This picture is the front view of the crawler now less the console and left fender/step. The console came off pretty easy whereas the fender was a bit tougher as it was being held down by the PTO operating lever. Once the console was out of the way I could finally get a good angle on the groove pin holding the handle and was able to get it apart.
The rear of the crawler with most of the 3pt hitch removed. The rest will come out as soon as I pull the left side final drive.
The final drive is ready to come off as you can see from the gap. I just need to roll my lift around and pull it. I've been dying to pull this drive as it's been frozen up since I bought the crawler and I found that it was full of water.
I've tried a lot of beers during this project and have found that New Glarus Spotted Cow (pictured) is the best for track and final drive work.
This has been the bain of the project for the last two weeks. I can't get the dozer frame out of the rear bar bracket. I thought I'd get the upper hand by removing the bracket only to find that the two bottom bolts are also stuck (you can see one of them in the picture).
Finally, the reason I haven't dropped the tracks on the right side. You'll notice that the end of the master pin is flush with the rail link. After all the fun I had on the left side, I've been putting this off. I'm going to have to deal with it this week as I'm running out of other things to work on. I'm going to give it one try with the rosebud torch tip and big hammer and then it's cutting torch time.
All for now. With any kind of luck I should be to the end of the tearing it apart stage by mid-February and then it's sand blasting and painting time. The engine block needs cleaning and then it's time to start putting it back together. All in all, not going too badly. I need a longer and stiffer breaker bar and a really big impact wrench if I'm going to do another one of these crawlers.
