I hate Master pins

[Purepowder2000]

I am taking off the tracks and I have gotten one master pin out, but am having a hell of a time with the second. Its on a level surrface. I am heating it up with my torch until it gets cherry red. I think the main problem is that the track is not loose at all. I just read in the manual today that there is an allen screw underneath a cap screw. Is this true? I had just taken off the screw thinking that that would release tension. I also remembered my father had an electric jack hammer that I will try next. I tried my air compresser with a hammer but nothing happened. It is only 125 psi. DANGEROUS! I did mess up my ankle pretty bad with a slege hammer. I think know why my father drank so much now. I don't think I will use the pin again, but I don't want to cut it out. Could turn into a nightmare.

[Lavoy]

Are you heating the pin, or the link on each side of the pin? If you're heating the pin, that probably won't work. If you are not concerned about saving the pin, blow straight in both ends of the pin with a torch. Let it cool, and drive it out.
Lavoy

[JD56420C]

By drawing the tension spring all the way back I was able to pry off the tracks without taking out the pin. Maybe my tracks were stretched I don't know but it worked for me it maybe worth a try

[wwattson]

I have to admit from my experience that there's not much to like about them.

Like Lavoy said, make sure you're heating the links and not the pins and make sure you heat both the inside and outside links. The other thing is make sure to line the pin up on the sprocket so that it's at the 4 o'clock position for the left side or 8 o'clock for the right (about 1/3 up from the bottom facing toward the back of the crawler). That should help with the tension.

In the end, after you've been beating on them for a while there's not much point in saving them. Lavoy's trick of burning the centers out and driving out the two ends is what I ended up doing on one of the two I removed.

[Purepowder2000]

Bad, bad day.. I have found out that the reason that the track is not becoming loose is because the adjust hydraulic tension is rusted threw. I have taken off the cap screw and the allen screw. I tried using a a chain set up to help loosen but no luck. I guess I will have to cut it off. Also on the other side I have all the screws out of the final drive except for one of the huge ones. It wont come off. The Head of the bolt is not striped but I wont turn. Maybe I should rent a bigger air compressor. I couldn't get it with a 6' pipe on a wrench.

[jac]

If you are talking about the 4 large bolts that go from the cross bar bracket to the final drives, they can be very difficult to remove. When I did my machine, I could not get two of them out, and I tried everything!!

First get a very good impact gun (3/4" or 1") and see if that works. If not, try a slugging wrench. It worked on one of my bolts but not the other two. You can also drill small holes between the bracket and the final to get penetration oil directly on the bolt shoulder. If nothing works, you will reach the point that I reached, try snapping the bolt off or take an angle grinder with a cutoff blade and cut between the bracket and final and cut the bolts (which is what I did) . I was then able to remove the final and remove the cut off bolt from the final.

Go to old postings from late 2005/early 2006 and you can read about my adventure getting those bolts out. It may be helpful. Also, if you take both finals off, you need to support the transmission and engine. The finals hold everything to the cross bars so when both are removed, the transmission will either drop down or raise up depending on how things are balanced. My suggestion is to work with one final at a time. Keeps everything lined up much better.

[lastchancegarage]

Jac,
Thanks for the info on the trans and engine support for both finals removed. I just got my left final off last night but questioned whether the trans would drop the 1/2" onto the crossmember. I decided to wedge the trans off the crossmember just in case.

As far as those four big final bolts, I had to put a 3/4" breaker bar on the inside bottom and, sitting on the opposite track rail, stand on the handle. Of course, at this point, the tracks and spring are removed. Even then it barely moved. Very slow progress. But I got them all out eventually. Now to deal with the other issues.

Scott

[Purepowder2000]

My father said I should try to heat the final drive with a torch. So I will try this tomorrow. Wish me luck. If it doesn't work I think I will pour gasoline all over and set the whole tractor on fire and then try it. I starting to wonder if I will be able to complete job.

[jac]

Been where you are, not fun, but you can win the battle one way or the other.

I doubt you can get enough heat on the final to do much. That is a lot of metal to heat up. If you want to try heat, heat the bolts and then let them cool down. This did not work for me but it is worth giving it a try. May end up snapping off the bolts which can be a problem depending upon where they fail.

The issue with these bolts is water can go between the final and the cross bar bracket and rust them pretty good. I drilled 1/8" holes in the joint between the final and the cross-bar bracket down to the bolts. I then filled the drilled holes daily with PB Blaster. That got the penetrating oil directly at the wide portion of the bolts. You can also drill holes to the tread section of the bolts to get oil directly on the treads. Give it a few days to work and see if it helps.

I worked on those bolts for about two weeks. Cost me one impact gun, one slugging wrench, two broken combination wrenches and about 1 pint of blood. Had some success but finally just cut two of them. If you end up cutting them, cut them between the final and the cross bar bracket. That will allow you to remove the final. Before you are done with this project, you will have snapped off a lot of bolts!!

When I reaasembled my finals, I sealed the gap between the finals and the cross bar bracket. Hopefully it will keep the water out. I also used a lot of NeverSieze.

[Purepowder2000]

Thank you for the info. Yea I tried torch and it didn't even heat the metal. I will try the drill method next. Slow and steady.