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Working the National 1300A

Natman

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I had them all set and was outa there, got a call that night, oops, 10 of them were backwards. Not a rare occurance, more so with some crews than others. Pick them up, swing them around 180 degrees, set them down. This may be the first time with bonus room trusses though. Foggy day.IMG_20231212_085844565.jpg
 

Natman

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After our first winter thaw, I had my muddiest job of the year yesterday. The picture doesn't do it justice. So muddy, on one end, the last truss (which was on the bottom of the stack) was balanced perfect, whereas the preceding trusses were not due to the vault on one end. My tag line weighed twice what it did when we started. Slippery mud, and it drizzled the entire time. I almost felt bad for the crew, almost. I did the whole job from the paved street, sitting in my heated cab, while listening to the sat radio, it was so muddy the crew had a good attitude, comically muddy. The 25 year old lead carpenter has a 85 K pickup he has to payoff.....

HVAC condensers at a local Wally World, nice level pavement, what a treat for a change.

The mountain subdivsion near my home, I hate to see it built up but I may as well make some money off it. 110 K for 2.5 acre lots. I took the dog that day, another dog on the job, that weighed about 125 lbs., wanted to get in the cab also, but that wouldn't have worked.
It's been a really winter so far, but I haven't had to chain up once.
 

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Natman

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I have an unusual job coming up next week, timewise that is. At a large chain grocery store, lifting big condensors that are for the frozen food bins I think. I off loaded them a few weeks ago. They want me to start at 9, PM! There's 3 of them, and we'll be doing 1 per night, lifiting the old one off, and new one on. Probably be wrapped up and back at my yard (1/2 hour drive away) by midnite. For a big HVAC outfit that covers several western states that like using me for some reason. I am struggling a bit as to what to charge..., I'm thinking time and a half, 1.5 my usual rate. Comments?
 

Natman

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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 shIMG_20240228_143439148.jpgIMG_20230703_174024401~2.jpg
 

Natman

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I was able get pointed in the right direction via a couple phone calls and tracked down the current owner, and he is salvaging the rig out, and once a new truck cab goes on it will be operational, so I can't scrounge any parts off it. So, I'm back to waiting to hear back on getting a rebuild kit.
 

crane operator

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It is possible that the problem is in the swing brake, not the pedal. But it won't take much to rebuild your pedal, likely just the orings. in that kit- be much cheaper at your hyd. shop.
 

John Griffin

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The rebuild kit is only $220.00, plus freight and tax of course, for what will most likely be a couple of O rings and a seal or two, what a deal! I am real tempted to take it out and down to my local hydraulic shop.
If you want to to you it yourself, McMaster carr has orings and seals by size. Here we get it next day if ordered before 4. Usually you'll at least end up with a bag of 5 or more orings so you may have some for next time. Hercules hydraulics also has a bunch of stuff by size.
 

Natman

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If I think I have a day or two with no work this week, I'll pull it and take it to my local shop, I'm lucky to have a good one in my town. I also have a coolant tank issue to deal with on the Mack, and will do that also.
 

Natman

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I pulled it today, and out of the three lines, just one had a very small dribble of fluid, so small I figured it was just the residual in the line itself, but just to be on the safe side I stuck in a 1 qt container while I ran across town to my hydraulic shop. The hyd. guy took one look at and said, just buy a new one, it's a Mico, get the number off the data plate. I had not noticed that it had one, as it was pretty dirty. On the way back across town I made a couple quick stops, got back to my town shop and saw the dribble had continued, and overflowed the qt. jar, of course. I grabbed another container, and cleaned up the data plate as best I could, without a brush handy, (now I remember I had a spare toothbrush in the car, carb cleaner and a rag didn't seem to help much) they were very hard to read but I gave it my best shot, now I'm told the numbers don't jive. The data plate is unseeable with it installed, and I needed to hook it back up to stop the dribble, like right now. I've contacted a couple of MICO distributors but am being told it's something they don't stock, and to order it would take up to 30 weeks. This all makes paying the $220.00 for the "official" National rebuild kit a bit more attractive, though I bet if I could find a entire new cylinder it would be around the same or less, and more to the point I would not have to take it all apart to install the rebuild kit, only then finding if I had the right parts or not, though that SHOULD be easy enough, you never know. I may take it off once more, to get at and remove the soft aluminum data plate and take it home and subject it to some FBI type forensic inspection, like they do on filed off serial numbers on guns. Once removed again, I could just cap all three lines leading to it, to solve the dribble issue, but I am unsure as to whether or not that'd be a good idea, anyone have thoughts on that?IMG_20240304_123641358.jpg
 

Natman

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Just after I posted this, I realized I could zoom in and eyeball that data plate better than I could see it before, something about the way the light hit it, but now it looks like : 06-4166-124, I had it down as 06-166-124.
 

DMiller

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Plug the lines, take it apart, if the barrel or piston is scored it is done regardless what kind of wamadyne kit you receive.
 
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crane operator

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There's two ways the pedal brakes work on the spring applied brake packs.

Some, the hydraulic goes through this pedal, then to the spring brake piston, pushing the spring brakes off. When you apply pedal, it dumps the hydraulic oil to tank, allowing the spring brakes to come on.

The other style, the pedal has its own piston that it controls separately of the spring brake pack, the pedal allows hydraulic flow into a separate piston applying the brake.

If its the first style, you will need to hook up two of the hoses and cap the third, in order to be able to swing. In the second, you could cap them all.

Without a hydraulic schematic or some pictures of your disassembled brake pack, I'm not going to guess how yours works.

Looking at your picture, the part # you need is the one DMiller posted 06-466-124. Not 06-4166-124 like you posted.
 

crane operator

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Maybe, and this one is a big maybe. There are valves that work each direction, this one looks like what you need, but I don't know for sure.

 

Natman

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I mis typed, agreed, it's 06-466-124, NOT 4166, my bad. I re-emailed MICO and anythingtruck.com (who I had already talked to earlier) and fessed up to giving them the wrong number, and should hear back from them tomorrow. That pic eyeballs at least exactly to what I have CO, thanks for that link, if worse comes to worse. My pedal assembly is fine of course, if I go that route I'll see if that seller can cut me a deal on a pedal less part. $89.22 sounds about right, double it, and add some more, to get it up to buying the same parts thru National! This all reminds me of the way my plane engine parts supplier works, an "official" Rotax 912s sparkplug cap is $54.00, or I can go down to my local motorsports shop and get one for less than $20.00. I just bought a new cam for it, the Rotax listed price is $2450.00, I got the same exact cam for $500.00 thru another source! I'll gamble the $89.00 and when it arrives I'll see if the cylinder is a rebuildable, or not. I've done old truck master cylinders before, like 40 years ago.
 
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