Arnett & Burgess takes great pride in our top performing lineup of equipment and continually exploring efficiencies is always at the forefront of our Equipment department. An example of such an efficiency is adding functionalities to well-maintained existing pieces of equipment. A&B’s Fabrication team has done so via the converstion of five dozers to complete pipelayers ( 2 x CAT 572Gs and 3 x CAT 583Ks). A time-consuming process, roughly 200-300 man hours are required to complete this undertaking. In order to rebuild the engine/transmission and brakes and to remove the frame of the truck, a full disassembly of the tractor is required, including the removal of attachments. Upon the hard components of the equipment being welded on the frame, the rebuilding can begin. Each conversion has proven to be a great success with the equipment in high demand due to the resulting efficiencies.

A&B made the decision to fully implement ROPS (roll over protection) on our fleet of pipelayers, a procedure that is recommended, but not mandatory within the industry, for the safety of our workers in the event of a roll over incident. In order to complete this type of installation, our fabrication team followed a meticulous process. The process starts with the complete disassembly of the rear of the booms, stripped down to the track frames, followed by welding the full ROPS structures onto the rear of the frames. After passing inspection and receiving certification that all welds have been successfully completed, the rear end of the machines are then rebuilt. This rebuild includes custom manufacturing as all the machines are different. The final step in the process is repainting the tractors. In total, 50-man hours are required per machine. At present time, we have completed the retrofitting of 24 ROPS structures on our pipelayers, including 15 x CAT 561s, 4 x CAT 571s, 3 x CAT 572s and 2 CAT 583s. We have also completed the retrofit of installing full ROPS on our fleet of sidebooms.

Arnett & Burgess’ Fabrication team custom designed and engineered four 40-foot boom sticks to fit the PL87 Pipelayer side boom, with each machine having a maximum lifting capacity of just of 120,000 lbs. These machines can accommodate 14,000lbs while at their maximum 40-foot reach.