Battle of the Rear Crossbar

[wwattson]

I thought a few of you might appreciate this one. I've been fighting with this off and on for a couple of weeks. I've hit it with a pressure washer, penetrating oil, heat and finally a 50 ton jack with the rig you see below along with both heat and impact/vibration. It hasn't moved a hair. The jack destroyed the rig (you can see it's bent in the picture) and nothing. I may have to use nuclear force.

[Lavoy]

I can't see what thickness plate you are using, but I have bent 1" plate fairly easily with a 20 ton jack. The concept should work fine, the problem might be getting the plate thick enough to tolerate the stress.
Another idea along the power washer line, you could drill a few small holes in the back side of the casting in any area where you are not getting water blasting from the front side.
Lavoy

[wwattson]

The two straps on the top are 3/8" by 2". and the two angles on the bottom are 1/8" x 2". The weakest link was the bottom but it was the heaviest stuff they had at the Home Depot. My normal steel supply isn't open on the weekend or I would have gotten heavier steel. I made the base close to the width of the jack to put most of the load on the bottom bolts and in the end, it was the bolt holes that tore out rather than the frame buckling.

I'm thinking the idea is basically sound but the steel wasn't up to the force. I'm going to pull out my engineer's handbook and run the calculations for the full 50 tons with channel on the bottom and wider and thicker plate on top and see where I end up. It just blows me away that with all the heat I put on that casing with the amount of pressure it was under that it didn't let loose.

[lastchancegarage]

Bill,
Is there anyway you could rig the bottle jack to push from the other side of the rail so you could use a jackhammer on the outside end? You would have to fashion an anvil to go between the hammer point and crossbar but maybe that's the type of impact needed for this beast. I was going to check out how much they are to rent seeing as my right side will need to come off for repairs also. Just a thought.

Scott

[wwattson]

I hit it from the top with both my air chistle with a blunt tip and a 3 pound hammer to no effect. You don't want to go beating on the end of thhe bar too much as the steel is relatively soft and you'll start to flare out the end.

I ran the calcs and it looks like a couple of C5x9 channels on the bottom should be able to take the 50 ton load of the jack. The top is a little trickier in that flat stock is going to wiggle around and try to crawl over the top of the outside of the castings. Won't be the case with the piece up against the rest of the track frame as it's got no place to go. I might try to form another piece of C5x9 to go around the front and just use a piece of 1x5 bar on the back.

Or maybe I can live with not taking it apart.

If I go crazy, I'll post the pictures.

[Stretch]

You might try a bigger rosebud so you can heat the casting faster. Just a thought.
Stretch

[PML]

I know the feeling, took a week to get mine off. I drilled to holes in the center section screwed in the grease zerks and pumped grease in. Heated it up a dozen times and pumped more hot grease. Last time 2 rosebuds heated it fast and with my jack, it moved.But it did feel better when I got to hit with a big hammer.