Stuck backhoe pin

caver · Jan 7, 2020

Big Barn said:
That’s interesting. What was the size and situation exactly?

Found the link. Old Mechanic's Trick: Freeze-Shrink Metal Parts WITHOUT Nitrogen. - YouTube

stuckmotor · Jan 8, 2020

fatjay said:
You needed convincing??

It's a character flaw I have.

fatjay · Jan 8, 2020

Soon as i can get home from work I'll try some of the suggestions and report back. I'm confident that it'll come out one way or another.

fatjay · Jan 11, 2020

Heating and freezing and hammering and drilling and cutting and jack hammering i managed to move it a half inch. Which means with enough force, it will come out! I'm exhausted now so I put the whole thing in a bucket of pb blaster. Tomorrow I'll give it another shot.

Industrial Toys · Jan 11, 2020

Not sure why you cut the bucket. Could you not get a sawsall blade in there to cut the pin off? That's gonna take some fine welding to hold that together.

fatjay · Jan 11, 2020

I’ll likely never use the 8” bucket again once I have the 24” bucket on. It was the weak point of the machine, we have solid clay, it wasn’t tapered at all and it would pack with dirt and it wouldn’t come out, so I could only do demo with it, not actually digging. Plus I wanted to have as much pin to play with as possible, So I could mash it and then cut it off when I got it right.

stuckmotor · Jan 11, 2020

MF RED in MT said:
I've used mine many times to heat up thick flat bar very fast and then I use my HF bender to make a bend in the hot metal (also have used it with #8 rebar to bend).

It's much cheaper to heat item up then using my oxygen/acetylene tanks.

KC

KC,
If you remember what brand of weed burner you have (Was it an Ace Hardware brand?) and it's BTU rating, I'd sure like to know. If #8 rebar is 1" thick as I think, a weed burner like yours would take care of most of my bending needs.

duramaxsky · Jan 12, 2020

I hate it when problems like this come up. Good luck. I hope you get it out.

fatjay · Jan 12, 2020

It's out. What a job it was.

After soaking it in pb blaster overnight, i went and got the 8lb sledge and hammered the pin back and forth, each time it moved a bit further and a bit easier. At first I was taking full swings, but I only have so many of those in me before I need to take 5. After I was able to move it in 1-2 swings I switched to the 3lb sledge, partly because I couldn't swing the 8lb with any accuracy at that point. Worked it back and forth like that, every time putting penetrating oil on. Then switched to the jack hammer on one side. Eventually switched to the jack hammer.

Once I got it moving decently to the mushroomed ends I took my grinder and trimmed the mushroomed end that I used the jack hammer on, figuring it'd be easiest to push it through with the jack hammer. pushed it as far as it would go, then hammered it back, rinse and repeat a dozen times until it finally went through. I was spent but it was out and i was so excited I didn't waste any time, drug the new bucket over and hooked it up. New pins need shims but that's easy enough.