350 CE Wide Pad Questions / With Pictures ** NEW UPDATE

[JWB Contracting]

Glad to see you got it back together and working. I would recommend keeping your old parts. When the drive splines wears out the next solution is to have a machinist build a square drive gear and a square receptacle in the drive hub.

When people see my dad's machines on the job the first comment he gets is on how poor the undercarriage is because we run a set of slightly bent pads on them, even thought the rest of the undercarriage is brand new and still hasn't had the paint work off yet.

The bent pads allows turning like a narrow pad on hard ground and floatation in soft. Also much easier and greater undercarriage life.

I would not do much with the crawler until you get the track tightener fixed. You can bust a final drive as the spring functionality has been removed. A better solution is a piece of pipe split in 2 and the inserted between the adjuster and the spring.

[darrenrudolph83]

Jason,

That is a great idea on having a machinist build the square drive gear and hub, I will keep the parts and keep that in mind.

I am not using the dozer any more until I get the correct track adjuster on it and the track tight. My original plan once I figured out the adjuster was busted was only make it drivable to check the trans and steering.... BUT having the dozer working was too much not to do some pushing with it.

I ordered a service manual off eBay a few days ago so now I will be able to get the rest of the fluids changed, proper adjustments made and have a good reference for future maintenance.

Darren

[darrenrudolph83]

It has been awhile since I've posted, but I wanted to give an update on the status of my dozer for anyone who is interested.

I have since replaced the left side track adjuster, had to replace the right side sprocket (started skipping on me) replaced a bunch of the track pads ( Thanks to Jason). Went through all the fluids, adjusted the steering, greased the heck out of it and now its starting to look like a nice little dozer.

This has been a major project for me, having limited tools, equipment, parts and misc consumables at my disposal beings that I am in remote Alaska. Its either a flight or an hour and half boat ride so I must be prepared.

Here are a few pics, enjoy and any comments good or bad would be appreciated.

Darren


















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[darrenrudolph83]

[Al Swearengen]

Been following this thread...nice job! Boy, lot's of planning and forethought since the 'parts store' is so far away! Is that your daughter helping out? Or is she just waiting for you to get it done so she can drive it?

[jtrichard]

Chains are shot on the old girl I know you are in BFE but you need to get another set of chains ASAP as the sprocket you just put on there will look like the one you took off in short order.. Until you can find better or new chains you need to run the tracks as loose as possible (without falling off with every turn) to limit sprocket wear

[darrenrudolph83]

Thanks Al, and yes that is my daughter. She has been out with me a few times to help get it going, actually she did get on it and do some operating all by herself after we got it back together.. She loved it!


jtrichard,

I was wondering about how loose or tight to run those tracks, and it would actually explain why the last one wore out in record time after I originally got it going. I was thinking the tighter the better since everything was so loose and worn out. It started skipping every now and then while pushing and then in very short time would skip driving on flat ground under no load.
Thank you for the heads up, I will make sure I run them loose.

Part of that could just be because I am scared of throwing a track This happened to my brother and I when trying to move the dozer while the track adjuster was completely slack due to being broke. NOT FUN!

[jtrichard]

Track off NOT fun and those wide bastards have to be even worse to get back on ..... you will have to find out just how loose you can run them ....... The reason to run them loose is so that the bushings dont have to "climb" the teeth on the sprocket as the "pitch" is so much longer now than the sprocket pitch is....... read this and near the bottom there is a drawing of what the chain does when it is wore out

http://pardo.net/bike/pic/fail-004/000.html I know its NOT a crawler LOL




Chain Wear

Chain wear occurs at the pin and around bearing pivot points as the chain travels around the sprockets. The wear on the pins and bearing surface is measured as elongation — the more the chain wears, the longer it becomes.
[X]

As chain wear increases, the pitch of the chain becomes greater than the pitch of the sprockets. causing fewer teeth to contact the sprocket teeth. This increases sprocket wear and decreases transmission efficiency. A worn chain can periodically catch on the tips of the rear wheel sprocket teeth, slipping over the sprocket before engaging. Slippage also occurs when a new chain is mated with a worn rear wheel sprocket.
[X]

[Tigerhaze]

I would suggest reading the document at this link (even though specific to Dresser crawlers) because it is really helpful in understanding how undercarriage works as a system.

http://www.jdcrawlers.com/messageboard/ ... hp?t=10123

[mini kahuna]

is it possible to put regular size pads on it? maybe find some used chains and pads and take some of the pressure off when turning.
those mud bog pads do look cool though.
it is awesome you got that old girl out of the bushes and got her going again!!

[darrenrudolph83]

Thank you for sharing the info on the tracks, I will definitely read them both

I have a Case 320 backhoe loader that also came with the cabin, cant get it running ( have not tried all that hard yet) but was thinking of mounting the backhoe to the dozer. Would have to build my own mount and what not but the dozer does already have a diverter valve on it.

My thoughts are to just have one piece of equipment out there to maintain instead of two. The backhoe is a little worse off due to the fact its a gas engine and sat uncovered for close to 14 years.

Thoughts on that idea?

[JWB Contracting]

Glad to see you got your 350 operational.

I would run the tracks fairly tight as your rails are way past poor and you will have a very high risk of throwing a track. If you didn't have rock guards you would throw a rail at every turn.

Adding a hoe will compound your poor rail issue. I would recommend installing new rails and sprockets before considering mounting the hoe.

The 320 hoe is about max size for a 350 dozer machine. It looks like your machine already has the receiving portion for the factory backhoe hooks. They are L shaped brackets installed on each side that get inserted forward under the battery box and hydraulic tank and pinned / bolted to the dozer mount and the rear mounts attach to where you canopy mounts are currently. From there you adapt the hoe to fit the hooks. You would also want to remove the hoe to do any dozer work.

[darrenrudolph83]

Thanks for the reply Jason,

Maybe I will wait to pursue attaching the backhoe to the dozer, I don't want to add any unnecessary stress to this machine. I will mess with the backhoe and see if I can get it going this fall. If not then I will look at plan B.

[Paul Buhler]

Just a thought: having a second running machine is real handy when the first gets into trouble.

[darrenrudolph83]

That is a good point, and it will be so nice to have the loader portion as well. I think I will try harder to make a go of it.