Dozer days

[Paul Buhler]

Hi: During today's activities, I backed into a tree with my crawler and sheared the bolts holding the drive sprocket to the left final drive flange; I never noticed that there were no dowels or 3/4" bolts on this side. The other side is well put together. Any way, I have everything apart (track broken and laid out, sprocket in my truck, and the flange exposed) and I'm planning to drill out the three 3/4" dowel pockets in the flange and replace them with 3/4" grade 8 bolts like the other side has so that I can get the machine out of the woods and back to the shop where I'll attack the sheared off 9/16" bolts and replace them too; hopefully with screwed in bolts like original or, through bolts with nuts. I'd appreciate any thoughts or comments before I proceed. Thanks. Paul

[Lavoy]

Paul,
The dowels may be just broken off, they are still available as far as I know.
The bolts are not 3/4" bolts, they should up to a larger diameter, so be careful.
Lavoy

[Paul Buhler]

Thanks for the words of caution. The dowels are 7/8", and still available from Deere. My challenge is that my machine doesn't seem to have been doweled in the conventional manner. The dowels have been long gone, and they appear to have been screwed into the flange from outside the sprocket, or done like a high crop with a hollow dowel and then screwed through the center from the outside into the flange - 9/16" fine threads.

Anyway, proceeding slowly, I was able to drill all the broken bolts somewhat centered, and I've actually gotten two to come out - seven to go. I have to go away for a few days, so I have everything soaking in Kroil, and I'll mull over the project and decide the next steps.

I ordered replacement 9/16" bolts from Deere - I need six, they come in packages of 5 -jeez! If the dowel system comes apart properly, I'll go with Deere parts; if not I may bore out and use 7/8" x 2" grade 8 fine thread through bolts like someone did on the right side. If anyone has some other ideas or comments, I'd appreciate hearing them. Thanks. Paul

[Lavoy]

Paul,
Look on the back side of the axle, you will see the end of the dowels. They are tapered down in size from the hole in the sprocket, to about a half inch hole in the axle. I think what you have is the leftover piece of the dowel still stuck in the axle. They are supposed to be peened over on the inside, but sometimes people will weld them. Either way, grind the inside off flush should help quite a bit.
Lavoy

[Dave T]

You seem to have all the bolts drilled out, if you have a torch handy heat them up red hot thru the drilled holes and let them cool, they will shrink. That should help alot in their removal.

[CHA011]

Not ticking my nose in just making a comment. I am currently in the rebuild of 2010 final flanged axles, of which have all dowels (3ea side) broken off due not being torqued to the book spec's..
They are on order with Deerer (of which the parts man said 18 are available, and also said, why would you not make them out of grade a bolts).. I removed the flanged axles from the finals, not a hard job IF THE HOUSING WHERE FILLED WITH THE CORRECT AMOUNT OF GEAR LUBE>>because mine are welded on the inside, again I with a portable grinder, ground off the welds and drove the dowels out, a real simple job. Now awaiting for new parts.

[Paul Buhler]

Thanks for the words of experience. I just got home and I'll take a closer look at the inside of the flange to see what's up with the dowels. I have torches, and at some point soon, I'll attack the project with renewed vigor - other projects may take priority. I'm pretty confident that I'll be able to get the broken bolts out and the threads chased ready for the correct replacements. Happily the dozer is on high ground and accessible so I can work on it when time allows, and I'm not in real need of it at the moment - of course our winters come on a bit earlier than elsewhere so I don't want to wait too long.

If anyone has a picture of what a crawler sprocket dowel(s) looks like I'd like to see it. Like I said before, the right hand side of my machine has had the dowels drilled out and replaced with bolts, so I have no visual reference, and the parts catalogue shows a different set up from the one Lavoy described.
Thanks again. Paul

[Paul Buhler]

Dozer back on line!
Thanks for the suggestions and comments; they all were helpful at some point. I've included some pictures. The dowel is different from the parts manual (and matched Lavoy's description) and I had to make a choice; I chose to go original since it was the easiest and turns out cheapest way to fix the machine. The dowels cost about $32 and the bolts turn out to be grade 5 and about $5 for 5 of them. I picked up a 6th bolt locally - grade 8 fine thread for $1.35. To buy a 7/8" drill bit would have cost me >$40.00 and then I wasn't sure that the 2" long 7/8" grade 8 fine threaded bolts (>$30) would line up nicely and actually work without pulling the axle. I plan on putting a tack weld on the front of each dowel to make sure they don't fall out and the welds are easily accessible in the future if I need to remove them.

The long and short is that for about $40 and some sweat , I'm back pushing dirt and pulling wood. Thanks again for the help and moral support.

I included a picture of my new "stone boat" I actually made the stone boat from the removed piece of the tank, but decided that I liked this arrangement and put the other piece in storage for a future use. I've loaded it up with firewood or stones and it makes a pretty good road leveler/smoother as it chases the dozer down the road. Paul

[JD440ICD2006]

Always happy to see them moving again under their own power.
What HP is the stone boat? It looks like it pushes your dozer with little effort.

[gerald]

paul the 5 marks on the bolts in the picture means there grade 8 and 3 lines are grade 5. You got grade 8 bolts .

[Paul Buhler]

Gerald: one bolt is grade 8 - 6 bars, the others are grade 5 - 3 bars. I figure that JD engineered the system pretty well and there must be a reason they chose grade 5. The only reason I added a grade 8 was that it was the only fine thread 1 1/2", 9/16 bolt available locally on my shopping day - I didn't want to wait for another order on a what I think is a minor modification. I torqued them all to 100 ft/lbs and I know that I can go higher after running the machine a day or so. Paul

What HP is the stone boat? It looks like it pushes your dozer with little effort.

Half the time =+-20hp, half the time =-+20hp depends on whether I'm going up hill or down hill.

[gerald]

Pual any way Drag. I pulled my 350 crawer off the trailer used it 15 minutes clearing my retirement property. I ran over concret slab pulled 2 pads off work good part of the day getting the broken bolts off. I think that happened because the right side clutchs are sliping I order a service manual and clutches discs, steering pressure plate. I didn't get the brake band thinking its not that big of a deal. Whats your thought on the brake band?

[Stan Disbrow]

Hi,

My thinking is that once I go to all the trouble to get in there, then I'm going to do it all so that I won't have to go back in there again any time soon!

You can always keep any parts that measure out as still being usable in case of some weird failure down the road.

A crawler will steer quite slowly if the brake goes out. Once you've experienced that one, you'll not like it, though.

later!

Stan