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Volvo G900 series
- Thread starter farm_boy
- Start date
equipment fan
COPPA
thanks mktef for the link and the pictures.
Grader4me
Senior Member
Yes, thanks for posting the pictures MKTEF. So in your part of the world are these gravel spreader attachments used a lot? They don't appear to be overly rugged. Sure would like to see one in action...Got a video camera?
Countryboy
Senior Member
- Joined
- Jun 8, 2006
- Messages
- 3,276
- Location
- Georgia
- Occupation
- Load Out Tech. / Heavy Equipment Operator / Locomo
Welcome to HEF Motor Grader! :drinkup
Deas Plant
Senior Member
Gravel spreaders.
Hi, MKTF.
Thanks for those photos of the gravel spreaders, As Grader4me commented, they don't look overly 'robust'. Would I be right in guessing that they are only intended for re-distributing loose gravel from already worked windrows?
They actually remind me of the 3 point linkage grader blades that you see on farm tractors for 'fooling' about with a bit of loose soil.
Thanks again.
Hi, MKTF.
Thanks for those photos of the gravel spreaders, As Grader4me commented, they don't look overly 'robust'. Would I be right in guessing that they are only intended for re-distributing loose gravel from already worked windrows?
They actually remind me of the 3 point linkage grader blades that you see on farm tractors for 'fooling' about with a bit of loose soil.
Thanks again.
Gravel spreader
Hey folks
Both of you are right, they are not realy solid. The old one on the 976 has a hydraulic function where it svings if it hits something "hard".
Deas is completely right, they only spread what yoy have already worked in the windrow. And they are pretty alike the ones for a tractor.
But it saves you for an extra pass with the grader.
And to the other qustion.
If a grader is used on gravel roads, they always have a spreader her in scandinavia. So the only ones without a spreader is the big ones in mines and a few that only grades asphalt roads.(winter maintenance)
These days we are in the change of conditions here in Norway. The winter is going away and the summer is comming. Two weeks ago i still had some few places to use the winterblades, but today i have to changes blades.
I belewe it is still frost in the ground ,so gravel roads is now soaking wet and grading have to wait at least a week.
But i'll adjust it and make a video of the use of it. As a minimum som pictures.
Hey folks
Both of you are right, they are not realy solid. The old one on the 976 has a hydraulic function where it svings if it hits something "hard".
Deas is completely right, they only spread what yoy have already worked in the windrow. And they are pretty alike the ones for a tractor.
But it saves you for an extra pass with the grader.
And to the other qustion.
If a grader is used on gravel roads, they always have a spreader her in scandinavia. So the only ones without a spreader is the big ones in mines and a few that only grades asphalt roads.(winter maintenance)
These days we are in the change of conditions here in Norway. The winter is going away and the summer is comming. Two weeks ago i still had some few places to use the winterblades, but today i have to changes blades.
I belewe it is still frost in the ground ,so gravel roads is now soaking wet and grading have to wait at least a week.
But i'll adjust it and make a video of the use of it. As a minimum som pictures.
Deas Plant
Senior Member
That would be much appreciated
Hi, MKTF.
Thank you. That would be much appreciated. Already you have given us some interesting insights into how things are done in your part of the world.
If you have any questions about conditions or work methods in our parts of the world just post them and I suspect you'll get answers coming at you from all sorts of places and people.
Hi, MKTF.
Thank you. That would be much appreciated. Already you have given us some interesting insights into how things are done in your part of the world.
If you have any questions about conditions or work methods in our parts of the world just post them and I suspect you'll get answers coming at you from all sorts of places and people.
Grader4me
Senior Member
I agree with Deas about the interesting insights that you have been providing for us. You seem to be bending over backwards to supply our endless desire for more knowledge
Thank you MKTEF
RonG
Charter Member
Would that be the "Athey" grader line that they evolved from?
They are a nice line of graders.Ron G
Motor Grader
Well-Known Member
We were originally the Lee Motor Grader founded by Bud Lee and Gary Abernathy. No, this is not the same as LeeBoy which was founded by BR Lee. BR and Bud were brothers. Just a little brotherly competition to build equipment.
Bryan Abernathy
Vp Sales & Marketing
Champion Motor Graders
www.championmotorgraders.us
Motor Grader
Well-Known Member
Windrow Eliminator
We build our own version of this attachment. We call it the Windrow Eliminator. Its basically for shoulder maintenence and turns a 2 pass job into 1 pass.
Yes, thanks for posting the pictures MKTEF. So in your part of the world are these gravel spreader attachments used a lot? They don't appear to be overly rugged. Sure would like to see one in action...Got a video camera?
We build our own version of this attachment. We call it the Windrow Eliminator. Its basically for shoulder maintenence and turns a 2 pass job into 1 pass.
Attachments
Motor Grader
Well-Known Member
Well, Bryan, if nobody else has bothered to say so yet, welcome to the forums! I wish you the best of luck in carrying on the Champion name.
I see you've posted some really interesting stuff already. We'll look forward to more...
Thanks! I love talking motor grader. We started building graders in 1980 under the "Lee" trademark. I was about 8 years old then. Guess you could say that I have been around and building graders my whole life. We sold our family owned/operated business to Champion in 1993. It was a great ride with them and their knowledge and resources really helped our product evolve into the best product on the market today. Volvo bought Champion and that may have not been the best thing for our product line. They are just too big for a small volume product. We made great friends up in the Goderich, Ontario motor grader factory which by the way is still where the Volvo 900 Series graders are being built. All of the readers on this site should be aware that your comments about the 900 Series Volvo doesn’t fall on deaf ears. Some pretty influential people at Volvo monitor this site now. Wouldn't be surprised if CAT does the same. Anyway, look forward to posting more cool motor grader stuff.
Bryan Abernathy
Attachments
Motor Grader
Well-Known Member
Volvo hasn't used the Champion name since 2000. In 2004 the Volvo compact motor grader line and the Champion name were sold. Get the full story at www.championmotorgraders.us
Grader4me
Senior Member
.
I mean't that "they still used the Champion name"
I realize that Volvo never kept the Champion name...sorry for the previous wording. Volvo bought Champion around 1997/98 and kept the Champion name till 2000, then changed it to Volvo, correct?
Grader4me i have made a video of the windrowspreader.
Not a good one though, because i didn't have a high stand for the camera.
I made a video from driving it with the spreader also.
Here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXbiSv6INMw
And for the grading: Will ad it tomorrow youtube is slow..
The last one also shows the operation of the left joystick.
Stearing and upshift.
I'll be back later with more.
Not a good one though, because i didn't have a high stand for the camera.
I made a video from driving it with the spreader also.
Here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXbiSv6INMw
And for the grading: Will ad it tomorrow youtube is slow..
The last one also shows the operation of the left joystick.
Stearing and upshift.
I'll be back later with more.
Grader4me
Senior Member
Wow! Thanks! I will look forward to the rest of it
Here is th link to the other movie:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvlMxJ5MR5A
Shows some grading along a gravel road, and the use of the left joystick.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvlMxJ5MR5A
Shows some grading along a gravel road, and the use of the left joystick.
Grader4me
Senior Member
Great stuff! I noticed in the first video, your windrow was quite small and also that you had to place it just outside the tires in order for the spreader to catch it.
Can the spreader handle more material than what you was feeding it? I suppose with a heavier windrow it would go beyond the reach of the spreader.
So you have the spreader set up/adjusted so that it spreads a small windrow of gravel evenly. If you increase your cut and provided that it could catch it, what effect would that have on the spreading? Would it leave a windrow on the heel side? Would you have to readjust it?
Second video of grading a road was excellent! The joy sticks look like they would be a blast to run! Thanks again for sharing :notworthy
Can the spreader handle more material than what you was feeding it? I suppose with a heavier windrow it would go beyond the reach of the spreader.
So you have the spreader set up/adjusted so that it spreads a small windrow of gravel evenly. If you increase your cut and provided that it could catch it, what effect would that have on the spreading? Would it leave a windrow on the heel side? Would you have to readjust it?
Second video of grading a road was excellent! The joy sticks look like they would be a blast to run! Thanks again for sharing :notworthy
Yeah it will handle a much bigger row.
And i found out a bit up the road.
I drive with a automatic pressure system on the blade, and when i hit a loose thick layer of gravel; it will be moved.....
The attachment is not perfectly matched to the Volvo, yet, on the Champion it extended more outside the wheels....(its a bigger/wider grader)
My salesmann insisted on having the quickcoupler in the middle of the grader, on the Champion it was a bit to the left.
I will have to rework the spreader so it reaches more outside the wheels.
Now i change the angle a bit and it reaches more to the left side.
This isn't a big problem cause i have the constant system on the blade, maintains constant pressure even if i drive on the windrow with the wheels.
Problem is because it got normal wheels you got to adjust it if you increase the windrow to much. So it doesnt only move the row to the outside of the road.
It can be fed with a windrow with equal area to the open area under the spreader. If you understand....
Bigger than that means you got to adjust the wheels;height(area) under the blades.
The windrow on the movie is to small for my adjustment, it didnt spread it out more than 2-4 feet on the left of the cut.
Optimal is a spread from the left to half/3/4 of the cut. You want to grade from the shoulder and make the curbe on the road when you are finished.
And the joysticks is superb, but i will say that the constant-pressuresystem is a superb tool for a grader.
Ill post a thread with pictures and explain how it works later.
And i found out a bit up the road.
I drive with a automatic pressure system on the blade, and when i hit a loose thick layer of gravel; it will be moved.....
The attachment is not perfectly matched to the Volvo, yet, on the Champion it extended more outside the wheels....(its a bigger/wider grader)
My salesmann insisted on having the quickcoupler in the middle of the grader, on the Champion it was a bit to the left.
I will have to rework the spreader so it reaches more outside the wheels.
Now i change the angle a bit and it reaches more to the left side.
This isn't a big problem cause i have the constant system on the blade, maintains constant pressure even if i drive on the windrow with the wheels.
Problem is because it got normal wheels you got to adjust it if you increase the windrow to much. So it doesnt only move the row to the outside of the road.
It can be fed with a windrow with equal area to the open area under the spreader. If you understand....
Bigger than that means you got to adjust the wheels;height(area) under the blades.
The windrow on the movie is to small for my adjustment, it didnt spread it out more than 2-4 feet on the left of the cut.
Optimal is a spread from the left to half/3/4 of the cut. You want to grade from the shoulder and make the curbe on the road when you are finished.
And the joysticks is superb, but i will say that the constant-pressuresystem is a superb tool for a grader.
Ill post a thread with pictures and explain how it works later.
Blademan
Charter Member
Hello All ,
just thought I'd throw in my 3 cents as I just had the good fortune to spend a few days on a new Volvo demo unit ( I think it was a G940 or 970 ? ) . Apparantly , the mother ship bought a few for their eastern operations and was wondering why those of us out west seemed so reluctant to use them . I'll get back to this soon .
First off , I'm currently working doing new subdivision work and this includes doing lanes ( or back alleys or whatever you call them in your local ) , coring for a new roadway ( 11,000 +- sq. meters ) and gravelling said road with both bank pitrun and crush gravel ( 20mm ) . Due to various reasons which would take way too long to get into so far on this job I've run a 140G , 140H , and my usual ride a 14H .
First impressions :
machine arrived with 14 hours on meter . The seat has multiple controls to adjust it just for you , and I found this very nice , being somewhat on the verticlly challanged side of things . I especially liked the ride height control on the armrest . Pedals were good , and levers seemed to have been perfectly copied from Cat . The shifter/transmission took a little to get used to and seemed to have a few quirks/gremlins , but with a little more practice I'd be happy with it . The air conditioner worked very good ,and I appreciated the outside temperature display on the dash ( it reached 30 degrees celcius one day and I could see the crew starting to wilt by midday , but the cab was very nice and comfortable :notworthy ) . It was very quiet , and apparantly it got great reviews from the ground crew for being a lot less noisy then my Cats . It has lots of mirrors , and overall the view was very good , although I wasn't to keen when backing up , the rear engine ' hump ' sits a lot higher the the H's and has a somewhat larger blindspot . Visibility overall very good . Stereo also got a passing grade . My only peeve was the diff lock switch . In my current application I use it lots , and found it both backward ( compared to Cats ) and just not as good of a switch as it needs to be .
Working the machine :
the engine and pumps are very good . The speed of the hydraulics was awesome , especially the circle turing speed . The engine was both very smooth and responsive . Made the machine very fast and enjoyable to run .
The trans though , takes some getting used to . When shifting from reverse to forward you need to get in the habit of checking what gear it selects for you and if you don't check the display you find yourself stalling out . Sometimes it selects 1st or 2nd gear , sometimes fifth ! Again , in time , these little annoying things usually work themselves out .
Oh , one really annoying thing that I found was it had a control tower creep . Every 15-20 minutes I had to pull back the controls/steering wheel as they slowly seemed to creep further away from me . :Banghead :Banghead :Banghead . I couldn't believe how bothersome this became .
My first job with it was laying out bank pitrun in a deep based corner in a lane . Really bony material and apparantly one rock found it's way over the moldboard and rested on the blade side shift cylinder .
I then was using the machine to ' cut down the lane ends ' , meaning where the back lane dirt meets the concrete sidwalk/driveway apron I cut this down 3 inches for gravel . this usually involves tilting the blade fully forward and scraping along the concrete to make a nice clean edge . This worked well until I tilted back the blade and that said rock that had somehow lodged onto that sideshift cylinder got caught under the blade tilt cylinder ( whew ... are ya still with me ? Lol ) and it snapped the ram !!!! YIKES
Only three hours into working it and it was down for the count . It was so unbelievable to see such a brand new machine ( at this point 17 hours ) hurt so bad with a busted ram . Oh well , the engineers and designers have more stuff still to work on .
Anyway , the machine was down for almost two days as they flew in a new cylinder and did the repairs .
By this time I'd was just finishing coring up the new road base , and found the Volvo to be both nimble and efficent for cleaning up around the manholes/water valves etc . again , the speed and power on the machine showed well here .
Day three found me starting to lay in material ( bank pitrun ) , and after the little ram busting episode i was a little apprehensive , but it turned out fine . Well , except for the fact that we had two more break downs with , lets see , one a hose came off the wheel tilt cylinder and the other was also a hose loosening up and coming apart up front somewhere ( I had a worker carry a wrench in his pocket and he quickly tightened it up without me ever leaving the cab ) .
So , over all , three days and 12 hours of running with one cylinder replaced and two hoses/couplings need to be tightened .
Comfort wise , I'd give it a 4 out of 5 .
Power and speed , also 4/5 .
Reliability , thats a tough one . although i really like this machine ,i just don't get the feeling that it will last beyond a couple of years doing this type of work . Maybe for maintaining existing roads or snow removal it may be ok , but for the heavier duty applications I really don't have a good feeling for it . This brings me back to those bean counters who want to know why we in the west aren't jumping at the chance to get these newer cheaper graders and saving some dough for our poor shareholders . I'm guessing out east they don't seem to be working the machines too hard . Slackers ...... :cool2 :notworthy
Well , if you got thru the ramblings , thanks , and a big thanks to the local dealer , Strongco , for allowing this demo to happen and for their quick repairs .
just thought I'd throw in my 3 cents as I just had the good fortune to spend a few days on a new Volvo demo unit ( I think it was a G940 or 970 ? ) . Apparantly , the mother ship bought a few for their eastern operations and was wondering why those of us out west seemed so reluctant to use them . I'll get back to this soon .
First off , I'm currently working doing new subdivision work and this includes doing lanes ( or back alleys or whatever you call them in your local ) , coring for a new roadway ( 11,000 +- sq. meters ) and gravelling said road with both bank pitrun and crush gravel ( 20mm ) . Due to various reasons which would take way too long to get into so far on this job I've run a 140G , 140H , and my usual ride a 14H .
First impressions :
machine arrived with 14 hours on meter . The seat has multiple controls to adjust it just for you , and I found this very nice , being somewhat on the verticlly challanged side of things . I especially liked the ride height control on the armrest . Pedals were good , and levers seemed to have been perfectly copied from Cat . The shifter/transmission took a little to get used to and seemed to have a few quirks/gremlins , but with a little more practice I'd be happy with it . The air conditioner worked very good ,and I appreciated the outside temperature display on the dash ( it reached 30 degrees celcius one day and I could see the crew starting to wilt by midday , but the cab was very nice and comfortable :notworthy ) . It was very quiet , and apparantly it got great reviews from the ground crew for being a lot less noisy then my Cats . It has lots of mirrors , and overall the view was very good , although I wasn't to keen when backing up , the rear engine ' hump ' sits a lot higher the the H's and has a somewhat larger blindspot . Visibility overall very good . Stereo also got a passing grade . My only peeve was the diff lock switch . In my current application I use it lots , and found it both backward ( compared to Cats ) and just not as good of a switch as it needs to be .
Working the machine :
the engine and pumps are very good . The speed of the hydraulics was awesome , especially the circle turing speed . The engine was both very smooth and responsive . Made the machine very fast and enjoyable to run .
The trans though , takes some getting used to . When shifting from reverse to forward you need to get in the habit of checking what gear it selects for you and if you don't check the display you find yourself stalling out . Sometimes it selects 1st or 2nd gear , sometimes fifth ! Again , in time , these little annoying things usually work themselves out .
Oh , one really annoying thing that I found was it had a control tower creep . Every 15-20 minutes I had to pull back the controls/steering wheel as they slowly seemed to creep further away from me . :Banghead :Banghead :Banghead . I couldn't believe how bothersome this became .
My first job with it was laying out bank pitrun in a deep based corner in a lane . Really bony material and apparantly one rock found it's way over the moldboard and rested on the blade side shift cylinder .
I then was using the machine to ' cut down the lane ends ' , meaning where the back lane dirt meets the concrete sidwalk/driveway apron I cut this down 3 inches for gravel . this usually involves tilting the blade fully forward and scraping along the concrete to make a nice clean edge . This worked well until I tilted back the blade and that said rock that had somehow lodged onto that sideshift cylinder got caught under the blade tilt cylinder ( whew ... are ya still with me ? Lol ) and it snapped the ram !!!! YIKES
Only three hours into working it and it was down for the count . It was so unbelievable to see such a brand new machine ( at this point 17 hours ) hurt so bad with a busted ram . Oh well , the engineers and designers have more stuff still to work on .
Anyway , the machine was down for almost two days as they flew in a new cylinder and did the repairs .
By this time I'd was just finishing coring up the new road base , and found the Volvo to be both nimble and efficent for cleaning up around the manholes/water valves etc . again , the speed and power on the machine showed well here .
Day three found me starting to lay in material ( bank pitrun ) , and after the little ram busting episode i was a little apprehensive , but it turned out fine . Well , except for the fact that we had two more break downs with , lets see , one a hose came off the wheel tilt cylinder and the other was also a hose loosening up and coming apart up front somewhere ( I had a worker carry a wrench in his pocket and he quickly tightened it up without me ever leaving the cab
) .So , over all , three days and 12 hours of running with one cylinder replaced and two hoses/couplings need to be tightened .
Comfort wise , I'd give it a 4 out of 5 .
Power and speed , also 4/5 .
Reliability , thats a tough one . although i really like this machine ,i just don't get the feeling that it will last beyond a couple of years doing this type of work . Maybe for maintaining existing roads or snow removal it may be ok , but for the heavier duty applications I really don't have a good feeling for it . This brings me back to those bean counters who want to know why we in the west aren't jumping at the chance to get these newer cheaper graders and saving some dough for our poor shareholders
. I'm guessing out east they don't seem to be working the machines too hard . Slackers ...... :cool2 :notworthy Well , if you got thru the ramblings , thanks , and a big thanks to the local dealer , Strongco , for allowing this demo to happen and for their quick repairs .