Stephen replaced the old defunct Engine Stop knob on the dumper truck with a shiny new one!
Dumper-New-Stop-Handle
It was a relatively simple job and took about 30 minutes.
It is lovely now and really easy to stop the dumper truck – Thank Goodness!
Our old dumper truck wouldn’t stop when the stop button was pulled – a real ironic case of a Stop button causing a Stoppage!
Dumper-Stop-Handle-It-should-pull
Dumper-Stop-lever-on-engine
The cable from the spring loaded pull knob had come adrift. The cable is very similar to any brake cable found on bicycles and any vehicles, which is connected to the cylinder head of the diesel engine to open a gate valve to disrupt the compression chamber’s integrity so the fuel cannot be pressurised, and cause the next explosion to drive the piston down again, thus stopping the cycle of the engine.
We will have to surf the net for a spare part, hopefully we can find someone who has a new bit, or else, we will have to make a new switch mechanism to achieve the same job!!
P.S. Found a new part, a complete knob and cable for £10, should be delivered Wednesday.
The truck now starts! We have Noise and Action again!
The wire had corroded and come off the connector to the starter button
circuit. We conclude that there is enough conduction when rain gets in, with
the 12V and the differences of the metals (copper wire soldered (lead and
tin) onto a brass spade terminal connector), to allow the copper to
“oxidise” and turn into dust.
We had already started coating other joints with the plumber’s LSX to
provide a waterproof protection, but this one was an old joint and we had
missed it!
Oh Dear! Our dumper truck “starter” button doesn’t work anymore! It seems
that something has disturbed the wiring inside when the last maintenance was
done on the truck last week.
We had to resort to our newly mended platform trolley to transport over 3
loads of 10 blocks and an odd quick load of 4 blocks!
The battery was successfully charged up using the mains charger overnight.
But when we tested the solar charger, we discovered that there was only
4volts coming out! Oops!
But after chasing down the wires and switches and relays, and not
discovering what the problem was. There was a mysterious drain of 150mAfrom
the battery and there wasn’t nothing wrong with the solar cell (it produced
24V in the bright sunshine we were having).
We slowly realised that an old keylock switch we don’t use any more, was in
the “heating” position, for warming up the engine when it is freezing out
there, and we suddenly remembered that we used the heater last week for that
exact reason .. it was blooming cold!!
But it seems that the switch was left in that position all this time – oh
xxxx!!
So the problem is now solved – because there wasn’t any in the first place!
We suspect that there is a problem with the dumper truck’s battery or the
charging circuit from the solar panel. We got only 3 starts out of the
battery today before it went flat.
We put it on the mains powered charger and left it overnight.
Yippeee! We managed to jump start the dumper truck! We tipped the load and drove it back to the house to connect the battery charger!
Phew! That is a great releif and thanks to our cousin Neil over in Blackpool for his 20 years of expert knowledge of heavy machinery and everything with a engine in it. Cheers Neil!
OH GEE WIZ!
Our truck is broken! The starter motor is making a horrible crunching noise! Oh Blimey!
We phoned our cousin for his expert opinion and listening via our mobile phones, he recommends checking the battery charge level! The noise reminded him as if the starter motor is not quite engaging fully. The battery level was 12.2V which is rather low! We do have a solar panel mounted on the dumper truck to keep the battery charged up but we have been using it many times in the last couple of days and it has been very cloudy too! So we are not surprised that the battery is flat!! We are trying to jump start it using the mini digger to just get the truck going so we can finish emptying the load and drive it back down the slope!! Yes we are stuck half way up the slope!
We have our fingers crossed !!
Stephen spend the morning doing the regular maintenance, pumping grease into the joints and bearings including doing the dumper truck as well. But Stephen decided to tackle the longer running non working sideways control of the arm which we will need when we start digging the trenches. He traced the wiring from the switch on top of the joystick and to the solenoid that operates the pump that controls the rotation of the arm side to side. It was another similar problem with a power interruption to the switch so he repaired it with a clean new wire. It now works!!