36 replies to this topic

[liftmech]

Yesterday we started on a project (on the Flyer) which will take most of the next two weeks, then after a pause will consume even more time. We are a) disassembling the gearbox, B) removing the mainshaft and sending it in for service, and c) removing and replacing the mainshaft bearings. So far we've managed to get a lot of heavy gear up to the top terminal, and today we will be removing the shaft and detensioning the rope to remove the bearings.
I will be posting more photos as the project progresses.

First photo: stuff everywhere (though not as much as five minutes before I took the photo- we cleaned up for the night). Second photo: plate clamp used to pull slack in the haul rope to get it off the bullwheel.

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[liftmech]

Well, the shaft is out and sitting in our yard awaiting transport to North Carolina. It was quite the fun time getting it out... Actually it went very smoothly and we were done and back to the shop by 1630, which is our usual time.

First you have to separate the lower shaft from the upper, which involves compressing the shaft and purging out all the grease. That takes about three hours as the only hole for draining grease is tiny and there's several gallons, all told. Then it's a matter of slinging it in such a way that it comes out of the motor room. After that it really only takes an hour or so to get it up and on the deck.

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[liftmech]

Yours truly helping bring the shaft up; all hands on deck for the final pull; something's missing because there's way more space here than normal.

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[liftmech]

Tomorrow we begin rigging the haul rope and disassembling the input side of the gearbox. If I don't have too much 80-90 oil on my hands I'll take more pictures.

[Kicking Horse]

Sounds fun..........

just hope it's get put back together right....



(j/k)

This post has been edited by pusher: 30 July 2004 - 07:45 PM

[liftmech]

No, we're just going to slap it together and hope it works. What do you think we do for a living? I hope that little (j/k) means 'just kidding'...

[Kicking Horse]

yes it does.

[Kicking Horse]

any updates on this project John?

[liftmech]

The shaft should be on its way to North Carolina right now to be rebuilt, and we start on the gearbox tomorrow when Rod Stocking from Poma shows up. We don't really know what he's got up his sleeve, but he asked us to just get all the peripherals out of the way (the service brakes, brake mounting frames, and brake disk) and we we would do the rest when he got here.

[liftmech]

First day done; we've got the gearbox almost totally disassembled up to the output shaft. Today we finish that part and then move on to detensioning the bullwheel and removing those bearings. I didn't bring the camera yesterday because we were playing with 80w-90 gear oil all day, but today should be a little cleaner so I will get some photos.

[liftmech]

Pieces/parts...

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[liftmech]

More pieces/parts. the picture of three guys with torches is where we were trying to remove the collar for the drive shaft; we thought it would come right off but as you can see we've got a 60-ton hydraulic press and it still didn't move. So we poured the heat to it and it moved an inch, then quit...

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[liftmech]

Before and after. The after photo is a bit blurry- sorry about that.

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[Kelly]

Liftmech:
Can't quite see in the pictures, did you get the collar off?
How much of an interference fit is there?
Nice picture of the planet housing and gears, any interesting wear on those gears?
Did you find anything interesting at the bottom of the box, like gear chips or large flakes?
Its hard to believe Denver does not have a machine shop to handle this operation.
Again thanks for the pictures.

Ryan B

[liftmech]

-No, we did not get the collar off. I hope it's off now (I've been on vacation) but who knows.
-There is somewhat of an interference fit, exacerbated by 18 years of rusty water.
-The gears are in excellent shape- the only interesting things we found were the oil pump was about to die due to extreme wear on the impeller shaft and radial cracks in the impeller itself. Oh, and the shaft that we took out (pictured at top of page) is 45 degrees out of phase. Strange that it took us 18 years to notice that...

[Patrick Sullivan]

He he....anyone try some PB Blaster? always works with extreme rust ...for me @ least....
Time for some anti seize!

[liftmech]

Anti-seize won't work in this application as there is no room for it- the coupling has an interference fit over the shaft. Poma told us that it was due to water getting into the joint that caused the problem, so I'm going to try and fix the leakage problem instead.
Post-vacation update:The gearbox had been reassembled while I was gone, but removing the upper shaft from the bullwheel kept everyone from completing the project. As of yesterday, we have broken two bolts, loosened three others, and have thirteen to go... then we get to press the bullwheel off the shaft without dropping the shaft. I'm hoping it all goes back together smoothly because we haven't touched any of our other maintenance in over a month now.
Pictures of large rigging and busted stuff to follow at a later date.

[liftmech]

#1: Watch your step! (flooring removed to facilitate access to the bullwheel)
#2: I broke it... (the end of a 24mm grade 12.9 bolt; 12.9 is about as hard as you'll find.)
#3: What I broke it with (a 1" drive hydraulic ratchet. Cool tool; it's capable of producing 3150 foot-punds of torque at 702 bars max pressure, and all it takes to break these bolts is 1919 foot-punds)
#4: Where are the bolt heads? Oh yes- we broke those too.

We actually ended up either breaking the bolt heads off (13) or grinding them off (5). Tuesday we'll see if we can separate the bullwheel from the shaft.

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[Kicking Horse]

Any Updates on this Project?

[liftmech]

We haven't really made any progress since my last post. It's getting late in the season so we're probably going to leave the bullwheel in place, replace the bolts, inspect the bearings as best we can, and start over next summer. The bearings dont make any noise, so they are probably fine. All we'll need to do on those is replace the seals we torched as a side effect of cutting the bolts.