The Owner of this BURIED Excavator Was Starting to Give… — Transcript

Watch the epic recovery of a buried 52,000 lb excavator using heavy machinery and expert techniques in this thrilling HeavyDSparks video.

Key Takeaways

  • Heavy equipment recovery requires careful planning, powerful machinery, and teamwork.
  • Pulling points and angles are critical to avoid damaging equipment or causing tipping.
  • Using multiple machines and snatch blocks can greatly increase pulling force.
  • Environmental factors like underground springs can significantly complicate recoveries.
  • Persistence and adaptability are key to successfully recovering deeply buried machinery.

Summary

  • A large PC200 excavator weighing about 52,000 lbs is deeply buried in mud caused by an underground river.
  • The HeavyDSparks team mobilizes multiple heavy machines including the Minotaur winch, a Hitachi excavator, and other equipment to recover the stuck excavator.
  • The recovery involves careful planning to find the best pull points and use of snatch blocks to multiply pulling force.
  • The stuck excavator’s motor intake was submerged, and it was buried under a significant amount of mud, complicating the extraction.
  • The team discusses the challenges of pulling from a non-standard frame without typical hook points and the importance of pulling low to avoid tipping.
  • Multiple attempts are made to free the excavator, including staging equipment and improving the ground pad for better traction.
  • The video includes humor, camaraderie, and detailed explanations of heavy machinery recovery techniques.
  • The recovery is a test of the Minotaur winch’s limits, with combined pulling forces potentially reaching up to a million pounds.
  • Unexpected springs and water flows complicate the recovery, requiring adaptive problem-solving on site.
  • The video showcases the community spirit and teamwork involved in heavy equipment recovery.

Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown

00:00
Speaker A
My friends, you're in for a good one. See that? That excavator is buried. And it's not just kind of buried, it's really, really buried. So that's why I climbed in the boom of this other excavator so that I could give you a
00:15
Speaker A
bird's eye view of the video that you're about to watch. Whoa. Whoa. Wait. [music] Yeah, that right there is a very stuck PC200, about a 52,000 lb excavator, and it is basically buried in what was supposed to be a little spring turned out to be an
00:49
Speaker A
underground river. So, we brought the entire kitchen sink today. Uh, basically almost every single heavy hitter in our fleet, and we're gonna figure out a way to pull this dead excavator that does not run, by the way, out of this
01:02
Speaker A
precarious spot and to safety. So at this point, you're probably interested, as you should be. So the next step is sit down, grab some popcorn, buckle up, because we're going for a ride. Ready?
01:15
Speaker A
I'm ready. Say something neat. Uh oh. I hope the Kamatsu's ready. Nice. All right, let's go, Hansel. All right, we are loaded up and headed out on a recovery. We've got Dave's DY pulling the Minotaur and the winch
01:31
Speaker A
attachment. We've got the semi-truck with the Hitachi excavator. We've got the mechanic's truck, and we've got the hat.
01:42
Speaker A
The GPS tells us it will take us an hour and 3 minutes to get there if we drive.
01:48
Speaker A
Granted, that's in, you know, a normal vehicle. So comment below on how fast you really think we're going to get there.
01:55
Speaker A
So we're going from Bountiful to Bountiful, like Spanish, I think. Spanish, Spanish Fork. It's a good hour and 15 minute drive in a car.
02:04
Speaker A
Yeah. Yeah. But we are driving a house. And I know there's math that'll tell you at 50 m an hour we're going to get there, you know, this time.
02:18
Speaker A
I can't do that math. And I know somebody's like, "You idiot. Just x + y = z."
02:24
Speaker A
I don't think it's that simple. I don't think it's that simple. I mean, if we took the right road, it would help. We're on Redwood Road, dog. We're not going that. Whoops.
02:42
Speaker A
[music] Well, we're here and, uh, I haven't even looked at the excavator yet that's stuck. But I've seen a [music] couple pictures, and those pictures and the information I received are enough to tell me that we're definitely going to need this guy. This
03:22
Speaker A
could potentially be one of the heaviest pulls the Minotaur has ever had to do.
03:26
Speaker A
We've worked this thing pretty good. Um, but we've never pushed it to the limit.
03:30
Speaker A
Not even close. Well, there's been a couple times dragging some really dead machines, um, where it was getting tippy, but we've never, we've never maxed out the winch or the snatch block capabilities. So, I'm excited to see what happens. We got this. We got the
03:44
Speaker A
hat. Between these two machines, we have got 200, about 250,000 lbs of straight line pulling force.
03:55
Speaker A
You start throwing snatch blocks in there, uh, you got 500,000, you know, up to a million pounds of force pretty quickly. Plus, we have two excavators on site that belong to the owner and my big Hitachi, uh, Dave's being down here in
04:07
Speaker A
just a minute. So, three big excavators, uh, combined weight of probably 80, 50, about 180,000 lbs worth of machines pulling on this thing, too. So, if it doesn't come out, we're going to need a freaking M1 Abrams tank recovery tank, which I would love
04:31
Speaker A
to have one of those, by the way, but the Army doesn't sell those. Anyways, gonna unload the raw max here and start staging the equipment. And a spring popped up. And then over here, he drove the dump truck next to the trees and a
04:45
Speaker A
spring popped, popped up. So now we just have water running out from underneath into the hole.
04:53
Speaker A
Yeah, good times. Make this pad a little better. That is the last place I would expect to see a soft spot.
05:12
Speaker A
There's springs everywhere. Is there? Every time you So, I drove a dump truck there. It started a new spring. I took one scoop out of the bank there for a tow truck, started a new spring. Drove right here, made another spring, scooped
05:25
Speaker A
some dirt out of there, and it started a river. So, what? Tell me what happened.
05:32
Speaker A
How? How did we get to this point? We'll get a slideshow. [laughter] They wanted to give us a good video, Dave.
05:38
Speaker A
Yeah. So, honestly, so I was making a ditch to get the water out of there and bring a pipe in. So, I, I made the ditch and turned around, was coming back, and I slipped off the log that had log mats.
05:50
Speaker A
So, I slipped off and the back end dropped down. So, I hurried and spun around, dropped the boom, saved it. So, it's still in the air. Still good. And went and got my dump truck, parked it where that's sitting right now. And I
06:05
Speaker A
got my brother to run the machine I was going to pull with the dump truck, just get over the logs and out. He says, "Oh, I got this. Let me pull it out. Let me." So, he starts going with the boom and
06:19
Speaker A
tips it over, buries it in the mud, and you see there's the dump truck ready to pull it out. I'm like, "Oh, I want to cry now." So, we, we spin it around to hook onto the dump truck and then it
06:32
Speaker A
looks like that. And it just went from bad to worse and worse and more worse and, and it just Did you shut it off before it got water in the motor?
06:40
Speaker A
Yeah. Yeah. So is the entire motor submerged? No, just the intake. Well, yeah, pretty much the whole motor. So it's, it's So we started shoveling it off. That's how high the dirt was over top of the motor.
06:55
Speaker A
Jesus. [laughter] Just to see him laugh and all the stuff he does. You know he did it right.
07:01
Speaker A
Yeah, you did it right. It just looks like something I did. It just kept going worse and worse and worse and then [snorts] just I still got you beat 'cause mine, my worst was you could only see the boom sticking
07:14
Speaker A
out of the ground. You're pretty close though. Yeah. [laughter] So, uh, that's all just soup all around it.
07:22
Speaker A
Yeah. But the longer it sits, the harder it gets. So, we're going to have So, I figured we'd leave the track here so we could jiggle it to break the bond or you can just pull and hold tension. See if
07:34
Speaker A
that makes it go. I don't know. Whatever you want to do. It's ugly, but it's a little stick.
07:47
Speaker A
Okay. [music] [music] It's going right now. We're looking for the best place to pull this thing from. It's a, it's a complicated situation because first of all, this machine doesn't have the standard frame, uh, like hook points.
08:20
Speaker A
Normally in the main frame undercarriage there, there's a giant hole where you can put D-rings or whatever on and pull from there. That's usually the best spot to pull from. Um, unless you can get lower, right? And the reason why you
08:33
Speaker A
want to be lower is because as we pull on this machine, it, you know, the higher you pull, the more it wants to tip down. So instead of being able to slide up the hill, it could dig
08:44
Speaker A
the track straight into this hillside and then it won't go anywhere. So we're actually getting as low as we possibly can. We're basically going below the, uh, drive sprocket and right on top of the track on the bottom side. So
08:56
Speaker A
it's as close to the ground as, as we can get to anything. Um, and we're pulling from the whole sprocket and track assembly rather than just one track grouser. Um, because if you start pulling on those track pads just one at
09:08
Speaker A
a time, they're strong, but they can break. And if we break a track in here, that's just a whole another issue we have to deal with. Having the tracks on is actually helpful because at some point once we get this thing moving,
09:19
Speaker A
they'll act as kind of like big toboggans. It spreads out the load across a greater surface area to be able to get the machine out. So, I think we've got a pretty good pull point. And, uh, we just
09:29
Speaker A
got to kiss these cables goodbye, which is fine. We go through the park. No, it's sorry. It was going to happen whether it was here or we pull from somewhere else. We just, there's cables that are casualties.
09:39
Speaker A
All right. So Al, if you want to get the other one there. Plan of attack number one. Now we got our hook points. We're going to get a couple of our big pullers, the Minotaur and the hat. We're going to
10:02
Speaker A
park them, stage them both right up here. Um, I might actually just try pulling with the hat for now.
10:09
Speaker A
And if we need the Minotaur, we can grab.
10:17
Speaker A
So, we've got two main uh, winches on the back of the hat, plus the two boom winches. The deck winches are higher capacity, 55,000 lb. Um, no, 50 Yeah, 55,000 lb. Um, so we're going to stage the truck right here, put an excavator
10:35
Speaker A
or two behind it. Um, anchor it down and then we'll just start tugging on those.
10:40
Speaker A
We'll probably run a snatch block at least one right right off the bat just to make sure we got all the pulling power and then we'll see what that does.
10:47
Speaker A
I actually have a really good feeling that that's going to that's going to make some some progress. So, we got to reconfigure all the stuff up here. I'm going to show you guys one of the greatest life hacks ever, and it's
10:56
Speaker A
brought to you by the sponsor of today's video, who happens to be a company called Upside. So, you guys already know that we spend a ton of money on fuel and food. In fact, I got to fill my truck up
11:08
Speaker A
right now. So, the reason why I love this is because I just went to the Upside app. I looked around me, all the gas stations that are participating, and this gas station we just pulled into has an offer where if I just use the app,
11:20
Speaker A
just claim the offer and then pay with my card that's already connected to the app, I literally going to get 45 cents per gallon cash back. And it's not like a coupon or a reward or something like that. It's goes right there. Like it's
11:32
Speaker A
it's actual cash back that just comes back to your account. You don't have to mail in a rebate. You literally don't have to do anything. And the app is free. You see, Upside has this deal where they work with like a 100,000
11:42
Speaker A
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11:55
Speaker A
going to track it automatically for you, but then you're still going to be able to stack on top of that your rewards points of your credit card. So, if you use those programs and you love those, well, guess what? You're kind of double
12:04
Speaker A
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12:13
Speaker A
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12:24
Speaker A
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12:34
Speaker A
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13:01
Speaker A
You ready? How's it going? Pretty easy. Like right here. Yeah, we got good pull points.
13:11
Speaker A
We got good pull units. So, it should pull. just trying to break it for you.
13:16
Speaker A
If it don't pull, then reality as we know it is a skew. Yeah. One of the biggest issues we run into is anchoring the tow vehicle so it doesn't slide cuz these winches are powerful.
13:32
Speaker A
And the brakes on this truck, even if we have the full parking brakes on, it'll still just drag it no problem. It's got a couple of spades on the back that are more kind of just stabilizers. They're not like they're kind of built to to
13:44
Speaker A
keep the truck from sliding backwards as spade anchors, but they're too thin and so they just dig in. I really need to dig like build a whole back of this truck as a spade. So the whole back of
13:54
Speaker A
the truck digs in like a dozer blade. So until we do that, we have to have a good anchor vehicle. So this excavator with its bucket basically kind of right into the ground is going to be the perfect
14:04
Speaker A
anchor to keep this truck in place. Here we go. Here. All right, we are hooked up. We got both the main deck winches, 55,000 lbs each.
14:32
Speaker A
Uh, ran the snatch blocks and then back to the tow truck. So, we've got a total of about 110 220,000 220,000 lbs of pulling force right now. And uh I got a good feeling about it. We're going to
14:44
Speaker A
see. I'm actually going to move this bunker. He's got a good feeling about it. Got a good feeling about it. He says, "I got a feeling." See this? That's so much pulling power.
15:23
Speaker A
I think we need to bring the back the the the head over a little.
15:27
Speaker A
This is a bad angle. Yeah. As long as we're like we need to be like this.
15:33
Speaker A
Oh, it's only a few degrees. I know, but we won't If we do that, you won't get the minotaur. So, we need metitar.
15:39
Speaker A
Then we can do that. The weakest link of this truck is the rear spades. We just need to build like a big single attachment that goes across both. Works like a big dozer blade.
16:16
Speaker A
Okay, we are reconfigured now and uh got a little bit straighter shot at it. Got the hat pretty well propped up with the track hoe here. Uh, tell me when the bucket is touching right there.
16:33
Speaker A
Yeah, the body. All right, let's try this again. We breaking the cable. Yeah, the one that went.
17:04
Speaker A
It's moving a little bit. It's It'll break the suction here in a second. It'll go. We just got to I mean, do we have another cable from this?
17:10
Speaker A
Yeah, we got another one. We got two more. We're going to want Let's grab that. I think we're going to run this.
17:14
Speaker A
Hey, Al, let's get the service truck. Get another one of these cables. Okay. Lines. Ryan, let's uh let's unhook the let's get these out of the way. Right now, I'm going to take the track and bring it around this side.
17:27
Speaker A
Okay. And do a little bit of digging right here. Okay. You going to loosen this one up?
17:30
Speaker A
Yeah. Okay. I got All right. Well, we're going to do a little bit of a reset. We were so close to getting it out of there. And then uh a cable broke and then I started freeing up some material from around the sides
17:51
Speaker A
of it because it's got so much suction with all that material pushing against it. So if we can pull material away from it, then it's going to release that suction much easier. Something that we should have done a little bit more
18:02
Speaker A
before we start digging, but at the same time there's really nowhere to dig from.
18:06
Speaker A
Uh just because it's all so unstable. So with the broken hydraulic line, that machine is kind of useless right now.
18:14
Speaker A
So, we're going to pull everything out, pull the machine with the broken line out. We'll have somebody over here pull the line off so we can fix that. But in the meantime, we're going to bring our big Hitachi in, which is what I really
18:24
Speaker A
wanted anyways because it's a bigger machine. It's got longer reach. It's got more power. It's more precise. That machine, if it wasn't so loose, like old machines, they just get loose after a while. And when you're boomed out that
18:36
Speaker A
far, it just kind of starts to jiggle. And when you're working in tight quarters like that, a matter of like an inch makes all the difference. You know what I mean? And so that's why I mean it was totally my fault. 100% operator
18:47
Speaker A
error, but it happened because that machine is just a little bit a little bit loose and not super precise. So, we're not going to make that mistake again. We're going to pull everything out. Going to I see pulling those winch
19:02
Speaker A
lines in. Hitachi chime. Heat up here. Got the big Hitachi in here. Um, I'm kind of improving the pad up here so it's just a little bit more accessible.
19:53
Speaker A
Pulled out a bunch of material from around the machine so it's got way less suction now. And we're going to now rerigg the way we have these cables on here. It just sucks. This machine has nowhere to pull from.
20:04
Speaker A
Um, so instead of going under and outside of the tracks. We're going to go loop around each undercarriage arm, basically kind of cradle the sprocket uh with the cables, and there will be less sharp points in there, and it'll be pulling all in the
20:23
Speaker A
same direction rather than having to pinch around the side of the tracks, which is where it was putting all the stress on the cable. I also found another one of those big concrete chunks I pulled out over there. So, I'm going
20:33
Speaker A
to set that for our outriggers. So, that should hopefully be more stable. So, I'm going to clean up this mess, too.
20:41
Speaker A
Yeah. Oh, my glasses. Grab the glass. That's the second time. I know. Shove it in. Diesel behind it. Over here. Okay. Go down by your knee.
20:59
Speaker A
There it is. I feel I feel got it. Okay, that's good. Okay, take this.
21:08
Speaker A
Yeah, but I can't not come. Feels like something like that. I think it makes for a great anchor.
21:23
Speaker A
See, that's what we need on the back of the head to just dig in the earth and hold so much better.
21:36
Speaker A
I think you want to have it's a dead man's hook. Yeah, hook down. Hold on, Dave.
21:40
Speaker A
Okay, we're going have to flip this hook upside down. Help me. What? What you thinking?
21:58
Speaker A
You going to go through both hoops? Come on. Come on in. Come on in. Don't be shy.
22:27
Speaker A
Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. All right. So, we're moving. Um, but it's just I mean it's just dead dead weight.
24:27
Speaker A
So, now we got the Minotaur over here. Um, not in an ideal spot. But that's going to add another 100,000 lbs of pulling force. So, we're going to be at 20 220 plus 110. We're 330,000 lb.
24:46
Speaker A
And to go to that dead cable, you want to go to this cable? Yeah.
24:52
Speaker A
I've got a couple coming down. That's a good All right. I'm going to go tight with those.
25:01
Speaker A
August. Hold on. Whoa. Whoa. Wait. They're pulling it away from us. Black Lucat. pulling power. So, we're in a good spot.
25:55
Speaker A
We've got the Hitachi here. Um, so we're going to run the winches. We're going to run the Hitachi. We're going to run the Minotaur. So, it's probably going to have half a million pounds of force on it here in a minute. As long as we can
26:08
Speaker A
get these main head winches working, they all just quit, which means that either the hydraulic oil foamed up and overheated, overheated and foamed up, or something more sinister. Hopefully not.
26:24
Speaker A
Can't get any life out of any of the the stuff except for the main boom. and it just barely goes, which is promising, but also not ideal. But the rigging all looks good. That thing's just in there, man. And just being a dead weight like
26:42
Speaker A
that, just having to convince it to pull with with nothing with no power sucks.
26:52
Speaker A
Well, I think you'd have to do one and then I think this is going to be our best bet.
26:57
Speaker A
What? So right now you're thinking hat menitar excavator or menitar is just still pulling from where it's sitting.
27:04
Speaker A
Menitar is staying where it's at. We're just reconfiguring the the belco to hook to the front of the the pet and then they're going to pull together and then I'm going to pull with the uh itachi.
27:16
Speaker A
I think you doing link belt. Why don't you doing these two pulling that together? We'll see if it needs it. This just doesn't have a lot of them. It's just kind of a turd. might just get in the way. I don't know if there's
27:30
Speaker A
You hear that? Link belts are turds. I I've been very unimpressed with actually There we go.
28:18
Speaker A
Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Dave's still got pressure on it and that cable's getting ready to snap.
29:37
Speaker A
Oh yeah, Dave off. I've got one more. The cable on the right was bigger than the one on the left cuz when we first started we used a slightly smaller one.
29:48
Speaker A
Well, they're both broken now. Oh, it was kind of working. Um, but I knew that the rigging down, it just sucks.
29:59
Speaker A
There's nowhere to pull from on this machine without putting the cables under incredible tension.
30:03
Speaker A
Pull it up. So, our our next thing we have to figure out is where to freaking attach to because we've not found a good spot yet that is not destroying all the equipment. That's three cables we broke. And those are 1in
30:20
Speaker A
cables. It's not small stuff. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. [music] Heat. Heat. Heat.
32:13
Speaker A
Heat. Heat. Heat. cable out. Do you want to go to the cable or to the clevis?
33:14
Speaker A
Clevis. Mate, no switch. Yeah. All right, Dave, we got some reinforcements here. Yeah, we got some reinforcements. It's the best thing about Utah community.
34:07
Speaker A
What we do, we put out a call to a friend who we recently did a recovery for. We recovered his um loader that was stuck um and said, "Hey man, got any dozers nearby?" And he's like, "A matter
34:19
Speaker A
of fact, I do." And he didn't show up, but he had a couple of buddies that he had that he knew. Dropped everything they were doing, grabbed a D6, and they rolled up. D6 is very helpful for this
34:29
Speaker A
because it's an excellent anchor. It's not a great tow vehicle in this application because it's on rocks right here and it'll just tracks will sit there and jump on the rocks, but it'll really hold the Minotaur down big time.
34:41
Speaker A
So, that's good. Um, we've finally finally got a hook on the other side of the frame. Only sturdy hook point we found like this entire all day. So, now that we've got uh hooks on both sides of the frame, Minotaur is doing a great job
34:55
Speaker A
tugging and now it's got a good anchor with the dozer. So, we're going to hook the winch back up and try to get that far side up. If we can get that side up, we will be in much much better shape. Um
35:06
Speaker A
cuz then we'll have more hook point options. We'll be able to put a a sling around the entire freaking uh the turret. But we also have a gnarly lightning and thunderstorm rolling in on top of us right now. So, so Rhino
35:19
Speaker A
Exavating out of uh probably Utah County here. They just literally we called them 2 hours ago, maybe less for a dozer, and they rolled up. Pretty cool. Love a good community like that.
35:39
Speaker A
Oh yeah. That is a wrap for today. Um, our last hook, which wasn't really a great hook, broke.
36:12
Speaker A
Uh, we did not bring our big boy hooks that we use for this kind of stuff because we didn't think we needed them because we thought we had pull points.
36:19
Speaker A
We don't have pull points. We're just pulling from a little lip on the frame because that's all we got access to right now. So, we're going to go home, grab the right gear, grab a different hat with working winches, come back
36:31
Speaker A
down, and pull it out tomorrow. Morning. Here we go. Day two. We are back with some even bigger guns.
36:42
Speaker A
The guns are so big that they're actually kind of hard to carry. No other ones. Those are those are going to carry these guns.
36:50
Speaker A
We brought some just giant cables. We try to never use these cables because they suck to move like they're they're hard to move on flat ground. Jump in a mud pit and try to connect them to a rope to a tractor that's buried around.
37:07
Speaker A
It's a nightmare. We don't have ideal pull points today. So, As of right now, we're going to scratch out the hole a little bit. See what the status is. Um, we got the hat wrecker. No, not the hat wrecker. My new
37:20
Speaker A
hat on the way. It's got two of those big drum winches. It's basically got two winches that like the Minotaur has. So, the same winches that are on our other hater, they're just obviously not working. So, we're going to check the
37:33
Speaker A
status of the hole. We're going to unload the right stuff. The cable we brought is so big that it won't slip between the tracks and and break like the stuff was yesterday. And so hopefully we can uh we can just get it
37:48
Speaker A
in the sloppy spots and get it pulled out just enough to be able to expose the turret and then pull from the turret.
37:53
Speaker A
We'll see. About 2 ft deep. Yeah, we we're not going to be We had to blur those feet.
38:02
Speaker A
You have to use the curve end or it won't work. Oh, I just want to know if it's coming through the other side. Once we know, you got to go to the other side of the excavator. Yeah, but the other side of
38:17
Speaker A
the excavator is 2 ft thick of uh uh right now. So, I can start working on getting the cable all the way through.
38:31
Speaker A
You don't even see it over here, do you? Huh? You can't even see it over here though.
38:37
Speaker A
Might have to go over there. So that's those two need to go on the Yeah.
38:47
Speaker A
Uh hook those two big dogs into his buck right there. Those are those new gloves or or do you just never get them dirty?
39:01
Speaker A
Brand new today. Sick. Is that it? Is that a new microphone you got in your hand? It's hearing aid. Oh, [laughter] okay.
39:14
Speaker A
Uh, no. That's a Yeah, beacon. Um, we all We're all wearing beacons in case one of it gets lost.
39:21
Speaker A
Avalanche beacon. Avalanche. Even though we're in the flats here, avalanches are still prevalent concern.
39:30
Speaker A
You did. And there goes the window on this bulldozer. Oh no. So yeah. Or the GPS. Yeah.
39:42
Speaker A
He's going to wave it back and forth. He's going to swing it real fast. It's going to catch that hook. I'm going to fold over and then it I don't know.
40:18
Speaker A
Let me go up with the diesel. Yeah, just a little bit. You have to push it through from over here.
40:24
Speaker A
Yeah. I mean, there's there's some recoveries where we can just come grip and rip it. And then there's some where you do that and you break a bunch of cables and you got to be like, hold on, slow down. Think that actually happens a
40:35
Speaker A
lot on these bigger get that on the bigger jobs. It's like, all right, chill out. Rethink this. Think through the plan a little more like steadily. think through it a few different ways and then execute. And uh I mean that's how most
40:49
Speaker A
things should be done, but a lot of this stuff is just like brute strength. You just got to get in and do it. So kind of a combination of finesse and beast mode.
41:04
Speaker A
She had one snatch block. Bring these two points together. One snatch block. We're not bringing those together one line individually. Your smash block of the vent is going straight to the first line. Smash block off the head. Let's go
41:17
Speaker A
to that one. So, let's start. We're going to clear this area out. I need to get the big hoe right there so I can help with the boom.
41:27
Speaker A
Then, we're going to move the dozer. Get the head in here. Anchor the head.
41:31
Speaker A
Reanchor the dozer. Uh, yes. I'll be using that just a minute. Uh Allan, uh grab the snatch block and stuff off of Dave's right here. Let's just pick that up out of the way cuz I have to pull my machine over
41:45
Speaker A
there. We're going to unhook the dozer. Anything on the ground loose just is good to go right now.
42:32
Speaker A
I don't think I can. Good. Reminds me of elementary school. I was always the anchor.
42:50
Speaker A
You're the anchor, dude. I was 200 lb when I was 10. No way. Way, dude. I was the anchor. [laughter] That would I was going to run it all the way out.
43:07
Speaker A
Oh, I'm still going on two weeks pulling this track out. We're all set for the first pull of the day, which hopefully is the last pull of the day. Uh, feel pretty good about the rigging. I don't love that the head is
43:22
Speaker A
at not the perfect angle, but it will be once we get the hoe kind of headed this direction. So, I think we'll be all right here in a minute. As long as our uh cables on the tracks hold, which they
43:34
Speaker A
should, they're pretty stout, we'll be in business. [music] [music] Heat. Heat. N. [music] Heat. Heat.
44:49
Speaker A
[music] [music] Boom, baby. He's out. Now he's got to reset machines. All right, we're going to get the minotaur out of the equation because it's just too congested in here. So, we're going to pull with just the hat
45:23
Speaker A
with double winches now. Um, we need that snatch block. I almost forgot the shot.
45:28
Speaker A
Dude, this is your fault. Yeah, Dave had to remind me. Guys, you got to bring in the closer, man.
45:50
Speaker A
Railroad. Oh, don't don't say it like that. Don't bring sports analogies for team. Closers makes too much sense.
46:01
Speaker A
Except that he was playing the whole time. You don't bring in the outfielder to be the pitcher, you know.
46:05
Speaker A
Yeah. You got a no hitter. Should be sitt on the sit on the bench.
46:22
Speaker A
Here I have got it. Don't move it. Get out of the hole. Made it. I'm so impressed with that truck and the Minute. Both of those just incredible machines. That was just 100% dead pulled. What I'm most impressed
47:08
Speaker A
with are these cables. These big cables we brought today. They got jacked up when they got pulled in between the tracks. Like this one was pretty much split in half, but they held. And I I'm just shocked. That's a very, very strong
47:21
Speaker A
cable. Um, so now Curtis was originally thinking that we'll just leave it right here out of the way so we can keep filling this hole in. But what we're going to do instead is uh hook it to the
47:32
Speaker A
het and just drag it completely out of the road here so it's out of his way.
47:37
Speaker A
We're just going to hook the these two leads to the back of the hat and then the het and the dozer will just pull it down the road and we'll let the boom do what the bokea does around the back.
47:46
Speaker A
Okay, I am really ashamed to say I'm the captain of the submarine and I am so happy it's out now. I cannot even tell you. I am so excited.
48:03
Speaker A
game plan. I don't know. The just making light work of it all. It's just a monster of a machine.
48:43
Speaker A
Oh my goodness. Yes. [laughter] Oh, thank you. Well, guys, we came, we saw, we broke a bunch of cables and then we conquered.
48:51
Speaker A
As you can see, the Hitachi 345 is an absolute animal. You can see the size of the two machines right there next to each other. The 345 is like an 80,000lb machine. Uh the Kamasu is probably a 50
49:03
Speaker A
52,000lb machine, but it was in there. It was in there better than I think I even gave it credit for. I thought there might be more aggregate material in there and less mud and soup, but it was all mud and soup and just suction and
49:15
Speaker A
garbage, but uh got it out. Super grateful for Rhino Excavation that came over, brought their dozer out and helped us out. That's really cool of them. Um, grateful for guys like Yankham, you know, they gave us the soft shackles and
49:26
Speaker A
everything like that we need for recovery equipment. Hitachi obviously for the equipment and uh it was a good one. It was a doozy. And then also Baker Excavation uh loaned the original two track hose that were there kind of
49:38
Speaker A
keeping this thing from completely disappearing. So, it was a group effort. It takes everybody. It takes a whole village to be able to get something like this done. But now Curtis can start cleaning out his machine and figuring
49:47
Speaker A
out how much water and muck and mud is in there cuz there's a lot. But it's an old 1996 all mechanical machine, so there's not a bunch of computers and stuff you got to worry about. So, I wouldn't be surprised to see him have
49:56
Speaker A
that thing up and running here in week or two. See what happens. But with that said, I got to get back to Salt Lake.
50:03
Speaker A
The boys are we're finished and loading up. Uh we got to run the dozer back that we borrowed and uh we're out of here.
50:08
Speaker A
See you on the next one.
Topics:excavator recoveryheavy machineryPC200 excavatorMinotaur winchequipment extractionmud recoveryheavy equipmentmachine stuckwinch pullingHeavyDSparks

Frequently Asked Questions

What caused the excavator to get buried?

The excavator slipped off log mats near a spring that turned into an underground river, causing it to tip and become buried in mud.

How much pulling force do the recovery machines provide?

The combined pulling force from the Minotaur winch and other machines is around 250,000 lbs in a straight line, which can be increased to up to a million pounds with snatch blocks.

What are the main challenges in recovering the excavator?

Challenges include the lack of standard pull points on the excavator, the risk of tipping when pulling from high points, soft ground with springs, and the heavy mud burying the machine.

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