Komatsu 960E

Komatsu 960E haul truck

Hello there metal dragon boy. its your lucky day if you are still looking for information aout the komatsu 960E haul truck. i happen to be working in fort mcmurray alberta and was involved in the building of the 960E-2 seimens drive haul truck. i would be happy to answer any questions you may have about it if you like.

Hi!

Yes Im still very interested! I would like to know what payload class it has?

960e

it is being tested at 360 tons, but rumor has it it should be classed as a 400 ton but they cant find tires. but right now it is sitting up on blocks, no engine or wheel motors

Interesting! Would be very nice if they found the tires. Liebherr get them from somewhere so maybe they could take them from the same place?

What type of engine is going to move this baby? same as for the 930?

960e

the 930 is using the qsk60 cummins the 960 is using the qsk78. the engine has 12 bloody turbos on top of it

Didnt Komatsu have the QSK78 in the 930 to? I made a paper on some of the Komatsu equipment for school and in the brocheur of the 930 it said it was avaible with the QSK78. They may have changed it now.

960e

the 930SE model is the one available with the qsk 78.

aha I see! now I follow! Has the 960 been in work for long before it got dismanteled agian? Is it about to be shipped back or is it just waiting for repairs?

960e

no its been sitting in our yard since september with no wheel motors, 2 failed within 50 hours of eachother. so there redesigning them before they send them back. then this spring the 960 that is working down south in arizona, the 960E-1 blew the engine so the only one they could find was the one out of the dash 2 we built. i dont think it worked more that a thousand hours before the wheel motors failed

Welcome to HEF Dieseldork! :drinkup

Dieseldork, is the Siemens drive the same as the one used in the T282B?

Welcome to HEF LuNaTIcFrEAk! :drinkup

Does anyone have further information on the Komatsu 960E. The Last post was from June 2007. Is it up and running?

It runs..... but barely!

OilPatch said:

It runs..... but barely!

Click to expand...

I'd be interested in hearing what is wrong with it. I was talking to one of the guys who have been running it, and he said it's doing pretty good since they got it back up a little while ago.

Brian

Well... Being a prototype, Komatsu won't allow our mechanics to work on it and Transwest has to come out on a service call on night shifts because they are not on site. If the thing gets any error codes, which it does quite a bit, we have to park it and call Transwest(the Komatsu Dealer).

Error codes can range from overloads(430t) to ground faults and brake stroke errors... all of which are easy resets, but neither our mechanics or us can are allowed to reset them.

As for the truck opperationally, the box is wider than the rear wheel width which makes the thing quite a ride in a soft pit or a mud dump and feels dangerously tippy.... Imagine the box vs. wheels on a 97 but instead of the wheels being wider than the box it's the other way 'round on the 960.

It essentially has the exact suspension as a 930 I'm told, but it has a heavier oil, maybe? correct me if I'm wrong there

There are more issues I can get into too, but I'll skip it for now. The bottom line though is that this could possibly be a decent coal or hard rock truck, but it should stay out of the oilsands.

Thanks for the reply. I know Randy did mention the ride was like a 930E but exaggerated. He mentioned there had been....ummm....trouble with the engine....yeah, that's how I'll describe it.........since they put it back to work after the wheel motor issues and sitting for all that time. He didn't say anything about the error codes, or that only Transwest could touch it. I guess that makes sense being a prototype and all.

It's amazing how they don't have a service crew working in the shop to call out if they want to keep anybody's business. I know we aren't buying anything but Cat trucks from what our management has said, and you guys are getting the big batch of 797s coming up.

Have you heard anything about the Terex MT6300AC prototype working up at Aurora?

Brian

Not yet.... But I do know that Base Mine and Aurora fought over who had to take it, haha

Aurora has nothing but Cat trucks now since they sent all the electrics down the highway, and they didn't want another electric showing up because they basically had to cable an 11 onto the 282's to get em out of the pit and on to the dumps.

Base mine didn't wan't it because they had to give the 97's to Aurora and take their electrics (there are only 2 97's left at base mine now) and they didn't want any more headaches.

Someone at Terex should have taken notice of this and went back to the drawing board to add a driveshaft.

These companys test everything here because it's the harshest environment that these ultra class trucks face.... but it's just no place for an electic truck. Albian and Aurora run 97's and nothing else for a reason

Hahahaha, actually, there was no fight over who was going to get it. It was destined to go to Aurora since Terex wanted to test it in the softer conditions.

The reason the T282Bs came back to Base was more along the lines of not having to duplicate all of the tooling to repair them. Not much sense having to buy twice as much gear and train twice as many mechanics to fix them. Since we already had all the tools and trained guys, it made more sense to send them back down to us. That plus Aurora only wants 797s anyhow, and they are the spoiled child of the company. It wasn't so much of an issue to keep them moving on the dumps as keeping them moving in general (since they break down steady). They are shop queens, no two ways about it. I'm amazed the management has actually wised up and said there will be no more Liebherrs at all. I know they are somewhat unhappy about the availability figures. We were guaranteed somewhere around 20 to 25% higher availability than we are currently getting.

I know we are supposed to be getting 12 more 797Bs later this year and into next. There are 8 more going to Aurora, but talk of more yet to come. We kept the two 797s so we had trucks for packing on structures without having to hire in North African. I've heard rumours we will be getting rid of the T282Bs, but I think it's more likely we will keep towing them to the shop....errrrr......I mean running them.

Brian

I'm glad you cleared that up... I only get to hear it from opperations side, and that story made sense to me.

The tooling and spoiled child do make more sense though

But, man, this 960 is something else... I mean it when I say the truck goes down for hours waiting for transwest when it gets an overload

And I still stand by my call for a ban on electric drive trucks up here!

By the way, we have a prototype 797F on our side of the highway now too