altec booms

[biff2ibew]

looking for anwers 05/07 buckets 55ft. forward mounted or rear mounted booms singal or material handler . arethe booms slow with tools getting to hot to handle . having hose fail too soon or often need any imfo . plesae post here or e-mail to biff2ibew@yahoo.com thank you.

[ssgerken]

The hydralic oil on all of our altec booms get so hot that you can't even hang on to the hoses. The boom speed seems alright though.

[biff2ibew]

the tools are getting to hot and the boom speeds were slowed asthe oil gets hot during thetime the truck is working . we are working with altec . we have checked gpms and psi also have started adding coolers . i have heard that some tree and ulitity maybe some contractors have had hoses bust and trucks catch fire . we may have aproblem wiyh the pumps or the spec of truck . the current spec is 7 .3 gpm @1300 rpms 2000= @ psi roughly .

[Oregon Lineman]

Never had this problem with an Altec. Sound like trouble common to Telect, teco and other lower qualty booms. Normally Altec comes with a large enough oil res so this is not a problem. I know when I used to write truck spec I always went for the Altec and not the other. I have always found Altec customer support great to work with. As for the hoses failing that sound like hose defect.

[JAKE]

we have this problem with our 05 digger derrick the tamp gets so hot you cant hold onto it with gloves on and when it gets that hot its very slow and dosnt dig worth a crap. we have documented oil temps as high as 267 degrees and altecs answer to it was were running the digger too hard were not supposed to dig soo many holes with it and dig in sandstone which is where that highest oil temp was recorded the hydraulic resivor is only 35 gallons and theres a 42gpm pump on the truck. typically resivors are supposed to be 3x the size of the pump. we have had endless problems with this digger with this and the controls and it occationally shutting down after cradling the boom and not working for hours then majically working again and in no consistant order.

also on one of our 06 52' altecs we havent had it in service real long cause altec kept f-ing up the body configuration on it but so far it hasnt done that but between the horrible job on the body and when we put it in service we had to go through and grease everything on the boom it was squealing like a pig in a meat grinder i have noticed the tools do get warmer than our older altecs, this bucket is assigned to a guy that does alot of "lighter" work so we may just have not pushed it enough yet.

with the new tier 2 emmissions trucks with weedburner exhaust we have been having more issues with really having to watch the grass that were parked in since that exhaust gas and parts are soo much hotter than the old trucks i wonder if this is partly where this problem is coming from. theres been a couple times on that digger that i could be in one spot for a couple hours and melt the crud out of the pavement or burn a patch in what was green wet grass.

after theese 2 trucks i have really lost faith in altec i had always thought they were the industry standard but were not getting another one again. were a small company and only replace 3 buckets a year and are small beans to them. but theese quality issue makes me think some when i got to go up in it.

[biff2ibew]

the imfomation about the telecets i always knew. the altecs have gone to smaller pumps that run at max capatiy [ 100%] of their designs and smaller tanks . i have found out that there has been two mishaps at asplund tree where they had leaks atthe hoses on the pony motors which resulted in fires and the lost ofthe trucks . the company answer is to put coolers on the trucks at annuals and that really hasn t helped as much hoped. the imfomation on the new exhauts on the new trucks i would like to more .

[BigClive]

Ah, the perils of false economy through undersizing critical components. I think we can reasonably assume that a technically challenged suit came up with that idea.

[svantuyl]

We have an older bucket truck with an am450h boom. Boom will only operate on emergency pump. Outriggers work so main pump is not the issue.