Help -HME OP 55 flywheel Crank Press Jammed.
Help -HME OP 55 flywheel Crank Press Jammed.
(OP)
Hello there
We are currently building a fairly complicated press tool and we are using an old HME op-55 Key Clutch press(Flywheel Crank Press).
The press has been working great and have had little problems, these old presses are built to last. but i have come into a slight problem. I have been testing different hights with the press to obtain better results on our tool. the problem i have is that i set the press slightly too low so when i engaged the clutch the press went down. hit its base position and ceased, at that point i cut the power to it. so to put it short i have a 55 tonne press ceased in its closed position and im stuck. i cannot get the press to disengage. i have tried manually reversing the flywheel but it just bounces, both directions. it is not doing to move, i have also tried to increase the hight but the nut that is used to dictate the hight of the top tool is also locked and will not move. im just wondering if anybody out that has any experience with these large flywheel crank presses.
is there something i can do to relieve it? has anybody had one of these presses jam?
the tool we have made is using some very strong springs in them which i believe has caused the jam. i actually had to make some pins to increase the pressure of some of the springs, when this mod was made on its first run was when it happened.
do these presses have some kind of pressure system that disengages the cluth when there is too much load?
if so how can i reverse it?
any information you can give me would be great.
Thank you for your time
Fraser
We are currently building a fairly complicated press tool and we are using an old HME op-55 Key Clutch press(Flywheel Crank Press).
The press has been working great and have had little problems, these old presses are built to last. but i have come into a slight problem. I have been testing different hights with the press to obtain better results on our tool. the problem i have is that i set the press slightly too low so when i engaged the clutch the press went down. hit its base position and ceased, at that point i cut the power to it. so to put it short i have a 55 tonne press ceased in its closed position and im stuck. i cannot get the press to disengage. i have tried manually reversing the flywheel but it just bounces, both directions. it is not doing to move, i have also tried to increase the hight but the nut that is used to dictate the hight of the top tool is also locked and will not move. im just wondering if anybody out that has any experience with these large flywheel crank presses.
is there something i can do to relieve it? has anybody had one of these presses jam?
the tool we have made is using some very strong springs in them which i believe has caused the jam. i actually had to make some pins to increase the pressure of some of the springs, when this mod was made on its first run was when it happened.
do these presses have some kind of pressure system that disengages the cluth when there is too much load?
if so how can i reverse it?
any information you can give me would be great.
Thank you for your time
Fraser





RE: Help -HME OP 55 flywheel Crank Press Jammed.
If everything you have tried has failed using some REAL force, you are down to some pretty drastic action.
If you have any ram and bed space free try putting some hydraulic jacks in, I have seen that work in the past, does the press have tie bars on it if so try removing them as well. If that fails you are down to flame cutting part of the tooling or the pitman screw.
RE: Help -HME OP 55 flywheel Crank Press Jammed.
Be careful; you've got a lot of strain energy stored there.
Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA
RE: Help -HME OP 55 flywheel Crank Press Jammed.
RE: Help -HME OP 55 flywheel Crank Press Jammed.
RE: Help -HME OP 55 flywheel Crank Press Jammed.
NOW - I don't know exactly what part needs to shrink - but maybe you do. AND IT DID WORK!! I watched it happen.
Good Luck
RE: Help -HME OP 55 flywheel Crank Press Jammed.
Torch it apart (cut the die in half).
That was a costly mistake to say the least.
Good luck.
RE: Help -HME OP 55 flywheel Crank Press Jammed.
I hope you haven't gotten too drastic yet, this was a fairly regular problem for me a couple of jobs ago. We had semi skilled press setters setting mechanical presses from 40 to 180 tonnes. some of the machines had hydraulic overload cylinders in their ram however the HME machines did not. Although the method is a bit brutal we always got the tool out of our open front presses without losing the tool or any major press components.
The method was to build out from the back of the press frame using 50mm steel parallels until the packing was close to the bottom plate of the press. We had two wedges cut and machined from 50 mm square, about 500mm long tapering from 50mm to nothing and these were used with a sledge hammer to drive the tool out of the press. It takes a bit of sweat and you need a couple of guys as you don't want to get too tired, swing and hit the tool rather than the wedge.
A word of warning about using a hydraulic powerpack to further open the press. The one major failure we had was a straight sided 150t machine where we used four 100t enerpac cylinders to relieve pressure on the tool. The press frame broke and the machine was scrapped.
Good luck
Martin
RE: Help -HME OP 55 flywheel Crank Press Jammed.
However i imagine you already took care of this problem...