Mini Excavator Repair

all right guys so i'm back at it got this little guy to work on it's not that really a big of a job however what happened is they put patch plates over that and they busted apart now i'm not i personally am not a big fan of patch plates and i understand the need to try and make it last little longer so i appreciate their efforts which is nice you know they try to make it last as long as they can which is good however if you are able to repair that area properly in my view i should say uh then there shouldn't be a need for patch plates and so again i get suggestions all the time that on instagram or even through some of the videos here on youtube that's saying you should put patch plates over that i don't like doing that because it just doesn't it makes that area too rigid and what can happen is that all the heat affected zone around that whole area will suddenly become a lot weaker so you'll have the weld around the perimeter creating issues for this area or you know let's say on the excavator boom and so it just creates more problems if in case that boom you know because the booms want to flex a little bit that's just the way they are they're built that way and so if they'd put patch plates from the beginning to say that that was a structural part then sure not a problem but once you start putting these things and the boom let's say on the excavator starts to flex is creating a lot of stress on the outside on the outside perimeter of whatever plate you're putting on there and that just creates more issues because you could get airline cracks the heat affected zone naturally around the weld as well and let's say it does help that area well fantastic so now the stress or the problem will move somewhere else and that's just the way it is i mean machines will find the weakest link the weakest spot and that's just the way uh you know things go when you're starting to work these machines really hard especially in the rock that's out here so um i think my thoughts on this is to cut this guy out down here and just re reinstall a piece of square tube it's not that hard it's a simple fill it weld i believe right here back in here so i'll gouge that off cut it apart reinstall the pins and reinstall a square tube there a piece of four inch it's only four inch by quarter four by four per quarter customer's gonna bring me some pins and then we'll go from there so hang tight do so do my so so so so all right so maybe a little touch up with the flat disc or so clean that edge up a little bit there's a little crack beginning there no problem got most of it off at least that should be good so i'll just check what the angle is on that other leg and go from there i didn't have a plasma gouging tip so i was just kind of doing a little zigzag back and forth just so long as i was able to keep the arc on the plasma going and so the in a further distance away that way the the jet of oxygen sorry compressed air won't be so strong and pierce through that metal just kind of let it feather away and it's good enough should be able to get it with the flap disc or grinder way up in there clean that up move this up it's better than it was before so it should be fine let me see what else actually i thought this piece was square or the tube well square to that so i got to figure out what angle that is it shouldn't be bad though yeah there's some cracks right there gotta clean that up maybe it's tearing apart in there as well most likely is what being is i gotta put some new side plates got a nice little iron worker let me cut that should be easy enough all right so next step all right so after a little bit of cutting actually a lot of cutting cut all this stuff off here um i initially thought i would replace this whole thing but what may happen is if i put the original thickness of the material it's going to be too high and it'll always rub and so i just made an adjustment for it and that's a size plate i'm going to be welding on there still follow the same pattern like it was before i had to cut a new one out it's no biggie and so uh here it's got a little bit of a gap i'm not sure if i'll fill it in but i might and there's a quite a bit of a gap i guess that's just the way they were um so i may put a piece of like a 3 8 bar in there just to fill it it's better than nothing at this point besides this plate that goes over it will be able to hold it or support it better and there'll be a weld here and there's some also side pieces and this guy was a little bit bent so i'm going to be squeezing this back up in this original spot and i don't actually have a no proper shaft goes around the other side but um you can kind of wiggle this and see where it's flat and it works besides those holes in it now they are pretty sloppy so close enough it's close enough because i don't think they're going to want to cut those ears off to put the right size hole which kind of stinks but it's better than nothing sometimes you know at least the arm will hold up and then at that point we'll fix that later if they're wanting to because they're a bit rushed they're wanting this back in a hurry so huh not much to about to do it i'll be cutting some pieces here very similar to the ones that are on the other side it's not that tough just just quarter inch flat plate i was able to clean this up pretty good what else i guess just welded so yeah okay hmm um more or less um so so that's horrible okay well that stinks that was horrible but when you consider it didn't have anything to something something's better or nothing so i'll clean that up with the grinder and then the piece that i put up against it i'll have a bevel naturally so it'll fill all that in and be 100 again so you know part of the problem well it actually didn't break there it broke over here so it didn't make sense but um you know that could have caused a problem that it was just not filled in there at some point so anyway as ugly as it is hopefully i can make it pretty you know this has a little bit of a gap which is fine because it'll at least be able to penetrate pretty good and from this point or the width of this tube i welded behind there so that's well this tube is welded to this piece now this piece will be welded there and then it'll be in here as well so keep moving right well it's done man i'm just not a mig guy anymore i don't know that i ever was really but uh anyway it's not the it's not going to fall off i hope i contacted the customer those holes down there are way too sloppy so they're going to think about it for a second yeah if anything what we can do maybe is cut some larger diameter washers that go on the outside out of the same thickness material you have to get a thicker sorry longer pin but we can make that work if they don't want to cut them off so you know use the same those ears are half inch thick so maybe create some half inch thick washers to put on the outside to weld on the outside instead of those ears there and that'll buy them a little bit more time but ultimately they're gonna have to do something with that they have to cut that off but of course you know nobody wants to stop machine until it absolutely has to and tear something off just like this arm did so i guess we'll have to wait not the best not the worst but it will get back to work so no complaints like i mentioned before um those holes back there a little bit sloppy but it seems to work all right you know and it is what it is hopefully they decide to get them fixed it is just sloppy um so pretty straightforward repair unfortunately i had a piece of square tube lying around i just brushed it up a little bit cleaned it up same wall thickness as this guy over here it's a four by four quarter so easy enough there's a little bit of work you know but uh in the long run it lasts a lot longer you know because i could have tried and welded it all back together but you know these guys are going to abuse the tire out of it so i may as well do it right and if they let me may as well other than that part they may be back for that but at least this side won't let go anymore so i hope you guys enjoyed it and we'll move on to the next one see ya you

Channel: I C Weld

Views: 377,002

Keywords: Drillrig, heavy equipment, onsite repair, kellybar, auger, dozer, excavator, welding, stickwelding, mig welding, torch, torch cutting, gas axe, backhoe, torching, weld, repair, weld repair, fix it, how to, caterpillar, bull dozer, broken, cracked, torn, busted, track hoe, welded, fluxcore

Id: 6pt6YOMRt-M

Length: 19min 56sec (1196 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 12 2021