16 BOLTS HOLDS THE WILCOX LINKAGE ON THE CHALLENGER 95E

[00:00:01]Morning, all. That is Friday morning. Um I'm just going to be getting on with this linkage today, getting that taken off, and then getting that welded up. Um I'm not sure I'll get into welding today, but certainly stripping it off um and then getting um and all prepped ready for welding. Uh I normally have to sort of grind as a fair old bit uh to to grind out, and then um it's like I say, there's there's quite a bit of work involved. So, anyway, I'll show you how it goes today.

[00:00:32]Yeah, so I am just thinking as well, I am going to have uh a week's holiday. Uh that's going to be next week. Um but I also am going to be uh doing some of the tractor uh the Massey Ferguson project uh later today.

[00:00:48]So, I'm just thinking that I might just keep that video uh of the tractor um probably for Monday or Tuesday next week, you see. I'll probably upload that, and then uh it'll be it'll be ready at 7:00 on a Monday or Tuesday. Um I'm off to the Norfolk Show on the Wednesday or Thursday. Haven't made my mind up yet. Um so, there there'll be a little bit of content of that. So, there will be something going on. Um and I have got a road run this Sunday, which is which is happening uh Roger Coe's at Grimston. So, there'll be a little bit of content of that. So, I might save that for next week as well. So, uh there will be a little something. It won't be completely nothing. So, um yeah. We'll see how it goes. Right, let's get on with this uh linkage. See you in a bit.

[00:01:35]Right, so firstly, this is the Wilcox linkage, which uh is on the back of the old Challenger. You see that there? So, Wilcox make these linkages for Challenger. Um obviously not now, cuz it's, you know, all all done and dusted, but um yeah, we need to get those eight bolts out of there.

[00:01:53]And the same the other side.

[00:01:55]I'll just to those off. So, the drawbar's got to come off, which I need to get that all undone. I need to get underneath to undo that as well. But, we'll show you how that goes.

[00:02:05]But, before I get stuck into this, I'm just going to nip and put a bale of hay in for the uh heifers and cows around the yard cuz I noticed their ring feeder is empty. So, we'll just go and do that.

[00:02:14]So, we'll just get the loader started.

[00:02:18]These are wide.

[00:02:20]Let them have a little warm up.

[00:02:23]And we've got this little project to be on with in a minute.

[00:02:30]And it does look really strange like that.

[00:02:34]Right, let's go and put some hay in for them young heifers.

[00:02:43]Off we go. I've just got to take the pressure off.

[00:02:46]You press that.

[00:02:48]Then we can get the pipes on in front of the uh grab.

[00:02:52]Right, so we got a bale, which was in the yard. That was for them for that cow and the calf the other day.

[00:02:59]So, we'll just put that in a ring feeder.

[00:03:02]And then these uh other ones can have that.

[00:03:07]Looks like they need a a fresh bale.

[00:03:11]Right, let's get that in there.

[00:03:25]Just the job, right. That's them sorted.

[00:03:28]Just looking at the pond. Um that's dried up fairly. It's a rum 'un, that is.

[00:03:36]Yeah, it is a quite a nice little area, this is, for the uh for the cows. They actually get in there.

[00:03:42]There's a calf in there yesterday.

[00:03:45]I don't know if that Oh, there's a squirrel going up there, look. Can you see it?

[00:03:51]Trying to find the geese, actually.

[00:03:55]Ah, still about here. They are, look.

[00:03:58]Yeah, the two geese are still there. And they had they did have one chick, so that would have been the second I can't really say lot, but the second one.

[00:04:09]Right, back to sorting this linkage. Um, just sort of put a bail in for them.

[00:04:14]See how warm it is. Feel it really hot already.

[00:04:17]Yeah, you see it there. There you go.

[00:04:20]22° at 5:00 past 8:00 this morning, so I bet that's going to be up to 30 days, isn't it?

[00:04:28]Right, let's go.

[00:04:29]Let's go and terrorize this linkage and get it off the crawler.

[00:04:37]We'll just go and drop this um grab off the front.

[00:04:41]Just need um I need a chain and um I can't remember if I need the forks as well, but we'll start without them, I think.

[00:04:51]So, we'll go for the chain on the front there to start with on the loader. And then we can get lifting all these parts off on here.

[00:04:59]First, I need to get the drawbar off.

[00:05:02]So, we'll just get this undone.

[00:05:04]It didn't take too much time, to be honest.

[00:05:07]Right, we'll get these off. So, there's another bolt I need to get to, which is right underneath there. So, let's go and get it done.

[00:05:14]So, let's get under here and get it done. Here we are.

[00:05:19]This is the one we're after. That one there.

[00:05:22]I think I get my spanner on it and we'll get it undone. Yeah, so what you've got underneath here is this this stud. It's just screwed into the uh framework.

[00:05:31]So, once that drops out, then the pin will will drop out.

[00:05:35]But the drawbar can't, cuz I seen like a little groove, so we hold everything.

[00:05:42]There you go. All right.

[00:05:44]We can get that out of the way.

[00:05:46]And there is a little collar up there.

[00:05:49]And I think that'll come out with the when I jack it out. So, right, let's get out.

[00:05:54]So, that's the drawbar pin which holds it on underneath. It's sort of like the life of the machine. So, what are we? 26 years old?

[00:06:02]And uh that's the bar I undo it with. That normally undoes most things that bar.

[00:06:08]Uh right, next is go to here.

[00:06:12]So, those four there.

[00:06:14]And this is where I need the jack. So, I need to jack underneath and then undo those four and then the drawbar will just drop down and I can wheel it out then. So, that's the first part of the job. So, we just got that on the drawbar and we'll get this out of the box.

[00:06:29]Should drop on there now. That's the jack under there. We just drop the jack down as you can see.

[00:06:34]And then get the drawbar out completely.

[00:06:38]This is on a slide underneath.

[00:06:41]Now, I should be able to just pull that onto there.

[00:06:46]Everything's heavy.

[00:06:50]There it is.

[00:06:55]So, we need a trolley jack for that job, definitely.

[00:06:58]So, I just got the last bolt which I'm going to undo with a long bar.

[00:07:02]And that's normally pretty tight.

[00:07:04]I've got a piece of wood on there just to steady it as you can see.

[00:07:08]And that is the last one to undo. Right.

[00:07:12]Now, I need to get the ram off and actually out of the framework and then we can get this lifted off.

[00:07:19]So, the next little job is just to get this valve off at the top here which will just undo these Allen keys and then that valve will come off there.

[00:07:28]And I need to just get that pin out of there which you can see has started to come out.

[00:07:32]So, that's that one out. That for size of pin is my hand to scale it.

[00:07:39]So, we just had dinner and I've been called out to uh a little job on the road. Uh you can see there's a there's a bit of a hedge that's just fell out or something, but um yeah, that's causing a nuisance to the traffic, so I've just got to deal with that. Just going to grab that and um either push it back in or we'll we're going to rip it out and then uh deal with it later date. So, uh yeah, just to make it safe.

[00:08:06]So, that's our little job done. I think what happened is the wind probably just broke in the uh the bottom bit. We just pushed it in just out of the way.

[00:08:15]Back to the farm we go.

[00:08:17]It is heading back to the farm. I thought I'd stop where this um field of peas are and have a have a little look at these, but uh yeah, they don't look too bad. I mean, they're taking a bit of a hit with the drought, but there they are, hanging on there, same on.

[00:08:34]Some of them are still flowering.

[00:08:36]We have got a pod. Let's have a look, shall we?

[00:08:40]So, there we go.

[00:08:42]There's some in there, isn't Not bad. How about that noise? Let's have a go.

[00:08:47]Mhm.

[00:08:49]Very nice, too.

[00:08:50]How they are. So, these are marrowfat peas.

[00:08:54]So, they will be um uh going through our combine. So, they'll be Well, they'll be like bullets when we combine them. Well, that's the idea.

[00:09:03]They'll be hard and um they'll go through the combine. So, uh may have only just got rid of the ones out the grain store.

[00:09:13]Right, let's get back to the farm. That is God, it's getting a warm on there, isn't it? That is.

[00:09:18]Here we go.

[00:09:19]Yeah, I thought it was warm, look.

[00:09:21]32° on there. Come on.

[00:09:25]Right, let's go. Right, so I'm just on my way back to the farm. I thought I'd stop in this particular field here. So, these are sugar beets and it was um direct drilled after a cover crop. So, um what we done is we ran the um Cousins uh that's precision seed bed harrow through here. And um after the um cover crop, that was obviously sprayed off round about the Christmas time.

[00:09:52]Um so, the whole the the tops and that had gone down and melt straight down.

[00:09:56]Um and I'll just show you the soil so you can see all the all the bits of straw and all the bits of um there was facilia and other bits of greenery in there as well. Um so, here you go. This is some of the soil that you can see all these fibrous bits on there, which is all mixed in at the top.

[00:10:13]And um yeah, they are sort of struggling a bit with this sun today that they are.

[00:10:17]I can see them all flagged over.

[00:10:21]We'll cross a bit further.

[00:10:23]But yeah, you can see all that all the fibrous stuff, straw bits and pieces all in there, all mixed in. Um but yeah, it was a really good seed bed, to be fair.

[00:10:33]And um we've done this method before and it really works well, but obviously in the heat of the day, that's um sort of struggling with the plants a bit. Mind you, I should think most of them are with the drought.

[00:10:47]There you go. Bit on sugar beet.

[00:10:51]All right. So, we're just back to the van.

[00:10:54]There's the old cows on the on the meadow, bless them.

[00:10:59]They're not liking this heat, I don't think.

[00:11:02]Yeah, it is 31° out there.

[00:11:05]That is warm. So, we'll just get this grab off the uh front of the JCB cuz I need to um put that chain back on. And then we're going to lift that uh hydraulic ram out of the back of the uh Challenger. So, we'll get on with that.

[00:11:18]Right, back to it where we left off.

[00:11:21]Just that little job done anyway.

[00:11:24]Right, ram off the Challenger.

[00:11:26]So, we just need that single chain to hook onto there.

[00:11:31]See, how done this a time or two before.

[00:11:32]I've actually welded an eye actually on the ram at the top look for this job.

[00:11:38]Yeah, before I lift that out though, I just need to extend the hydraulic ram to get the collars. There's two collars in there I need to get out.

[00:11:47]So, we just extended out. Need to go a little bit more cuz there's the two collars there.

[00:11:52]So, here's that collar that needs to come off. You can see it's there. Just needs prizing out. There we are.

[00:11:58]There's another collar this side.

[00:12:00]So, we'll get that one out as well.

[00:12:01]There we are.

[00:12:04]Right.

[00:12:05]Now, cuz that's just a bearing in there.

[00:12:07]Now, that will go up in between there and then out. So, I just need to lift it out with the loader.

[00:12:14]Yeah, what I try and do as well when I'm letting it down is I put a little bit of cardboard in there just so that protects the actual piston on the on the actual ram.

[00:12:24]So, you know, if that goes on there and damages it and puts a mark in it, well, you're going to take an oil seal out.

[00:12:29]So, yeah, that's what we're up to. You can see I mean, this is where I've welded it other years in there that and that's all all right still. So, you know, it's not as bad as what we think to be fair.

[00:12:41]So, next I've just got a bit of weight on the chain which you can see there.

[00:12:45]I'm just going to knock that pin out and then that'll be all on the loader. So, we'll get that done. There we just got the ram on that chain which I'm a bit tight on the roof as well.

[00:12:56]I'm a bit further forward in the workshop than I normally am.

[00:13:00]This is a bit of a pain. So, I just got to get that out without taking the roof out.

[00:13:06]And we are just about on the roof.

[00:13:14]Which is there look.

[00:13:16]Um but anyway, we're getting there.

[00:13:18]We're getting there.

[00:13:19]Right, that is the ram out.

[00:13:27]Okay, right.

[00:13:29]Let's claim that. There you go. There it is what it is. Right, ram is out.

[00:13:33]Just need to get that on the floor without damaging the grease nipple.

[00:13:40]So, that's the ram all off and no damage, thank goodness. So, um right, I can get the rest of the linkage off there.

[00:13:47]So, the next little job is we need to push this pin, it's a great big pin, back into there where it come out of.

[00:13:57]There we go.

[00:13:58]Push that in there.

[00:14:00]And get the bolt through. Now, I can lift with the chain from there to carry the whole thing. So, um this is where I need to put two chains on it and then um chain also on there and then we can lift it straight up. Um also need to get the bolts out because they're still bolted in.

[00:14:19]Um but they're loose, you see? So, um also need to pin it pin it up. So, at the minute it's just resting on that RSJ. Well, we've got a uh little mechanism here, which is this part. So, we get that off there.

[00:14:33]Um lift it up. It'll be stuck, I'm sure.

[00:14:36]It normally is.

[00:14:38]Anyway, so that and then will go on to uh let's get the right way around.

[00:14:43]Hang on.

[00:14:45]That goes on to there, which is a circular shape. And then that bit goes on to there. And then it will be pinned up then. So, um that's the next thing to do.

[00:14:57]So, we just get the chain under there, which will lift the whole linkage up cuz obviously the ram is now gone. You see where it should be.

[00:15:03]So, we'll just lift that up and then that'll lift the whole linkage up off the RSJ.

[00:15:09]I'll actually just beam it out as well.

[00:15:12]And um should be home somewhere.

[00:15:20]Somewhere there, right. We're trying to lift the crawler. so we'll get that pinned up. That's where the pin goes.

[00:15:26]Um So, that bit goes on there and that bit goes on there.

[00:15:30]So, there we are, just like that.

[00:15:32]And we can let that down.

[00:15:35]I've got fan running, which is a little bit cool. Um there we are, just dropped off, perfect. So, now that is on that um on that pin.

[00:15:43]So, the next one is two chains, two chains off there, two chains off there.

[00:15:49]Um this linkage is round about the 3-ton, so um yeah, it's a fair old fair old lump.

[00:15:55]So, we're happy with that. We've got two chains on there and two chains on there.

[00:15:59]We're ready to lift. I just need to get all the bolts out now, which are under here. And what I do is I make sure I've got two jacks, so one under there, one under there.

[00:16:10]So, as I'm then undoing those bolts, the thing can't drop or anything daft like that.

[00:16:16]You know, you're working on your own, you've got to think of these things, so you you know, you don't want to end up in hospital. Bear that in mind if you're working on your own.

[00:16:24]Okay, we'll just get these bolts out over here.

[00:16:27]Just this side. We'll get these out.

[00:16:32]That one.

[00:16:40]So, All right, so like I say, we've got um all the bolts out. I've got one in that side still, one in that side. Um we've got a chain on it. I've got two jacks underneath, just so we can't drop it.

[00:16:59]So, uh we're just going to uh get the bolts out.

[00:17:02]So, this is where we are with it. We'll just get the uh linkage off.

[00:17:06]So, there's no bolts holding on it and it's resting on the jack, so um we'll get it back.

[00:17:33]>> So that is how you get the linkage off the 95 e.

[00:17:37]See, just those bolts.

[00:17:40]Um Just got to tip it over now and then um I can get to grind the thing out underneath.

[00:17:46]Yeah, just looks kind of strange without that on the back, doesn't it? Really weird.

[00:17:52]But um now's the time to get in there if you need to do anything in there.

[00:17:56]We'll check all in there as well.

[00:18:00]So we're just going to take the chains off now and then um reposition them to actually tip it over. So um we'll get these chains off out of the way. Um that was nearly the camera.

[00:18:11]Um Right, put that in there.

[00:18:14]That in there.

[00:18:16]Get these off.

[00:18:25]All right.

[00:18:26]It's a bit greasy in there.

[00:18:28]Anyway, we'll get that off.

[00:18:30]So there we are at long last. That is now upside down so I can get to work on it. So this is what we're going to be seeing to. We're going to be cutting all of that bit out there. So this is an extra part that I put in um not last year, the year before.

[00:18:45]Um same as that there.

[00:18:47]Same as that there.

[00:18:48]And also all this here which I put in extra well, it really has helped cuz it's not cracked here but just round this part there. So I'm thinking that it won't be as bad as what I thought for. So it's just there, there, there and there which I can cut that out and then reweld it. So all this looks still pretty good. Um although there is looks a little bit there.

[00:19:09]We can to that.

[00:19:11]Um But yeah, it's not looking too bad to be fair. I mean, this is stuff I've done other years. Same as uh No, not that bit, but this bit.

[00:19:20]Um also in here, I've done all this.

[00:19:24]Done all this. And it looks pretty good.

[00:19:25]So, it's just that bit and that bit.

[00:19:28]Happy days.

[00:19:30]But obviously working on this sort of thing, you know, you You can't be without a loader. There is the old caterpillar with new linkage.

[00:19:38]Right. So, this is as far as I'm going to get with the old Challenger.

[00:19:42]Um linkage is off.

[00:19:44]All ready to be um sorted, welded, grinded um on Monday when I get back in a week's time. So, I'm having a week off.

[00:19:55]So, we're just having a bit of a cool down um after a busy old day in the workshop. But uh yeah, so I'm just going to go and have a go at the old Massey now and uh get on with that. And uh what I'm going to do is call it a day. So, that'll be the end of the video here, but I'm going to carry on and then upload um the Massey project, which will be Monday uh next week. So, uh yeah, I hope you enjoyed the video and we'll catch you in a week's time. See you then. Bye-bye.