carnage 3ciii

[MrF]

I'll check in the morning about the pump oil level, I remember that discussion also and that it takes standard motor oil in its separate supply.
Tonight I didn't finish work early enough to get into the motor for a decent session so set the forklift up above the jackleg, got all the locking bolts out the pins and the top pin is moving free with a bump but the bottom is stuck solid and I tried to drift it both directions with not so gentle persuasion from a sledge hammer so its a tiny bit peened (but we'll grind that off when it shifts) but its not even nudging a fraction now.
I had the same on the 3c2 on one stabilizer leg and ended up plasma cutting the boss out the steel square slider to get it out but I dont want to do that again unless I have to and the whole area is soaked in leaked out hydraulic oil from the blown ram inside so fire might be a definite risk. I cant see a way to get in to cut the pin with a sawzall or portable bandsaw because everything is shrouded by either the pavement foot or the steel sliders.

So I'm going to try a non destructive way to get it to move...
I've left it with a solid c clamp exerting pressure pushing the pin out into a large socket the other side and doused it with a load of penetrating oil to seep in overnight but if its like the other pin stuck in the leg, its stuck in the inner bush well away from anywhere reachable by fluids without cutting stuff. I'll give it a optimistic few dongs with a sledge hammer in the morning but if it doesn't shift I have a silly idea to assemble my little 20t workshop hydraulic press around the stabilizer leg in situ and try to push it out with the press lying on some blocks on the floor. Hope 20 chinese tons is enough. At least my jcb isnt likely to fly out sideways from the press if anything lets go...

[MrF]

3 aerosol capfull's of oil in the pump and also the level screw was halfway out when I came to it. Its improved and idles lower now, but still a stumble and a roughness. Somethings still not right. It feels pump related still. I might change the lift pump for mine as I have my suspicions about it.

As for the stabilizer pavement pad pin... well. Not much progress there, I stabbed myself changing a battery on some electric gadget first thing, and it was a tiny jewelers screwdriver and I think penetrated by a decent amount and nicked something deep inside between my thumb and palm of my right hand holding the thing, hand swollen really bad and icepack/arnica and mrs wanted to go hospital but by midday its gone down and just really sore. So no wielding a sledge beating anything into submission. Also I measured and I don't think I have clearance to use my press as a pin extractor.

So instead changed a leaking hydraclamp, the big nut was tight even once free so took the slack up with a taper wedge as it undone to stop the head rotating round past its flat on the rear plate and used the forklift to undo the spanner for the first couple of turns. Then once it was sorted decided If I was going to attack the stabilizer pin boss with a oxy torch or plasma cutter I needed to clean any stray oil to stop it setting alight, so a hour with the steam cleaner and she is looking better.

Then for the afternoon I set the forklift on blocks using a toe jack while it was strapped to a anchor to stop it rolling (well, 5 ton of vertical machining centre...) and working it up onto progressively thicker blocks until it was clear enough to get under and work safely/see the transmission drain plug and get a pan under it to drain it. So dropped the oil, took the mesh pickup filter out the transmission sump and was really disappointed because it looked really clean. Too clean. And it took a age to drain the fluid even without the filter... So I fired some cleaner in to around the filter housing and blew out around it with the airline blowgun, and lo and behold, lumps of sludge dropped out, and bits of clutch debris etc followed by more oil. Some flushing cycles later I put the mesh filter back in, a new oil filter on the top of the transmission and filled it with the iso68 hydraulic fluid.
And, YES! It drives fine both forward and backward, I was driving and moving stuff with it for a good 40 minutes. It is lazy going into forward drive sometimes unless you slam it in because the linkage has a ton of play in it it, but I can sort that wear out in my workshop myself. The brakes are atrocious and its using brake fluid, so the drums need to come off for a look at the slave cylinders etc. That's just maintenance though!

Finally I have a idea about the pin extraction. I have a big heavy hammer, that I can swing hydraulically with more inertia than I can manage with a sledgehammer. So tomorrow I'm going to set up a drift strapped into place and use the rear bucket to knock it out. My poor dipper top bush right? except I have to change that anyway shortly!

[Slooby]

Could air be getting into your injector pump?

Sounds like you've cracked the big issue with the Forklift though, which is good to hear!

[Matchless?58]

Great stuff ! Well done it's always a moment of euphoria when you crack a problem hopefully it will give you years of good service now . As you say just a couple of maintenance issues to sort now . I guess you can take your time with those .
Re the JCB sounds like a plan with the pin obviously a bit of a risk getting heat into it . So you don't have much option but brute force .
Maybe another way might be to bore a hole in it weld a big bolt into the hole and try and spin it in the housing with a big pair of stilsons . If you can get it to turn you have movement in it and thats half the battle over . Anyway good luck with it .
Cheers Chris

[MrF]

Well its out, but its cost me a stabilizer leg sleeve and the ram. Both of which I have a spare one of happily.

First I got my fingers up into the cavity between the pavement pad and the ram eye, and cleaned it all out and dosed it again with penetrating oil.
Then machined up a solid pin to fit the shape of the pin when the grease nipple was removed, and left a stub to locate it, smacked it with the bucket, then figured all I was doing was scuffing the cheeks of the bucket up. So knocked it back and forth a few dozen times with the sledgehammer, and nothing not even the slightest movement. Tried grinding the pin end tapered and back to the pin boss and still nothing.
By mid afternoon, it had got old. So I slit the pin boss with the plasma cutter after filling the leg with water and dosing down the area and having son on standby with the hose and a extinguisher and peeled the bosses off the pin to free it.
Still nothing. Did the same to the opposite boss and still no movement. I ended up cutting a inverted U out the stabilizer sleeve both sides to free the pin and slid the ram, pin and pad out the sleeve. And then I could see the ram was fubar, big chunks out the hard chrome in the running area so I decided I'd just slice the eye open one side with the plasma cutter to release it from the pin. I did this, and opened up the cut with a taper wedge and still had to beat it to within a inch of its life to get the pin out so it could be pulled upwards. Ive seen weaker welds than the bond formed between that pin and the ram eye.
So now the ram is out completely, but I cant yet figure out how to get the sleeve out to change it as it seemed to block when I tried to pull it out the top same as the ram, probably it has to go out the bottom just to be awkward... Im knackered so I'll pick it up tomorrow. Maybe I can just drive onto a big block or something to give clearance for it to drop out.

Now I understand why I inherited a leaking jack leg with my machine. And from my sample of two machines, both have had a instance of the stabilizer bottom pin refusing to release.

Yeah I think its air ingress somewhere into the diesel supply slooby, I need to just work out where. I still havent swapped the filter heads for mine nor the lift pump, been stuck fighting the pin all day. Tomorrow maybe.

[Slooby]

It's been 7 years since I was trying to find the fault with the T25 pump, but as I recall air was getting in past the main shaft seal, and after looking into it just replacing that wasn't likely to fix it for long and a full rebuild was the only option.

[MrF]

So THAT'S how you get the stabilizer leg sleeve out...
That's the new one in, just come in for the forklift's key to drop the ram in.

jcb_stabilizer_sleevechange.jpg

[MrF]

And this is why it will always be the carnage jcb. When I put it back down, the tie rod end came off leaving the taper section in the arm. Rather glad that didn't happen driving down the road or something anyway & Oh well I had to change it anyway because the tie rod is bent and touches the bashplate in places. Somehow the windygun, big stilsons and taper wedges got the remains out the arms.


Another bonus job off the todo list anyway.


The only pin I found with a grease port same as the destroyed one off my 3c3 wasn't the right diameter. But I found a solid pin that matched dimensionally so I drilled it halfway longintudinally, cross drilled a 6mm hole for the grease to get out and tapped it 1/4bsp and fitted a nipple. Voila grease nipple pin.


Now for a coffee and back out to do the sump bashplate and drop the oil & attend to a small water leak by the water pump area. I didn't put my new water pump on because I half believed the seller that the machine was good all round order pre-accident, so I hope its not leaking out that. Still not a big job to change in situ if it is.

And slooby, yes I agree it could be the pump shaft seal or something similar because 2 turns in on the throttle stop indicates someone was having idle problems before, but I want to eliminate the easy to fix things first. Perhaps I'll put my dpa pump on it once I've eliminated everything else, but it looks like more than just a case of slacking off the pump bolts and sliding the dpa on in its place.

It has occurred to me that next time (if there is a next time) I have the stuck stabilizer leg happen, I'll just dig a hole & park the machine over it, and lift it up in the air that corner and drop it out the bottom. Then I can take the whole mess to the workshop & use the press and push it out there. And if it resists, I can just stick it in the mill and mill the pin out instead... Options...

[Slooby]

Lots of progress.

Really want to get my Lathe back and then working...

Also reminds me I still need to set the pump up on the T25, using the cold start enrichment to keep it idling is a bit of a bodge...

[MrF]

I'm on leave from work this week and in quarantine so I can press on but when I get depressed I have been known to sling things at the back of the yard and ignore them for months or years sometimes. They're not eating anything while I get my mojo back and I don't pay rent on the space so no big problem.

For today on the 3c3 I had the lift pump off, er yes, well. Earnest Bodger father of six had left quite a few facepalm moments in there, fittings with the wrong thread hanging on by two turns and masses of ptfe, no copper washers on some joints etc. Gluing the gasket on with so much silicon it blocked the oil drain at the bottom of the gasket worth a mention too.
It has the lift pump and fittings from my original engine now and I resealed all the filter connections with new copper washers everywhere. Also noticed a green like wallpaper paste forming on the filter elements, I think that's from my diesel tank though as my lift pump filter screen was contaminated the same, is this the dreaded diesel bug? I treated the fuel tank for it with a biocide recently so hopefully not. When I take my cab off to fettle it I will steam out the tank via the fuel sender like Matchless58 has done to his as its long overdue.
I took the exhaust off as it made the fuel pump easier to work on, and while I was there, I dropped the battery & alternator off and went looking for the water leak. One hose clamp on the cast alloy section that flows behind the alternator was a tiny bit loose so I nipped that up and hopefully that's sorted that.

Also did the valve clearances, no drama there, oil looked nice and black with no water contamination which was brilliant to see. Dropped the oil and tried to get a cheap inspection cam nicked off the mrs's quilting machine through the drain bung to see if I could see a balancer and couldn't see anything much except for grainy out of focus bits of the sump. Need a better inspection cam for general use it seems. Put fresh 30w oil back in and put the sump bashplate/ frame connector on.
And its running better again, got to back the throttle stop off some more, but still not perfect with the odd stumble & still feels unbalanced somehow and vibrates at certain rpm's and worse as it spins faster, I do wonder if its something to do with the main hydraulic pump driveshaft somehow. I am considering running with it detached to see. Also its leaking motor oil out the tacho drive on the back of the pump, so at least we know it has oil in it now in that classic design way.

Tomorrow the loader arms , I took the bolts out the pins and gave a few a nudge to make sure they shifted in prep and soaked a few stiff ones, then connected the bucket hoses for the 3-in-1 to each other to seal the bucket from the arm circuits. I'll do the same on the front bucket craw hoses once I've moved it somewhere suitable for the forklift to get at the side to assist and leave the loader arm rams on the machine itself.