Lorain Cable Shovel Saved from the Scrap Yard! (Worth the trouble?)

[Music] so [Music] what's up everybody welcome back to diesel creek my name is matt if you've been watching for any amount of time you've already known that and if you've been watching for any amount of time you also know that i have a very soft place in my heart for heavy equipment and the preservation of the old antique heavy equipment that built the world today we have the opportunity to save another one of those pieces of equipment i've just agreed to make a trade with a guy on the big orange clark loader now i know that's probably going to disappoint some of you guys but this is something that's a lot more important to me this is history that clark loader while it's another old piece of equipment it's not quite so old that it's rare or anything like that and hopefully today we're going to be able to get this thing fired up and eventually on to a truck and trailer and haul it off to a place where it will be preserved in some form of fashion for the rest of eternity so what we're looking at here is a lorraine ts-25 i do believe cable shovel so back before hydraulics were really perfected this is what you had you didn't have all these fancy hydraulic rams and all that jazz you had steel cables and friction clutches here's the operators area so i have no idea what any of these controls do if we do succeed in getting this thing running that'll be the uh the next experiment is gonna play around and figure out what everything does in here i am by no means an expert on running these things i have moved them around a little bit as a lot of you know i do own a unit 1020 drag line which is also a friction clutch machine but i really never got to run it too much either it's been on the back burner the really cool thing about this machine is the power plant oh yeah this here is a caterpillar d3 i can't remember 331 or 311 it's something like that but this is the same caterpillar motor that is in caterpillar d4 dozers and they put these things into all kinds of equipment back in the day i don't know exactly how long this machine has been sitting here it's sunk into the ground a little bit the owner told me somewhere between five and seven years maybe so if you don't know these old diesels like this before they had direct starting really perfected they all had pony motors now if you don't know what a pony motor is that's this guy right here this is a small gasoline engine basically mounted next to or on top of the diesel engine so what that does after you get the pony motor started it actually starts cranking over the diesel engine and that puts oil onto everything it builds up oil pressure and it also preheats the intake manifold on the diesel engine and then you throw a lever and it engages the compression on the diesel engine and ideally it just pops right off and runs like a charm and then you can just shut down the gas engine i do like pony motors especially if you're in a cold climate pony motors if the pony motor runs correctly you're pretty much guaranteed to start your diesel with a pony motor if you have electric start and it's really cold you've not got any guarantees so up here in the center of the house we can see our couple drums here for the cables this is what runs the boom on the machine over here we've got a bit of a walkway a bunch of random old parts laying around in here that must be our fuel tank for the diesel you can see over here it says caterpillar on the side of the block there i always think that's cool as old engines say that back here behind the drums we have clutches bringing back one of these machines into service that has sat a long time is always especially fun because things tend to really seize up on you and little things like this that is a small oil cup which there's probably about ten thousand those things all over this machine and the lord knows that none of them have seen oil in quite a while so finding all those and getting everything lubed up again is quite a challenge just sitting here looking around kind of taking everything in and i'm looking at this shiv look how much slop is in the shiv bushing on that wheel man i think it's gonna need a new bushing so as you can clearly tell from the operator station here this is back before osha was a thing the only safety feature really to speak of on this machine would be this guard over top of what i assume is a chain housing other than that you've got clutch packs directly behind the seat here everything is manual just levers and linkages but uh i'll give it it's reliable there actually are some hydraulics on this machine look at this here i don't know what any of them do all right here we go i just figured out what some of this hydraulic levers do there's a tag here that's still legible we've got the house lock off swing on the paws on steering left and right interesting maybe we might be able to just steer using this lever that's pretty neat that'll be much better than uh the way my unit 1020 is set up this is pretty neat got the original old lorraine gauge in here oh there's a fella that's in my inbox somewhere that redoes gauges i think he's going to be getting this one because that's a neat one look how much dirt has settled down into the bottom of it over the years that's a really cool gauge though so i guess the first thing we should do back here before we start playing with anything is start checking all the oils and fluids so i think the pony motor has separate oil in it we'll have to check the oil in that and then same for the engine we've got antifreeze to worry about um i'm going to look around on the house of the machine anywhere and see if there's any gear oils i don't really think there are i know there's some um oil cups like that one right there that we need to fill up before we start really running anything but other than that i don't think it's going to take a whole lot i have faith in the old caterpillar but it has been some time so you never know what's going wrong i love digging around on old machines like this and finding stuff like that i can't tell exactly what it says but i think it says july 1983 maybe maybe my mind's just making these things up i don't know what that would be a date for but it's in there so i do believe that i am the third owner of this machine and the people i'm getting it from said that this engine was pretty much new when they got the machine that hour meters that hour meter says 336.6 hours that's a fresh engine well here's the first letdown of the day i went to check the antifreeze and uh there's no radiator cap and i don't know if you guys are gonna be able to see in here at all probably not and as you can see it's pretty crusty in there really could use probably vacuumed out of there and flushed before i even bothered to put antifreeze in it over on this side of the engine here we got the oil and it is potentially quite over full so yeah i wiped the stick off and we're way above full however it does say check with engine running the oil didn't appear to be contaminated so we'll ignore that for right now well i cleaned off the model tag here and i was actually wrong it is a d315 engine not a 311 as i was thinking and um just put my hand on the pony motor here and the pony motor does spin but really seems like we got some bottom end problems in the pony motor well there's good news on the pony motor front here after playing around a little bit i was thinking i was hearing a bottom end noise here it's not it's actually the starter pulley up here something up in here is making that rattle so it feels like the pulley could just be loose in there or could just be the way that thing is i think it's a gear drive pulley or something weird so not to worry i feel a lot better about that i'm not sure if you guys are going to be able to tell down inside the pony motor gas tank here there is a teeny little bit of fuel left down in there not very much if i can i'm going to drain it out and if i can't i'm just going to dilute it really good with some ethanol free fuel which good lord regular gasoline is expensive enough now ethanol free is 19 a gallon where i'm at i got a buddy that's really into caterpillar stuff like this and he said that it's worth the money to run the ethanol free and the pony motors i actually just spoke to my caterpillar buddy too and he just happened to be off work today he's gonna come over and hopefully help me get this thing going because he knows a heck of a lot more about him than i do um i'm gonna go over this with you guys and then i'm gonna verify with him when he gets here i know that this is the throttle this is the decompression lever so you can release the valves basically on the diesel engine while the pony motor cranks it over and then this guy engages the pony motor into the diesel this lever here i am not 100 sure about feels to me like it does something with the clutch down here maybe that in it engages the diesel engine into the gear case which drives everything else on the machine so that's what the levers do over here we have the off and on switch for the magneto which is what gives spark to the pony motor this is the starter button because it does have electric start but you can also wrap a rope around this pulley and yank on it and manually start it and we have a choke lever and a throttle and uh yeah machines of a simpler time guys there's not a whole lot that goes wrong on these things i'm going to keep going over the whole machine and putting the oil in all the cups there's a gear case right here i'm going to pull the plug on and see if it needs any oil in it we don't want to run any of these gear cases without oil and tear something up because talk about hard to find parts for that is some dark looking diesel if it's even diesel anymore i think i have the valve off there as best as i can get it so if there is any diesel in here it's not going to just dump everywhere but uh no it's still dumping everywhere dang it well there's diesel in there you can definitely tell it's old but diesel's not picky it should run it doesn't look like it's got water in it or any algae or anything like that i know these old boys up here that are selling this thing to me and uh i wouldn't be surprised if they would dump used motor oil into this thing and burn used motor oil in it in addition to diesel that could be why it's super dark like that and that used mortar and used motor oil in it will not hurt anything in fact it actually helps old engines like this get extra lubrication that the fuel doesn't have anymore oh that is a beautiful thing right there that's the oil plug-in what i assume is the main gear case and it is topped right up to the top it looks nice and clean that's good news [Music] we need to fill this site glass up with oil and then once this thing's running we'll be ready to go there's a valve back there we'll turn it on and it'll automatically oil up all the shafts and everything in here well buddy that knows a lot more about the gold cats than me showed up here he took one look at it says he's going to fire it up so i'm hoping he's right i'm going to climb in here and try to clean out the sediment bowl and a little bit of fuel that's in the pony motor i'm gonna be sitting up on top of these clutch packs it's kind of a tight spot to wedge yourself in but i'm gonna wedge all six foot two of me into there this is gonna be a tight squeeze here i'm guessing the oilers for this machine were probably under the age of ten found another grease fitting mic so i found another grease fitting as i'm contorting myself up in here oh there's a cable poking me in the back that hurts oh gosh this is awful yeah man where's your hat i legitimately don't know if i can get out of here gonna be tight all right i got myself jammed in here found the dipstick for the pony motor it is radon full and it doesn't even look that dirty that's kind of a sniff that smell like gas i don't think i can on these right that's good good good good we're gonna try and get the sediment bowl off of here without breaking it the gas in the sediment bowl doesn't look too terrible [Music] you can see somebody's had some pliers on this thing over the years [Music] there we go come right loose sword oh it's just like the 977's got one ear broken off so you gotta be really careful oh yeah that's some varnished up gas i just want to hang that my truck as an air freshener dump that on the cables it's good for stuff a little bit of nastiness at the bottom of the sediment bowl not bad i'm gonna open up the petcock here on the pony end hopefully any fuel that's left in there will drain out [Music] she's a bit sticky now the croil just fell down into the center section of the house i can't reach it did the magnet get it no you could probably get it from the outside i just can't bend that way right now dude i am in a tight spot damn we're in a tight spot [Music] sure hold it i got the filter got it yep [Music] as he told me they always ran it dry whenever they were done yeah yeah that's what we do [Music] hold up let me get the bolt all right take it away we're already this far might as well take this float off of here nope i'm sorry seven surprises yeah my grandfather used to hold this machine around oh really yeah like when they owned it or when castalucci construction ended oh dude this seems like sentimental too though i didn't know it until after i'd already agreed to get it i was talking to my uncle last night let's get stayed intact well this one's already buggered a little bit here take that where it gets lost right there yeah get in no i think i got it yep i'm good i'm free all right so we got the carburetor yanked off the pony motor here and buddy is just gonna clean it out make sure there's no terrible junk in it and uh yeah i know you should be able to reassemble and this thing should fire up [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] all right we had the carburetor part cleaned it as you saw got it back together just bolted it on here now before we put everything else in the way we're gonna check for spark here hopefully no plug wire off probably stick a wrench or something in there and try to jump it across all right go ahead contact i had one spark [Music] i've only seen one so far you know i see a little bit i've seen a few all right nothing that's weird couldn't be this perfect test setup we have yeah yeah i got another one that time yeah not consistent all right i got the fuel tank reassembled here ready to go back together sight glass is all nice and clean now the valve opens and closes really good we blew out the fuel line from the pony motor to the carburetor or from the fuel tank to the carburetor on the pony motor and uh good thing we did that because it was plugged up solid couldn't get any fuel through it and then i even scrounged around and found me a brand used fuel cap i mean that's got to be factory i think that has a cat number on it all right let me crouch down into my little hut here we finally got pony motor all back together i didn't bother to record it because you saw it come apart and it was completely miserable working hunched over like this there's not a whole lot of overhead clearance here between the engine and the roof so i'm six foot two it gets to be pretty frustrating albeit mike did most of the work anyway about ready to dump some fuel in this thing and see if the pony motor pops off you guys actually get a twofer on this video because you get a will it start on a pony motor and then you get a will it start on the rest of the motor but he says it's worth the money for this ethanol free fuel so we'll take his word for it well that should be enough to get it going here and make sure if there's any leaks we're not just leaking it everywhere all right here we go oh i gotta pop i heard a pop oh it wants to go now you're at bendix it kicks it out oh okay i see [Music] i don't think she's getting the fuel oh that's closer oh so close he's gotta work the kinks out of here [Music] bendix is annoying it's coming [Music] [Music] i killed it yeah i figured all right so basically what we were trying to do there now if the pony was running we were trying to engage engage the pony to the big engine to start spinning the big engine over and it didn't want to engage something one of the shafts or something here one of these controls is into an engaged position which is keeping a load on that engine all right so the pony motor runs now we just got to see if we can get it running long enough to engage it and get the big engine started this is the real moment of truth here it's on mike's shoulders all right should be good to go we finally figured out whatever linkage was engaged there we don't know what it was but we figured it out [Music] oh mike you ruined it all right [Music] wouldn't be out of here half a gallon well we put gas in it take two contact come on i love it [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] so so man that pony motor is loud that old kitty cat's sitting there turning pretty nice now [Music] that thing sounds good mike [Music] beautiful not even smoking [Music] [Applause] [Music] this machine has some hydraulics on it oh yeah we got a little hydraulic there not much [Music] man this thing just purrs though yeah we got good oil pressure up here according to the gauge [Music] now full disclosure neither me nor mike here really are 100 sure how to run this thing [Music] looks like it's mostly air i think it's completely out of fluid looks like we're gonna have to patch a hard line you're nice to pick the boom up and stuff though oh man i'm excited about this thing everything fired right up actually really hard for you guys to hear probably over that pony motor those things are ridiculously loud but uh this cat seems like it runs perfect there you go [Music] yeah i just need to loosen that other one a little bit [Music] so [Music] [Music] i can't get over how good that diesel runs i mean that thing is not bogging at all when you start engaging things no smoke out of it whatsoever i don't think that hour meter is wrong i think it's really 333 hours that's a piece of history right there [Music] oh yeah you don't need swing brakes you just set the bucket down it'll stop [Music] all right so without any surprise sitting this long not good for things we'll go ahead and shut her down got the radiator we had topped it off before we started and it uh leaking out of the cap pretty good up there and there's also a small pin hole in the front of the radiator here you can see i think it's the front oh that's the back well it's squirting out of there now so i have to take that thing off there make it right all right so we had an issue where the crowd cable which is what draws the bucket towards the machine it would pull the bucket but it wouldn't release the bucket so we played around figured out some controls figured out the clutch packs here ended up really just needing to lubricate the shafts and kind of help them out a little bit with a bar to get them freed up better and i think we got it going now so fire back up and see if we can get the bucket to move completely full range of motion here so the other issue we had was this hydraulic line that comes up through the floor here it's got a hole in it and it was already out of fluid it really didn't leak any but you can just hear it pushing pressure out of that kind of spitting and sputtering so we're gonna have to fix that probably just cut it off put a union in there and then top it off with hydraulic oil for any of those hydraulic functions to work obviously and last but certainly not least the radiator the radiator has a leak in it spraying out right there after we shut her down so we'll have to pull the radiator out and try to solder that up the radiator doesn't seem like it's in bad shape or anything so hopefully we can fix it without having to record it or anything the guy i'm getting it from told me his dad had it repaired probably 20 30 years ago so it's not crazy old [Music] all right you got a two block now here's where we pull a little too hard and snap a table hey we gotta figure it out what'd you do [Applause] guys make sure [Music] is oh that is going to take some getting used to that is a very very different experience from running a normal excavator you're running different winches holding different breaks with your feet it's a got to be octopus yeah it's a whole orchestrated thing in here so i'm going to take a while to learn that but it's going to be a lot of fun in the process nice thing about these old diesels they don't really burn too much fuel they're pretty easy on fuel not a lot of power going on back there and you can darn your idle them to do everything all right back up here for the second day on the old lorraine and as discussed yesterday we have a hydraulic leak and a radiator leak so first thing i'm going to do is start i guess pulling this radiator out good looking antifreeze in it yeah that's the stuff right there delicious all right so this unit in front of the radiator here is a hydraulic cooler which i don't believe this machine even really needs but it's got one uh rather than disconnecting the lines and everything though i think i can just pull the four bolts out and kind of hinge it over this way and probably hang it by a bungee cord so this thing should be pretty simple to get out of here now we got two upper support bolts two lower support bolts here and of course the top radiator hose and we should be free there we go that's the last bolt should be able to just pull this thing right out of here now oh i assure you this is a far sight heavier than the one in your car so i got really lucky in this hydraulic line that i just had sitting in my garage for years now looks like it's gonna fit perfectly it's about two feet longer than it needs to be but that's fine we can coil up the excess somewhere here and hide it oh yeah when they leak they come right apart not a drop i might need your pipe wrench here give me a tight butt damn we're in a tight spot you ever seen the ones of these that actually have the hammer heads on no yeah they make them oh much like everything that was way more of a pain than it needed to be well with the old lines out of the way it's time to go fishing fishing for hydraulic lines so we've got a magnet a nut on the end of this string hopefully we'll be able to fish it and pick it up on the other side there and pull all this through kind of dragging this one yeah all right we're now yeah that's gotta be plenty tight enough look at that that is fantastic feels so good to use one of the things you've been hoarding for years well we got the old radiator from the lorraine here in the bathtub we're going to do a bit of a pressure test on it here to identify where exactly the leak is coming from and then we're going to attempt to repair it there we go right down there but i think we got that fixed [Music] all right well that was a major pain uh this radiator appears to be very easy to get in and out but appearances are deceiving that little bottom radiator hose back here it's a treat a big guy like myself kind of can't get into there super well and there's that vertical hydraulic tank thing in the way there so that's another issue but anyway we got it in there and we're ready to fire this thing up now and hopefully we'll be able to track this thing for the first time [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] you gotta be careful here i don't know what it does yeah yeah oh yeah he's ready to go [Applause] steering a little bit here we go [Applause] oh [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] well it's a new day up here yesterday we worked this thing around enough to get the tracks all broken free and really steering and uh yeah so i just drove it out onto the hard pack here and it turns a lot better so i went around and greased everything this time i did all the track rollers on both sides they all have grease fittings the idlers the sprockets everything and yeah we're pretty much ready to hop this thing on a lowboy now i'm pretty excited about it what i'm going to keep doing for a while though is just walking this thing up and down the driveway because the more i run it the better it steers the better it tracks and all that stuff so we need to get it really good and broken in because to get this thing to the low boy i'm gonna have to walk it all the way down this long driveway and this driveway goes down pretty good and uh i'm gonna have to be steering quite a bit because it kind of turns the whole way so if this thing doesn't steer i'm gonna have a one heck of a time getting it down there to the trailer so i'm gonna give you guys a quick crash course on how to operate a lorraine tl25 shovel here first things first you can see all the clutches spinning back here so that means that we have it in gear basically which i shouldn't have done that i should have taken it out of here so that guy right there is your gear selector high range is forward low ranges in the back [Music] this lever right here operates the main hoist up and down this guy here in the middle is your crowd that runs the bucket in and out this guy here runs your swing or your travel gear now to switch between the swing and the travel mode you need to use these controls here so right now i have it parked which means the paws are on the paws lock the undercarriage into place so the paws are on we have it in swing mode which doesn't really matter right now for just parking but before i can travel the machine i have to clip this up to the travel position and then we'll have to keep the house lock on the house lock keeps the machine from pivoting in place so in conjunction with these levers here to run the boom you have to use these foot pedals here which are brakes so this pedal goes with this control which is the boom that lets the boom up and down nice and easy so without touching the lever i can let my foot up a little bit and we can let the boom go down so as soon as you let off of this lever if you don't put your foot on that brake this thing will come crashing down which is not what you want there's no safeties no nothing this is this is the real deal here and the same goes for this pedal with the crowd so we lock those pedals right now because we don't need them and we're going to flip this thing into travel position and then we're going to take the paws off and we should start traveling yep and we're off this control has a nice detent and i think they all have detents but i can hands-free sit here now and we're walking backwards [Music] so [Applause] [Applause] silence [Applause] [Applause] [Music] so [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] uh [Music] she's got a lot more character though it was leslie from safety right you can take looks and still get out of the one's getting down available driveway obstacle two is getting her loaded on the trailer but uh i got faith in them that's what it's gonna take to pull out on the road [Applause] all right [Applause] [Applause] attempt one was a little more eventful i think we all hoped for matt's gonna try her again here once put a little bit of grip down the trailer trying to [Music] keep it so bad looking [Music] all right come on baby you're almost there so close [Applause] go back and hit it again [Applause] what's this even got it lined up perfect on the trailer nicely done [Applause] nicely done all right got the lower side chain so the risk of sliding off the trailer there's no more he's gonna try to swing it over and set the boom right down in there as gently as possible all right i don't remember it's not like a that that should be good that looks perfect got all the tension off it chained her down well there she goes that was only a two-hour ordeal oh man got it though it's all right they charge by the hour it's fine you know we don't have to worry about getting it off i kind of do but [Music] well guys that's not the end of the story but it's the end of the video for right now so we managed to get the old shovel loaded up on the trailer there and it headed down to the national pike steam show where i went with uh let's dig 18 and mike from dirk perfect and if you didn't already see i was able to get christine my galleon road grader back together just in time to get her down to the show as well uh i was running around like a chicken with my head cut off for the last week leading up to the show trying to get all these ducks in a row somehow i managed to pull it all off and got everything in there in time and had a great time at the show so next week i think you guys will probably be seeing a video about old lorraine here down at the steam show as well as running around with christine and mike from dirt perfect and chris from let's dig 18. we had a great time down at the show and it was a great time meeting a lot of you guys so if you haven't seen the videos from their channels go check them out i appreciate the help that they were able to give me here right at the end i probably wouldn't have had any footage of getting this thing on the trailer at all if it wasn't for uh mike and chris so big shout out to those guys as always guys if you like this video don't forget to hit the thumbs up button a lot of work went into this one so if you liked it hit the thumbs up button let me know i did a good job and of course if you're not subscribed be sure you hit that subscribe button so i can see you guys all on the next video thanks for watching later [Music] you

Channel: Diesel Creek

Views: 3,110,008

Keywords: Lorain, thew, northwest, unit, link belt, speeder, dragline, hoe, shovel, digger, caterpillar, detroit, Murphy, Cummins, diesel, tl-25, tl25, D315, engine, history, heavy, equipment, construction, historical

Id: ncQytc8PQjU

Length: 67min 25sec (4045 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 04 2022