Last night, working on my night job, it took me a bit to figure out what was going on, my first thought was my rotation bearing had ate it, as it was hard to swing, but not too bad, so I blew it off, got the job done and was home by 1:00 AM. Today, setting trusses in a good wind, on a 2 story duplex with FINISHED exterior walls (pre finished foam/stucco panels, the last time I worked on a building like that was for the same guy) I got as better handle on what was happening. The rotation bearing is fine, as is the brake, but the foot pedal itself, instead of having a little freeplay and then progressively less give, just like a car brake, was rock hard. So if I depressed it, it'd stay depressed, but if I hooked my toe around the backside and pulled it'd release the brake as normal. It acted like the pedal hinge itself was binding up, so I sprayed some lube on it in between lifts, no change. Now my thinking is it's the seals in the cylinder itself, that the foot pedal actuates. I finished the job by not touching the pedal, just using right swing to cancel out the left swing, or vice versa, a bit tricky and more work in that wind but it worked. When I hit the switch that shuts the pilot controls off, as usual eveything locks up just fine.
I am waiting to hear back on the price and availability of the a rebuild kit, I have the proper part #/ and parts book, but meanwhile remembered seeing a burned up National 1400 series boom truck in a town about 80 miles away last summer, at what looked like a salvage yard or a tow service. I managed to find the pciture I took of it, zoomed in, googled the logo I found, got a phone number, and called them.
Turns out, he was driving the interstate in July 2019, it was hot, and blew a front tire, he had steel wheels, and the sparks caused a several hundred acre brush fire and somehow got the crane on fire, and it only had 4000 hours on it, and it's a 2007, same year as mine. I then googled Earthed that part of town, trying to nail down where I saw it, but the Earth pic was dated 1985..., but I have enough clues to make some phone calls tomorrow morning and see if I can locate the business I saw it parked at, and IF they are selling parts, if so I'll take the whole pedal assembly, and a couple hundred dollar bills (as high as I'd go, maybe 1 hundred and 2 fifties would be better) it'd take about 3 minutes to pull. If I can't track it down by phone, I'll drive there, even though it may be a waste of time and gas, I don't like the looks of mine (rusty), the donor rig, maybe. I sh