How to repair?

[Ron Stauffer]

Since there is a dearth in new topics and just ran across these pics again last week as a reminder. here is a topic for reference. I had a Front Range work trip planned and got a call the day before leaving on a rebuilt 8 x 33 that was installed over a year ago. Customer doesnt live at the site and told me the tower was leaning badly and wanted me to look at it. He was out of the area and couldn't provide any pics so said I would look at it since I would be close.

On the 5 hour drive to the Front Range, I tried to think what would be the issue. I was surprised on what I found and am pretty sure it was vandalism.

leaning wm 2.jpg

leaning wm.jpg

The rig is not hooked to the tower yet

Three broken X braces, all bolts out of one tower anchor, 3 of 4 bolts out of another anchor on same side and a badly bent corner leg where the brake handle was.

A front was coming in as you can see from the pics and the mill was furling. It was leaning badly as you can see the ladder leg is nice and parallel to the side of the building behind it. When I tried to shut the mill off, pulling on the brake handle only served to buckle that corner angle of the tower more. It wasn't safe to climb the vertical ladder rung as it wasn't attached to an anchor.

As I was assessing options of what to do, the storm worsened and it started to rain. Time to get in the truck and think some more. Weather radio provided info that the wind was only going to get worse. A day later the winds became known as the derecho storm.

I just had normal windmill service tools along. I did have my climbing harness but this rig I had is only a single line so I couldn't position the main line to attach to the tower and hook myself to the sandline with the remote and do my "Peter Pan" routine to attach the mainline to the tower. I didn't feel it was safe to climb the tower to get the mainline attached to the tower. There was another well service guy about 20 minutes who I just came to know when i bought a Smeal off of him 10 months ago but wasnt sure if two guys scratching their heads made sense. Since it was still raining, I decided to use a lifeline and call a windmill friend that has been doing it longer than my 20 years. We came up with a plan and it worked and was mostly safe.

This was 4 hours later. I had to hand make the three X braces that took some time so you know getting it stabilized, tower leg straightened and re attaching went pretty smooth.

leaning wm fix.jpg

So rather than say now how I did it now, I am always interested in how someone else might have approached it to see if I could learn a different approach.

I am not sure how this mill was still standing, I guess Aermotors are so good you only need two good legs

So, how would you approach this? There are 2 clues in the last pic on how I did it.

Ron Stauffer
Montrose CO

[Gregg]

I would guess you were able to raise the boom and tie off the tower with a rope as high as you could reach on the truck, to stabilize the tower so you could climb the ladder and attach the cable. Without the truck, I don't know what you would have done. Were the bolts to the anchors sheared off, or did someone take the time to unbolt them. My first thought was someone snagged the tower as they moved truck or equipment through the gate.Another reason to keep the red cooler full, so one could relax after a job well done.
Gregg

[Wayne]

Not sure how you did it, but I'd say another job well DONE! I bet you are on that ranchers speed dial.

[JBarker]

Wow, your Superman!!! Awesome job Ron! As we say in the Marines..."adapt, overcome, improvise". What a great example of solving a problem in the field.

Jerry

[Ron Stauffer]

When I first assessed everything, I felt I needed to lay the mill and tower down to repair. Since the wind was up, I originally had the truck facing in to the wind.

First clue in the last pic was the furl handle was moved. The proper placement of an Aermotor furl handle is either leg opposite the side of the furl lever. Moving the furl handle allowed me to get the mill shut off and decrease the wind resistance.

Second clue in the last pic was that the truck was on the other side of the tower. My friend had a suggestion that he had used on a loose mast pipe that made sense. His suggestion was to back up the pump hoist truck on the other side as close to the tower as possible. Then raise the boom and lay it back against the platform to stabilize. This didnt make the ladder any less vertical but at least it was solid. I hooked on at the first girt down from the platform to be able to lay down if necessary. After I picked up on the loose side of the tower, I could see that I could realign the legs with the anchors. I thought I might have to remove the bent corner leg but removing the X braces allowed me to straighten it in place with the 2 24 method. I then attached to the anchors and made the X braces. Done

Ron

[Dave Straub]

Years ago I had a similiar problem so I decided to add alternating steps on my boom. Using 5/8" bolts 8" long welded to the boom 16" apart. Now we have a safe way to climb and hook the cable to either steady the tower or hinge it down.