47 replies to this topic

[Peter]

Update from the blog...

Peter Curtis had a meeting with John Cumming today to discuss our recent gear box issues. Doppelmayr CTEC has admitted that there is an engineering or material problem with the current Kissling gear boxes installed in some of our lifts. Therefore, John and Peter have decided to retrofit all of our lifts that currently have this gear box installed with new Sumitomo/Caterpillar gear boxes this summer. These lifts include PayDay, Silverlode, Bonanza, McConkey’s and King Con chairlifts. We placed the order for PayDay’s new gear box four weeks ago so it should be here in time for us to retrofit it in April, after the season ends. The rest of the lifts will be retrofitted over the course of the summer, in time for next season.

[old school]

If PCMR does all the rigging, etc for those five lift changeouts , how will they get their summer maintenance done? Increase staff or pay DTEC or an outside contrator to do it? That is a considerable chunk of time for their maintenance staff to add to their work load. It will be interesting to see how this will be accomplished...

[floridaskier]

Looks like McConkey's reopened today. Does anyone know if they put in a new Caterpillar gearbox, or are they going to replace the new one this summer?

[Powdr]

I don't think the Cat boxes are here yet, so I am assuming that they scrounged up another Kisslinger box and will retrofit this summer, along with the other ones. Gonna be busy summer for Maintenance.

Powdr

[floridaskier]

They haven't put the underside of the Payday drive terminal back in yet, so the bullwheel and turnaround is open for viewing if anybody's at PCMR. I don't know if McConkey's has had its underside replaced either.

[lastchair_44]

Wow...they're even doing King Con! That's a crap ton of work....I hope DopTec is stepping in to take up some of the workload

[floridaskier]

Do they really need to do King Con? It's a quad, so whatever loads the gearbox (finishing its 13th year) takes are a lot less than the six packs. I guess they want to get rid of all traces of Kissling gearboxes now. What does First Time have?

I wouldn't think so, but DV's not planning to replace the gearbox on Northside, are they?

[lastchair_44]

We have several lifts with the same setup that their six packs have. Wasatch, Carpenter, Empire. We will be dropping the inspection plate and UT'ing the ring gear inside the hub and looking at wear on the teeth of the planet and sun gears. Also, I reckon we'll be UT'ing the input shaft and output shaft on the gearbox, and also looking at the teeth on the gears inside the box. We've already taken oil samples to send off for analysis from all our gearboxes/hubs, which will indicate teeth wear or bearing failure...not a crack in a ring gear. No replacements here. I would assume that First Time has the Sumitomo gearbox with the cat D-11 hub. As for the king con issue? I don't know what they're thinking...I guess they don't want to take any chances...but you're right...that's Northside's sister lift and they've both ran good for the years they've been in operation.