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Hey look, we found a new toy A co-worker, Alan, turned me on to it! Wow the original owner, with the parts and service manuals too! (Oh Carol, Please!) |
| It's a 1968 Euclid 72-21-AA Articulated Front Loader Just what every happily married man should have! |  |
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I got some quick instructions on how to operate her. |
| An then I'm off to the pile to see what it will do |  |
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Oops...the bucket was at the wrong angle! Really I was trying to see if the hydraulics would raise the machine of the ground (it did), and if it would hold it there, if the front drive wheels are working and if the brakes work |
| It looks like everything is okay, all of the glass in in, and most everything work. She does leak a bit of hydraulic fluid. |  |
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The payload rating is 6,000 pounds, that's about 2 yards of sand. Did you know that Euclid was a division of GM? |
| This is the lubrication schedule, the machine looks well cared for, they bought a new one ($150,000 worth) and need to sell the old one. |  |
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Looks like maybe a 2 yard bucket, It has seen better days, but the repairs to the sides look sound. Most of the pivot pins are in good shape. |
| The Engine is a Supercharged Detroit Diesel 371. A 3 cylinder 71 series engine. That's the same kind of engine as the dredge, only half the number of cylinders. I think the dredge is 160 HP so this one might be 80 HP but I'm not sure. |  |
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She does have a bad leak on a hydraulic pump. It looks like fluid is pouring from a vent hole in a casting. Sounds like a piston pump with a little blow by? I might go back and study the manuals some to find out a little more. |
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This is a small machine as loaders go, so
I checked the height of the bucket at full extension. It was over
10 feet, I think that the sides of Dumpy are less
than that, so we can load him with the machine. According to details we found on the web, the machine weighs less than 19,000 pounds, so with a 10 ton trailer (still looking) we could tow it to the cottage for beach work, and still be under the 60,000 combined weight limit on the dump truck? |
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I love it when a plan comes together!
by the fall of 2001 she was ours! Here she is by the apple tree, where
all of the equipment gets unloaded.
Thanks to CMA heavy haul for the ride! |
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Wow, can't wait for spring!
That major leak looks like it might just be an o-ring. |
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Tires look really good for an old machine |
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We parked it behind the barn for the winter....
See ya in the spring for some repair work and cleanup! |
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hmmm..all we need now is a big trailer. |
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During the summer of 2003, we didn't have much water in the
lake to dredge. So we decided to fix up the loader, we recovered
the seat, fixed the gauges and power washed the frame.
We took all of the chassis cover plates off and started blasting at all of the nasty grease. Well, that was fine until we found that the exhaust manifold gasket was blown out.and we filled the top end of the engine with water, and it wouldn't crank. |
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We pulled the airbox covers (above) and the injectors and valve train
so we could turn the engine over by hand.
The 4 bolts that held the manifold came right off, so we're taking
that home to fix.
We mopped up as much of the nasty slop as we could, Here I covered the injector ports with towels so it didn't spew too much when the engine cranked over. |
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A few squirts of Kroil and a few pulls on the breaker bar on the front
of the engine and we where back in business!
I changed the fuel filters and gave it a spin with the starter and it fired right up! She belched quite a bit of smoke in my face, but that's okay, it runs! Yahoo. Now we have to re-wire the repaired gauges and put it back together so we can use it on the lake. |
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With the rusted manifold at home, I used the cutting torch to burn off the old metal cover and bolt tubes. Then I cut a piece of heavy sheet metal to bend over and replace the cover and 2 sections of 1-1/2" pipe for the bolt access tubes. |
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I had to weld in 2 little sections of pipe, then tack the bottom of
the cover in. Then I carefully worked the cover in place, bending
and welding around the sides and around the pipe sections to make the recesses.
It looks like new, I can't wait to get back up north! |
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With everything back together, we got the old girl running again. We think we have an air leak in the brakes causing the transmission to stay in neutral. The end of the season came before we could get that checked out. We'll be back at it in the spring! |
| One of the tires was flat. I removed it to take it home for repairs. A dozen lug nuts, and plenty of Kroil later, it was off! |  |
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A bit big for the back of the truck, I had to load it onto a trailer for the trip home.
I brazed the air tank leak, and replaced a check valve in the air system.
I took the brake treadle valve home for repair too. I sure hope this thing is operational soon! |
| back to the top
I've always wanted an articulating loader, I don't know why, I just did! We where kinda searching for one, not serious, just feeling around the market. Carol and I looked at a few, but anything that ran at all was near $10,000 bucks, I think "not gonna happen" was what I was hearing. Then around August of 2001, a guy at work (Alan) said he saw one for sale by his parents house. It was too much I thought, so I put it off for a few weeks before I called about it. I called, the price was decent, and they had the manuals for it. so again I waited a few weeks and went to look at it. Nice machine, the perfect size for us, at 10 tons and a 2 yard bucket. The pivot pins are tight, the engine sounded good, but it gushed oil from a pump on the side. I drove it a little around the yard, it handles nice, but that leak really turned me off, it looked expensive to repair! The owner said "it's been leakin' like that for years"....sure it has, it pumped a 1/2 quart on the ground while we where there, no way! They dropped the price $2,000, but I was afraid of that pump leak. So we left to think about it. I let a month go by, and Alan said it disappeared from the yard where we had looked at it, "did ya buy it?" panicked, I called, they still had it and had dropped another $2,000! That was it, I called Carol to get the "nod". The next day I blasted out there to give them a deposit on her. I figured anything that was broken could be fixed. I grabbed the shop manuals while I was there, and took some pictures to help me find this leaky pump on the web. I was floored when the shop manual said that was just a valve to bleed down the air brake system when the transmission stops turning (engine off). It could be just a bad O-ring!! It can't be, We had it trucked up north in the end of October, so we would have to wait until spring to find out. In the spring of 2002 we searched around looking for repair parts. We found that Euclid was sold to Terex, and the local terex dealer could get parts! I bet the want a fortune for 34 year old parts. The O-rings are $0.75 each, how many ya want...uh 2? Actually I bought all of the rubber parts in the valve and the brass plunger that does the bleed down, the total was under $10 bucks. On our next trip to the property, I took the time to install the O-rings, the old ones where rock hard and broke right off the plunger. I installed the new plunger and all of the O-rings, tightened everything and crossed my finger. I hit the key and it was running, I flew out of the cab to look and.... NOT A DROP! That was it! so now we have to fix a few more little leaks, fix the brakes and clean her up. |
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