Track wear

[mikeintn]

Would one of you crawler guys tell me what caused the wear on the side of the links in the first picture, hope I didnt screw up by taking these off another dozer I had about 3 yrs. ago , they was put on that dozer about 20 yrs. ago, but not run much the engine went down in it shorty afterwards, so I traded them thinking these was better, the bushings shows no wear and the gougers looks good, so I just brought them in from outside getting close to being ready to put them on [ after about 3 yrs. now getting this project moving again ], and I see this and worried I may have done the wrong thing trading them, because the ones that came off of the dozer I'm fixing was good [ it only has 1050 hrs. on it ], the dozer these tracks came off was very used, they only changed the tracks, this one looks to have a very good undercarriage, sorry for rambling, question is what caused this and will it hurt anything now? added other pictures of it also. Thanks

[KenP]

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[jtrichard]

the crawler you took those off of had at least one very bad roller it was wore so far down that the flange was riding on the pin boss the flange may have been the only thing left ......i would not worry a bit they are fine....... very nice work on that crawler....was wondering are you going to put wheels on the battery? LOL

[mikeintn]

Thanks guys, that makes me feel a little better about using them now, thats proberly what happened to them, I'll look at them when I get them on and see if they going to run on the roller ok thats a good point, you know I'm not putting wheels on the battery! I'm putting tracks

[digitup2]

Those tracks are done and the rollers the tracks were on are done .The term Banging the boss's is what the rollers have been doing on this track set this is extremely hard on drive train as well as the rest of the undercarriage and is hard on fuel as well as the operator.As the rollers wear out they set the flanges deeper in the chains and as the chains wear out they set deeper into the rollers so when you see this you know this is one of the first signs of worn out tracks .find better chains and make sure you always have some clearance between the two or your drive train is in for a short bumpy life If you look at the350Dand 450E as well as the 550B or the G,H and J series dozers the rollers are spaced at different spacings this helped in roller chain life span and keeps all rollers from hitting the links in the same place in the same timing sequence even making the ride smoother as well as adding many hours to the tracks life .The old 350s,450s and even 550 series were even spaced as were the first Deere crawlers and when the rollers bang the bosses they hit all at once sending a pounding action through the drive train that is sure to beat bearings, seals and final drive teeth to the max .So don't let the rollers touch the bosses.Digitup.

[mikeintn]

OUCH!, Digitup are you saying my chains is scrap? thats not what I wanted to here

[jtrichard]

tell you what if you want to scrap them ill give you what they will bring across a scale and a hole lot of others will to im sure ..... i agree the rollers that these chains were on were very bad and these chains are not new but unless you are MR. Rockefeller and have a spare 5K buring a hole in your pocket those will give you MANY YEARS of service just look at the bushings not a hole lot of wear there and not enough wear on the boss's to worry about..... go to ebay look up international 175-b front end loader and look at all the pics and you will see some bad tracks and just think they were running it like that

[KenP]

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[LeonardL]

Hello,
I agree with Digitup that you are definitely banging the bosses. I would like to see both sides of the links but I agree that the combination of lower roller wear and rail wear is what causes this.
If you plan to put this machine back to work then I would look for different rails. However if you plan to just have a show machine then these rails will work for that. You've done a great job on the restore, it looks great! Although I don't know if that 350 can run with a set of fancy gauges like that!

[mikeintn]

Leondard what are you calling the rails? is that what I'm calling the link or chain? sorry for what is proberly a dumb question, and no rtrichard I dont have an extra 5k or 1k

[LeonardL]

Hi, Sorry... Track rails are the same thing as Track chain or links. They are called both. And there is no such thing as a "Dumb" question. If you don't know the answer to something, then ask! It's what we are here for. If we're not, then we need to move on.

[LeonardL]

Is this going to be a show machine? I'm curious because I cant help noticing the the other tractors in the background of your pictures. Which all look really sweet! I wouldn't mind seeing some pix of those in "Show and Tell". If it is allowed! I love old equipment!

[mikeintn]

Leonard no its not going to be for show, I do get alittle carried away sometime, my brothers was just laughing at it saying it would never get dirty , but no I'm going to use it some I have some little projects I'm wanting to do with it, its like my other tractors it will be semiretired , I have a Massey loader-backhole I think it has about 160 hrs. on it in 5 yrs. and I figure this will proberly be about the same.

I will try to get some pictures of the other side of the rails in a little while.

I will also get some pictures or I may have some of the other tractors, but I dont have many thats restored now, I have just sold a few that I finished, now seems like starting over , but I need to get my JD done I've been draging my feet on it

[mikeintn]

Leonard heres some more pictures of both sides, I think the first picture I posted on the first post was of the worst place, I also took some of the rollers that I would be putting the tracks on, I dont see or feel anything wrong with them.

I'll also put some pictures of the other tractors sitting around on show and tell.

[mikeintn]

Leonard I think the show and tell is for crawlers, if you want to give me your email I'll send you some pictures. Mike