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Working in Alaska pictures

alaskaforby4

Senior Member
Joined
Aug 3, 2010
Messages
536
Location
Alaska
Occupation
Owner Operator
Well I cleaned and cleaned and cleaned for about a month and she polished right up! We put a septic system in yesterday and I got to do its first working load.
She's a beaut!

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clintm

Senior Member
Joined
Jul 7, 2013
Messages
974
Location
charlotte nc
Occupation
trucking,concrete recycling,grading, demolition
every once in a while we get lucky and reminded why we live this crazy adventure
 

akpolaris

Active Member
Joined
Jul 18, 2011
Messages
38
Location
Seward, Ak
A buddy of mine went to that last Richie's brother auction in Wasilla a few months back and said good stuff was going cheap. Also Bristol Const is getting rid of some of their equipment as well.
 

weeder57

Active Member
Joined
Nov 9, 2015
Messages
27
Location
alaska
Occupation
A&P
This next RB auction is going to be good here, yard is already 2/3 full and we are months out. Lots of ok looking goodies down there. Last auction there was some killer deals, bank repo 2014 doosan 235lcr with 1000 hrs went for 75k. Absolute killer deal.
 

akpolaris

Active Member
Joined
Jul 18, 2011
Messages
38
Location
Seward, Ak
This next RB auction is going to be good here, yard is already 2/3 full and we are months out. Lots of ok looking goodies down there. Last auction there was some killer deals, bank repo 2014 doosan 235lcr with 1000 hrs went for 75k. Absolute killer deal.

Yea, the upside of the failing economy and departing oil company's.
 

alaskaforby4

Senior Member
Joined
Aug 3, 2010
Messages
536
Location
Alaska
Occupation
Owner Operator
We had a very dry summer which ended up creating some forest fires. By the time it was put out, over 7,000 acres and 50 homes burned. It was about 40 miles from where I live. We have never been called by the forest service to assist in fire lines. Usually it seems they use a D6 or greater for pushing in fire lines, so with my little JD 450 I knew I didn't have much of a chance. The whole fire was pretty much out when on a sunday night I got a call. They wanted us the next morning bright and early :) What had happened was 50-60 years ago old timers had pushed up windrows of stumps in various places and they had caught fire and were considered "hot spots" that could possibly re-ignite something. So we loaded up and headed down there, these fire fighters were the hardest working bunch let me tell ya. They had these old stump rows pulled apart with pick axes and shovels and were spraying water on the coals. They had been at it for days it was pretty impressive, all of them were just covered in soot, loaded with gear and FR jackets and pants just getting after it! Anyway, when we showed up and grabbed these stump piles and broke them up so they could spray them down, they were overjoyed! once the areas were cold they would come through and "rehab" the area by bringing in whatever brush was left and lay it over the area for re-growth.
They would then have a helicopter fly over with infrared and get a list of "hotspots" and we would load up and head to next area. So they had a Excavator and operator, Lowboy and myself as transport, they paid a little better than $300 per hour, 12 hr shifts that included 1 hr travel time, paid for fuel and meals and at end they filled everything up and did a post inspection for damage which they would have covered if there was any. We were at it for about a week. It was good duty!
After I got the government check I signed it back over to them for this years taxes. It was painful but also felt good to get that out of the way in a week:)

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alaskaforby4

Senior Member
Joined
Aug 3, 2010
Messages
536
Location
Alaska
Occupation
Owner Operator
Hope you can turn your neck, I changed the original 90*, saved it and re-uploaded and still wrong:beatsme
 

Mark13

Senior Member
Joined
Feb 28, 2013
Messages
272
Location
IL
Those are pretty cool pictures, you got lucky with that Pete! You did a nice job cleaning it up, it went from something I'd have walked right past to a truck I'd definitely drive. A 3406 and an 18spd is a great combination.

The forest fire deal sounds like it worked out pretty well for you and probably was a pretty neat change in work. I did spend way to long looking at the burned vehicle picture trying to figure out what kinda car or jeep it was only to realize I was thinking way to hard into it and it looks like the remains of a Polaris Sportsman.
 

alaskaforby4

Senior Member
Joined
Aug 3, 2010
Messages
536
Location
Alaska
Occupation
Owner Operator
Those are pretty cool pictures, you got lucky with that Pete! You did a nice job cleaning it up, it went from something I'd have walked right past to a truck I'd definitely drive. A 3406 and an 18spd is a great combination.

The forest fire deal sounds like it worked out pretty well for you and probably was a pretty neat change in work. I did spend way to long looking at the burned vehicle picture trying to figure out what kinda car or jeep it was only to realize I was thinking way to hard into it and it looks like the remains of a Polaris Sportsman.

Haha, yeah, the poor ol' 4-wheeler, its amazing the devastation that was left behind. Even now after people have rebuilt, the forest isnt very nice to look at. I guess in good time it will grow back.

That's a nice looking dump, great specs. for it too. You done good!

Thanks! I love that POR-15 paint, I have always used their black color and topcoated it most of the time. This round I used 2 coats of silver but didn't use the "topcoat".
I was out looking at the box yesterday and apparently the paint is highly sensitive to UV light and it is turning a nice yellow/green :throwup Live and Learn!
 

alaskaforby4

Senior Member
Joined
Aug 3, 2010
Messages
536
Location
Alaska
Occupation
Owner Operator
Ive often wondered my own motivation behind posting on this forum. As I greatly enjoy looking at everyone else's photos, I've thought it only fair to share my own experiences. Well just recently I've also found that it has become like a pretty neat picture journal of our progress as a company! Hopefully this forum will be around for a long time to come!

2016 was a very big year for us as we took on a very large debt and purchased a competing excavating company and large gravel pit. The ability to have screened gravel products on hand has greatly benefited us for both our own projects and bidding others. No crusher as of yet, but eventually. A local company started renting a larger excavator and dozer which helped with our decision to make this very large purchase as we now offer gravel delivery as well. It was a exciting year getting involved with MSHA, nothing like more paperwork! Thankfully it was a operating pit before hand so most everything was up to code. But they always find something!
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The place has been for sale for quite sometime and the owners kept it going with minimal maintenance. It has been a long year of repairs but I feel we are somewhat getting on top of it. The plants are old and cobbled together but they are still producing product and that is what counts!

The gravel screen is a Kolman triple screen, it is pretty slow but seems to match the feeding equipment and operator quite well.
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The topsoil screen is painfully slow and is due for lots of modifications this winter, the feeding hopper goes from 8'x6 down to about a 3'x18" and if the soil has any moisture at all it just clogs and then we have to poke at it for 20 minutes. I plan on rounding the corners and lining with UHMW to help with the sticking, maybe installing a vibrator. We shall see.
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The ol' Pete has just been awesome! Such a great truck and a pleasure to drive. In the sale we picked up 2 KW T600, a '89 and '91 model. I sold the '89 and the '91 is the main delivery truck. Is has airbags which I'm not too fond of on a dumptruck. but oh-well. It needs a lot of love this winter.
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alaskaforby4

Senior Member
Joined
Aug 3, 2010
Messages
536
Location
Alaska
Occupation
Owner Operator
Once we finally got the papers signed and started getting the pit ready for operation I wanted to do oil changes in everything. The 966 C Model loader is really the lifeblood of the pit. Its moved some serious yardage in its life and at the time was coming up on 27,000 hours. So we swapped oils in the ol' girl and put it back to work. Right directly after that it lost alot of its power, started blowing black smoke and wouldn't spin the tires going into the bank.
One of the guys then proceeded to empty the transmission oil pan and found these in the bottom :eek:

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After diagnosing the issue we found that the Turbo had failed, so we got another one of those but still had these undetermined bearing pieces that came out of the transmission. After putting nearly every last penny into this venture and being at the beginning of season with the weight restriction still on the road, getting another loader or transmission was financially impossible.
After talking with Cat we determined that it is probably one of two bearings in the transmission, either one at the top (which was more common) or one at the bottom, they quoted me around 3k to fix it with a warranty. So the process of pulling the motor & trans began.

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It took a week to get it repaired, in the meantime we used my old JD 644, while still a great machine, it definitely isn't up for the challenge of day to day Pit life. But it is a great fill-in loader and handles topsoil and the lighter tasks most excellent.
We got the repaired transmission back for the quoted price and re-installed it. Had to do another oil swap but she is good to go now. We ran it hard for the entire summer without another problem. I was quite impressed for 40 yr old machine with 27k hours to hold up like that, Cat did good on that one

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hvy 1ton

Senior Member
Joined
Jul 24, 2006
Messages
1,943
Location
Lawrence, KS
The Pete cleaned up nice. Gravel pit should be a good venture after you work the kinks out. Sucks that you had trouble with loader already. That topsoil screen looks like it would be aggravating to run.
 

alaskaforby4

Senior Member
Joined
Aug 3, 2010
Messages
536
Location
Alaska
Occupation
Owner Operator
The Pete cleaned up nice. Gravel pit should be a good venture after you work the kinks out. Sucks that you had trouble with loader already. That topsoil screen looks like it would be aggravating to run.

Thanks Hvy, yeah I am hoping it works out, worst we can do is fail :) The plant is actually pretty relaxing when its working good, I rarely got to run it but when I did it was pretty fun. The dryer the material the better, we ended up tarping everything after each use and that really helped. Here's I quick video I made this summer
https://youtu.be/O3egDulTj6Y
 

alaskaforby4

Senior Member
Joined
Aug 3, 2010
Messages
536
Location
Alaska
Occupation
Owner Operator
We did fire up the ol' Bucyrus Erie to load some coal out of our little "coal seam" Its super hard digging, no diamonds yet.:D We do find petrified logs though. Its always a treat seeing this old thing chug along


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diamondtguy

Senior Member
Joined
Feb 4, 2011
Messages
1,472
Location
Mapleridge..BC
Occupation
machine fitter/fabricator
Just read the whole thread...Good stuff.Alaska is a beautiful place and I plan on visiting it.Its on the list of places I am going to tour once the Grizzly truck is back on the road....
I like the no permit/inspector thing.I have just over two acres and the city wont give me a building permit to put up a 40x50 building.I live out in the country on ALR land.....go figure..
 
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