I don't have to tell anybody who lives in the UK that we have had bad weather over the last few weeks so I have not had the chance to get up to my machine; however today I travelled with Julian Carder down to a yard where there was some very interesting machines lying around, the one that I was interested in was the cannibalised 580BT.
While there was not much left of this old gal I rescued what I could and purchased a set of spool valves that I took off the machine plus the two boom hoist rams and the dipper ram. Sadly this machine had been acquired with a grab fitted so there was no bucket ram which was a real pity as I really need one, however the reality is that the rams on my machine need the seals changing which is not the easiest of tasks adding to which you just don't know what you will find till you get the said components apart.
I was lucky in as much as the boom hoist rams on this machine are the earlier internal cap design as opposed to the external cap design; I have also decided that as Julian can get them rebuilt for me at a reasonable cost it would make more sense to have ready reconditioned rams to put straight onto my machine rather than me struggling to get the old ones off the machine, stripped apart the bits that need replacing sent out to be made, plus getting the bits shipped around etc. Oh well I suppose it will help me get my machine rebuilt that little bit quicker, I hope!
Jeremy
It was cold taking those spool valves off too!