Almost dumped a load of sand into the intake manifold today

Working the Mississippi near Baton Rouge this morning, my cutterhead jammed on a buried cable and I nearly lost my pump prime trying to throttle back too fast. Had to kill the engine, clear the line by hand, and restart with a slow bleed - took about 45 minutes to get back to normal production. Anyone else dealt with a sudden cable snag and have a better way to avoid the pressure spike?

2 comments

2 Comments

rileyl6727d ago

And if you rig a pressure relief valve right before the intake it'll bleed off that spike automatically, saved me a ton of headaches on similar jobs.

harris.emma27d ago

Oh wow, you really think it's that big of a deal? I mean yeah a pressure spike can be annoying but I've never had one cause a total failure or anything. Most of these systems have enough built-in tolerance to handle a little surge without going crazy. Maybe I've just been lucky or the jobs I've done aren't as sensitive as yours. It just seems like you're adding an extra part where you might not need it... but hey if it works for you, no judgment.