Anyone have luck with getting the greaseless pins out? MPL40

[ESC]

I am very happy with our Jerrdan units. We have 2 MPL40s and 3 Jerrdan flatbeds. They all work well for us and we are happy with Alan and Nussbaum Service. We also have a local shop that does all of our repair and they are great too. These greaseless pin systems have been terrible. Any time a pin needs removed it is a nightmare and turns into a huge labor job. When we used to run Vulcan they were all grease-able and we take care of lubing things so pins would always come right out.

 

Our current issue is on a ten year old MPL40. We are getting some scoring on our boom lift cylinders. Something inside is coming apart and it’s going to need new cylinders. You can’t get to the back side of the pins on these. It’s going to be a huge nightmare knowing they haven’t been out since it was new. Our trucks are low mileage and well maintained. The downside is we always have them outside as we don’t have anywhere local that we can store them indoors.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[GRUMPS The Towman]

I too run a jerr dan roll back with the greaseless pins. I love the equipment but like you have had torturous, knuckle-smashing fights with getting pins out when needed. Sadly, the only way I have gotten them out is the ol "heat and beat" technique. On the ones you cant get to the backside of what I did was I welded a good sized nut to it and built a makeshift puller out of a 1/2 thick steel bar ( picture a 2 jaw puller bar ) that threads into said nut. Then of course with alot of heat and pressure turned into the puller they eventually pop. Of course the teflon bushings and pins need to replaced because they dont survive the operation. It is a shame. In therory going greaseless is a great idea but in reality it sucks to service. Good luck with it. bring your patience and a box of band-aids to the shop the day you do the job.

[GRUMPS The Towman]

Also, as a side note, I had a hydraulic filter come apart internally once and somehow the shreds of the material made their way through the system and into the deck extension cylinder causing similar damage to what you have pictured there. Dont ask me how it is possible because to this day I cant figure out how a filter comes apart for one, and then the material makes it through the tank ( the filter is on the return side ), through the p.t.o., through the lines and valve body and somehow manages to get into the hardest cylinder there is to get at and remove / repair. I tore the whole system apart to see if anything was stuck anywhere else and found nothing. It is one of those things that I or anyone else ive spoke to about it can explain. Needles to say, I now use nothing but Baldwin or Wix filters.

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1 hour ago, GRUMPS The Towman said:

I too run a jerr dan roll back with the greaseless pins. I love the equipment but like you have had torturous, knuckle-smashing fights with getting pins out when needed. Sadly, the only way I have gotten them out is the ol "heat and beat" technique. On the ones you cant get to the backside of what I did was I welded a good sized nut to it and built a makeshift puller out of a 1/2 thick steel bar ( picture a 2 jaw puller bar ) that threads into said nut. Then of course with alot of heat and pressure turned into the puller they eventually pop. Of course the teflon bushings and pins need to replaced because they dont survive the operation. It is a shame. In therory going greaseless is a great idea but in reality it sucks to service. Good luck with it. bring your patience and a box of band-aids to the shop the day you do the job.

That is a great idea on removal for the nut and puller.  The guys that do our work deal in hydraulics and this sort of thing all the time.  They just had the rear tilt cylinder out to replace some leaky lines and hoses.  If the pins would have come out, it would have been a couple hour job, instead it turned into two days.   Something as simple as a grease fitting would have saved me a ton of money in repairs.   I guess for guys that don't maintain their trucks and never grease them, this was Jerrdans idea to help in that aspect... but it is hurting us for sure.  It is to the point that I will be looking at some other options when it comes time to build another one.

[Njsss]

This is a common problem we deal with often, w or w/o grease fittings 

We either cut both sides of pin directly next to piston with sawzall or use a oxylance torch.  Definitely labor intensive 

 

[EdsTowing]

We have a couple of welders that have done work for us. They used a blind hole puller made for this. They weld a large nut to the pin and use a hydraulic puller that screws in to the nut. Find a fabricator that works on rebuilding excavator booms, it's a common problem they tell me on them. A smaller pin you may be able to use a fine thread nut & a big slap hammer to extract it.

[Eastendtow 66]

To ways we got pins out one is a air arc blows a hole in pin and i had a chevron bed we used a die grinder with a cutter bit cut a hole in center of pin heated up ears with torch shot 134 freon in hole of pin and pushed it out with screwdriver 

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On 7/2/2020 at 10:36 PM, EdsTowing said:

We have a couple of welders that have done work for us. They used a blind hole puller made for this. They weld a large nut to the pin and use a hydraulic puller that screws in to the nut. Find a fabricator that works on rebuilding excavator booms, it's a common problem they tell me on them. A smaller pin you may be able to use a fine thread nut & a big slap hammer to extract it.

After reading this I did some google searching and found this: 

 

https://images.app.goo.gl/YupKpY8KxJkBKCGg8

 

Something along those lines looks like the way to do it.  Now its just a matter of finding someone that has one nearby.

[EdsTowing]

That is what I was talking about. You could do it manually as well using the same principle.

 

I have done a number of these and typically you will find that the pin has little to no wear. They seize due to rust building up between the bushing & fitment, in the actual bore. This squeezes the pin. Years ago, We did a number of them on my old truck and sent the old parts back to Jerr-Dan R&D to be inspected. They wanted to see what was happening in real world use.