powerfab 1200 XD digger

[KimB]

Had an idea that if I tacked some chunky box section to where I need to drill so I could stick the drill to it, like a spacer. But apparently you need about 10mm of steel for a good magnetic hold?
Might try later as I could do with the mag drill to core out the hole for the new tube once the new steels in

Try the box section in a vice and mag drill to that. See if it holds it well. If it’s chunky enough it should hold it.

 

[dieselsamurai]

Try the box section in a vice and mag drill to that. See if it holds it well. If it’s chunky enough it should hold it.

I think if its 6mm+ box section the mag drill would hang off it fine

 

[HughF]

Yeay, powerfab.... Love my 125wt.

 

[chrisg3103]

Yeay, powerfab.... Love my 125wt.

Got one of those too, very handy machine, kick started this torred affair. Currently in many bits awaiting major overhaul.

Towed home as its designers intended too, even had the original trailer board attachment.

As for this one, tube bored for 3032 DU bushes. Had them spare as ordered wrong ones for the King post to boom pin, handy.
Now I need to see if welding the tube in will distort the nicely bored holes..


Also had a play with the mag drill, it will hold itself on 3mm plate at about 45 degrees without falling off, can still shuffle it with a bit of force but a decent grip for 3mm. The box I have for the repair is 4mm, same as boom. Sure it will be fine.

Also tested the loss of magnetic adhesion shutdown, it doesn't magnet needs to be on to start the drill but will start up on a concrete floor no bother. If it comes unstuck and the magnets still powered it ain't stopping

 

[HughF]

I think I have a good entry for the 'weirdest looking combination spotted in the motorway services' competition.

Towed mine all the way down the m5 from Birmingham back to frome.

 

[chrisg3103]

See you did it properly, I stripped off all the easy bits and put them in the boot. Boom kept dropping as well so had to stop every now and again, start it up still attached to the car and raise it back up think they came with a kind of tube clamp that went over the piston rod to stop it retracting?

 

[HughF]

See you did it properly, I stripped off all the easy bits and put them in the boot. Boom kept dropping as well so had to stop every now and again, start it up still attached to the car and raise it back up think they came with a kind of tube clamp that went over the piston rod to stop it retracting?

Mine was missing that tube thing so I made something similar from looking at photos on the oily hands page.

Mine has a little slop in the drawbar pivot bushes so she tends to tow a bit wobbly above 50mph

 

[vw-al]

Good job you’re doing there Chris, I have a powerfab too. When set up for towing, mine has a slide out section from the front stabiliser leg with a hook the the bucket attaches to to lock the boom. Mine has a leak from the 5 lever mono lock valve, do you or HughF have any idea what type of seals are in there, where to get them and how easy they are to change?

 

[chrisg3103]

Do you have any pictures of your boom locking arrangement? Sounds interesting. I have not had any of the spool blocks apart so no idea what type or make of seals, from this machine all the hydraulics seem to be bosch rexroth though.

So got old of some 100 x 50 x 4 box to chop up and weld to the boom. In hindsight 4mm plate would of been so much easier, but that wasn't free when I cut the bits of box section the plates sprang into a curve! Little bit of bending in the vice and was fine but a bit annoying, then by the time I had ground out some relief for the weld it was pretty much just a bit of plate.


Not bad, getting stiffener plates on top anyway.

Then had to drill the hole, 50mm is an odd size for a hole saw, standard is 51mm. Ended up with an amazon special for £8 didn't think it would manage 1 cut, was surprisingly ok!
Spaced mag drill with a cutting of the box, tacked it to the boom, drill stuck fine on 4mm.

Not enough reach to get the other side so removed box spacer and lined it back up with the new hole.

Drill wasn't too happy with the big cutter but went better than I expected. So much so the hole was slightly undersized! Managed to get the tube in with a number three thor.. precision


Quite pleased with how it went.

On to draw up a new stiffener plate for the end, made it so it overlaps the but weld. Then to the mpcnc, I am quite liking this thing now its stopped ruining parts.


Thought it would be a good idea to leave a big gap around the tube to fill with weld, get a good grip on it and all that.


Probably not such a good idea! Had slag issues and took a lot of mucking about to get a half decent result, and a lot of spatter! Foolishly didn't protect the bores but the spatter cleaned off ok

After a clean up


As I half expected the bores have closed up 0.2mm so I am in need of an H14 adjustable reamer I believe (36mm hole) found a set, just signed up to chronos's news letter to see if they send out introductory discount codes
End cap is cut and sort of bent, just ran out of time yesterday

 

[Agroshield]

As I half expected the bores have closed up 0.2mm

You might be able to rig it up on the cross-slide of the lathe and bore it with a between centres bar.

The reduced diameter in the centre of the tube will make it a challenge to ream - check the adjuster on the adjustable reamer will enter it.

How good is the reduced diameter centre part of the bore? If you can get a lump of something in there, it offers the facility to guide a piloted flycutter or something similar.

 

[chrisg3103]

Not much chance of getting this on the lathe, its probably heavier than me!
The reduced center is only 1.5mm, 3mm over all. If it doesn't fit I'll figure something...

Got me thinking on this now, pretty sure i made the center part 33mm to give the grease a chance to get around the pin, which is 32mm. The H14 reamer will do from 34.1325 - 38.1mm, so its a possibility the adjuster may well be 34mm...
But i was looking at getting a whole set - https://www.chronos.ltd.uk/product/soba-adjustable-hand-reamer-set-of-11-15-32-1-1-2/ i can get the H14 for about £35 or for a bit more a set with a wooden box. So i should have a reamer in there that can enlarge the center section enough to fit the H14 if there are clearance issues, and its an even better excuse to why i need a full set rather than one...

And failing that i make custom bronze bushes to fit the new bore size and ream them to 32mm once fitted, rather not though

 

[chrisg3103]

Well these arrived today


New and oily, lovely. Welded on the end cap and reamed the tube back to size, not very easy with the stepped bore but managed. Fitted the bushes and tested with the pin I made for the King post.

Tight as a tight thing! In a good way, fired in some grease and its all good, quite happy with it, look better with a spot of paint though..



Never moved the grease nipple as the construction of the arm made it very difficult, obviously not impossible to get too, seeing as how much grease was in the tube!

Also got a cheap set of carbide burrs for my dremel type tool and attacked the King post bushes.

They put up a good fight.
So boom just needs lower bushes fitted then clean and paint. Need to find some Hardy black paint

 

[chrisg3103]

not much happening at the moment, acquired a wacker and have spent a little bit of time trying to get that going, not having much luck with the carb so awaiting parts arriving. Garage needed sorted as i kept loosing things but got fed up with tidying, so i had a go at a nice little bit, the bucket linkage


fits in the vice and no risk of hernias, nice. pins a bit sloppy so had a looksee with a wire brush and found it actually has bushes, wafer thin and couldn't find the split so attacked it with the burr

went a little bit into the meat but popped them out easy, until this one.

so rusted and worn i wasnt sure if there was any bush there, couldn't feel a step in the bore so it got the burr treatment.

razor thin, just in the nick of time


Again DU bushes, this time they are 2530. same bushes in the dipper so thats 8 on order.


fftopic: But more importantly! had the news i have been waiting years to hear, planning for my dream workshop was approved! although don't call it a workshop, council don't like the word workshop, its just a big garage Only a cropped bit of the plans, but where i am currently working out of on the right, new garage on the left.

The reason we bought this house 6 years ago, been building up plant and machinery in those years to do it myself, hence this digger plus other bits of kit.
15m x 6.5m with water and sewer connection, linked to the house and as insulated as i can make it. Cant wait to get started but realistically will be next year before the garage is flattened as there is a lot of other work needing done.
Will start a build once i get going as there are a lot of knowledgeable folk on here and im not a builder

 

[chrisg3103]

Not much of a progress update but a few thoughts, stripped the hoses and measured up for new ones, all good but measuring the duff boom cylinder again its thrown up a conundrum.

closed centers the original is 565mm about 22.25 inches, stroke 380mm or 15 inches, its defiantly an imperial cylinder. So i was going to go for a 400mm stroke cylinder but the closed centers are 600mm, and this will mean less lift on the boom, more digging depth. Not too fussed about depth but lack of height could be annoying, so next best is a 350mm stroke at 550mm centers. any thoughts?
Not be ordering anything tonight anyway, flowfits website has gone a bit mad.



here is a picture of some capped ports anyway, paints arrived so its time to get tarting up, not going too fancy, just tidier and less rusty. And that brings me to something i could do with some help on, the only thing denoting this thing as a 1200XD are some mangled stickers on its sides, i would like to get them remade so it has some sort of identification.

Dont suppose anyone reading this is a graphics wizard and can do some jiggery pokery to try and recreate these stickers so i can get them printed? Will also need some imagination, as the W is missing and i suspect its a bit different to the rest of the font.

If you have a looksee at the powerfab logo cast into the counterweight its got a funky W, also has a bar cast through the other letters but thats defiantly not in the stickers. Cant find a picture of another 1200XD to reference, except this tiny one pointing the wrong way.....

Lifted from oilyhands website, shows a big orange W, maybe the printing technology wasnt up to much back then and the W was a separate sticker missing from both sides anyway.
If anyone can help or point me in the direction of someone it would be appreciated

 

[dieselsamurai]

closed centers the original is 565mm about 22.25 inches, stroke 380mm or 15 inches, its defiantly an imperial cylinder. So i was going to go for a 400mm stroke cylinder but the closed centers are 600mm, and this will mean less lift on the boom, more digging depth. Not too fussed about depth but lack of height could be annoying, so next best is a 350mm stroke at 550mm centers. any thoughts?

On mine there are 2 positions for the pin at the bottom of the ram on the kingpost one for max height and one for max digging depth maybe you could do something like that ? I'll take a picture tomorrow if you want

 

[chrisg3103]

Cheers, mine has that option for the slew cylinder but not enough meat to make an alternative boom cylinder pin hole. if the weather holds out today i will be sorting the king post and getting some paint on it so will post a picture later

 

[chrisg3103]

Well the weather was pretty mince for garden degreasing, so i pulled off the dozer blade. Grease fittings were full of mud so dosed it with gunk and left the rain to rinse it off, maybe get the pressure washer on it tomorrow if we get a break in the weather.

So thought I would do some fun stuff. Bit of lathe work to start making the new pins, turned out a complete bugger!
So need many 25mm pins, bought a length of 1/2 inch en16, so just need to cut a bit and take about 0.3mm off. But I cannot get a decent surface finish, don't know if its the material or the small diameter and longish length, even with a center.
But better than the rusted mess that came out I suppose, finally cut out a test retaining plate on the plasma. Turns out it cuts outside dimensions ok, holes were 1mm undersized
I'll adjust tomorrow..

Also fitted new bushes and grease nipples to the bucket linkage, primed and painted with black tractol, really unimpressed! Over 24 hours after top coat its still soft and tacky, was nice and shiny till I started working with it. Hate to say it but hammerite is looking more favourable, at least it dries

 

[chrisg3103]

few more jobs done to digger, started with removing the hand rail type thing from the front, was annoying me that i couldnt get the bolts out so they got drilled. M12 button head bolts may look nice when new but they are useless once corroded in for 30 years or so!


Some glowing nuts, this particular one took 5 attempts..

And they are off, can now see hoses better, didnt like what i saw



third hose from the left, looks a bit pinched in the rotary coupler, so investigated.

Thankfully the order i put in for new hoses had not shipped yet so managed to phone up and get a replacement bundled in as well. Next job was to get the plate off that held all the bulkhead fittings, again, button heads..




So they got drilled out as well, studs came out pretty easy once welded, although after the first one set the oily crud on fire i made sure to shield the nastyness from stray spatter

While i had the welder out and was on a roll removing broken bolts i had a go at one of the old floor plate bolts.



Would not spark up, had to start on the nut and move to the center, bit odd, then i found out why..

Cant weld stones was a very rusty looking stone in my defense and i did look like a sheared bolt before i welded it

Then attacked the lower half with a wire wheel and made a hell of a mess, dust everywhere. Then got a coat of primer

started to clean up the orange bit but the paint was really thick and manky, eveyrthing was getting covered so will leave that till i can get it outside again.

Rollered on some of the black tractol, no idea what happened to the bucket linkage but it dried hard as a rock this time, new king pin cut and faced, awaiting a plate being cut.

 

[chrisg3103]

While watching paint dry i got to tinkering with the panels and lack there off on the machine, it came with one panel that held the control lever gaiters but the other was totaly missing. Also the one i had used square gaiters, no idea where to get those from, so hit upon the idea of making new panels with round holes and use univeral cv boots.

cut some bits of pipe, same sort of size as the original, 75mm

Measured up designed and cut some panels, although forgot to attach the earth to the sheet first time.

made it pretty far on the pilot arc before the nozzle totally melted



it happens more than i would like the admit

New and old, ignore the positions of the levers, new ones are needed




welded, drilled bolted and booted. new levers will need a 20mm collar or something but thats fine.
needed to make a plate for the king pin, its about 6mm thick and i didnt have any plate, was thinking on doubling up 3mm but was a bit of a faff, then thought why not use the ridiculously over engineered seat plate?
all this plate does is hold the seat, its 6mm plate with a 6mm stiffener plate in the middle! dont know what size of folk they thought would be using this machine but 12mm of steel is a bit overkill for holding a seat. plus its really heavy and heavily pitted over the years, looks awful, so ill make a new one out of 3mm plate and use the old one for stock.



Not cut this thickness before so did a little test hole, thought it as ok but i needed a longer pierce time and slower travel, did work, but a huge chamfer and a lot of dross.

tapped out and cleaned up ok



Can sort of see the chamfer in the elongated hole, just needed a bit of a clean up with a burr

New and old, new pin greased up.

King post cleaned and painted. beginning to look like a digger again

 

[chrisg3103]

So king post back on, dozer blade is off getting a clean up and old grease cleaned out if it. Actually not bad, don't think I need new bushes.

Hose plate back on, hoses re routed and protected with spiral wrap where they go over metal bits. Fun fact with the hoses, I ordered the wrong fittings! Sure I measured both ends but must of got mixed up somewhere as they are not both 1/4 BSP, and M14 looks awfully like 1/4 BSP
So cylinders are 1/4 BSP, machine side is M14. Found hydraulic adapters so they are not a lost cause.

Started on the boom after, one of the hose clamp plates had a sheared bolt. Cheap enough to replace so just chopped it off and welded a new one in.

It was about this point something very rare happened in Scotland, the weather got really nice... So much so I took pity on my neighbours and left the wire wheel alone. I can clean the rust off in a few days when it's grey and overcast again

So embarked on an inside job, sorting the control panel type thing, the only thing half working on it was the ignition switch. The hour meter died at 33687 hours!

So stripped out the broken rubbish and seen what I had to play with.


Measured up and cut out a new plate for the dials and stuff.

And forgot the earth clamp again...

Second time lucky, didn't think I would fit 3 dials in but I managed, got a new ignition switch that has a separate glow plug heat function, very handy. Need a new hour meter and provided I can weld it into the old housing without destroying it I think it will work quite well