Today we embarked on moving one of the most annoying pieces from our transmitter site. An old transformer that was just sitting there. At first we estimated that it was about 300-400 lbs. It was a solid block of copper basically with metal all the way around it. We borrowed an engine hoist from a co-worker’s brother-in-law to make the attempt. First thought was to just get it far enough into the bed of the truck and take it to recycling. That wasn’t as easy as it sounded.
First off, the hoist we borrowed didn’t move very well with the transformer attached. By the time we got it positioned to be going straight into the bed of the truck we noticed that the 1/2 ton setting on the hoist arm didn’t look to good we switched to a full ton. Well that made the arm shorter. So we reversed the truck in far enough so that the bed was partial the way in. Also the legs of the hoist were hitting the hitch. That didn’t help much either. Eventually after a lot of effort we got it in there. Then the next problem arouse.
The transformer weighed the back of the truck down so far the hitch was on the ground. Next trick time! The blue panel in the picture is something else we were planning on recycling. We took two of them and stuck them under the tires along with another metal door piece and a brick. Well it picked the truck up high enough and crushed the panels.
Getting it to the recycle place wasn’t easy either. Having that projectile sitting in the back of the truck was a problem. At one stop light it rolled forward a bit. Luckily the hoist slowed it’s roll a bit. Pulled over to the side and attempted to chain it to the truck again.
Once we finally arrived at the recycling center, before we even attempted again to take the hoist out we asked if they had a fork lift to maybe come grab it. A guy pulls up with a fork lift, takes the fork around the outsides and squishes it to pick it up. Meanwhile, Rich and I are basically standing there amazed at how easy that looked.
Oh well, the end result was 536 lbs! 136 more pounds than we actually thought!
Now we can begin dismantling more stuff now that it is out of the way.
