Remove rock guards?

[Gil]

I have a JD440 crawler that runs mainly over rolling Pennsylvania farmland. No mountainous terrain, no rock quarries, mostly decent soil, sometimes mud.

My question is, should I leave off the rock guards? Sometimes the guards seem to trap more things against the rollers - like tree branches. And of course they are a pain to remove when you need to change a roller. But I may be missing the point of their usefulness.

I would be interested in anyone’s opinion or experiences.

[Lavoy]

The other purpose of rockguards is to strengthen the trackframe. If you have a loader, it would not consider it under any circumstances, and even if not, I still would not do it. I have seen so many trackframes bowed up in front due to the rockguards being removed. Look at a trackframe once where the front crossbar mounts or attaches. Then look how much trackframe is ahead of that point and you will see what I mean.
Lavoy

[Gil]

I was afraid you would come up with some good reason why I should keep the rock guards on. The crawler I am working on is completely disassembled and I was able to flip over the entire track frame and work on it from above. It sure is a lot easier to remove those pesky bolts when you are not lying on your back. And would you believe that I got off all of the rock guard bolts on both sides without twisting off a single bolt?

[Tigerhaze]

Hi Lavoy-

Does the rockguards strengthen the track frames on the 1010s and 2010 loaders as well? My rockguards were missing when I bought my 2010. Since my place has good silty soil with few rocks, I wasn't too worried about it until now.

[Lavoy]

Yes they do, substantially.
Lavoy

[Tigerhaze]

Lavoy, I saw that you are doing reproduction rockguards for the 400 series crawlers. Do you also do them for 1010s and 2010s or only if there was a large demand for them?

Thanks-

[Lavoy]

I don't think there would be enough demand, the other problem would be lack of a good pattern. Anything can be done, it is just the cost to do short runs of something, no way to amortize the programming and start up costs. Plus, it is hard enough to get steel work done up here the way it is, so finding the extra time might be tough as well.
Lavoy