After all of that, I decided to see if the slip assembly would come out. Keep in mind, I do have the TM for the wrecker body and did skim through it, mostly looking at the pictures, just because it's a visual thing, who needs to read, right?
Figured I would start with the top plate, there are bolts in it, so it comes apart, right? Took those out, took off the small cover on top of the top cover. This small cover is what would be the commutator or slip ring on something a bit more modern that has more electrics, but this has only a single 8 or 10 ga wire coming up through the center, stationary part of the rotator to a douglas connector to power the lights. The ground is achieved through a ground strap from the douglas connector to one of the top cover bolts.
Got the top cover pulled off, nice and clean inside, and attempted to pry the outer hub off of the inner hub, NOPE! moves freely but hard stops after 1/8 inch of upward movement. Back to the manual and this time, READ it!
Come to find out that the inner hub only comes out of the outer from the top. There is a seal at the bottom of the outer hub and the inner hub diameter that is inside the outer is a larger diameter than the portion of the inner that goes down into the rotator. I actually read the whole section 3 times and nowhere does it explain how to remove the slip assembly from the crane itself.
Went back out to the truck and looked at things, wiggled the slip around, looked at the manual again, looked at the slip and the rotator it is attached to and figured out how it all worked. Rolled under it and looked up the center trying to figure things out.
The rotator under the slip hub was piled with years of dirt. Took out the air nozzle and gave things a blow job. After the debris was gone, I believed I had found the key to disassembly! The top plate of the rotator is bolted to the stationary inner of the column. Well, two of the studs had a plate under the nuts. The plates looked as if they were installed into a slot in the lower part of the inner hub.
15 minutes later, 1 hex at a time, two nuts were removed, the top plates re-installed and with the help of a pry bar, the slip assembly was free of its resting place! I rolled under the pig and had soldier B use the pry bar to raise and lower the assembly to see if the hoses moved, and they do!
Now all I need to do is remember the pump to suck out the hydraulic fluid to a more manageable level so that when the plug comes out, the flow is a bit more controllable, remove the lines from the pump and tank and remove the slip assy. I am curious to see how the hoses are attached to the inner hub. My guess is that the things are pipe threaded into the hub. If that is the case, the chop saw comes out and the lines get cut off so I am not fighting 5, six foot long octopus hydraulic lines through the center of the column.
I think, to avoid the difficulty of feeding all those -16 lines back through the column, I will install some lengths of pipe from the bottom and install the new lines onto them. The new lines will also get swivels to either flat face, o-ring or JIC so things are a bit easier to work on in the future.