Crusher Wear Parts

There’s a couple ways to go about this, with a fair number of people preferring either method.

One is the physical discharge setting method. This is done by passing a compressible material such as a lead slug or aluminum can through a running empty crusher and measuring the thickness of the passed test material. The crusher is then locked at a physical closed side setting that provides the desired finished material size.

Another method that’s becoming more common is setting the discharge close to what’s anticipated as the desired setting on a physical basis, and then running it full of material to be crushed. The crusher is adjusted either open or closed, until the desired discharge product is obtained. The power requirement in ampere draw is noted and the crusher is run at that rate until the finished product size changes due to liner wear and the amp figure needs re-evaluated. This method is common among jaw, cone and roll crushers.

The presence of chert in the material being reduced indicates a silica content that will have a bearing on the alloy best suited to what you’re crushing.

The general rule we use to determine best alloy choice (carbon/manganese levels) is partially based on the silica content of the crushed material. At a silica content exceeding .4, the value of using the high alloy manganese materials diminishes.

Regarding the design of the jaw dies themselves -- one of the high tooth jaw designs we have available would be most appropriate. The more abrasive the material being crushed, the more beneficial a higher tooth form becomes. High tooth jaw dies are available in various curve rates (dependent on sizing requirements) and with tooth depths varying from 3.000 inches to 5.000 inches, based on common coarse 6-inch tooth pitches.

In order to make the very best choice in jaw dies, the questions we’d ask are:
1. What is the very top size feed material going to the crusher in 2 axis?
2. What size range does 50% of the gross feed material fall into?
3. What is the desired finish product size from this crusher?
4. What is the silica content and compressive strength of the material being reduced?
5. What is the nature of the material being crushed (shot rock, any slabs, naturals, and are the fines minus the discharge settings scalped from the feed material)?

That Pioneer crusher you have is a good piece of equipment, and a lot of replacement wear parts have been developed for it. Our customer service department can help you with a specific choice, or you can contact our engineering department here as well. Thanks for the question -- and yes there’s a ready solution.

I believe what you have there is a 10 x 24 Universal jaw crusher of the original plain-bearing design, although it’s still an overhead eccentric model. Universal Engineering began manufacturing these overhead models in 1906, and that principle is still in use today. The machine you’ve obtained is likely in excess of 60 years old.

We still have pattern equipment and tooling to provide the wear parts for this machine. The part numbers you’d be looking for are as follows:

Stationary jaw -- Columbia # 218470
Moving jaw -- Columbia # 218490
Moving jaw wedge -- Columbia # 218460
Key plates -- Columbia # 218200 and 218210
Heel plates -- Columbia # 218240 and 218250
Pitman toggle seat -- Columbia # 218500
Toggle plate -- Columbia # 218540

You can contact our customer service department for price and delivery information on those part numbers.

You’ll likely need some other internal components that may be more difficult to obtain. Regarding items such as bearings, push wedge, springs, specialty fasteners, etc. -- you may want to contact the original equipment manufacturer that is still in business under the name Universal Engineering, and located in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. They’d be of more help to you in obtaining detailed specification lists than we’d be able to provide. All we’d have is some old advertising literature!

If any of this is of interest, you can contact me at our foundry in Portland, Oregon (chuck_h@columbiasteel.com). It’d be best if the OEM could verify that “2M” model designation, since it’s taken from previous sales history information.

You may end up having to make some of the parts, or do a little scavenging in order to come up with something close to a “numbers match” restoration. Sounds like a good project -- good luck!

I’m going to be careful here about making a positive I.D. on your machine. It appears to be a regular 45-inch El-Jay fine head, although the description needs further clarification.

If so -- a lot is being asked of this model and size, to reduce up to 5 and 6-inch pieces. Even if using a generous +1.000-inch discharge setting, anything beyond 4 inches with an extra coarse liner set is as much as it’s going to do efficiently. The top diameter and resultant effective circumference is too small to deal with much of that size material beyond the very open feed side.

IFORs rarely apply to fine head 3rd stage type crushers, due to the limited bowl frame room between the back of the b-liner and the inner fit side of the bowl frame. Any applications of IFORs in these 3rd stage crushers amounts to going from very fine to medium crushing parameters (i.e., 2 x 1-inches to 3 x 2-inches).

That is not what’s being described here. If this is a 45-inch El-Jay fine head, the best set we could offer you would be something like a 312482 and 312475 (Columbia sketch # 1392), and only for the correct bowl frame.

The original equipment manufacturer bowl frame part number is going to have to be identified before going any further. This is necessary because of the “short and long” b-frames that are available in this size and model of machine. For further discussion of the application of IFORs and their place in the universe, contact me directly at chuck_h@columbiasteel.com, or our customer service department at 1-800-547-9471, ext. 257.

There are two main reasons why manganese is the primary choice for wear steel in crusher parts:

1) Manganese steel has the unique ability to work harden as it’s impacted by the mineral crushing process. In addition, the machined surfaces on a crusher casting also work harden as they’re machined. That’s why the machining of manganese steel is avoided by many shops and is considered a specialty process. A new “as cast” crushing surface on a part will begin at near 250 Brinell hardness, and when worn out the same surface may have a hardness value of 350 to 400. I’ve seen returned castings with as high as a 500 hardness value. This would have been accomplished by crushing a very high compressive strength material.

2) Perhaps more importantly, manganese steel is the only steel that will develop this skin hardness and still remain ductile enough below the work-hardened surface to resist breakage. Manganese steel is a very durable material.