Push Button Grease Pit Cover Up

Push Button Grease Pit Cover Up FARM SHOP Miscellaneous 32-5-39 Grease pits are handy, but dangerous if left open. Pulling heavy covers off a pit long enough to work both ends of a truck is a pain. When Bill Dorwin's son Jeff built a new shop for servicing their over-the-road tractors, he asked his dad for ideas for a push button cover. "When he came off the road in the middle of the night with a tractor that needed servicing, he wanted to hit a button to uncover the pit, open the petcock and let the hot oil drain while he went to bed," says Dorwin. "I just had to figure out how it would work." What he settled on was a kind of giant garage door opener that moves 10 4-ft. cover sections of 1/4-in. thick deck plate back and forth across the top of the grease pit. For starters, the oil pit was made twice as long as needed at 5 ft. deep, 4 ft. wide, and 40 ft. long. There's also a 3-ft. deep, 43-ft. extension where the deck plate covers retract. A gearbox installed where the two pits meet drives no. 80 roller chain through a 2-in. channel iron box filled with oil. Midway down the length of the channel, the chain connects at the midpoint of the working pit covers. "I figured if we connected at the front or back, the plates would buckle when pushed," says Dorwin. "This way only half the plates are pushed, while the other half are pulled, whether opening or closing." To move the plates smoothly under the storage cover, Dorwin mounted rollers under the first and last plates. This allows them to smoothly roll up and down the 4-in. incline to cover or uncover the working pit. Sweeps also mounted at both end plates sweep the track, keeping debris off and ensuring a smooth action. The plates themselves rest on track along the side of the pit. A second set of tracks runs slightly beneath the cover track. It supports a 30-gal. drain tank on rollers. It can be moved from one end of the working pit to the other, enabling draining of engine, rear end or transmission fluids as needed and without moving the vehicle being serviced. "The oil pan has wings on the top that can be flipped up to help catch fluids coming from either side of the pan," notes Dorwin. "At the end of the pit, we have a pump under the entrance steps. When the oil pan is full, we simply wheel it down to the pump and empty it into a waste oil storage tank. In the winter, we burn the waste oil to heat the shop." The service pit covers are reinforced with gussets to allow light trucks or skid steer-sized equipment to be driven over them. "It only takes 45 seconds to uncover the working pit with the opener," says Dorwin. "Thanks to the pit, we can drop the oil, grease and service a truck in about 20 minutes." Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Bill Dorwin, W.L. Dorwin Backhoe Service, W4794 Cty. Rd. B, Durand, Wis. 54736 (ph 715 671-5679; tdtrans@nelson-tel.net).

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