Smooth gear change
28 December 2017Pfeiffer Cranes put a Manitowoc Grove GMK6400 and GMK4100L-1 to work on a wind turbine maintenance job at Musselroe Wind Farm in Tasmania. Woolnorth Wind Farms, owner and operator of the Musselroe location, contracted turbine manufacturer Vestas Wind Technology to manage the replacement work.
Vestas, in turn, approached family-owned rental business Pfeiffer Cranes to handle the lifting work. Pfeiffer selected its Grove GMK6400 for the job, with a GMK4100L-1 providing support. Dan Pfeiffer, crane operator and supervisor at Pfeiffer Cranes, said the unique MegaWingLift attachment on the GMK6400 helped ensure the job was a success.
“The GMK6400 is the strongest six-axle crane on the market and its MegaWingLift attachment gives it excellent lifting capacity when the boom is at high angles, which made it the best choice for this job,” he said. The company has a wide range of Grove cranes.
The GMK6400 was configured with 49.6m of main boom and a 43m luffing fly jib. In this setup, combined with the capacityenhancing MegaWingLift with 115t of counterweight, the crane had a capacity of 28t, which it could lift out to a 30m radius.
This proved more than enough to place the 24t gearbox and 10t replacement generator, both of which were lifted to a height of 92.6m. The lifting work took less than 10 hours.
