Ransomes MG5 Crawler

[Dieselman 63]

For fun I decided to paint the brake lever blue. Yes, 10pm in-situ spray can special. I really like all the different blues and reds on the machine. It’s rough and ready, clean paint is indicative of something new added.

 

[Dieselman 63]

Moving on.

Weight carrying rollers - two each side, fitted with nipples and a decal I’ve seen said ‘lubricate often’ so I’ve been feeding them a squirt of grease now and then. Big mistake!

They’re meant to take EP140 oil, so it’s out with the screwdriver to pop open the pressed steel rim, take out the felt, clean everything (I used petrol) then reassemble and oil properly. The correct amount of oil is until it oozes out the other side, so a fair amount. Only three more to go!

 

[Dieselman 63]

Then the wheels from the other day have been blasted by a guy I know. It was going to be just a Christmas goodwill gesture however he’s bought a little lathe and the plate was all fouled up and unreadable, so I offered to restore it - he knows and appreciates my work, which is nice!

 

[mylesdw]

Wow! the plate looks brilliant. How would you go about restoring a lathe tailstock where the scale has worn away?

 

[Dieselman 63]

Wow! the plate looks brilliant. How would you go about restoring a lathe tailstock where the scale has worn away?

Thank you!

Honestly I’d have no clue. @Pete. didn't you re-engrave increments to something, or am I thinking of someone else?

I saw this on the Myford page on Facebook, the holder is 3D printed.

 

[Pete.]

Thank you!

Honestly I’d have no clue. @Pete. didn't you re-engrave increments to something, or am I thinking of someone else?

I saw this on the Myford page on Facebook, the holder is 3D printed.

View attachment 325967 View attachment 325968

Yeah easy to do on a lathe tailstock. Just mount a pointy cutter in the tool post, wind the tailstock out whatever increments you decide and use the cross slide to make the marks.

 

[Dieselman 63]

Wheels are back, and paint is on!

 

[Dieselman 63]

Checked the left rear idler and the oil seal was intact, so that was great a lot of grass all wrapped around under the cap, as well as the usual oil and grease, that got cleaned out. Then I cleaned the bolts - these were caked in hard grease, scraped off, wire wheeled, good to go. De-greased the rest of the hub just to keep things tidy. You can flip these to make a medium or wide track variant, but you need spacers. As always, a fun machine to work on, it’s just like giant meccano.

 

[Dieselman 63]

Wheels are coming up good. Found some 2BA screws in the workshop, ideal for the hubs. Props to the old folk who stop this old gear ending up in the scrapyard. Old and silently rusting away, clean it up and it’s ready to go back to work.

 

[Dieselman 63]

More parts from the blaster’s, these are 4x tine holders and 1x wheel adjustment screw holder. I need a heap more of those V plate things, too.

 

[prepman]

Pulls things

Ah....shame if you want push things. Do they do a different version?

 

[prepman]

The air filter is oil filled, with layers of stainless gauze above. This is to be filled with a light oil, I thought 5w20 might be ok.

Big one on an old compressor (5,000HP) used a very gummy oil on a rotating curtain. I suppose if the oil is too fine it'll end up as a spray? (not knowing what the flow rate is). Apologies if this is entirely irrelevant

 

[Dieselman 63]

Big one on an old compressor (5,000HP) used a very gummy oil on a rotating curtain. I suppose if the oil is too fine it'll end up as a spray? (not knowing what the flow rate is). Apologies if this is entirely irrelevant

No idea.

It does a good job of filtering out bits of leaf, flies etc. sucked in via the air intake impeller. Simple is best for such a machine as this.

Ah....shame if you want push things. Do they do a different version?

A linkage was available and a counterbalanced cradle to hold a dozer blade. Beamish have a catalogue of the MG6, but the attachments are mostly similar.

 

[Dieselman 63]

Amazingly these are my parts! They look too clean and nice to be for my machine

 

[Dieselman 63]

Fuel pump - this needs cleaning every so often. Deposits build up on the bottom of the glass. I recommend filling it up with a bit of petrol before you put it back on, saves endless pumping on the diaphragm.

 

[Dieselman 63]

Back to work. The rollers had felts in, but these have been superseded by rubber oil seals. So, it was out with the screwdriver to pry the caps off, again…

 

[Brad93]

Back to work. The rollers had felts in, but these have been superseded by rubber oil seals. So, it was out with the screwdriver to pry the caps off, again…

View attachment 334731 View attachment 334732

I would of left the rubbers on to be honest

 

[Dieselman 63]

Then the bearings and the hub seals came. The bearings were a tad loose so I put some Loctite Quick Metal around them, we’ll see how that goes. Bearings are new old stock SKF. Much cheaper than new by around $130, so that was good.

Then the roller axles were flushed of grease, I have a very small bottle brush which is ideal for poking down the oil ways. After cleaning I put new nipples in, these are BSF, and should be a considerable improvement.

 

[Dieselman 63]

I would of left the rubbers on to be honest

I think the photos are out of order, I replaced the felts with rubbers. These felts are good, some others are completely destroyed.

 

[Dieselman 63]

Has to be an improvement over what we started with!