Grapple Rebuild.....

[lorenzo]

Here is a nice job I did.... I essentialy rebuilt a hydraulic grapple for an excavator that is used in a scrap yard. There were quite a few repairs that needed to be made to this unit so I'll just post stuff in groups....

First is the disassembly. You'll see that the lower pin keeper (pivot point for the tynes) is broken. they all need to be removed and replaced with new ones and the 8 bores need to be repaired.

All the keeprs have been gouged off and all the areas have been cleaned.

Second, I need increase the clearance between the main pin ears at the top of the grapple by a 1/2" and the bores need to be opened up a 1/2' as well.

The boss plates need to be removed from both sides

 

[lorenzo]

Fab new boss plates, and weld them both in. The original boss plates were 3/4" thick so I cut new ones from 1/2" plate.

Next is to repair the lower tyne bores.... I love my positioner

You can see how badly the bores are worn

Here is a bore welded up ready to be rebored

 

[lorenzo]

The boring is done.... at least for the lower bores. Still have to take the main pin bores from 3" to a 3-1/2"...... at the same time the broken keeper bolts were extracted and retapped.

This it the bores before

and this is now....

 

[lorenzo]

New bushing for the tynes... When doing bushings that have a seal I'll quickly machine a bushing driver that will set the bushing to the correct depth with the seal in mind. For the tyne I pulled both bushing in at the same time...

Time for some new tips on the tynes... these tips are not for this grapple so I had to modify them a bit...

 

[lorenzo]

Bevel the tips and weld them in...

The main pin bore finished...

 

[lorenzo]

Finally assembled... I used some 1.5 x 1.5 sq tube to weld the unit in the fixed open position for trasnportation....

Now I have 2 more to do .... lucky me!

 

[lexi]

Whatalottawork mate!...........Nice

Alex

 

[Drains]

How many man-hours on that Chris?
You must have some good kit for manipulating pieces like this. My back hurts just thinking about it!

Si

 

[Alex]

Anything is possible in America, got anything bigger?

Good work!

 

[WouldBWelder]

Great stuff - I was also going to ask how long from arrival of the grapple to despatch.

How often do we on here get to see real HEAVY plant being repaired - I've never seen it before ...

Keep up the great work.