Safer Excavator Maintenance With Enerpac Cube Jack Lifting
Published: 24/7
Hydraulic industrial tools specialist Enerpac has announced a lifting system for safer excavator maintenance. Based on Enerpac SCJ-Series Cube Jacks, the system enables lifting and holding of the entire cab, boom, and arm, allowing the undercarriage to be safely removed. During maintenance of the excavator’s swing drive and bearings, the undercarriage unit must be separated from the upper body cab and arm to give access to the swing motor and multiple sets of planetary gears. Until now this would have involved at least two service engineers jacking up the body and holding it on stands, a time consuming and hazardous practice.
The Enerpac cube jack lifting system offers a safer, CE-certified, approach to removing the undercarriage. It comprises two pairs of cube jacks providing coordinated hydraulic lifting of loads up to 25t per jack to a height of 6.5 ft (2m). Two cube jacks are positioned under a lifting beam at the rear of the excavator, while two cube jacks are located under the arm’s bucket lugs. Each pair of cube jacks is connected to a hydraulic pump to synchronously lift and lower the excavator body and arm. Enerpac cube jack technology is well-proven in many industrial lifting applications. The SC-Series cube jacks use a base lifting frame and self-aligning, lightweight steel cribbing blocks to provide high-capacity and stabilized lifting–offering a safer, controlled and more efficient alternative to climbing jacks with wooden cribbing. The incremental cube jack lifting system is self-locking to support the load as each cribbing block is manually added or removed, instead of being held by hydraulic pressure and without the need for jack stands. Once the mechanical lock engages, the lift cylinder retracts, and another cribbing block can be added or removed.