road sweep rebuild

[bob_wood]

Renze,

Your sweeper project is coming along nicely. Great job. I have a york broom with no casters or dust pan. Your project is an inspiration for me to modify my broom. It sweeps real good as is but its a Pain to clean the mess up after !! Thanks for posting and updating us on your progress.

Bob

 

[RedDirt]

Great job Renze. Can you make us an action video?

I know what you mean by no one wants to hand sweep any more. Once I got my rakes built I rarely pick up a hand rake anymore. I tractor rake more in four hours now than I could hand rake in two days. Once we have these labor saving devices its hard to go back to the old style (and what use to be a chore is now fun!)

 

[Renze]

Red dirt, bob wood,

Thanks a lot for the encouragement to keep going !!
Tonight i couldnt sleep because of the thunder weather. Today its terribly HOT i'm sweating like a horse, and i'm fed up with this road sweep. I wish i was finished but i've got work to do...
I've got a very troublesome past half year, company i worked for went bankrupt, i found a new job per september 1st because i want to be gone, before i get trouble with my new employer because we really cant get along.

All i want is just my hard earned holiday rest, and this road sweep just doesnt get any further !!

Anyways, your compliments are the extra encouragement i need, to continue and be done with it before the weekend...

 

[bob_wood]

Great job Renze. Can you make us an action video?

I know what you mean by no one wants to hand sweep any more. Once I got my rakes built I rarely pick up a hand rake anymore. I tractor rake more in four hours now than I could hand rake in two days. Once we have these labor saving devices its hard to go back to the old style (and what use to be a chore is now fun!)

Of all the attachments I have bought over the years, the Rake has gotten the most use. I didnt realize just how much I had used it til I broke a tine. I got another one at our local dealer and when I put it on the rake it was about 3 inches longer than the rest !! ( yes, I Did cut it off ) Thats how much the tines have worn down in 20 years. BTW that tine cost me $13 so buying them from our online sources for $2.99 seems like a good thing to do from now on.

bob

 

[Renze]

All right guys, i got the inside of the dust bin and rotor cover, painted in bituminous car underbody coating, marketed as "black varnish"

Its dirt cheap, and is so sticky that it keeps stuck on the metal even if you bend it.

I wanted to zinc coat both sheetmetal parts, but the zinc company is closed (We have holidays here right now in Holland) and zinc coating is 70 ct/kg which is quite expensive. Next to that, i'd have to drill holes everywhere so the zinc could flow out. Because of that, price, and time, i decided to use black varnish, i used that to touch up a reinforcement i made on the cultivator roller several years ago, it has been used to work in hog slurry, covered in mud and never cleaned, but the black sticky paint just sticks there

Tomorrow i'll take some pics, monday i'll paint the rest of the machine in that nice classic "farmhouse green" colour

 

[RedDirt]

Red dirt, bob wood,

All i want is just my hard earned holiday rest, and this road sweep just doesnt get any further !!

Don't you just hate it when a project is seemingly 98% done and that last "2%" takes 10% of the total time? I tell our new superintendents when they think their project is down to a two week punch list...count on two months!

 

[Renze]

Yesterday i painted the inner sides of the dust bin and sweep rotor cover with "Black Varnish", one of my favorite paints for parts that wont get in sight, because its cheap and acid resistant, and it doesnt let go when the metal bends because its flexible, but doesnt stay as sticky as car underbody coating.

I also lengthened the 3pt lower link attachments, because the caster wheels were touching the rear tires.... Because i didnt know which materials i was going to use (that means: whichever i had available for this project) i didnt engineer the whole thing before building, even though its my daily job...
Afterwards, maybe i should have, it would have saved me 1 or 2 unpleasant surprises (dirty grinding work) afterwards...

I dropped the idea for a swiveling top link mount ( so the sweep follows the street contour on its 3 wheels) because it is hard to achieve when lengthening it once more...
The two laser cut plates i had for the swivel toplink mount, i just welded them flat against each other. I will use a chain as toplink, it has unlimited swivel and is much easier to make

 

[Renze]

Today, the holiday also begun for a friend of mine. I was glad he helped me, and its a lot more motivating when you see the work progress of 2 people in a day

He painted the outsides of the sweep cover and dust bin, in the same "farmhouse green" as i painted the bale trailer last year: I decided this will be my factory colour for everything i build from now on.

We also spent some time derusting the frame. The longitudinal frame tubes were cut out of a self loading hay wagon, and then spent 8 years rusting under the bush.
My brother (who is the ultimate customer, because his horses make a mess, he needs the street sweep so he pays materials, but because its my hobby, i do the work )

In the evening, i prepared an improvised chain tensioner (a nylon bushing running around an M20 bolt, bolted into a slotted 20mm plate)

 

[Defective]

Nice, thorough coverage on the inside of that scoop Renze...

 

[bob_wood]

The road sweeper is Really shapeing up good Renze. Looks like it is almost complete now. I can appreciate all the work that goes into a project like that and you have rebuilt it to Last a long time. Great job !! Nice to have a friend that is willing to help out. Sure does make things go easier and faster. It would be real good if you could make an action video of the sweeper at work. Im very interested in seeing how the dust pan works and how it dumps when full.

Is that your buggy I see in the background ?? Think i saw one like it in Mad Max Thunderdome ?? Is that You or your friend with the paint sprayer? Always nice to see pictures of real people doing real work. That way we can relate better to the poster and the project. If I werent so old and ugly I would post some pictures of Me working in my shop / operating the machines

Bob