Yesterday I got started with changing out the slewing bearing, AKA Rotek on the bigger excavator.
I hooked a shop vac to the top of the hydraulic tank to keep the oil from pouring out when I removed the lines from the center swivel and got them all capped off.
I broke all the bolts loose and called it a day. My back was displeased and told me about it this morning.
I took all the lines off the bottom of the swivel and capped them, and dropped the ~75 pound swivel down and got it out and cleaned up. I got rained on by 24 years of water and grease accumulations. You can get an idea of the consistency by looking at the wooden tooling I had made to jack it up.
We have some huge concrete blocks, they are 6120 pounds and measure 32" one way and 36" the other. The 32" was just right so I flopped it that way and used it for dunnage.
I used a 50 ton porta-power and slowly jacked the house off the carbody assembly.
I have it about 3.5" up and you can see daylight under the drive gear. It has to clear for me to drag the track and carbody assembly out to get at the bearing.
The front end I lifted with the excavator itself, then I blocked it up with 3" of channel iron pieces until I can get back at the job. I have to go dig a job with the mini tomorrow.
The new bearing is ready to unwrap and install. It's about 500 pounds of rings, bearings, seals and the ring gear itself.