Sweepster Rotary Broom - rebuild and modification

[pmsmechanic]

I think a good paint job beats powder coating in your situation. From what I understand powder coating traps moisture behind the paint causing rusting issues later on.

 

[dstig1]

I've had very good luck with the local powder coat guy. He sandblasts, phosphate dip and then powder coats. Seems to hold up great. I can barely manage these parts due to the size as I really don't have any lifting equipment other than the tractor so these things are a total PITA to handle. I wish I had planned for a bridge crane in the shop when I built it... The PC dude has forklifts and everything to handle large stuff. Now that I have welded the frame to the SSQA plate, there is no way I could get it off the table. 2 guys probably could OK, but I plan on using the tractor and sliding it onto a pallet. Just flipping it over for welding was an adventure...

 

[dstig1]

The structural stuff is now basically done. I got the upper support figured out and in place tonight. That mainly leaves figuring out how to attach the tank to the frame and same for the diverter. The diverter is mostly a "where" question as I have a mount for it, and I just need to pin down where exactly I am going to weld it on the upper support. It looks like it is very close to allowing a stock 12" hose to reach from the diverter to the relief valve, but it would be best to find out for sure and not end up 1/4" short...

Here's the upper brace

And where the diverter is going to be located, approximately

Hopefully wrap it up this weekend and be ready to bring in for powder coat.

 

[dstig1]

Almost there.... I got the tank mounting all figured out and complete. Some pics below. I had to add an additional bracket next to the upright to screw to as I could not get into that tight space otherwise. Just a heavy piece of angle welded right next to the frame upright with a hole drilled and tapped for the final mounting bracket.

Here's the tank with completed brackets

And the tank mounted in place.

Here is the additional center mount bracket, buried back in there. I had to slot the hole to fit as this was the last one I did, so it was kind of "make to fit". You can see the slot if you zoom in near the bottom of the tank on the right.

Views from the back:

All that is left now is to weld on the mounting bracket for the diverter on the channel sticking out the center. I have a hose coming for that and want to wait for it so I can be sure everything will fit before I weld it in, so later this week that final 5 min of welding will be done.

Almost there!

 

[dstig1]

I had a delay (again...) in that some lumber I was waiting for to finish out my house build finally became available (thanks, Covid), so I had to make a run for that. It took a full week to get that sorted out and fully in place. But I got time today to get back to it.

First up is I needed to make a bracket to hold the crossover check valve on top of the main sweeper shroud. I decided that running hoses was going to be much easier than trying to reinstall the hard pipes they had used at the factory, so it made the most sense to use the check valve as the mounting point. Here are some shots of that. Made from a piece of alum bar 1" x 4" x 2.5" or so.

The bottom half is threaded so i will run the bolts up through the shroud to secure the bottom to the shroud, then the upper half is clearance holes, so I will run down nuts on the 2 bolts sticking through to clamp the check valve. Here is what i am getting at:

And the diverter mount is now welded in. Some pics of before and after (the clamp being present means it is before).

And this one shows the pressure gage setup I created to help debug and check this out. It would be in place temporarily to see what is going on prior to real use. It also shows the diverter mounting plate welded in place.

I will load this all up in the PU tomorrow and get it to the powder coater this week sometime. Mon looks bad, but maybe tues. I can manage most parts but the frame is now too heavy to lift solo. I will need to use the tractor, maybe with the forks to handle that.

 

[ArlyA]

I think a good paint job beats powder coating in your situation. From what I understand powder coating traps moisture behind the paint causing rusting issues later on.

If the powder company doesn't properly clean and coat, it rusts underneath or falls off as you state. That coating is only as good as the applicator.

 

[dstig1]

This guy has been running a powder coat business for probably 20 years here now and he does excellent work, and is very reasonable on cost too. He will fully sandblast then phosphate dip and then PC. Many PC places will not work on anything but new steel, so it is great that he is willing to do all that he does. I got it all loaded in the truck and now just need to find time to drop it off this week.

 

[dstig1]

I dropped off the parts for powder coat almost 2 weeks ago. They got them sandblasted, phosphate dipped and coated in 2 days...but I could not pick up until the next week. Then I needed help unloading so had to wait for that, and life got busy so i finally got back to this today to get it reassembled and moving forward.

I got all the main structural stuff reassembled and some other bits. Here is the main shroud/frame assembly. You can see I had to come up with a temporary limit chain to hang the shroud head from pivot down into the ground so I could move it. That is the last main structural thing to do - I need float springs and some chain to hang/adjust the head. But I'm not quite sure what to use as it looks like most plow springs are too big. These are shown in the manual as being 1-7/8" dia and about 10.25" long (no wire diameter listed) and plow springs are ~15" and in the 2-3" dia range so possibly too long and too beefy.

And then I got a lot of the rest of the components in place

Still need to build up the broom core. I forgot to clean up and paint the hydraulic motor, so that is holding it up now (waiting for paint to dry - will take a couple days to finish) as the motor has to go inside the core first. The motor is kind of the last big question as to if it is good or not as I had no way to test it. If not, that is going to be a painful fix or replacement... Hopefully I can get the chain and springs sorted out quickly and then move onto getting the final hoses figured out. There is a little bit of wiring to do too, but that is pretty minor.

Hoping to make good progress this week while I am off for thanksgiving!

 

[dstig1]

Been working on the wiring for the diverter. I found an unused plug that has 12v switched with the key right where I needed it (is a connector for brake lights, which I guess are required in some places, but apparently not the US). Found a leftover mounting stud for ground also under the dash, and got a hole drilled for the angle switch. Got that stuff wired up and the wire poked out of the cab near the loader hydraulic connections. I need to get stuff for a plug there so i can split off the loader without having to do something like un-wire the entire thing to take the loader off.

I also made this bracket from some leftover 14ga SS and used the top hydraulic bulkhead fitting to secure it, and bent the lower ends in to act as anti-rotation features. You will connect the plug from the sweeper to this outlet to control the diverter and thus the angle function. Coupla pics:

I made the bracket for the 3rd function remotes back in 2013 when I got the tractor and plumbed in all the 3rd function stuff. This piece just sticks on the top of it.

Not much else to show about wiring. Hoping to wrap that up tomorrow and may take a couple pics

 

[mike0000]

Nice work, it’s really coming together well!

Mike