I Bought a Broken 11 Ton Forklift, Can I Save It?
Watch Wes Work
Big piece of heavy iron that he bought for a scrap sale price. Everything is fine, except it doesn't run. Okay, if it doesn't run, you can't know that everything is fine, can you? But he takes a close look and everything seems fine, except for that one problem, which manifests itself in a very strange way. The starter turns, but the engine doesn't. How can that be? Internal combustion engines typically have a flywheel bolted to the crankshaft at one end of the engine. The flywheel has a set of gear teeth all around its outside diameter. The electric starter motor has a small gear that engages with the teeth on the flywheel to get the engine turning. When the starter motor is running you can hear that electric motor noise. If the gear is turning the flywheel, you can hear that noise as well. If all that is happening and the motor isn't turning, then either the bolts or the crankshaft are broken. A broken crankshaft would probably mean a new engine.
Heavy equipment is funny. I suspect most applications work the machines to death. They are expensive and you need to get your money's worth out of them. Hauling rock for a few dollars a ton means you need to haul a ginormous amount of rock to pay for the machine.
There are other applications (really? You have to say 'applications'? Can't you just say 'uses'?) where endurance is not so important. You just need a machine to do that one really difficult job once a week or whenever. The job has to be done and you need a big machine to do the job. I think that was probably the situation with this machine. If it was one of a fleet of machines being worked to death, they would have mechanics on hand to deal with it. If it was one machine dedicated to a particular role, and it's been there for ten years, and it breaks, it's just easier all around to replace it with a new one.
2 comments:
During my career, part of my responsibilities was keeping the iron in running condition. Expensive repairs were judged against the age of the machine, what other problems could appear, and whether due to conditions, renting a machine was the ultimate cost saving decision.
We worked in some locations that had dust that would eventually even stain glass. The dust would destroy electronics, contaminate oil, clog radiator fins and lower the resale value to pennies on the dollar. Usually, if we did place a piece of owned equipment in that location, it was only for a short period of time, or sent there as the last location it would be worked. When the time came, it was scrapped.
'dust that would eventually even stain glass'. Sounds lovely.
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