Our good friend, Steven Bradford of Seattle, Washington has been restoring his Mini-Crab Dolly. Steven is currently working on the hydraulic system and has carefully flipped his Mini-Crab over and removed the lower panel. Here are some great shots of the 'mechanics' of our favorite dolly! The ColorTran Mini-Crab. Click on any image to enlarge for greater detail.
An image of the undercarriage soon after the lower panel was removed.
This image shows some of the hydraulic and CO2 fittings.
The chain and its intricate path. This truly took a mastermind to design! William Sargent is the genius designer and inventor of this self-contained dolly that was way ahead of it's time.
I'm still working to find why our hydraulic column doesn't lift. I can't tell, as there's nothing in the instructions telling how much pressuer in the bottle is enough to lift. I have a half full bottle, so that's probably not the problem. I think I have an oil leak on the oil system, but the patent info only talks about the shifting clutch for the steering, as I guess the hydraulics are not the innovative part of the system. I'm guessing that I've lost the seals on that mechanism, so have to figure out what to do to get it back.
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