You can discover an awful lot when you go behind the scenes of any process, as Finning News discovered when it visited a Cat 826 compactor, just before it left the Enovert operated landfill site in Wrexham, to undergo a UK first Finning rebuild.
Having clocked up just over 15,000 hours on the site, the next day after our visit, the unit was washed down and transported to the Finning Winsford branch, where its rebuild journey began. To find out more about the compactor rebuild and how the process works, we spoke to Finning specialist, David Cripps and visited the Finning rebuild centres in Winsford and Leeds.
David: “With any rebuild process the first decision any customer will make is based on commercial grounds. In other words, what are the practical issues and cost associated with rebuilding or purchasing a new unit. There are many elements to this, including the required lifecycle of the application, financial capital expenditure preferences and availability of new or replacement equipment, to name a few.
“Equally, a lot depends on the condition of the existing unit and this is where the first part of the rebuild costing process comes in, which involves a thorough site based inspection. This is then used with the customer to determine the options available.
“For example, there may just be a requirement for an engine and/or transmission overhaul, or a more Finning tailored rebuild option, which comes with a two 2 year unlimited hour warranty. There is also a premium Cat Certified Rebuild, option which follows specific Caterpillar guidelines, offering an up to 5 year 10,000 hour warranty on the powertrain components.
“In the case of the Cat 826, the decision to rebuild the unit was based on existing knowledge of the machines performance and the flexibility the Finning rebuild option gave to the Enovert team from a cost, warranty and timing perspective.Taking just a couple of months, Enovert was able to hire in a replacement compactor whilst the unit was being rebuilt.
Stripping the machine
“Once the unit arrived at our Winsford branch, the engineering team took two weeks to strip all of the components off the mainframe. Throughout this process the condition of components were video recorded, using our new Fincam visual reporting tool. This is particularly important when dealing with components that are only fully visible once a machine is dismantled.
By performing this inspection process, Enovert and our engineering team were able to confirm which parts would be salvaged, repaired or replaced with either Cat remanufactured parts or new components.
Rebuilding the engine, transmission and axles
With engines, transmissions and axles being key components of any rebuild, these items, once removed from the Cat 826, were shipped to the Finning specialist component rebuild centre in Leeds. At the time of our visit, the rebuild process was in full swing with the components dismantled and engineers working hard to give them a new lease of life. Once complete, the engine and transmission would undergoing specialist testing at what is the UK’s only facilitiy with the capabilities of testing such large mobile plant components.
With the rebuild approaching half way to completion, we left both teams continuing the transformation of the Cat 826, which we will feature in the next edition of Finning News.