Need help sourcing air swivel

[Manistar]

I have a Grove tms300 that has started to leak air into the hydraulics through the swivel. I don't want to pull the whole swivel and have to mess with the wiring so I'd like to run a secondary swivel to isolate air from the hydraulics. I talked to "crane operator" about this in one of his threads and he thought maybe some link belts ran this set up. I have a Pettibone that ran this set up and it actually has two of these little air swivels one on top and one down below the main hydraulic swivel. As best I can tell they have like a 1/8" line run down though a 1/4" line. Does anyone know where I might be able to find a swivel set up like this?

Here are some pictures of the air swivel set up on my pettibone. It had the same electrical rotex as the tms300 that was removed a few years ago but it did all fit through the center once apon a time.

 

[Manistar]

This is the swivel on my tms300 and the mess of wires I'm trying to bring the airlines up through.



The closest thing I've found with a Google search is a cox hose reel dual swivel. It might work but I'd have to try weave two independent lines through the wiring.

 

[1693TA]

Ahhh, the joys of stacked slip ring connections.....

Could you send the existing swivel assembly to a hydraulic repair facility and have them make a new spool and machine your valve housing? I had a similar setup on an antenna assembly years ago where parts were long obsolete and they did a fine job opening up the bore of the rotating portion and grinding a new spool which was stationary mounted in my application. It looks like yours is also. It only carried 60psi lube oil pressure but worked as new once put back together.

 

[CraneMechanic73]

Curious the air swivel. How is it leaking air into hydraulics?

 

[Manistar]

The first set of pictures is the set up from a different crane we have and that's what I'd like to do with the tms300 that's having problems but I can't find the little air swivel. Currently the tms300 runs air through two of the ports on the main swivel along with the hydraulics but the seals have gone bad and now it's leaking air into one of the hydraulic ports.

Yes the right thing to do would be to undo all the wiring and pull the main swivel. Have it cleaned up/machined and replace the seals. Grove has a seal kit available it would just be how much internal damage there is on the swivel. According to "crane operator" moisture gets into those air ports and can cause damage making it a crap shoot as to weather or not you can get them to seal back up even with new seals. It's a 1975 crane and it just seems like it would be simpler to isolate the air to its own separate swivel but maybe I'm wrong. I kind of forgot we also have a manitex boom truck that has this secondary swivel for air. There's a cover on the rotex and then the air swivel comes through and sits on the top of that. So I'm not completely trying to reinvent the wheel, it has been done before on other cranes.

 

[CraneMechanic73]

Appreciate the run down. I guess you can run across something new everyday even on old school iron.

 

[Tugger2]

Anyone that sells parts for older conventional cranes will have air swivels . IPS or Gerhart Machinery to name a couple.You might have to get creative if you want 2 lines running thru them . Truck parts suppliers with a line on Wabco or Bendix might help you to. These days i have a few parts machines so i havent actually had to buy any swivels on my cranes for years. A machine shop might make something custom without a lot of trouble to.

 

[crane operator]

The two lines in a single stem that I have used, came originally from a 1982 or maybe 1979, HTC-50 linkbelt hydraulic truck crane. It looks just like what's in your pettibone.

In the link belts its around 36" long or so. Time to make nice with your link belt dealer parts man.

I think I had to mess around with years, some of them are longer from top to bottom than others.

I've got a few old link belt manual's, I'll see if I can come up with a part number.

 

[Manistar]

I wouldn't even know where a link-belt dealer would be around me but a couple years ago a salesman stopped by our shop. I had never heard of company but they're only an hour away and turns out they're a link belt dealer. I'll have to see if I can find his business card and give him a call. I know in today's world it hard to get very far with a parts guy without a VIN or parts number.