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Crawler Crane Components - Maintenance

fensoncont.

Senior Member
Joined
Jan 2, 2007
Messages
286
Location
Midwest
I was wondering what the most critical or expensive machine component would be on a crawler crane? What would be the rebuild or new cost to replace this component? In addition, for the guys involved with companies with cranes, how many hours on average are put on cranes per construction year?

Thanks
 

heavylift

Senior Member
Joined
Sep 5, 2009
Messages
1,046
Location
KS
Most expensive part.. the 2 dollar part that shut a job down.. like a broken throttle bracket.. down 3 hours while a mechanic drives to the jobsite and does the repairs. It took him about 30 minutes to remove ..weld and reinstall the bracket.
The bigger jobs I've been on the crawlers are almost for show it seems.. The hydraulic cranes are moving all the time. Granted the crawler may be holding a heavy load for an entire day. or reaching the almost unreachable.
I've seen cranes on jobs 24 / 7 for 6 months to a year.
lots of jobs just require a crane to be there. It may do a lift a day. or even set for the entire week. Really boring.
 

John C.

Senior Member
Joined
Jun 11, 2007
Messages
12,865
Location
Northwest
Occupation
Machinery & Equipment Appraiser
Shafts, gears, drive chains, brakes and clutches are all real spendy both in labor and parts. The juice rigs are bad on winches and booms. Electrical is a pain on all that run LMIs and fancy electronics. Hours is really not a good way to figure wear and tear on cranes. I've seen them sit and idle for days waiting for one pick. On the other hand I've seen drag lines run at 75% or more continuous engine output. It all depends on the application. I forgot to mention tracks. Flat pad units last a long time but are labor hogs when you have to change out the track pins.
 

cranetools

Member
Joined
Jul 17, 2009
Messages
19
Location
Pennsylvania
Occupation
Crane Service Engineer/Troubleshooter - Web master
One of the more expensive parts you might expect in perhaps a shorter time frame than you might hope for would be the undercarriage. What I mean is you may not do a lot of lifts but if you walk the crane many times in say sandy soils or some other type of ground conditions not good for this assembly then you are going to see a shorted life of the undercarriage. Compare this to a hoist set - if like the operators say they sit there or make only a few lifts a day.
I had a customer who did a lot of wind tower work and they had walked the crane a lot between tower sets. The undercarriage (track) went far sooner then anything else.
A full undercarriage rebuild on a Manitowoc 16000 (used a lot in wind work) can cost upwards of $80,000 USD
After the undercarriage any major rebuild to the hoist drums or other gearing involved can be quite costly. Replacing boom pieces cost a lot too so be safe!
It is hard to give it an exact cost amount since the extent of the rebuild would need to be considered
Many new cranes today keep hours for the system i.e. hoist run hours, swing gear run hours, boom hoist run hours, etc. by following the maintenance manual you can see the hours service should be performed on these systems. I recommend you follow these guidelines to avoid any costly repairs and oh yes - GOOD PROPER TRAINING OF THE OPERATORS & MAINTENANCE STAFF & SALES STAFF AS WELL can save hundreds of dollars and I am not counting downtime loss either.
 
Last edited:

Hoister

Active Member
Joined
Nov 7, 2010
Messages
43
Location
local 66
Occupation
Operating Engineer
Not really too much to add here. John C and Cranetools really said it all. The question I ask is are you thinking of purchasing a crawler? There are ups and downs to crawlers, but if your thinking of a conventional ( crawler ) vs full hydrualic truck crane or picker. The question really is how long is this crane going to sit in one spot for your work? If the answer is, not long, Id say dont go with a crawler. Because as was said above there is alot of wear and tear in walking these machines accessively. Also with conventionals, they never work harder in their service life than when lifting the booms off the ground. If one plans on doing this on a regular basis, also plan on changing alot of boom hoist cable, boom hoists, pendant lines, and sockets alike. Now Im not against a crawler, to me a crane is a crane, but there are better rigs for certain jobs.

Now Im not sure if I went the right direction here, Im just guessing that someone is looking to buy.
 
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