Thread: One for the fridgies

Originally Posted by 4bee

OF. And built to last.

So quiet in a noisy enviroment that you could get hooked up in the flat belt drive 'joiner connectors'(?). B4 H&S that is, & provided some clown hadn't removed the belt guard & left it off.Rick, your Dad would have touched these I suspect. No no, not the belt guards, Ammonia crap.

Surprisingly enough those joiners are still available! We had several flat belt drives on an overhead shafting setup on the farm that I grew up on, and I can still see my late Father using them. One of the drives, it may have been the primary drive from a single cylinder diesel engine, had an overlapped connection held together with leather lacing.

Flat Belt Lacing & Vulcanised Joints :: Transmissions - Pulleys & Belts

Originally Posted by Old Farang

Surprisingly enough those joiners are still available! We had several flat belt drives on an overhead shafting setup on the farm that I grew up on, and I can still see my late Father using them. One of the drives, it may have been the primary drive from a single cylinder diesel engine, had an overlapped connection held together with leather lacing.

Flat Belt Lacing & Vulcanised Joints :: Transmissions - Pulleys & Belts

As an apprentice and young machinist (circa 1957-65) I worked in a few shops that were still fully driven by flat belt, pulleys, and shafting. An apprentice job was each morning to climb up to the shafting with an oil can and fill the bearing reservoirs. This ensured you started the day covered in oil and dirt from the leakage. One shop had started with a steam engine, modernised to a horizontal oil engine, and then to one big electric motor driving the same shafting and pulleys as its predecessors. Three generation family business and weren't they tight!!!!! A long serving worker reckoned that the General Manager had the thinnest two bob in Australia. Worn out from being pushed backwards and forwards across the bar pretending he was going to shout.

I was fascinated by Kinnears ropes in East Brisbane. On sports days from East Brisbane State I would walk home via Lytton Road where the factory was.
The whole thing was driven by miriads of flat belts and shafts and big wheels..
Regards Philip A

I have another mate that worked for Budge Ellis for years,on ammonia gear.He did his time at Wildridge and Sinclair.Now that name makes me feel old

He worked all hours rebuilding their compressors at different meat works all around the state.From memory the cranks ran on roller bearings,if my memory is not deceiving me.

The other mate works for Gordons,probably currently the biggest ammonia refrig mob in the country by a long way,they do some HUGE jobs.
They also make a LOT of money,margins are very high in that industry.

Oh,i also worked on the York chillers we had at the Awonga dam site.
The chilled water at 6 degrees, was mixed with the concrete.
That was also bloody years ago.
They used to start work at 4.00am,so if the chillers didn't go,the phone was ringing.....

Those Yorks were the models that had Copeland recips in them,american wiring,with lock out relays,part winding start compressors,unloaders,weird short cycle timers,etc.They always had the site electricians totally confused

Originally Posted by PhilipA

I was fascinated by Kinnears ropes in East Brisbane. On sports days from East Brisbane State I would walk home via Lytton Road where the factory was.
The whole thing was driven by miriads of flat belts and shafts and big wheels..
Regards Philip A

Setting all that up was a highly skilled trade, that of the millwright.

The chilled water at 6 degrees, was mixed with the concrete.

Yep, I had forgotten that aspect Paul. Not only recirced.


By George there are some old names there.

O F. Crocodile was another.

Ah the good olde days eh.

Talking flat belts, most of the shearing sheds I've been in still use flat belts to drive the shearing gear.

Back when I was an apprentice (it doesn't feel that long ago...) the engineering shop next door was Lassiter Engineering.
Bob is the grandson of that Lassiter, but he had a European machinist named Paul working for him who could do a join in a flat belt that you couldn't see.
That impressed me.

Des, I don't think Dad ever touched ammonia.
Methyl Chloride, So2 yes, but not ammonia.
He did his trade in the mid fifties, started working for himself in 1960.

Originally Posted by scarry

I have another mate that worked for Budge Ellis for years,on ammonia gear.He did his time at Wildridge and Sinclair.Now that name makes me feel old

He worked all hours rebuilding their compressors at different meat works all around the state.From memory the cranks ran on roller bearings,if my memory is not deceiving me.

The other mate works for Gordons,probably currently the biggest ammonia refrig mob in the country by a long way,they do some HUGE jobs.
They also make a LOT of money,margins are very high in that industry.

Oh,i also worked on the York chillers we had at the Awonga dam site.
The chilled water at 6 degrees, was mixed with the concrete.
That was also bloody years ago.
They used to start work at 4.00am,so if the chillers didn't go,the phone was ringing.....

Those Yorks were the models that had Copeland recips in them,american wiring,with lock out relays,part winding start compressors,unloaders,weird short cycle timers,etc.They always had the site electricians totally confused

I had a service call to the CAT (York) chiller at the cement plant for this section of the new motorway back in Jan.
600kw, two screws, etc etc.

I was ****ting myself as I don't have the JCI software to diagnose and drive the thing and the nearest JCI techs are three hours away.
Anyway, got it going and made the CAT chiller tech happy as he was in North Qld at the time
The cement plant blokes were pretty chilled. (see what I did there? )