Mesabi® radiators are the industry standard when it comes to optimal radiator performance, and their one-of-a-kind removable tubes create less downtime with on-site repairs.
There’s no greater feeling of relief than finding that old, spare tire in the trunk of your car after popping one on the side of the highway. Without that replacement, the progress you’ve made driving that far would have come to a dead stop.
Now, imagine you’re in the middle of an open pit mine, and instead of a tire popping, the radiator on your machine gets damaged – creating the potential for costly engine damage. Its tubes are bent and you have no other choice but to stop working and haul the machine over to maintenance.
Nobody likes a delay in work, and that’s exactly why so many industries trust Mesabi radiators and their removable tubes to decrease maintenance and gain more uptime for their heavy-duty machines.
It’s simple. When machines are out on the job, a damaged tube on a non-Mesabi radiator could cause operations to cease for an indefinite amount of time – as maintenance rushes to immediately repair that damaged radiator.
But not with a Mesabi radiator. Imagine a haul truck or a dozer or loader equipped with a Mesabi radiator – another piece of equipment backs into it and damages seven of the tubes. With a Mesabi, you can simply plug the top and bottom seals and keep on keeping on, until you can get the equipment back into the shop for maintenance. Even better, because the tubes are individually replaceable, those damaged tubes could be removed and replaced right on the site of the crash. While replacement times vary, it takes many operations less than one hour to replace a few tubes.
Heavy duty machines require optimal performance where conditions turn harsh. It’s not an option to succumb to damage – in fact, taking a beating is where Mesabi removable tubes shine the brightest. The removeable tube feature is a Mesabi one-of-a-kind. They enable machines to get dirty and beat up with no long-term cost effects, creating an investment that can outlast a conventional radiator by an average of four lifecycles.
“The removable tube feature on a Mesabi radiator allows the radiator or the cooler to be repaired in the field so that the machine can work until the end of the shift or until scheduled maintenance can be achieved,” said Tim Denehy, Sales Manager at L&M Radiator. “We’ve got radiators that have been running for upwards of 30 years and are still intact. Non-Mesabi radiators usually crack up within the warrantee period, but a Mesabi has the promise of longevity.”
A Quick and Easy Fix
Cracking the code to removable tubes opened a gateway to solving some of the most common problems in standard radiator performance. Accidents aside, standard radiators are more vulnerable to natural damage done during regular operating motions. It’s not uncommon that the intense vibration caused by rolling over the hard surfaces of mines and oil fields can turn lethal for a conventional core.
The typical non-Mesabi radiator has solid welded frames that wrap around the core’s center, making it one whole unit. In areas where extreme vibration occurs, it’s easier for that standard core to crack at the weld points and leak.
“It’s basically over at that point. You have to shut the machine down,” said Denehy. “The way Mesabi tubes are mounted with the seals into the header plate and the bottom plate eliminates or greatly reduces vibration to the tubes. And, if there does happen to be a problem with any given tube, with Mesabi and its ability to plug the individual tube holes, you can keep on running.”
That’s the goal, isn’t it? To keep those machines running no matter what. Even when accidents do happen, Mesabi radiators run until that machine can get to a maintenance shop. If a Mesabi takes a hit at a certain angle and gets distorted, turning it from a rectangle into a twisted parallelogram, those tubes will still remain intact with the seals. That means no leakage. The machine can make it until the end of the day.
“Mesabi removable tubes make for an easy fix,” said Denehy. “Mesabi makes cleaning machines easier, too. Because of its incredibly robust design with heavy-duty tubes and fins, you can hit them with high-pressure water (handling up to 1,200 psi) or high-pressure air and it won’t damage them. Non-Mesabi radiator cores are quite delicate, and oftentimes the fins get damaged from a regular, routine power wash.”
The One and Done Radiator
Sixty-five years ago, L&M Radiator revolutionized the mining industry with radiators that were designed to tackle the harshest of environments. The goal was to create a radiator that could fit any heavy-duty application, and since its conception, the Mesabi Difference has spread worldwide.
The removeable tube feature has no limitations to its applications, producing more uptime across a spectrum of industries, from mining to oil and gas, forestry, city bus transportation, highway trucks, snowplows, landfills, and feedlot companies – you name it! The list goes on.
In dusty and high-silica environments, tubes may be coated in sandy dust or become corroded, forcing maintenance to pull the entire unit apart if it’s a conventional core – or replace the core completely. With Mesabi, sandblasted or corroded tubes can be replaced individually, and more often than not, there is a small number of tubes that actually need to be replaced under these conditions.
Additionally, Mesabi offers a variety of tubes to fit the needs of any application. Specifically for corrosive environments, Mesabi brass tubes work exceptionally well where other standard radiators fall short.
“For decades, our customers (mining companies, etc.) have stipulated that they must have Mesabi radiators on their machines – trucks, dozers, wheel loaders and more. We are first-fit on most machine models,” said Denehy. “Mesabi is one and done. You put a Mesabi in one, and you never have to worry about it in 99.9% of the applications. You just have to keep it clean and you’re set for life.”
Downtime and damaged tubes are out. More uptime and removable tubes are in. Join the rest of the world: there’s no better time to switch over to Mesabi than now.
L&M Radiator: Fighting the Toughest Environments with the Toughest Products
For more information about Mesabi products, visit Products or www.Mesabi.com
For more stories similar to this one, visit The Mesabi Exchange.