I was impressed with the cleanup and quality of the weld. I was a ship-fitter and 3.10 weld inspector at General Dynamics Electric Boat Div. for about a decade. After having seen a number of welders on RU-vid it's nice to see someone who does quality work.
I’m a mechanic for the company that contracted those scrapers I actually saw you doing that the other day and had no idea who it was. Funny seeing this video haha
Don’t let customers run your business, if it’s going to get a better job done tell them to do what you need and in this case separate the machine. Your quality will depend on you doing the very best job. Your skills should not be compromised by lazy customers.
love seeing these "in the field" repairs in your content. Always great to see how a pro tackles something like this in less than optimal conditions and is still able to produce a quality result. Makes me realize i still got a lot of learning to do. .
Yessir!!! Always keep an open mind and stay humble. I've been at it 27 years and keep learning new tips and tricks that make my work more effective and efficient. Never stop learning and you will go far
Sometimes it is better to have some flex. When you overbuild the structure, you need to add reinforcement sometimes to prevent cracking. We had similar issues with some of our mining trucks and had to add gussets to the areas prone to cracking. The miners are very hard on the equipment.
@@davidbrennan5 Re-enforcing one area can lead to failure on another part. The design should incorporate all of that. Then prototype and In-the-Field production. We beefed up 'tag links' of Articulate Off Highway Truck suspension brackets that were failing in new trucks. The trucks had been modified by the customer to carry more then their designed load. At first, the truck suspension would not lift the truck when loaded by the shovel. (Too much muck in the body.) The OEM sent us relief valve cartridges of a higher value. (2800PSI rather than the 2300PSI spec.) That meant the truck suspension operated correctly. But the extra loading meant the suspension mounts started breaking off. We fitted re-enforcement. Then the frames failed. The OEM sent much meatier brackets to spread the loading over a lager area of the frames and axles. That cured the problems. The OEM adjusted their design decisions after that to cater for greedy customers and keep their sales figure up.
@@notorious647 Umm.. the checks that, umm found the, umm cracks, yes, that's it, the checks that found the cracks, and any other defects, you know looking with your eyes. hope this helps.
That was a smooth job sir. Bravo! You know that when a company is pulling off as soon as you're done, you know just how badly needed someone that knew what they were doing.
As a 17 year old who wants to work with my hands. I love these videos loads. I love learning something useful for me in school and seeing what i have actually done is so much more rewarding than just a piece of paper. Love the content!
This being my dream job, 3 months ago, i decided to quit my steel carpentry job, and start doing some welding repairs. I’m repairing a lot of rotators tow trucks. And car carrying trailers. Repaired my first excavator today! A CAT 320. And god it pays pretty well !! I really love doing this kind of stuff.
@@mitchweber7868 i don’t really know how it’s called in English, but it consists of building heavy things in steel, like bridges, or frames of some buildings, staircases is what i would call a small job. I used to work with 3-6 inches thick steel plates. But when i was an apprentice, i learned how to build smaller stuff like stainless steel fences, tables, or divers things in steel, stainless, and aluminium
Nice job on stitching it up. When I was building and repairing railroad cars back in the day, I used to use a air arc to cut all the welds out. I could chase a crack much more easily than a plasma cutter.
I weld oil storage tanks at tank farms, and the steel is about an inch and a half thick. I've always wanted to get into heavy equipment repair. it looks like you did a good job. 👍
Field expedient repairs are just that - a way to keep equipment working and making money. The real permanent repair is the shop job I see . All in all I really enjoy the whole process of problem solving solving each repair takes.
You seriously do great work. The one thing you can’t hide after a weld then grind is porosity. After you blend it all together it’s clearly smooth and without any pinholes or imperfections. Damn it looks good Greg.
Pretty interesting how you handled this one I’ve been a heavy equipment mechanic and I’ve always seen people cut big chunk of material out and put another piece of material in a weld it up but you can always see the patch I like how this was seamless looked great too
We used to weld repair Cat 777 rear diff casings where they cracked between the bolt holes. And big shovel buckets etc. Cat normally provide Weld Repair instructions for those critical jobs. I remember they were very hot on Weld Inclusions. They recommended that 'grinding stones/wheels' were avoided in final surface prep prior to welding. The little bits of abrasive get lodged in the surface and then form pockets deep in the weld which can cause failure. Even as the weld cools the inclusions can create micro-cracking. If the cracks join up over time and loading, the repair can fail. I notice you use a carbide- burr to clean out after the plasma cut but then change to a wheel to chip slag between runs. We used a needle gun to chip slag as part of Cat instruction. The needle gun also peens the new material and helps unload surface stress due to shrinkage of the weld. I can imagine the mechanic's emotional state when he saw the crack. That repair looked absolutely lovely when finished. And the Cat Paint in the rattle can goes on great. We use a lot of it too. Our lazy ass welders never consider the aesthetics of their work though. The mechanic has to paint over the welders work. And that is just not cricket. 😀
Funny when you said til they break it again. They may Crack it in another spot but not where your repair is. Fantastic vertical and overall 10/10 for quality and workmanship! Great to see someone still taking pride in their work !
I enjoyed seeing the area where the machines are working. It would good to tell us what the whole project is(mining, dam, etc.) You put an amazing amount of weld into that repair. You clearly have a lot of confidence in your welding skill. My experience (mainly from new machine building at CAT) welds fail from porosity and proper cleaning before, during, and after the welding. I've seen so many welds done on dirty metal. I appreciate your cleanup and painting to complete the job!!!!!!
Its solar or windmill nonsense. They're basically screwing the desert beyond belief with all that trash. Used to walk/hunt out there for miles and miles and not see a soul or a fence, and now theres a thousand graders absolutely raping the landscape and taking up all the space.
Watching you do this job makes me eager to get back to work in my own shop. My father passed away last year and left me his entire stock of tools and equipment, including a plasma cutter and very nice welder, among a great many other useful items. Some of these tools I remember him using while I was still in my single digits, and I'm near 50 now. As for your "office"... you couldn't ask for a finer work site. I am a retired heavy construction carpenter... some of my most favorite job sites were outside, weather be damned. Nice job partner. I'm gonna stick around a bit... prowl around your page a while. I'll try not to be too obnoxious. 😅
I am really looking forward to seeing how you do this one. I repaired a hole in the case of a skid loader using muggy weld. I know it sounds silly but the sticks I get from them were perfect.
@@FIGGY65 I used a piece of aluminum but yes I used Muggy to weld the aluminum and it turned out beautifully. I recommend highly. I found muggy from Branden Luft's video about it.
You are an ARTIST! The way you built that metal so perfectly, line after line, until it was the same level as the original metal was admirable. Then you scraped it down to match the original metal for painting. I am looking forward to future videos.
I loved doing repairs etc like this. Every day some new mess to figure out. Sometimes they became not only daunting but a huge challenge. The winter work added to whole process. I got where I would go to Georgia or Florida for 6 months lol and find work there. Quite a repair you did on this mess. 👍👍🔥👀👀
Nice job! I did a pan. I believe it was a Michigan many years ago. Big one around here. Had the same break. I did it with a torch and 7018 up welds. That was before I had plasma's and a wire feeder! Lol! Great job! Kent
Wow great job that is pure skill I sent my oldest son to tech school for 2 yrs learning a trade in welding but he never pursued it wished he had ! Instead works for a lumber & hardware store ! Lot of money wasted there trying to get him in a good trade !
Отличная работа!👍. Я сам работаю сварщиком и занимаюсь примерно такой же работой в России. Примите мои комплименты за ваш профессионализм! Привет из России, из Сибири!
Yeah, I never understood why is it the standard to grind down the welds to blend them. I think a good weld is a beauty to see. Unless they will be selling this machine and wanna hide the fact that there was a repair done.
I was shocked to see him begin to grind the weld but then the quality person in me realizes the true beauty of a good weld is to never have known it was welded. Amazing.
Did this kind of work for 50 years with operating Engineers local 370 and 302 Washington,Idaho Montana and Alaska love it when mechanics /Welders take pride in the repairs good looking repair.This breakage is caused by lack of haul road maintenance no motor grader or box blade to fill in chuck holes 40 miles per hour with100 ton takes it's toll on big iron.
Compadre, I am very pleased that in your truck you have all the tools and machines that solve your problems. And if you are like me a fan of tools and machines. You always think that you lack more Machines to be complete and totally self-sufficient
Nice job. Probably should have preheated it a bit for a stronger repair . Also get a needle gun for chipping out that slag. It does a perfect job. ( Former certified welder)
Haha ok, did not mean to nitpick. I used to work in a shop doing large structural pieces, and we never ever welded anything that was not preheated, and tested with a heat stick. The parts were for a nuclear power plant, and every weld was x-rayed. So you learned pretty quickly how to do perfect welds, or you no longer worked there... 😃
Preheat depends very much on plate thickness and carbon content in material. 1 inch doesn't usually need much unless working in cold conditions. I do welding repairs on oil platforms in the North Sea.
well may be today it might be how it is with you, back in the day, working under me, you weren't getting it done, you draw your two checks and you be gone. Operating engineers. we ran large dirt spreads, You don't see them anymore today, 666 dirt spreads, 30 or more at times. 57's, 30n or more, Now it's large, massive mining projects being done. union, Not everyone welds, and not everyone who can weld is trained in machining / line boring. The primary job of a filed mechanic, is to make sure the equipment is up and running, in other words, Keeping the operator in the seat through out the day. Lose sight of that, and the Project manager will fire everyone.
from someone who likes to play with a welder as a hobby, ( i use a Lincoln 350 MP) your work is amazing. I am more of a grinder than a welder. a grinder makes errors look good.
I ran a Wabco 353 single engine scraper for 4 years, in the iron mines of northern Minnesota, it was brand new back then. Might have the model number wrong. Never ran a scraper before. Forman's instructions was, "get in and get to work"!! that was it. I got pretty good at operating this giant. I did have a couple of close calls, I did spin it completely around on an icy road, that was fun.
I'm a beginning welder so there's lots I don't know: That's a pretty massive cast assembly but I wonder about the amount of heat you had to put into it. Did you have to pause along the way to let it cool at all? Did you use a temp gun to measure the temp or just experience?
That is a gross structural failure. Cat is not using the right alloys with high tensile strength, or could be a bad casting, or both. I am sure your weld is 10 times stronger than the base metal.
Everything has a service life. While yes, it is possible to design parts strong enough so it won't fatigue and crack, if you tried to do that on bigger trucks and machinery, it would get so big and heavy it would either collapse under its own weight, or be so expensive nobody could buy it. CAT predicts exactly how many service hours things should last, and I'm pretty sure if you ask them they'll tell you. It always tends to break on welds because the root of the weld is a huge stress concentration point. And without re-heat treating after a weld, that will forever more be a weak spot. So I'm not sure CATs guidance on this repair, I'm sure its fine, I can almost guarantee you, the weld probably isn't stronger than the part originally was. Maybe close, but it will fail again. Probably sooner. There are some newer patents from CAT which should move the root of the weld out of the load path on structure critical future parts. But you didn't hear that from me. Either way, not a gross design failure. It failed as intend, probably when predicted. Otherwise CAT would recall the part and fix their design like they've done on some many other parts.
@@crazy_mind-ox8if - The heart of good design is knowing the high stress points and doubling up on structural integrity of the weak point. It does not mean making the entire machine heavier but recognizing weak points (either by computer analysis or field reports) and improving it. It is a process that should be ironed out during product testing phase before the machine is put into production. I don't see such gross structural failures on reputable brands, like Komatsu or Liebherr, because they put their products through rigorous testing before selling them to customers.
@@NICK-uy3nl I'm telling you, I've talked to the design engineers on an almost weekly basis for a while now. Every other sentence is "but that would increase weight". I don't know where the push comes from, but I can almost guarantee you the crack was predicted in FEA, and is part of the regular service advisory for that machine. I work at a foundry that makes most of these parts, and I've seen what happens when parts fail sooner than expected. It takes a while to make a new design, so it might be 2 or 3 years, but when something actually fails when it shouldn't, customers get upset and they 911 a new part through the process. Currently doing that on some frame components for some of their dump trucks. Oh also, CAT does have a proving ground, and they test it for months if not years before anything gets put in production. Its not just komatsu and liebherr
@@crazy_mind-ox8if - Seems to me Cat safety margins are way below industry standards. That can come from either arrogance or ignorance. Maybe they need smarter engineers with modern tools for design and failure analysis to keep up with the competition.
THAT WAS SOME GREAT WELDING THEIR !!! THE WAY YOU FILLED IT IN WELDING LIKE THAT WAS SO COOL TO WATCH. COULD WATCH YOU WORK ALL DAY LOL LEGENDARY SUBSCRIBED 💯👍 👍👍👍👍👍THUMBS UP👍👍👍👍👍
I never knew plasma was this clean and powerful. I guess acetylene days are numbered, I’m sure it has its place but man 1-1/2 without the splatter and slag and blowback is really amazing.. they’re expensive but looks well worth the price. Great job.
Wow, this is the first time I've seen this channel, and the quality of your work is excellent, I did see the video before this, where you just bought a brand new welder to put on your truck, amazing work that you do, keep up the great work, Very Professional.
First i thought it was the steering mechanism that coused this crack , but after seeing the complete picture , i think it s the constant up and down hammering of the front (Motor) that couses this crack. Some welds in the upper part are from an earlier repair?
