Lil' Giants Constr. Co.

[Lil Giants]

Thank you again Crunky and thank you Norm for your great words of encouragement, it's always a special treat to me to hear from ppl who work in the construction industry.

I feel quite fortunate to have stumbled onto this basement excavation idea, it's been a great past time to date dreaming up new ideas to tackle different projects along the way.

Here's another vid with the 922 clearing dirt away from the wall.

[supertux]

Hello Joe, I'm working for a Norwegian Construction Company myself, www.dagsmaskin.no, where we use komatsu excavators, and looking at your Liebherr scale excavators, how smooth they operate, and how well you operate them is amazing. Its almost like looking at the 1:1 versions. I'm currently looking for Komatsu excavators on the net, but there only seems to be Cat and Liebherr models. Anyways, I'll have to save alot of money and buy myself one of these.. THIS LOOKS FUN Thanks for sharing your images and videos. Regards, Petter.

[Lil Giants]

Thank you Petter, please to meet you, lots of interesting equip at your company. What piece of equip do you operate regularly & what sorts of jobs are you working at recently? I don't know of any rc Komatsu excavs for commercial sale, although I believe I've seen pics somewhere of some one who built one from scratch... maybe not so difficult to convert a Stahl 922 Liebherr to a Komatsu?

Here's another vid I made last night, showing the process of backfilling the completed east cribbed wall (presently mining away the south wall).

[crunky]

i know its kind of strange to ask, but do you have any footage of any mishaps or carnage ?
i did see the one vid of the truck backing in to the area where the ground gave way, and the truck got stuck.
any others ?

[supertux]

Hello again. We are a rather small company, 10 people, but when I have created the new webpage It will have even more pictures of our rigs. I'm currently driving the Scania R500 6x4 with 3 axle dump trailer, pic on the frontpage. I also drove a Moxy MT30R ADT and for some years a Komatsu WA320 wheelloader. I'm still often driving our WA470 to load my truck, and last year I plowed some industrial areas in the winter with the WA250PT wheelloader. I'm just starting to drive the Komatsu PC210 excavator. Going to take my "fagbrev", thats papers, like school, that I'm capable driving excavators and trucks... don't know the english word for it. Hopefully, I will be able to create some of these models. I'm looking into buying a lathe and mill for the sommer, and start some custom handmade project, but I know its going to take som time to learn everything. For now, I have just started with the Tamiya R470 kit, and I think I will buy a dump trailer. Don't know if I will be using our company colors, or if I should make my own Keep those entertaining vids coming...

- Petter

[Def4x4]

like that great video, nice work.

[Lil Giants]

Petter,
"fagbrev" = operator training, bookwork & practical.

There's a couple of cdn friends of mine from the west coast on the garden who have built most of their fleet from scratch. Check out their threads in the construction forum, one guy is Logger and the other is tracksntreadslou. They've each built a dozer (D8 hi-track Cat & TD-25 International) and now each one is building an articulated dump trk. Logger built his own excav (Cat) without a functional undercarriage, but that'll come later. Lou got a Damitz & a Stahl excavs, the Stahl has been converted to a John Deere forestry hoe with a hyd thumb. He added a thumb to the Damitz as well.

I'm looking forward to seeing your fine projects in the near future.


Crunky,
The only carnage (nothing on video) was from a broken a driveshaft on the KH dump trk last winter, I was nearly at the top of the 1st long ramp when I heard this grind, then the trk took off backwards (fully loaded)!I nearly ripped a fingernail off when I tried to catch it! The trk almost made it to the bottom before striking the wall.... broke alot of shyt!!! Pictures of it all to be seen here.

Another time, I broke a driveshaft on my KH tractor pulling the bd trl while travelling up a different ramp not quite as steep. I went backwards quickly for 12 feet or so where I jack knifed at the bottom... didn't break anything. Lucky!


Thanx Def4x4

[supertux]

Hello again Joe. I've been thinking about a king hauler project after I read some of your posts on the "post all king haulers" thread... Would You be kind and post some here? Don't know if this is of topic, but I liked the rought look of your 2 and 3 axle tractors.. Is it 4x4 and 6x6 ? I like the large terrain-tires What engine are you using? Will the tranny tolerate a LPR TruckPuller2 7.2 volt, with load, without breaking... It sure looks like that when watching your videos, but then again, I don't know if you run stock transmission... I'm reading your MAMMOTH GIANT thread at gardentrucking, but it will take some time though, since English is my second language only hehe.. Interesting read though

- Petter

[Lil Giants]

Petter,

All your questions will be answered in the garden thread. But just a couple of quicks answers... I use the stock tranny & twin 12v motors with the wdc dual motor coupler. I've never had a tranny fail.

The 4x4 KH (the 1st pic in the thread you mentioned) was a short lived experiment, I had added to the front of the bottom output shaft on the trans to power the front axle... however the driveline angles were too severe! I used the hi lift tires on that trk.

My two current GL tractors are 6wd, but one of them will soon be another dump trk, like the KH, so I will have to build another 6wd tractor... preferably will the same wheelbase as the white one, much easier for maneuverability.

None of my 900+ photos are organized in photobucket and it takes forever for me to load each page... terribly short sighted of me... read the garden thread and don't hesitate to ask any questions.

[Lil Giants]

You're in luck Petter, my white GL broke down tonite!

I was climbing the ramp with the bd trl in tow loaded when I start to hear a "click click grind"! My 1st thought was maybe I blew a pinion on the lead axle (not that it has ever happened before), but it turned out that the spider cross disenegrated! That's a 1st!

This differential is a modified lockable unit from Doc Gear of Germany. It quit working last summer, I think the problem may have been some dirt got in there between the locking ring & crown gear so it wasn't fully engaging. Solution is to pack more grease within the housing to keep the dirt out. Also the three little bolts holding the diff case together were quite loose... likely another reason why the locking mechanism was not engaging.

The rear lockable axle quit working too, probably the same problem. Take it apart, clean it up & fill it grease as well.









I found a number of loose bolts and screws securing the trans & suspension... it probably wouldn't been long before whole compenents would have started jumping out of the trk, all that torque twisting up the chassis constantly. Time to add some locktite.

[radiowave]

Hi there Joe,

Sounds like it might have been a good thing that the Globe quit on you so you could take the time to tighten all the screws and bolts so she wouldn't fall apart on you!

[supertux]

Hello Joe, thanks for the update... I've been reading your giant gardentrucking thread, and I have leard alot... these GL updates were also nice Its so cool to see these small-big rigs put at work, and I want an rc excavator so bad I also enjoy pictures of your crusher hehe, since we also have a rock quary(?) "steinbrudd" in Norwegian. We have a Norwegian made crusher, named Haahjem. I was unloading the crusher yesterday, and I was going to take pictures for you, but had forgotten my camera

Anyway, it was the Komatsu PC350LC (38tonn) loading the crusher, me unloading the crushed piles of stones in a Komatsu WA470 (26tonn), and a Komatsu PC210LC (23tonn) picking out stones to be used for building stone-fences, I don't know what its called in English. The Komatsu PC240LC (26tonn) where using a hydraulic rock hammer (?) to crush to large stones to get through the crusher.

I hope I to can have an model of anyone of these machines... that would be nice hehe

- Petter

Sorry if this is untopic

[Ian]

I am truely speachless about what you are/have been doing!
This is taking Rc's to the next level! A practicle use for them and one that the missus cant grumble about

Hats off to you Joe, you are doing a sterling job, i admire your patiants and determination..
I will watch all your videos, its a little early/late here at the mo though, so the rest i will save for tomorrow

Keep up the excellent work, and just a thought, but when your done you could start on some RC helicopters and make yourself that extension you always wanted

One thing i would like to know though, the most important question that people here are to ashamed to admit that they would like to know also!
Wheres the rig that brings you coffee's/ food and spare battery's?

[Lil Giants]

Hello Gary, I'm not sure what would have happened if that tranny popped out of place... no doubt it would have happened near the top of ramp though!

No worries of going off topic Petter, as I'm sure you discovered reading the garden thread. h43r: Yes please, take your camera to work.

Ian.

"RC helicopters and make yourself that extension you always wanted"
Huh?

"Wheres the rig that brings you coffee's/ food and spare battery's?"

She left a couple yrs ago... she hit me with the ultimatum of either her or those silly toys ... half way down the stairs to the basement I heard a door slam! Haven't seen her since...

[Pipeliner_970]

Joe,

I stumbled across a youtube video of a wdc 966 a while back while searching rc videos. I have since been doing a lot of searching and reading about all the hyd rc models out there and needless to say have become borderline obsessed with the prospect of owning one or two of everything myself. I found the garden trucking forum and have read nearly every thread in the construction equipment section and have been following your project. I am truly impressed with your work, and you and lou and logger and everyones knowledge and talent. I made several attempts to create an account so I could talk to you guys and pick your brains but I couldn't get it to work.

Anyway, I was glad to see I could get an account going here so i could drop you a line and tell you how very impressed and jealous I am. I am an equipment operator for a pipeline contractor in the gas field on the western slope of Colorado, and would love to have some scale models of the machines I run every day. I am saving to buy a hoe (would love to have a damitz), but it probably won't happen any time soon, so I guess for now I'll just live vicariously through others like you with such awesome fleets and the talent to build, operate, and maintain them. Sorry for rambling on for so long, if you have any questions about the 1:1 machines i'd be more than happy to offer up any knowledge that I have.

Take care and keep up the awesome work,

Marty