped up. Feature is very simple - a rod is fixed to the bucket end of the ram and passes up a tube that is fixed to the body of the ram that has a microswitch that the rod operates when the bucket is at the correct point.
Rather crudely fixed by a pair of Jubilee clips around the body of the ram, with the rod being bolted on. Rod was easy as were the Jubilee clips, but the nuts holding the microswitch were thoroughly rusted and had to come off with a nut splitter.
So with the wiring Ty-Wrapped out of the way I could slip my 'chrome protector' (split pipe) onto the rod, and apply a mighty Swedish pipe wrench to the cylinder cap - no, no movement - even with a fair length of scaffold pole on the wrench - no movement. That's as far as I've got. I may have to apply heat to the cap, but once I do that the seals will be totally destroyed and at the moment we just have a little weep !
. . . time to cogitate I think.
awemawson:
The 'book of words' suggests sealing the end cap with brown Loctite 932 which is a low strength thread locker able to be dismantled with hand tools.
There is no knowing if someone in the past hasn't just grabbed the nearest Loctite bottle - maybe red high strength - which Heinkle say needs 250 degrees C to release which I'm sure will destroy the existing rod seals.
awemawson:
Putting the slightly leaky bucket cylinder problem 'on the shelf' for a while while I cogitate I turned my attention to the two 'slew pots' that swing the back actor.
As you may recall the welded on pipes on these cylinders have been scalped by that pesky bracket, and whether I try to weld on new pipes, or if I replace them they will have to come off. They are each retained by four blooming great 1" bolts that are torqued up to 970 Newton Metres :bugeye:
I had already attempted to undo them with my 3/4" socket set and a 5 foot scaffold pole to no avail. More in hope than expectation I had ordered a cheap Chinese 'Torque Multiplier Set' on eBay - proper professional ones cost several hundreds of pounds so I didn't expect much for my £60 including postage. There were even cheaper ones on eBay but I chose this one as it came with a fair selection of sockets (including the 38 mm / 1-1/2" one I needed) and quoted a maximum torque of 3200 Newton Metres.
Well today it arrived. Turning it by hand it felt rather horrid - I wasn't over surprised, but to give it a fair chance I stripped it down to grease pack it. Consisting of three sets of sun / planet gears in a common ring gear there was a nominal bit of grease on the outer set, but deeper in there was none. I packed (probably over packed) it with a decent grease and put it back to work.
And does it work . . . . you bet your boots it does . . . I couldn't believe how easily the first bolt came out just cranking lightly on the 10" handle that is provided. The advert says it has 58:1 gearing - I didn't count teeth but I can well believe it. I think it was well worth stripping and greasing as it doesn't feel at all bad now !
modeng200023:
Amazing :clap:
hermetic:
A very valuable addition to your JCB tool kit! It's big, it's yellow, and it needs delivering to Langtoft!!
Phil
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