im sure you know this machine barry!..
did you work in tbf's robert guy? which depot?. i knew some of fellas at mallusk

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Hi Allistair, I did work for TBF about 6 or 7 years ago mobiling . I worked out of the mallusk , looked after a lot of the maxwell's dumpers and face shovels. unfortunately i can`t remember many of the names of people i worked with , tho i am i bit of a " If i see his face" kind of guy. Work in London now but not many quarries in park lane. Miss the old days getting covered in crap , socked to the skin , freezing cold trying to put a track on some old donkey in the arsehole of nowhere ..... erm may be not Love the pics

flip, sounds like a change of occupation!?, a few names you may have knew, brian andrews, alister mclintock or a fella called leo? they all worked for tbf . we(cookes) are based just up the road from maxwells in ards if you were ever there? they had the ex700 faceshovel you guys looked after. i have some more pics of this dumper ill try find..

Yeah it was a bit of a change but when you live in such a built up area what do you do ? Demolition Just like quarries but you can get a bacon sandwich next door
As for the fellers Alister Mclintock , wasn`t he a sparky? And Leo does ring a bell Small skinny lad ,40ish ,glasses ?
Do remember the EX700 ,story goes one of the mallusk lads tracked over his own van forgetting it was there
I spent most of my time at maxwells place in ballymena, but did travel all over testing and repairing brakes on dumpers.
By the way where were those pics taken?

ahh i see, some good pictures from you in future then lol!. no, dont think that was either fellas. ha ha, didnt hear about the ex700 van incident!, i just remember it broke the boom right off!, we got job of line boaring her when se was welded up. heard about her plucking a giant oak tree from ground in one go with clamshell bucket, sounds like it had too much power for own good lol.
pics were taken at our place (cooke bros engineering) and the dumper is from edentrillick quarries dromore

Haven`t got many pic`s i`m afraid but i`ve put i couple on the bogged forum.
Maxwells at ballymena had a ex700 backhoe as well , escorted it a few times though Belfast at rush hour , now that was something to see
I remember using cooke bros when i was living over there. Don`t they have a big old line boarer that fills a shed?

maxwells always seemed to buy doubles of machines for the quarries!. funny, i have a picture somewhere of the 700 pulling an old 215 cat out of a mud sump!. ill have to see if i can see it!. ha ha, cookes is a rare place!, the borer is a brute, it came from belfast shipyard. im going to bogged section to see your pics!

Yes Allistair I know that dumper. There is allot of history with that dumper coming in from England as a full factory re-con. But im glad to say that I have never turned a spanner on that one. The roads and lanes to your workshops still bare the scars of her passing! Do you have before and after shots of the work you done on this dumper?

lol, i thought you might barry!, yeah, ive photos somewhere, ill have a hoke see if i can find them!

yeah, here she is as she how she left the quarry with a few rushed runs of weld holding her belly togeather!
her back was broken completeley! look how the crack goes all the way to the top!

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so, we got her in the shop, lifted the body off


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lifted the transmission out


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gouged out the cracks, welded up the the chassis, then added these plates for extra strength. and most importantly strips of plate along the tension bottom


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you can see one of the stress points in this last picture.. on the top of the chassis is where the body rests, it was directly below this the crack opened up. it was tricky putting the plates on as there were plenty of exhaust,transmission and other brackets all had to be modified!, but i love it!lol