When you sold your favorite car, you must wonder its final destruction by the hands of a crusher. Almost all the crushers use the hydraulic process to crush cars.
When you fall in love with your favorite object, you don’t want such thing to happen with it, but it’s a reality it will happen with your vehicle sooner or later.
How Car Crusher Works?
Large cylinders push hydraulic fluid to generate power to drive a pump. The hydraulic system can create pressure over 2000 psi and crush 150 tons of waste in a pile of scrap.
A bed is used for car loading. A crushing plate first rises and then drops to apply the crushing power. A crusher contains tubing, pump, engine, and valves. Guideposts are used to distribute the crushing force evenly.
Below the crushing bed, there is an oil reclamation system. During car crushing, motor oil, and other fluids drain, they run into a system where they are stored for later recycling.
After using your vehicle for years, the engine becomes sluggish, seats become saggy, and pain starts to fade. It is the time when all essential parts of the car are stripped out; and sent for crushing to scrap yard. In this article, we will discuss how car crusher works?
Car Crushing Facts
- In Britain, almost one million cars are crushed every year.
- Cars can only be scrapped by an Authorized Treatment Facility (ATF).
- During the first phase of the Depollution process, the lead battery is removed.
- The tires of a vehicle are removed and sent to a recycling center.
- Hazardous parts like the catalytic converter and petrol tanks are removed.
- Once the first phase of Depollution is complete, the car is ready to be sent for crushing.
- You can either donate funds for charity or sell your car for scrap.
- It is stated in a Scrap Dealer Act 2013 that you can’t receive cash payments for scrap because it is illegal.
- For car crushing, inform the DVLA and receive a certificate of destruction.
What is the Car Crusher?
Metal machinery is used to compress the metal parts of a junked car after getting all the useful parts out of it. The purpose of compressing is to increase storage space. A compressed car takes less space when it is transported to a recycling facility. A crusher is only one step of the auto-recycling process. You can also use a crusher to crush heavy machinery or other forms of metal waste.
Crushers can be stationary or moveable. Older machines are fixed, and once they are placed in a scrap yard, they stay there. Nowadays, most crushers are portable and can be moved anywhere. So, instead of buying an expensive machine, they can rent a crusher for some time; or share the cost with other yards.
Other Crushers for Car Crushing
There are lots of other crushers, such as hammer crusher. It uses huge plates to smash whatever is being crushed into bits. However, such crushers are mostly used in industries for crushing rocks. Auto renders can also use hammer crushers to crush scrap metal into smaller pieces. Old stationary crushers use a large electromagnet to grab a metal car and put it into a crusher. Magnets are used to separate steel parts from non-ferrous materials.
The material of the car crusher must be thick and hardened. Due to this toughness, the crushers of 1970 are still functional today. If you want to buy your car crusher or want to start a business, you must have at least $30,000 for a used and older model. For a brand new crusher, you need to have an investment between $120,000 and $150,000.
How to Operate a Car Crusher
Car crushers were invented in the 1970s, and their basic function is haven’t changed much. In the car crusher design, improvements are made in two areas. One is the crushing speed, and the second one is the ease of use and set up. Older crushers that are stationary need more than one operator. On the other hand, setting a portable crusher takes a lot of time.
New and advanced crushers have an automatic push-button setting, so a single operator can easily run it. Fast crushing speed means more cars can be crushed per minute and more efficient crushing operation. The following steps are performed when a car reaches a junkyard before it is shredded to a scrap metal.
- All the working and useful parts are stripped of. These working parts are ready for resale. A huge number of working parts can be sold, such as wheels, carburetors, suspension parts, tires, and the entire refurbished engine.
- Hazardous materials and batteries are pulled out. The gas and petrol tank is removed. If these are in good condition, they are resold.
- Car is then left in a junkyard for crushing; it can be a few hours, days, weeks, or months because it depends on how big the backlog is.
- If it’s a portable crusher, then operator takes it to the junkyard and sets it.
- Cars are placed on a crushing bed with an electromagnet or forklift.
- Operators then activate the hydraulics and crush the cars. Car crushing is done to save storage space. Crushed cars will now take half-space than they originally required.
- There are some other storage periods as well before the car is shipped to a shredder.
- Cars are finally loaded onto trains and trucks and shipped for recycling where they are converted into chunks of scrap metal.
Granutech’s Big Portable crushers can crush 4 to 5 cars at a time, and they only need 45 seconds to crush a car. Overbuilt’s Model 10 crusher offer higher clearance on the bed, allowing crushing of buses and trucks. Moreover, they can crush six cars at a time.
So, the question was how car crusher works? I hope now you have got your answer. Car crushing can improve storage and handling. Moreover, you can earn money by selling working and useful parts.