Further Work on the Burning Man Art Car

Homer helped me finish up the disassemble of the Ford CL-35 Skid Steer Loader after work the other day and after a 6 pack of my favorite beer, Otter Creek Brewing Copper Ale, we yanked the hydraulic assembly out. I was not sure how to get these components out of the machine independently because you cannot get to the hose ends with a wrench so I decided to take the motors and the pump out as a unit.

We found that the RH drive sprocket had broken the key way on the motor and someone did a terrible job repairing the damage. They went through the effort to replace the key but did not tighten the large nut or the brake disc so to our advantage, that side came apart easily. The LH side was a different story. We grappled onto the 1-5/8 nut with a 3/4″ drive breaker bar and had to come up with a way to keep the motor from spinning. We could not do anything to keep the motor fixed so we let the compressor charge up the tank and used our biggest air-impact gun which got her loose. Next we had to remove the sprocket with our huge 3 jaw puller. We had tons of force on the puller and the sprocket would not budge. Now is time for the heat!

I managed to get the sprocket red hot and the puller maxed out and let me tell you, that sprocket popped like a canon when it let go. Thankfully it did not drop in the chain oil bath because it could have started a major fire.

The pump is EATON Cessna and the motors are EATON Char-Lyn. I have been looking up different hydraulic components and guess that EATON factories make the parts and the Char-Lyn is the town that the factory is in? Another EATON hydraulic division is Vickers, when I get a chance I want to look up the meaning of these names.

Ford CL-35 EATON Components

Eaton Cessna and EATON Char-Lyn Hydraulics