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QUESTION:I'm looking for ideas to cobble together a large frame for working on a
backhoe I'm rehabbing. The beast I'm working on is a Ford 550
Tractor-Loader-Backhoe. I need to be able to lift off the loader frame,
the hoe, the boom, and various other heavy and bulky iron parts. My shop
door is only 8 feet high so I'm going to have to do this in the barnyard.
Would a shop crane be able to lift these kinds of weights? (The backhoe
section weighs in at 4000lbs. and the loader is also in that weight
range.)
Would a large shop crane handle that much weight and have enough
clearance to lift over the back tires?
ANSWER: A regular 'shop crane' won't touch these. The backhoe should be removable
by its own power if you can run it. Removing the loader is serious
business. Are you *sure* the loader only weighs two tons? I didn't think
the Ford 550 was that much smaller than the JD 450, and the loader on *that*
weighs a lot more than two tons.
I don't have the exact weight on the loader. I'm guessing that from the
manuals I have which state that if the loader is removed, there must be a
4000 pound counterweight added to stabilize the hoe and tractor.
Forgot to mention that the engine is not running. The main idea with
off-loading the loader is to pull the engine to find why it's not
running. This is a 3 cylinder diesel and the guy I bought it from (cheap)
says that he was using it when a tree branch or a root managed to short
the starter switch and engage the starter while the engine was running.
Since then, the engine won't turn over. My first thought was that the
starter gear broke off and jammed the flywheel against the trans housing.
I've pulled a small inspection plate near the flywheel and reached in to
see if I could feel a broken gear in the flywheel. I couldn't feel
anything in the lower half of the housing. I can't reach the upper half
and can't see into it.
My next approach will be to remove the gear housing on the front of the
engine and see if one of the three main gears here have broken a tooth,
then I will pull the head and see what's there. The owner says he had the
starter rebuilt after the incident but it still wouldn't turn over the
engine.
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