Things are back to normal/pumps

[diggerjones]

hi neil,
think i saw one of your vans going through my village the other day, i live in audlem south cheshire.

[Hammer man]

Not sure what we have up your way work wise,but we do have some work up north as we call it.
Now for my "slow"machine.
Hitachi reckon,"basicly mate your pumps are fcuked" Theres plenty of pressure,but not enough flow.On max power it was flowing 90 ltrs/min,when it should have been 250+ And with the bucket curled/closed in,arm fully out & boom/bucket lowered to the floor,on full power H/P mode,time to lift boom to max height is 3.6 seconds.Mine is doing it in 6.5 secs .The man from Hitachi said that for the age & hours of my machine you could expect all actions to be around 0.5 secs slower,but not nearly double!!So it looks like 2 new pumps,£16000 approx .Still,i expect the machine is still worth £50000+,& a new machine over £100000+.But i`ve told them i`ll still be happy driving it as it is.As most of my work is hammering,cycle times are not important.

[Hammer man]

I had the blasting boss ring me today(i might as well be a plant manager!)After a few phone calls,i`m going back to my favorite quarry in somerset monday morn to do any breaking,then up to Shrewsbury for mon 5th oct,then onto Hereford.Need to do a quick job up there before his contract ends the end of oct,so will be just breaking his oversize.Hes saying that he`ll give me a large cash bonus if i can get it all done up there by the end of oct
And i will have my hitachi for this mon too.They are happy for me to drive it the way it is,& i`m happy with the way it is,new pumps or not .
Had a mixed week,in the yard most of the week as i needed today off.Helping around,steam cleaning,preping a L90D for a respray,& then down to Weymouth testerday in the convoy van to escort a D6N back to the yard."why cant you move these at night"was the common comment when i had traffic stopped in the narrow bits."why cant you drive at night?"was my replys."because i`m going somewhere now" ,"same as us mate,we need the machine now" I`ve done this escorting job a few times now.I have more respect for wide loads now,unlike some drivers yesterday Still,got me out of the yard for the day.Back to normal next week

[Jack]

Love the coment you gave back to them drivers

[Hammer man]

Well,i`ve had it back 2 days now Working on 2 new haul roads down the side of a face,about a 10M drop.1 of our D6R`lgp,me on my 350 & the quarrys L220D.I`m working at max depth & reach,digging out the side of a unblasted bench,& casting it to the side so the D6 can form a 1in 10 haul road.Reckon i`ve shifted a few 1000 tons.Ok,so its not very fast raising the boom with a heaped bucket,2.2m(after being on a pc210 mine seems sloooooow lifting up )& seems slower since i was on it last,but theres plenty of power otherwise.Quarry are happy with the progress & i`m happy i`ve got my machine back.Cab needed a good clean but no marks on the body work.Jones Bros had it for 2 days on a muck shift & off hired it cause it was guttless.They now have our ZX470/3.The tints were removed by Jones for H&S .Im sorry,but if i can work in Tarmac quarrys with tints,i dont see the problem.Tarmac must be the hottest on H&S out of ALL the places i`ve ever worked.Never mind,it only cost me £12 to tint the whole digger.
On another note,as mentioned in the 1st post,our firm are meeting Blasting Services next week to with a view to keep me doing the hammer work for them in Shrewsbury & Hereford when they take over on the 1st of Nov.The phone calls have been very positive so say.Fingers crossed
I think i should start a blog

[Joes1989]

haha! Just a quick one mate, Where do you get the tint for your windows? I want to get a slight shade on the windows on my digger and my car!

Joe

[Hammer man]

onlyprofilms was the ebay seller.I had light smoke first,but it was a bit too light.So i got dark smoke,the tint below Limo black.I think it was about £12 p+p for a roll of 6mx1m.Visability is fine,even in the dark.The only thing is you`d only want to do half/3/4`s of the r/h side window,as in the pitch dark you wont see the track.Apart from that,i could see everything in the dark.I`m finding my cab very bright at the mo with the sun.Its not too bad on bucket work,but on the breaker i`m in the same spot for a while,so the sun streams in.Thats why i tinted them.

[d4c24a]

i would imagine if they did not let 70% of light through ,H&S would have a problem with it
trouble is you probably would not find out until there was an incident

[Hammer man]

Had a surprise visit from a man from Volvo CE today.It looks like my ZX350 is being sold My Hitachi is having a full Volvo inspection next week.The company could well be getting a new EC290C & a EC360C.I have asked for the new 360 but dont think i`ll get it.The only other machine for me would be our 15 month old EC360C ,as we only have 3 35t class machines.Mine & another ZX350/3 on permanant hammer duties,& the EC360C.Having driven our EC290C for a few weeks,i`d like the EC360.Be sorry to see my old girl go,but it seems they cant keep justifying spending money on it,with is fair enough.
Not sure if i`d like a new ZX350/3 ,as ours is coming into the yard this week as its driver has done nothing but complain about excessive heat transfer in the cab through the consols & levers.He had the sister machine to mine before,& had no heat.The same as mine,no matter how hard its working,the consol or levers just dont get warm,unlike the PC210/8 i spent a few days on last week .So they will give his the once over to make sure everything is as it should be.

[Joes1989]

Congrats on the new machine! I heard from the guy that runs our recycling yard that we arte looking into buying PC180LC-8's to replace both 315C's!!!! Im really hoping this is true because i love our PC180LC-7! That thing is still going strong at 7 years old despite looking a bit beaten up!!!