Digging at the museum........

janmeermans

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All,

During our June tractor show, the director of the Antique Gas and Steam Engine Museum, where Chapter 16 is hosted, approached me with a need for help getting earthwork done (which was not budgeted) for several new buildings to be built this year. Being the proud new owner of D8 14A "ol' Dick", I was all ears and since I had borrowed a blade off of Paul Smith's 14A, I could do the work. Of course the Cat dozers owned by the museum were also made available. The largest project involved over excavating and re-compacting under a new Spinner's Cottage 90' x 50' and going down 6'. One of the museum's other members works as a soils technician and he and his boss agreed to provide the necessary soil compaction testing and monitoring services. Another chapter member, contributed a 4 x 4 sheepsfoot roller to add to the mix.

After re-locating a waterline, I was able to start prying up the very hard clay soil native to the area. I knew a major problem would be to hold the blade level as the borrowed blade had a hydraulic tilt and Ol' Dick is not equipped for that. I welded up a bracket to attempt to hold it in place but within 30 minutes, I tore that up. Earlier, during the show, I had filled both hoses with oil and placed caps on them. That did not work too well either so I decided to rip up everything with the tipped blade corner and finish up with the museum's D8 13A.

The attached photos show "Ol Dick" starting the cut and ripping things up. The third photo shows the completed over-ex after I had used the 13A to get down to the necessary 6'. Chapter 16 member "D4Angelo" used his connection as a retired firefighter brought in a nozzle and 1.5" firehose to provide water for compaction. The following photos show the 13A, D6 9U and Angelo's D4 7U pulling the sheepsfoot to get back to the finished grade for the building pad.

In the end, we completed the work but not without problems. We suffered through the 9U power loss (you may recall the discussion here about that) and the 13A developing a rusted out outlet pipe on the pony engine in addition to the blade tilt issues with "Ol' Dick". Using these old machines to do a job after they have been worn out years ago and retired does require some patience. As the operator, I was right there getting worn out too, as my best years are also behind me 😊. The museum was very happy to get a certified pad done for their new building at very little cost. Meantime, some of our chapter members had a blast doing it!

JanM
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Thu, Aug 25, 2016 11:05 PM

dpendzic

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Jan---looks like some hard lumpy clay you were ripping out---what did you use for the compacted back fill?
I am surprised that the 2 capped filled lines on the tilt didn't work--think there may have been air trapped?

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Thu, Aug 25, 2016 11:38 PM

janmeermans

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Reply to dpendzic:

Jan---looks like some hard lumpy clay you were ripping out---what did you use for the compacted back fill?
I am surprised that the 2 capped filled lines on the tilt didn't work--think there may have been air trapped?

[quote="dpendzic"]Jan---looks like some hard lumpy clay you were ripping out---what did you use for the compacted back fill?
I am surprised that the 2 capped filled lines on the tilt didn't work--think there may have been air trapped?[/quote]

Dan,

Yes, I had air trapped in the system so the capping did not work well. I tried to add oil with a funnel by gravity but the bubbles burping out made progress very slow. I looked around for some new fittings that I could weld together but at each hydraulic shop I went to, I got the "Wow, how old are these? I've never seen fittings like this before." Maybe I should have gone to CAT but did not try them. The caps were better than the bracket I tried to use.

We were able to re-use all the old material but had another museum member, who had worked in soil mechanics, run the water hose so we got a little over optimum moisture which was our goal. Using the sheepsfoot and the heavy 13A, the lumps all broke up and we easily got over 90% compaction.

Pete,

I never found anyone to take pictures so Yours truly was the photographer so no "action" photos. This project grew nearly everyday as more and more info came forth from the architect and the interpretation of the soils report. No one could believe the size of the spoil pile once everything was out of the hole! They also did not think it would all fit back in. We actually had to move some import in from other work on site to get the grade we wanted. Of course, the museum's dump truck would not dump it's first load (no oil in the ram) and after we got that problem solved, it broke down after about 8 loads so a lot of dirt had to be piss-anted down to the site from the stockpile with the Ford skiploader.

The end game was for the museum to go to the city for a building permit with valid documentation of having followed the soils report so they did not have to go through the Excavation Permit process. They were going to say, "Hey, this was just a bunch of our Caterpillar Club guys having fun and this is what they did. Surely you can give us a Building Permit." (All said with tongue in cheek! I hope it works for them.)

Here is the finished pad which I forgot to add in the original post.

Now I am off tomorrow to place myself in the hands of "Pops" (Glen) this Saturday. I hope I can make the production goals! Watch for me in the drone videos. I'll be the one sitting there grinding away, trying to get the scraper in gear! It should be a lot of fun!!!!!!!!!!!

JanM
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Fri, Aug 26, 2016 3:07 AM

Bruce P

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Reply to dpendzic:

Jan---looks like some hard lumpy clay you were ripping out---what did you use for the compacted back fill?
I am surprised that the 2 capped filled lines on the tilt didn't work--think there may have been air trapped?

Looks pretty darn good to me! And fun to boot. Is that the museums 9U that was giving you trouble? Is it running better?

Thanks for the photos.

BP

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Fri, Aug 26, 2016 3:08 AM

janmeermans

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Reply to Bruce P:

Looks pretty darn good to me! And fun to boot. Is that the museums 9U that was giving you trouble? Is it running better?

Thanks for the photos.

BP

Bruce,

Yes, that is the one. We've come to the conclusion that the tank must contain a lot of BS and corruption to the point that the filters just keep clogging up. It also uses a lot of oil and smokes heavily. It has seen better days! Just about all of the museum's equipment is like that, otherwise, why would anyone donate a "good machine"?

Now the D813A is a different story. It used to be owned by San Diego Gas & Electric so it never had a lot of use. It is surprisingly tight for its age. Note the unusual winches on the back. They once used them to string the high voltage cables on the towers in the mountains. This was WAY before helicopters became the way to get this done.

JanM

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Fri, Aug 26, 2016 3:30 AM

neil

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Reply to janmeermans:

Bruce,

Yes, that is the one. We've come to the conclusion that the tank must contain a lot of BS and corruption to the point that the filters just keep clogging up. It also uses a lot of oil and smokes heavily. It has seen better days! Just about all of the museum's equipment is like that, otherwise, why would anyone donate a "good machine"?

Now the D813A is a different story. It used to be owned by San Diego Gas & Electric so it never had a lot of use. It is surprisingly tight for its age. Note the unusual winches on the back. They once used them to string the high voltage cables on the towers in the mountains. This was WAY before helicopters became the way to get this done.

JanM

I was going to ask about that winch Jan. Any more detail on it? Like if it was pulling electric, did they run it like a capstan or what was the process. For your tilt cylinders, the thought occurred to me that you could try one of those tire filling units, that has an integrated bleed pipe to release the air while you fill. Of course, the ram would have to be upside down...

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Fri, Aug 26, 2016 6:27 AM

7upuller

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Reply to neil:

I was going to ask about that winch Jan. Any more detail on it? Like if it was pulling electric, did they run it like a capstan or what was the process. For your tilt cylinders, the thought occurred to me that you could try one of those tire filling units, that has an integrated bleed pipe to release the air while you fill. Of course, the ram would have to be upside down...

Hey Jan....

If you are showing up and can place such a nice compacted fill... I can relax... Wow, good work. One thing though... Can you leave all the break downs of equipment some where else. We gotta get er done, but keep everything ALIVE!!!!
Hahaha
Glen

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Fri, Aug 26, 2016 7:23 AM

janmeermans

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Reply to 7upuller:

Hey Jan....

If you are showing up and can place such a nice compacted fill... I can relax... Wow, good work. One thing though... Can you leave all the break downs of equipment some where else. We gotta get er done, but keep everything ALIVE!!!!
Hahaha
Glen

Thanks everyone for the compliments. I thought we DONE GOOD! The museum folks are very happy.

Glen,

I will be in the car headed in your direction tomorrow morning. I will see you Saturday. Make sure you leave an empty seat for me since I'm coming in after an 8 hour drive 😊.

Neil,

Both winches on the 13A have a run of cable. They seemed to pull the wire in with them like a regular winch. There is a warning sign giving the maximum pull not to exceed but I can't remember what the figure is. They no longer work and we really don't know much about them. They were made in Canada.

JanM

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Fri, Aug 26, 2016 11:29 AM

mog5858

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Reply to janmeermans:

Thanks everyone for the compliments. I thought we DONE GOOD! The museum folks are very happy.

Glen,

I will be in the car headed in your direction tomorrow morning. I will see you Saturday. Make sure you leave an empty seat for me since I'm coming in after an 8 hour drive 😊.

Neil,

Both winches on the 13A have a run of cable. They seemed to pull the wire in with them like a regular winch. There is a warning sign giving the maximum pull not to exceed but I can't remember what the figure is. They no longer work and we really don't know much about them. They were made in Canada.

JanM

MADE IN CANADA well then send them on back. i sure i can fix them up. lol glad to see you guys are having so much fun and keeping the track nice and shiny. don't have too much fun out there with pop's.

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Sat, Aug 27, 2016 7:18 AM

HoltSteamer

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Reply to mog5858:

MADE IN CANADA well then send them on back. i sure i can fix them up. lol glad to see you guys are having so much fun and keeping the track nice and shiny. don't have too much fun out there with pop's.

The winches should still work with a little TLC. They power out and power in. I used them to load a steam tractor on a trailer that didn't have a winch, they are very slow.

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Sat, Aug 27, 2016 10:02 AM

Digging at the museum........

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