Getting ready to rebuild the steering clutches on my 450B

[crawler123]

Hello all. I'm finally ready to rebuild the steering clutched on my old (1971) JD450B. I think I have depleted all other options except to get in there and get her done.

If anyone can think of something I need to try or look at now it the time.

At this point I have the rear of the dozer up on blocks. Whew, my 20 ton bottle jack was sure feelin this one! Now I have to find more wood to block the front. I plan to raise the front with the blade and then shove blocks under the blade pivot point.



First I need to get that homemade winch arch off of there. Very heavy!

I am not looking forward to the next step, the infamous track breaking.

I will try to post pictures as I proceed. Any and all input and advice would be appreciated.

thanks
Dennis

[crawler123]

Oh boy I found a problem already. My left track has a headed pin in it. And the head is on the outside. That means I would have to drive it out from the inside. Even if I get that winch arch off my blocks and the winch itself may be in the way.
If the track is worn enough maybe I can compress the track tensioner enough to pry that track off?
My track tensioner piston shaft is really rusted. Do I need to smooth that up before I compress it? Will it damage the tensioner seals?

[Tigerhaze]

Oh boy I found a problem already. My left track has a headed pin in it. And the head is on the outside. That means I would have to drive it out from the inside. Even if I get that winch arch off my blocks and the winch itself may be in the way.
If the track is worn enough maybe I can compress the track tensioner enough to pry that track off?
My track tensioner piston shaft is really rusted. Do I need to smooth that up before I compress it? Will it damage the tensioner seals?

You could probably pry the track off whole if you really tried, but it can be tough to get out from underneath really worn rollers even when tensioner is fully compressed. Can you rotate the track to get the master pin up on the front idler? this will let you get good whacks to get it split- of course when you put back together you would need the split links to be on a sprocket to make it easier to join back together. Usually the headed pins had a retaining clip (snap ring) that would need to come off before you drive it.

I would try to remove and large rust scale and dirt before you compress if you are trying to avoid damaging the tensioner seals.

[crawler123]

Hello Tiger
The problem is, is that the head of the headed pin is facing outward. So if I were to wack at it I would have to be under the blade arm?
Well take a look at a pic.



Well I got that heavy winch arch off. Now that was some heavy iron. One of the support arms just fell off when I pulled it off. Good weld



My crawler sure looks better without that on it. Probably lost 1000 lbs of weight too.

[jtrichard]

i would put the pin one or two links farther forward and block (very well) the blade up and see how hard she's in there... hey Dennis i know you know ....but anyone else whats wrong in the pic of the front idler/track?

[crawler123]

Hi Richard
Oh boy I get to lay on my side, on the dirt, under a very heavy blade, and wack at something with a sledge hammer. Boy make my day. whine, whine.

Yea I know. And probably the reason it's like that is because some idiot just slammed the track back on, not watching what he was doing !!!
We'll see if someone else can spot the problem. Both sides no less !!

Anyway back to the problem at hand. Blocking the front. I was thinking railroad ties stacked under the blade arm. Think that would work?
Unfortunately no one in this podunk town has any. There is a railroad 5 miles from here.

[jtrichard]

6x6s would work fine see if your lumber yard has any twisted you can get cheap .......you do have a lumber yard? lol after all your in montana where the men are men and the sheep are scared ......lol .... ps looks a lot better now that it did in 3 foot of grass

[crawler123]

Yes I do think they have some 6x6's. I have some old fence post's laying around. The ones I pulled out when we had to get rid of the sheep.

I tried beating on that pin. It's loose on the snap ring side but very tight on the head end. Can't get very much of a swing laying under a 20k lb dozer on my side.

[Tigerhaze]

I think you have now earned the right to look to this thread:

http://www.jdcrawlers.com/messageboard/ ... master+pin

[cdunn]

I bet the fellow who put those tracks on last wears his shoes on the wrong feet.

[jtrichard]

Cdunn why you say that?

[CELSESSER]

Because the rails are on backwards.
The grouser is supposed to be on the leading edge. His are on the trailing edge.

Chuck

[jtrichard]

AND WE HAVE A WINNER the prize patrol will be by your house in the year 2525 congrats

[crawler123]

Yes congrats to CELSESSER. The winner of the backwards track quiz.

The track on the other side is also on backwards. At lest the guy was consistent.

Well I now have her front up on blocks. It's kind of hard to tell. You can kind of see that the track is drooping more and if you look closely underneath you can see the track is not on the rollers.



I was even able to pull the track around a bit to put the master pin in a position where I can possible get a few good wack's at it with a sledge.
I hooked my come-along to the only semi immovable object I have. That's my 1941 international model "M" tractor.
That antique tractor actually looks big beside the JD450B.

I guess I could have just given it a yank with the tractor but I wanted to be a little more precise on the positioning of the pin.



Well I still need to find some 1" round steel stock so I can start beating on those pins. I'm sure that these headed pins are not that tight, but the combination of bad position and being head out is making it a little tough going.

[shinnery]

Well I guess you could buy two new pins and then use a torch and sacrifice those backward pins to get the backward tracks off.
Bryce