Hauling Dirt out of my basement Archives

[Lil Giants]

This thread will be an archive starting five yrs ago to present day activities. It's gonna take me months to wade thru 130 pages of info & pics from two different forums, so I kindly ask for patience while I undertake this.

I'll have another thread to continue on from now & into the future.


July 17th, 2005



Pile of dirt getting bigger outside....



....while the pile inside is getting smaller.

[fhhhstix]

I am glad to see your here Joe you bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to any forum you are on. I once sat down and read every page all 98 of them at the time on one of your threads. The one thing that caught my attention was the drill bit hooked to the excavator to brake up the dirt that was funny and inventive at the same time.

[Lil Giants]

As you can see in the above picture, I installed an outside power cable in this hoe too so I can power the hyd pump from a larger battery for long run times. But even with a big battery (450CA) it doesn't last long at peak voltage of 13.5v after recharging. It seems to hover around that 12.25 to 12.5volts.

So it dawned on me today while I was rattling my bones in the rough hay field, why not connect it to my variable rate power supply - 30volts/5amps? I tune it to 13.5v & it's always there running my hyd pump at peak flow. It's interesting seeing the amp meter - pump running against the pressure relief valve it's pulling 2.2amps & when a cylinder or two is activated it drops to 1.2amps.




Aug 20th, 2005

Still hauling a few loads everyday.
That's my nephew standing behind the pile, he's 4'2" tall. The wagon he's leaning on, I've filled it a third full with dirt from the pile 4 times and have hauled/dump it in different areas of my yard. The Mammoth has hauled alot of loads out in the last 7 weeks, must be a few hundred trips by now. Not much loose soil left. This winter I'll work at trimming the walls & floor loosening up more soil to be hauled again next summer.




I think the cement foundation is 18x22 (feet) & the north wall (22') has been done already with 2x6 studs & treated plywood under the cement foundation back in the 70's when the water well was installed. So that leaves 3 walls that are 3' thick - 5' tall. I'm going to cut the walls back to 1.5' and build wood retaining walls to support the dirt walls from any future cave ins & take 1' out from the floor & someday pour 8" of concrete.


I built a wooden ramp and trucked it all out.






The ramp is 16" wide, I have strips of plywood 4"x8' that I was going to screw to the edges but haven't found need to do that. The 1st couple trips up/down were a bit nerving, but now I could do it blind folded (well almost).

And after making a few hundred trips it's becoming rather mundane doing it this way and I may reinstall the conveyer again at a later date, I've got some new ideas to possibly make it work better. The conveyor would be more time efficient and allow me to make use of my latest trl (presently it just sits on the shelf with no purpose).




Sept 8th, 2005

MORE POWER!!!!



The next thing to do now is install a more powerful servo for the steering, rewire the mechanical lift for the dump bed and add extensions to the sides & rear of the floor to make the dump body approx 20% bigger.

I'm going to put a couple of 2200's 12v packs up front, behind the grille. Being a few inches ahead of the front axle, maybe it'll be enough weight to keep the front end down with the added capacity to the dump body(?).


Sept 20th, 2005

My KH tractor is on my work bench now & I will start working at putting a powered - steerable axle in it to make it a 6x6.




Sept 30th, 2005

Well, after partially tearing down my KH I realized that I didn't have the proper wheels to bolt on the powered frt axle, so that'll have to wait awhile yet.

I tried using silicone to lock up an axle, didn't work. So I JB Welded the diff, it's locked now and it works awesome with 3wd. I just did the rear diff only so I would still have some steerabilty control, but a powered frt axle will help alot with that. With locked diff I'm getting around much better empty or loaded.

I've just about cleaned up all the loose dirt in my basement, it must be close to 2 cu yds I've moved out this summer. I'll have plenty of room now to grind down one of the walls this winter and then build a crib wall from 4"x4" posts and 1"x4" boards. After that's built I'll then backfill the gap.

[Lil Giants]

Thank you Travis for your kind words, compliments and interest, sharing my hobby with others around the world has been as much fun as doing it. Looking back to five yrs from my original basement thread, it's great to see how the hobby has evolved into it's present day gloryness of cool/complicated model projects and great fellowship from talented, giving, generous individuals like yourself. (we need to get better smilies asap)

[ihbuilder]

Joe I 2nd that on smiles . And travis took the words out of my mouth I cant remember the exact amount of times I read your tread but I can remember the contents . before I went public in the forums . I used to come home have din and read mostly yours but I read that whole lost 1 before I signed up ( sorry)

IHSteve

[JAMMER]

Joe we meet once again and with some tolerance maybe this will stay together. Ed

[td9clyde]

yeay Joe your here !!!! i missed yackin with you glad to see people i know here

[RCLogger]

Hey Joe

Looking forward to your updates and information on how your equipment is holding up..

greg

[dirtpusher9]

Joe, it is good to see you King of the Hill in the rc construction world.

[Lil Giants]

King of an ant hill maybe.

It's great to see many of the ol' gang has already showed up to the new 'diggs'.

Cheers everyone. :chug:

[Roadmasters]

Wow, I can't believe you started this 5 years ago! I can't wait for more!

[Espeefan]

Almost like a flash back, Joe! Very cool to see you here, making up for the lost time. It will be interesting to read the early posts, from when you first started this project. I've read your threads in multiple places, but now it's like we are starting over fresh again. Very cool.

[Lil Giants]

It was five yrs ago when I started to document the basement project Arioch, but it was actually early 03 when the idea was conceived and I started moving dirt around down there. I could have been done by now, but I didn't want to loose the convience of my underground playground. I'll make it last for quite a few more yrs yet.

Good to see you here too Nathan, perhaps this new forum will rekindle your ambition to get your 6wd tractor mobile.

[Pipeliner_970]

Great to see you here Joe, I'm excited to have this new place to hang out, and I don't have to go anywhere else to see how things are going in the basement!

[Stuff]

good to hear it will be a few years! might actually make it out there lol

[CatdrvR]

Wow! Glad to see this thread starting back up on this new forum. Hopefully this will be it's new permanent home for the distant future. I always always always enjoyed reading this thread of yours. I will await patiently the many updates that are sure to come. Thanks Joe for the constant supply of pictures and information.

Dan

[SmallHaul]

Joe, its cool to see pics from the beginning.

I was driving my tonka dt around at the National Pike Show last weekend and 2 guys said "Hey, do you know there is a guy on youtube that dug out his basement with rc construction equipment?" I said yes that is "Joe" and said what a brutal environment it is for the rc machines just like full scale dirt hauling.

[grumpygrady]

glad to see you are going to repost everything
i was hoping it was not lost

[rcguyfarms]

How long tell the 50+ pages appear on this topic? How is the blade working out for u? I have an idea for a better use of wedico loader, i will show it when I get the hydro pump returned.

[Romelio]

This is a neat project