Wabco scrapers at work

[weaknees]

Hi Jim,
You are welcome anytime, we can accomodate you if you wish. Bring one of those 252FT's and join the party!

I have been flat out on two jobs in the 101G's, and my welder broke his collarbone riding bikes and is out of action for 6 weeks - so just ticking away at them. Brakes and transmission control systems being stripped and rebuilt at present.

-Steve

 

[BigfootBushy]

They were part of a great fleet of 777 cat trucks, a 100 tonne DeMag excavator, several smaller excavators, and D10 dozer privately owned doing a real estate subdivision, at Zilzie bay. They seemed to be working in sulphuric acid sand and rock..

G'day Weakness, man do you have some restoration to do.

The company I work for has done the civil work on that subdivision each stage after the bulk earthworks were completed. I have worked beside those old girls with a 672CH JD grader trying to keep up with the amount of rock they were bringing in.

They were totally abused, which is how all the gear owned by Zilzie Bay is treated. Run till dead, patch up on the cheap and run till dead again. The one not running died about 4years ago and thats when the two NTC400's were sat infront of it. Because the second one was still being flogged, the parts were slowly robbed from the dead machine. There was never much protection from the salt air on those new motors so I hope they are not too corroded. I believe about 5years ago the elevator chains were modified with I think Cat D3 chains. The elevator drives were destroyed on the one you have running and replaced via the dead one. Lost track of how many times the generators needed repairs. When running they were expected to load mud stone, acid sulfate sand and dune sand.

Not trying to depress you but I honestly thought when they left Zilzie the scrap yard was the only destination for them. Working beside the fleet on that site is a very depressing experience for a plant enthusiast.

Good luck, It will be great to see both treated as special rather than lumps of metal.

 

[weaknees]

Hi BigfootBushy,

Great to hear some more info on the 353FT's history, disturbing, but it is as I figured from the evidence in front of me - and somewhat different to the memories of the owner..

Scrapers always seem to get rough handling unless they are owner-operated.

I guessed most of what you said, but I probably still paid too much, I can't help but add to an abused machine its potential value once I have fixed it up. But I didn't want to miss the chance on these, I think they are the last ones I could get, and I wanted two, not one.

Time will tell if it was a good business move, but operating those twin detroits is certainly an experience!

I would appreciate hearing anything else that comes to mind (or any pictures), as I am trying to get a timeline of the slow destruction of the machines, particularly trying to track down the missing elevator gearboxes - even if they are only cases and bits, that is better than nothing.

-Steve

 

[Shaunrh]

Elevator gearboxes

Weaknees,
There is a company here in West Aust that had a few 353FT`s and they were wrecked and the bowls put behind 651 prime movers.I will give them a call when I get home in a few days and see if they have the gearboxes still and any other parts that they want to part with.

Shaun

 

[alan627b]

Here's who Shaun is talking about...
http://www.piacentini.com.au/

 

[BigfootBushy]

Weaknees,
When I can i will have a yarn with a bloke that had a lot to do with driving and patching the old girls. He might know where the gearboxes ended up. Seem to remember hearing that they were sent away for repair but the cost was more than they wanted to pay.

I never got any photos of the scrapers working unfortunately. Had to get the one running to pull the grader out of the swamp on occasion. Didn't seem to matter how deep I was bogged, the old girl would pull it out at idle.

Looking forward to seeing you get them both back up to speed.

Have a good one
Ty

 

[weaknees]

Thanks Shaun, that would be great. Looks like the 222H had the same gearbox and electric motor - that may help.
Progress - New rear bonnet finished - see pics, and transmission control panel now working.

 

[Jim Irwin]

Good to see the progress on the big white girls, where are you located Steve?
Love to come up and look them over.

How long would it take to drive up from Melbourne?

cheers

 

[weaknees]

Hi Jim,
Gunnedah, NSW. Takes me about 12 hours with shared driving to visit my daughter in St Kilda. I had you being a Queenslander, don't know why. Do you know Graeme Twigg? He has a heap of small Wabcos, and a couple of large Terex's.
-Steve

 

[mockman]

101f

The 101F certainly looks like it would roll over in a strong breeze..but in fact it is a pretty stable machine with a low centre of gravity..more stable than a 613A which it could noticeably outperform when they were working side by side (admittedly a slightly smaller bowl and about 10 more h.p. if I remember rightly).
Would never say it was a pleasure to operate though.

Those things would flat out blow the doors off a 613, ran mine alongside a pair of them, uphill they would go by you like you were standing still. They had a clark transmission with a lockup convertor. Had a new 615 rented, it would stay with them with the ride axle down.

 

[weaknees]

Bonnet fitting to rear of Wabco 353FT, control panel rebuilt with Load 1 now working great - 30 seconds to load in hard grey clay, cutting 400mm deep 4m wide in one bite, awesome to watch.

 

[Jim Irwin]

Steve,
What an awesome machine, the cockpit looks to be in reasonable shape, good to get Load 1 operating. What a monster!! Cant wait for more photos. I will have to make it a day and a half trip!!!

 

[CatMatt]

Gunnedah

I think ima going to have to make a trip up to gunnedah hehe :drinkup

 

[DPete]

Nice job on the hood, any chance of a video of it loading?

 

[Shaunrh]

353 FT Elevator gearboxes.

Steve,
No luck just yet but I will keep looking for you till I find you some.The man I need to talk to at Piacentini`s is on holidays so I will look elsewhere.
Great to hear you have got the trans control working.It will be a different machine to work with now.
Will keep you posted.

Shaun

 

[Gord229]

Steve
Great to see the sucesses you are having in resurrecting the 353's. What was the problem with the load switch mechanism?
You were right earlier on about the elevator motor being the same as the 222H, both are 7N6 but I am not sure about gearboxes.
Love your VPower C'Pull elevator! You did a remarkable job to get it going. Do you know much of its history?
As you know my project is an open bowl VPower C'Pull which I never seem to get enough time to work on. I did have it on show last year at the Snowy Mountains 60th anniversary celebration in Berridale and again at the Cooma Motorfest. At least I have it running now after overhauling the engine, generator and clutch.
Must come to Gunnedah to see your beauties in real life!
Cheers
Gordon

 

[Shaunrh]

353FT Elevator motors.

Steve,
Have just found out that as Gordon said in a previous post that the motors are the same as a 222H but that is where it changes.The drive pinion for the 353FT is 11 tooth and the 222H is 13 tooth.What I need now is a part number for the motor and part number for the gearbox.In the meantime the search continues.

Shaun

 

[Ring-in]

control panel rebuilt with Load 1 now working great - 30 seconds to load in hard grey clay, cutting 400mm deep 4m wide in one bite, awesome to watch.

Steve
Well done to you on getting the loading panel working again and I must say the cabin control panel looks in real good shape.I knew from looking at the earlier video that you would be impressed with the increased loading performance once the panel was sorted out,a night and day difference you might say.From my experience you should now have enough grunt to tackle all but the hardest of hard stuff with relative ease and make it to the stock pile and back to the cut in record time
If you have the time I would also be interested in seeing a bit more video from inside the cab loading,this time around it should be alot easier for you to not stall out the motors.Cheers.

 

[Shaunrh]

Elevator gearboxes

Steve,
Have found 2 elevator gearboxes here in Western Australia.Piacentini have them and will rebuild them if required before sale.However they do not have the drive motors.

Shaun

 

[weaknees]

Wow, that is great news Shaun. I have two brand new motors, and two rebuilt ones, so that is no problem. I am excited enough to get a cummins into the shed and start setting it up for fitting!
Thanks for your detective work!
-Steve