First Measurements & Some surgery...

The plan for the conversion is to put an electric motor on each of the two drive wheels, and to replace the engine-driven hydraulic pump with an electric hydraulic unit for raising the boom. I also want to keep track of the weight of the machine to make sure it remains heavy enough to be stable, but not so heavy that it needs lots more power to move about.

So there's a few things to work out - how heavy is the machine, how much power is needed to move it (and can I get it to move faster) and how much hydraulics is needed to raise the boom?

1. Weight

Weighing this machine was a lot more tricky than I expected. The idea was to place each wheel on a dodgy set of digital scales while supporting the other two wheels to make sure the machine was level .

After a few life-threatening attempts with the machine spontaneously rolling and lurching off the scales, I came up with the following results:

• Front Left: 250kg
• Front Right: 190kg
• Rear Castor: 450kg
• Total: 890kg

There was 5kg of bits of scrap steel sitting on it, so that makes 885kg. I'm mystefied as to why one front wheel is 60kg heavier than the other.

2. Surgery

With the initial weight known, I was keen to remove a modification that a previous owner had made - they'd added an air compressor for operating pneumatic pruners - something I didn't plan to do (they scare the hell out of me) and the compressor added extra weight and stuck out from the back of the machine and knocking into branches when turning.

As the bits came off, they got weighed:

The total weight removed was about 76kg, so the machine weighs about 809kg.