bhixson

not the wrong spring. i contacted roger rice at little giant. he had some great info on the moloch hammers. it turns out the toggle link bolts on my hammer are just too short. the tbolts roger had made up were 9.5 inches OAL , while the bolts i have been using since i got the machine (almost 4yrs ago) were only 8.5 inchesOAL the extra inch gave me the ability to use a jam nut and all is well. the tbolts that came on the machine when i bought it had very fine threads and the nuts were hanging 1/4 of the way off the bolt. i just never realized how that was a problem untill the nut wiggled off.

wow, great to know. thanks Fatfudd. i found a video by dave manzer that i bought a few years ago about tuning the little giant. it is loaded with good info. i believe this info will generally apply to my hammer. im looking forward to getting to know this machine better. i want to install a brake system for the flywheel. that will probably be in the spring time. ill keep you posted with some pics. thanks again guys.

thanks for the great reply info. i figured out what was wrong and have got the hammer working enough to finish forging my Christmas orders. Beaudry , you are right about the toggle links being too short. i loosened them up to match the pics of when i bought the hammer. and the hammer runs perfect. lots of strong force at the bottom of the stroke, and each strike is of the same power. this entire episode has led me to the conclusion that i have been running the hammer for several years with the nuts on the toggle link half way off the threads. to your point, i was calling the toggle link by the wrong part name. i never toughed the pitman arm or crosshead. the ears have always been up. ultimately i have to get longer toggle links so as the have room to double nut or drill and cotter pin. as it stands, i only have a few threads on the toggle arm nut holding the whole thing together. this has been quite the learning experience. i didnt know how good i had it with the hammer working great since i got it. the space between the dies is 1 3/4 inches when in the down resting position. the pics below are from when i bought it, before i bolted it in place. literally all i had to do was to bolt it down, oil it up and put it under power. its been a work horse since.

well i got the spring back in place by using a pipe clamp on the spring mount flanges. this allowed me to compress spring enough to then screw the nut on to the toggle link bolts. i have another problem now that it is back together. the hammer only lightly taps the material in the dies. if i tighten the nuts up to tension the spring further the hammer barely comes down to the material. if i loosen it up, the nuts are half off the toggle link bolts before the ram will do it work. i guess this is the fine adjustment i hear everyone describe about tuning their hammer. any one have clue as to the best way to approach tuning this machine. i ran so well for so long, i never dreamed it would give me this much trouble once i got it back together.

thanks for the tip. i am making a trip to the hardware store today to get what i need to try this. i have a guard just like you described built around the front . it is removed in the pic i posted. i feel luck that i had it in place when the spring flew out of there. could have been bad. ill post my results , thanks again

yeah, as it is the hammer ran best when the nuts were at the very end. i have no clue how to change these toggle links. im very inexperienced with the mechanical side of this hammer. its been so reliable ive never worked on it for anything.

hey all, i have a little giant 50lb power hammer. the adjustment nut at the end of the pittman arm came off while i was forging. thankfully nothing broke. all i have to do is get it back together. i am having trouble compressing the coil spring between the two arms far enough to get the nut on the end of the pittman arm. anyone have any experience putting these together. i have never had to work on this hammer since i bought it several years ago. i tried to squeeze the 2 arms together with a ratchet strap but it didnt work