a fairground life

The suspension on the skydiver had only two leaks. One was a blown olive and the other was a pin hole blasted into a metal air pipe from the sandblasting. My stick welder was too heavy for me to weld the pin hole, but JM repaired it with the mig. So after half an hour it was all up and running. We started on the Miami to remove one of the Hydraulic drive motors. It had been leaking oil from around the shaft seal. I had replaced several myself but they did not stop the leak so it was time to have the motor lifted out and taken to a specialist. We removed the grease guard,pinion,hydraulic pipes and finally mounting bolts. The crane was attached to the lifting eye and we tried to lift the motor out. It would not move. So I gave it a smack with the sledge hammer. No movement. I thought it may have been jammed by the crane so I repositioned it slightly. Bang! The motor shot out like an Exorcet missile and hit the rear panel of the ride. It swung about like a wrecking ball, the bang was so loud that everyone in the shed came running to see if we were ok. Luckily no damage was done. The motor looked small up on the crane,but when we got it down,( even though it was still hanging on the crane) it took three of us to get it into the van. It was safely delivered to the hydraulics place for service shortly afterwards. I will find out next week what the problems with it are. We seemed on a roll so next we removed the Dropzone lift cradle. This was so we could get access to remove the hydraulic cylinder cap. The ram was leaking oil around the rod seal and I wanted to replace these. The overhead crane again made the job easy and we soon had the old seals out. I had a spare seal kit for the cylinder, but it had only 2 of the 3 seals I needed. So off I went, cock sure I would get the third seal no problem and have it all back together by teatime. No such luck.It seems this is a special type seal. Eventually I tracked down a chap who made several calls and finally found someone in England to make a new seal from scratch. It should arrive next week too, I hope. So we returned back to more painting while we wait for these other matters to be resolved. "r" started to convert the diesel barrel rack on the miami into a tool box. We don't use it now since the new generator has a built in tank. Anyway I'm sick of climbing over all the gear we pack into the back of the ride so having it all in a toolbox will be better (for a while, until the gear migrates back again). Two weeks and counting.
The photos show both ends of the shed from the top of the Miami.