Signals - Read 'Em Or Weep

safety are largely a matter of reading the signal. Many of the signals are posted on or built into the equipment. Others are spelled out in maintenance, operation, service, and safety guides and manuals. Read them or we most welders read the book a long time ago, but the problems we can't see are have to be forgotten. Ralph has done the right thing. clamped his ground on the piece he's welding. So the electric current doesn't have to jump any gaps. Done here. But now he forget to weld on the other side. He leaves the ground clamp in place. What he's forgotten is that electric current takes the path of least resistance. And one of the easier paths is to arc through the final drive bearing. The damage Ralph is doing is invisible. The hinge. It may be a while before noise warns of bearing trouble. The operator hears it, but then it seems to go away. I heard a little grinding noise there for a while, but don't hear it anymore. Oh, it's probably just a rock that worked itself out. Does it Megan? Yeah, possible. It would have been easy and costsaving to check for metal particles on the magnetic drain plug, but nobody did. And by the time the noise and vibration again warn a bearing trouble, the gear train completely failed. In the shop, they'll know what Ralph's welding did. Take a look at your bearings. This is the bearing that's been damaged. The ark damage the race and roller assembly causing eventual breakdown. The early signal was there in metal clinging to the magnetic drain plug or on some machines to the strainer or filter. But the signal was ignored. Now it's a major repair job. one that grounding on the piece being welded would have prevented and early detection would have minimized. Yeah. Parts department, please. Carl Jackwith has a different problem. Yeah. Hi, Bob. This is Carl. Hey, remember that greater I was telling you about? Yeah. Can you give me an exchange engine out here? I don't care if it isn't painted. Well, we got to get that grater back on the job. Yeah. What do you say? Putting in an exchange engine is costly, but sometimes it's the most economical way to solve a problem. Carl knows what he's doing. By the time young Jim comes around, the engine is installed. All right, we'll put the coolant back in. Should be ready to go. Bill and I still got to go over check on that loader. All right. Sure you know how to fill a cooling system? Sure. All right. Well, the maintenance guy's in the truck. You need it. Hurry it up. Give us a hand, will you? The gym. It seems amateurish to be looking up a simple thing like adding coolant. He knows about putting in cooling system inhibitor for corrosion protection. All he has to do is add the water with it. The lubrication and maintenance guide has another signal that Jim hasn't read. Filling at over 19 L can cause air pockets in the cooling system. Jim pours the water to it, remembering that Carl told him to hurry up. When Jim closes up, the hose and radiator are full, but air is trapped in the cooling system. Jim warms up the engine. Not up to operating temperatures as the guide specifies, but fairly warm. Then he's off to join Carl on the loader repair. Later, the new engine seems to be working great, but the inadequate supply of coolant gradually vaporizes and turns to steam. Now the operator will discover the engine has a cracked head. This is Carl again. Hey, I need another exchange engine or a rebuild for that greater uh I know what it's going to cost. I just bought one yesterday. You want to see a mess I've been investigating? Come over here with me. This machine went up in flames. Here's why. See what's left of this battery cable? When the machine was being repaired, somebody cut the cable instead of disconnecting it to save time. Then later, he just uh spliced the copper together and taped the cable. The tape rubbed through, leaving copper wire touching metal. The resulting arc ignited oil and debris, and the machine burned. The protected coverings on electrical cable and wire are there for good reason. They shouldn't be violated. Also, when reassembling, always follow the course of the original wire. if you're not putting it through the same clamps or locations to signal you're off course. The same thing applies if you must remove shields or guards. They're there to prevent flammable fluids from getting on hot parts. So, always put shields and guards back where they were. You don't have to guess. Maintenance and operator's guides come with the machine, and complete service manuals are available from your dealer. In addition, Cat service trucks have this information available on microfishes. So there's never a need to guess about procedures or replacement parts. Sometimes a problem results from not using the right part. Sometimes from human mistakes and sometimes from a combination of both. The first mistake. How many a hose? Huh? Well, I can't find the right one. I made up this temporary hose for you. You think it'll hold up to the hydraulic pressure? Well, I think it will till I can get back to the right hose. Let's put her on. Let's get this baby going. Okay, we'll see what happens. Turned out he was right. It did hold or what? I've got the right hose here, Brad. You suppose we ought to stop and put it on? No, this one seems to be doing all right. Let's just go the rest of the day with it. You sure about that? Yeah, I think it'll be fine. Okay, it's up to you. That was the second mistake. But later that afternoon. Well, let's see what happened. Time to put this hose on. Now, an operator can make his own mistakes or he can have them forced upon. Jerry is making his own. A not uncommon one. Till today, he's been running an electric drive truck. One of those which can be shifted directly from forward to reverse at very low ground speed. Now, he has a mechanical transmission rather than an electric motor. But Jerry hasn't read the operation guide, which calls for a full stop before changing directions. He's doing what was okay on the electric, dropping it into reverse without stopping her. That noise Jerry can't hear yet is the transmission tearing out. A good truck is about to go down. The repair cost alone will run into thousands. The operator who knows his machine. A guy like Barney Noli is handy to have around. After this tractor was loaded aboard a beam trailer, what someone did and did correctly was tighten the tracks so they wouldn't sag and drag on the road. Now at the other end of the trip, it is driven off the trailer with the track still tight, which is okay. The maintenance guide says the tracks should now be loosened to normal adjustment before operation, but nobody thinks of doing that. Later, Barney's all set to take the machine onto the job. Now, an overly tight track is trouble in the making. It can damage seals, pins, bushings, and track components with tracks and undercarriage. We're talking about big repairs here, and the trouble is about to start. But as Barney puts the machine to work, he catches the signal. Lack of power. He doesn't waste time guessing. He stops. What's the matter? I'm getting the power. No wonder. Look how tight these tracks are. Oh boy. Dave, let's get these tracks adjusted. And I'm sure glad you caught that. Sick. Read them and you're a good man to have around. These are good men, too. Moving a tractor at night can be dangerous business. The secure signals are there. Safety linkages and tie down points are identified by different colors. But can the driver is under pressure to deliver in a hurry? Andy has a date on CV. I don't need to change. I'm only going down the road a little bit. You say so a breaker n out there. This is flying star coming back to sweet night over there. Rust Pit stop. Come on. Come on. Hey, flying star. Who you calling sweet and nice? You know my handles on ice. Come on. Just a little slip of the tongue there, sleep, but there ain't nothing cold about you, lovely lady. Nothing at all. Come on. You got a real gift to get there, Flying Star. Anyway, what you got on your mind now? We'll talk about that when I get the air sleep. I'm flying lighter every minute. I got it. You got what? The loader. Well, where in the hell is it? People [Music] have been cautioned about batteries ever since they were invented. Battery gas is explosive. Making a spark in a battery compartment can be as dangerous as lighting a match in a gas fil room. Never allow a spark near a battery. That's why when boosting, we're told to connect the positive lead first and then connect the negative lead a considerable distance away from the battery being boosted. Every year, hundreds of automobile and equipment users get careless with batteries for the last time. Dick Raymond was an untrained kid who hung around his father's outfit sometimes doing odd jobs. He could weld a little, change a filter, or charge a battery, or so he and his father believed. At least he did know enough to wear safety glasses. What he's going to do now is use a battery cart to start a machine with a dead battery. All instructions say to match your booster voltage with the voltage of the battery. But Dick has only seen his father hook the clamps off. Thinks that's all there is to it. He ignores the information on the caution tag and fails to observe the size of the battery. It is a 12vt battery connected in series with another 12vt battery on the opposite side of the machine. Instead of running the current through both, Dick's going to boost only this one. Boosting any battery starts the chemical reaction that sets off hydrogen gas, the same explosive gas that blew up the durable Hindenburg. Nick's going to compound that action with excessive voltage. Trouble is, he's using the 24V connection on the battery card purely and simple. Young Dick Raymond doesn't know what he's doing, so all signals are off. For operations and maintenance, the signals are there. The prescribed walkound inspection will forall many unpredictable problems. Cleaning the machine is another form of preventive maintenance. Accumulated trash must be cleaned out regularly, particularly where hot metal or a spark could start combusting. However, it does no good to inspect the machine as Jim Horn is doing and then have your observations ignored. Hey, yes there. That's almost invisible. Why don't you run it and watch it? Okay, thank you, Jim. They did for a day. Nothing happened. The equipment got dirtier and dirty. Nobody cleaned it. In a few days, it was a case of out of sight, out of mind. Signal, read them or we covered up and the welding that was needed went undone. The thing about cracks is that as they get bigger, they go faster. This one was at a high stress point. Heat. Heat.