Originally Posted by
Old Farang
general brickworks plant
Along with the actual brick making plant, there was a bunch of other equipment to maintain.
First amongst them was the Caterpillar front end loaders. The wheeled loader, I think that it was a 930, did all of the loading of the clay onto the conveyor and crushing system. These early loaders used a pre-combustion chamber fuel injection system and gave very little trouble. However:
This particular machine was operated by a very cautious Italian driver that would not, OR could not ,use the throttle and make it work a bit. The result led to a couple of problems: firstly, it could result in the cylinders starting to "glaze over" causing excess oil consumption at the very least, and secondly: the turbo and exhaust system rapidly carboned up, resulting in sluggish performance and smoky exhaust. To try and clean it out a bit if I was working on a Saturday morning when the driver was not, I would get on it and work it hard for about 30 minutes to help blow out some of the soot, or there was another driver that would do it for me. I vaguely recall doing a top overhaul on a Caterpillar engine, but old timers disease prevents me from recalling if it was this one!
There is a well known "old wives'' tale" of the era that recommends a dose of "Bon Ami" powder down the intake manifold will cure cylinder glazing. I never found the need to try it!
The other loader was a tracked machine, I think it was a 933, that was just used as a back up and to tidy up the clay stock pile.These machines were basically a D2 dozer modified as a "traxcavator".It had a "wet" engine clutch and dry steering clutches, but there were several evolutions noted by a suffix letter. Later models were upgraded to D4 frames. All that I recall ever doing to it was to adjust the master (engine) clutch. I remember turning part of the assembly to take up the slack, but apart from that, old timers disease has intervened again!
One item of the plant that did require regular maintenance was the clay crushing and preparation machines. I think that there were three "sets" that consisted of two opposing steel rollers about 3 or 4 feet in diameter and about the same width. Each set was driven independently by an electric motor. The gap between the rollers was adjustable,gradually being reduced at each consecutive set. The raw clay was fed into a hopper above each machine by a rubber conveyor belt.
At regular intervals the surface of the crushing rollers had to be "dressed" to keep them flat. There was an electrically driven grinding attachment with a big carborundum stone that had to be manually used to dress the rollers. This was the "perk" of the old TA. He only got overtime when this needed doing, as it had to be done while the plant was stopped. He used to get himself dressed up like a bank robber and happily sit there grinding away!
Mentioned previously, there was a metal detector over the primary conveyor belt. Although this device was state of the art for the time, it was still a PITA giving false alarms and stopping the conveyors for no traceable reason.
There were several water pumps that required attention from time to time. Many drives were by vee belt, so they needed constant checking and or replacing. The place bristled with bearings of many assorted sizes and configuration, but I do not recall them being much of a problem. Each plant section operator was responsible for greasing his own machine, including the forklift tractors, and would incur my wrath if not done!
Following the demise of the Mexican, I was on my own with just the TA for a while.
Then the Italian "mafia" (not really, they were a hard working bunch of mostly good blokes),
asked if they could bring a young Italian bloke from one of the local clans. He did not have any formal qualifications, and was working on small engines such as lawn mowers and chainsaws, but he turned out to be a good asset. He was also handy with the arc welder and could knock upsmall items.
In conclusion and to show the chronological order, this adventure was before I went to sea and before the backhoe episode. I returned to the farm and went to sea after about 18 months at the brickworks.While I was at sea, I studied marine engineering, and my time at the brickworks, along with my apprenticeship, combined with sea time qualified as enough for the issue of a marine engineer's ticket.
The end.
Reply With QuoteFunny now but not at the time When all the steelwork was finished we used the cut drums that had contained concrete premix for form work mixed the concrete at the camp site and choppered it to position Pic 3 shows steel work neally finished and ready for decking
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