Equipment trouble anyone?

[adirondack harvester]

Well the Christmas work week was going so well for me until this past Saturday.  I had just arrived and was clearing the path to pull the last two pine trees of the day out.  I stopped the motor to get off and survey the best skid route-- the fatal error!  I then attempted to restart the motor turned the key pushed the button and nothing happened.  Suddenly my productive skidder turned into a 12000lb hunk of steel going nowhere fast.  I believe the starter is gone so I pulled it out as darkness and temperature fell.  I hope to get the starter back in working order soon since the old girl is probably pretty lonely 1/4 mile back in the bush.   Anyone else have equipment trouble lately?

[Ed_K]

 Last yr was a new clutch,pressure plate an throw out bearing on the landing. Then early fall (before the rain) replaced a driveshaft universal 3/4 mi out.Walking out and back in with tool is a hassle (no 4 wheeler anymore). Then steering cylinder pins and bushings in nov. I hope to go the 07 season with no down time  .

[Corley5]

Yup    Read asy's backhoe thread    Luckily I was unloading at the landing when the trouble hit.  Without hydraulics on an Iron Mule you don't have much    This repair isn't gonna miss a grand by very far 

[Cedarman]

Running our 277 Cat skidsteer with rubberized tracks over rough terrain and carrying a 1500 pound sheer and sometimes a 4000 pound tree puts a huge strain on the tracks.  I broke both axles this fall about 200 yards from the road. Luckily had 2 other skid steers to help carry equipment and lift the Cat.  Was a full day job for 3 people to get the old ones off and the new ones on.  Luckily didn't tear the hydraulic lines apart, but it gives you a funny feeling trying to turn and it won't turn and you look to the side and see the track about a foot farther out than it should be.

[Weekend_Sawyer]

 Hey Bradstr,

You can check that starter before you pull it by running a jumper cable from the hot on your battery to the terminal on the starter. It should spark and then spin. If the solenoid is located on the starter just cross the small + wire to the large wire.

 Please remember to always be careful when doing things like this. Machine in neutral, parking brake on.

Jon

[adirondack harvester]

 Hey Bradstr,

You can check that starter before you pull it by running a jumper cable from the hot on your battery to the terminal on the starter. It should spark and then spin. If the solenoid is located on the starter just cross the small + wire to the large wire.

 Please remember to always be careful when doing things like this. Machine in neutral, parking brake on.

Jon

Yup, jumped it across the solenoid and nothing happened.  That's why I pulled it.  Deader than a door nail.

[OneWithWood]

Is it possible to own and use equipment and not have trouble? 

[Weekend_Sawyer]

    Yea, Don't use it 

[Corley5]

But have you noticed that stuff breaks 4PM Friday at the start of a long holiday weekend

[woodmills1]

actually ifin ya don't use stuff it usually breaks when you do.

[Bill]

But have you noticed that stuff breaks 4PM Friday at the start of a long holiday weekend

 . . .  esp when promised something'd be done first thing Monday -

[Chet]

You guys been buyin' yer stuff from da wrong dealers.    Da guys I buy from always claim there stuff don't break down.   

[Weekend_Sawyer]

 I never heard Walmart say that! 

[Cedarman]

Weekend_Sawyer, weren't that supposed to be posted in the funny section.
Sorry, the fact section.

[fuzzybear]

Only problem I've had this year was a Grizzly decided to use the Skid truck for a punching bag.  Amazing what a 400lb bear can do to a 1955 chevy 1 ton

[Furby]

What ya do, leave some food inside?

[Corley5]

No bear problems here especially at this time of year but other problems abound    Got the Iron Mule back together and everything works as it should.  Hauled 7 loads with it yesterday and 1 and a 1/2 today when I noticed that something wasn't right with the loader mast    Apparently the shaft is broken inside the head where the boom and cylinder pins to it.  All that kept it from falling off was the lip that rides on the top collar was under a piece of the backing plate    So we tear it down tomorrow after the truck comes for a load.  Might need it there to assist the truck.  My 372 apparently smoked a piston today.  Just quit in the middle of a cut with no warning and now there's no compression.  At all    I'm expecting a hole in the top of the piston.  Gonna drop it at the saw shop for diagnosis when I pick up my new 2171 Jonsered    That was the one bright spot in my day when I was able to wrangle a pretty good deal on it.  If you use stuff it eventually breaks.  Especially equipment that's old in the first place.  Still better than a huge payment to worry about 

[farmerdoug]

Corley,

The new stuff breaks down too.  And being under warranty means you have to wait for the dealer to fix it.

The Peter Bros are big time farm operators around here.  They work around 20,000 acres.  Last year one of their new JD tractors just quit running when chisel plowing in the fall.  They pulled it ahead and hooked on another tractor and chiseled plowed around the dead one.  It sat in the field for three weeks before the JD dealer came out to fix it.  They knew right away what was wrong with it but had to order a special order part for it.

The problem?  A board in the computer system fried, a common problem I hear, and they new one had to be make just for the tractor.  The costs of the board was 6200.00 dollars and labor for an hour to pull the bad one and plug in the new one.

Farmerdoug

[PineNut]

I know what you mean farmerdough about those electronic parts smoking. A 25 cent part goes bad on a board that cost the manufacture $62 to make and they sell it for an outrageous price. Of course they make you wait for it. I have had the same problem two times in the past four years with the Carrier air handler for my house. It took me longer than three weeks also. Previous unit without all the electronic gadgets lasted about a quarter century with out problems.

[Sawyerfortyish]

Around here we buy old used farm equipment. You hook it to your tractor and all your troubles are behind you

[farmerdoug]

We do that here too.   But you do not do that if you are working around 20,000 acres of land each year.

Farmerdoug

[timberjack240]

right now i work for pap in the summer and a saturday or to inn the winter . my plan is to go full time when i get outta school in a few weeks but anyway since the summer of 04 i beleive it was i had the injectors go out 2 weeks later the clutch went out another 2 weeks a roller came off the cam and come thoough the block. while we were watin for a new 453 we tore the t case out to have barakes put it put center pins in did sum weldin shimmed the front end rebiult cylinders and fixed brakes on the other skidder. the next summer all that went wrong was a hose blew that winter i busted the brake fittin on the 225 and the followinn summer i tore the clutch out again.... and you ask if equipment breakes 
oh yea then theres the noraml stuff liek breakin ckoers and chains and cables which for a while the cables got to be at least once sometime up to 3 times a week
i can fix a cable myslef in 5 mintues 
happy skiddin
timberjack 240

[Ron Scott]

Loggers become use to equipment trouble as "part of the job". The job I was on yesterday had a filter frozen on the timberjack cable skidder and one of the rear wheels wouldn't pull, broken axel or shaft.

Then the Western Star semi was late getting in for a load of sawlogs, broken air hose. Another weekend to work to make up for the "down time".

[simonmeridew]

My experience with things like the starter going bad is that once you get the starter fixed, other parts get jealous and want to get fixed, like all of a sudden the radiator starts leaking, the alternator stops alternating etc.
How do the parts know?
simonmeridew

[timberjack240]

i think they get mad cause they get hit with tools when you get mad and thats there way of gettin even      

[Corley5]

Here's some of the issues we've had this late fall/winter logging season.  The coupling that bolts to the crankshaft pulley on the Iron Mule's engine went bad which in turn stripped out the splines in the coupler for the pump and damaged the splines on the pump itself.  New coupler, a nice neighbor with a lathe to make the obsolete part and a new pump and we're back in business. Down time was beautiful weather too.  Get back up and running again for about a week and the mast breaks.  It's a piece of shaft about 6" through and it broke inside the head that the boom and lift cylinder pin to. Another week down for us to disassemble it, have it repaired at the iron works which involved a new shaft, cutting the gears off the old one and welding them on to the new one, welding the whole mess back into the head, $$$$ and us putting it back together.  We ran about another week and decided to replace the bearings in the main articulation pin before it got any worse.  It's the only one the previous owner hadn't done and kept getting worse for us.  We knew it was coming.  We ended up driving the old pin out as far as possible, turning it out some more with a 2' Ridge pipe wrench and 6' of cheater bar (we bent the handle on the wrench), and then cut one part off with the sawzall which took 6 blades, and then ground another part thinner, cut it off with the torch (we couldn't use the torch in the other spot) and drove it back down after we separated the machine.  I got the new bearings which my local tractor dealer had in stock as they are an old Iron Mule dealer  . They also had the pins which they'd had made.  Cool, got it all.  Got everything lined up with the bearings in place etc, pressed the pin in (maybe pounded is a better word  ) and low and behold it's short by an 1 1/2".  The only way to get it back out was to cut it in pieces also because of the tight fit in the top collar.  We tried a hydraulic jack to push it back out and no go plus pounding on it with and without pressure.  It's hard to lay on your back, hold a big drift pin and swing a big hammer upward and that would've ruined the threads and thus the pin anyway.  So we cut it up and got it out while my neighbor who made the hydraulic pump parts is making me a new pin.  I was going to go to him to make a pin but the dealer had one and I didn't want to make a nuisance of myself either.  He also made a shim for me when I put the new bucket on the machine.  All he's asked for is firewood in payment which is fine.  I always offer cash.  The dealer says he'll work with me on the pin as he told me when I asked that they all take the same pin    The old pin was 17" overall with 15" of 2 1/2" shaft, an 1 1/2" of thread and a 1/2" thick cap.  The new pin was 15" overall.  I think that all their pins are wrong and whoever made them got the dimensions mixed up.  Luckily we didn't damage the bearings getting the pin back out.  We should have measured it before we put it in but didn't even think about it.  It was the right pin afterall  and the old pin was cut in chunks so there wasn't an easy comparison without laying it out and hindsight is 20/20    Added to this list is a blown up 372 and a mashed 395.  I'd still rather work on a 30 year old machine than worry about a payment on a newer one
 
 

[Ron Scott]

My logger's equipment problems today were frozen air brakes on the Western Star semi and a cracked clam on the Iron Mule forwarder. The semi then slide down an icy slope on the landing/decking area while loading oak sawlogs and was stopped by a log deck. The slope had to then be sanded to get the semi back up in position. Fortunately the semi carries emergency sand for such occasions.

A normal cold weather day for the loggers I guess, as they blamed their problems on the cold weather.

[Corley5]

The semi then slide down an icy slope on the landing/decking area while loading oak sawlogs and was stopped by a log deck.

That musta made an exciting ride for the guy on the loader   
I got my pin this afternoon and with any luck we'll get the machine reassembled tomorrow.  Shouldn't be too bad as we've already done it once    Sure would be nice to have a place to work on it inside with heat.  Oh ya we do have such a place but it's full of other projects    At least we'll get it back together when it's warm.  Supposed to be 23 degrees F 

[Ron Scott]

Yes he said it was an exciting ride for him. He had his support braces down to and all slid away with him. I had just walked out to the landing from checking the cutting area and wondered why he was in such a position from when I last seen him starting to load.

 

[Ed_K]

 I was ok till I called my trucker to pick up a load of softwood. He told me that he blew the engine on tuesday, said it'll be next week before he can move some logs. Cost"$180. to move it 3 miles (it was not loaded)and $15,000 for a short block and the mechanic is working on it outside". I bet the price of hauling just went up  .