City road grader gets bent out of shape. Repairs cost $112,000

Sault Ste. Marie City Council will be asked Tuesday to approve a big repair bill after a leased road grader was damaged during winter maintenance earlier in the year.

Councillors will be asked to siphon $111,816 from this winter's snow-removal budget to pay for repairs done by Toromont CAT.

Larry Girardi, the city's deputy chief administrative officer for public works and engineering services, says the grader suffered a bent turntable, a component of the mechanism that rotates the grader blade.

After an initial assessment, the dealership determined the following additional repairs were also necessary:

• front crankshaft seal replacement
• front axle shaft replacement
• hose replacements
• hydraulic leak on the grader wing needed repairing
• broken step fixed

City staff could have approved the budget item if it had come in under $100,000, but the $111,816 final bill requires City Council approval.

The job was sole-sourced to Toromont CAT because of lease requirements.

To prevent turntable damage in the future, Girardi said future public works equipment tenders will be modified to include a heavy-duty, dual-input, circle-drive gear box with a slip clutch to provide impact protection.

Tuesday's City Council meeting will be livestreamed on SooToday starting at 4:30 p.m.

Although councillors had recently been holding 'hybrid' meetings with some members in the council chambers and others teleconferencing, Tuesday's meeting will be a virtual-only gathering out of concern for rising levels of COVID-19 across Ontario.