Can you recover our compactor. It's bogged? Not unusual, but when we looked this was something else.
On a landfill, in a 2m deep hole filled with water with trash floating on the top. The batteries were completely underwater as was half the engine, hydraulic tank and pump drive and the machine was sitting at a 45o angle.
The first thing was to get rid of the water so a pump was set up. We managed to lower the water level by about 700mm until the water was leaking back into the hole as fast as it could be pumped out. This allowed us to get to inspect the machine.
We found the pump drive breather hadn't been submerged. We knew the hydraulic tank breather had a check valve fitted with a light spring and the only way water could enter was if the tank cooled, drawing water past the valve. We removed the hydraulic tank lid and dropped a length of tube into the lowest corner and drew some oil up using a sampling pump. There was no water there. Good. The rear final drives were still totally submerged and there wasn't much we could do with them at this point.
No part of the engine had been submerged which could allow water to enter but the extreme angle meant that the oil was not registering on the dipstick. Although by looking at the engine we guessed the oil was probably over the pickup tube, we temporarily added another few liters of oil to be on the safe side. The batteries were still underwater so we disconnected them at the starter motor, borrowed a pair from another machine and made up some temporary cables. We then connected an oil pressure gauge to the engine and cranked it over with the start solenoid disconnected until oil pressure registered.
Using other machines on the site, we dug around the compactor as much as possible, hooked a tractor to the front and started it up. After a few minuted of pulling and pushing the compactor unstuck itself and drove out.
As soon as we reached solid ground we shut it down again, drained all the oils, changed the filters and sent oil samples for analysis. Everything came back clear and the compactor was returned to work.
