Rain and the CAT repairs

RAIN DAY

Monday brings a slow, steady summer rain which is filling the mostly dug area for our new foundation. It's also filling our basement which will help continue the nice harvest of mold I have been growing. That's fine. Another day of Wet-Vac tomorrow. Because I have the chance to sit home today I will take some time to recount a non-building experience from the site in the last few days.

Ron, our excavator, arrived on site about 12 days ago. We got the Bilco door foundation removed and then the left track on his CAT excavator seized up. Now, I have been around machines most of my life in one way or another but an excavator is a big, solid machine. It makes a backhoe look like a Tonka Toy. It has huge treads like a Panzer tank and a 360 degree rotating work cab. Needless to say, repairs on a beast like this are heavy duty.....and quite pricey as well. It took two days to diagnose the problem, three days to receive the part, two more full days to get the old part removed, and two days to get the CAT back to working condition. This is holding everything up but on the positive side.....Ron let me help rebuild it and I was surprised at how easily I took to the work.

The HUB mechanism from the CAT (400lbs/181K)

Now, this is not like fixing a car. This beast can rip apart cement walls and fling 500lb/226K boulders like pebbles. The parts weigh a lot. The hub piece above weighs nearly 400lbs/181K and it DID NOT WANT TO COME OUT. It took nearly two full days for us to finally force it loose and when we did, it had to be hooked by chain to a crane and lifted out.

THIS IS WHERE THE HUB WAS REMOVED FROM

To get the hub loose we had to crank 4"/10.16cm long bolts through the thread holes from the inside of the carriage/frame. This and a sledge hammer finally got the old part out. Then we had to clean everything and use the crane to bring the new part into position. Ron drove the crane while I whirled and swung the 400lb/181K solid steel part until it inserted into the hole in the carriage. At the same time I had to make sure the bolt holes on the new part lined up with the holes in the carriage....it's like trying to thread a 400lbs/181K needle with a rope from the Titanic.

THE NEW HUB

(the sprocket gear lying above/behind the hub is what bolts onto the hub and drags the chain-link treads to make the CAT move)

THE NEW HUB IN PLACE AND ME BOLTING IT TO THE CARRIAGE

With the new hub in place all we needed to do was bolt the sprocket into place and then use the crane to drag the treads into place

THE SPROCKET IN PLACE AND BOLTED TO THE NEW HUB

The tread also weighs a lot and we had to pull and tug with crane to get it on the sprockets. Then we drove a 8"/20.32cm X 1"/2.54cm diameter steel pin through the loops on the underside of the track which ties the two ends of the tread together into a continuous loop. A little forced into the housing on the tread drive and the track tightened up. JOB DONE! The CAT was ready to go.