Been a while since I screwed up, but here I'm back! :)
I finally got the right combination of warm sunny days, on Saturday, to get my pond pumped down and started to do some digging. 2.5 hours in, I lost a track, worse, I did it below the water line and a thunderstorm is predicted for Monday. doh!
So 3 hours, two guys, never having done it before, we got the track back on. Learned some interesting things, including that it's MUCH easier to do it on an excavator, where you can lift the entire side off the ground. During that procedure, as we tried to back off the idler wheel, we found out why the track adjuster wasn't "working". I had tried to pump more grease in it recently as the track seemed a bit slack, but it didn't budge. Well, that's because the track chain is so stretched that the piston had actually come out of the cylinder, therefore, couldn't extend any further. We managed to line it up and slide it back in, which allowed us to get the track back on.
So, the question is, can I remove a link from the track chain. I have a repair manual for an earlier version, mine is 53A4721 and I can only find manuals for 53A1 through 53A1906 (which is the book I have) or 53A4797 through 53A8886. (anyone got one to sell?) In that repair manual, it mentions the master link pin, which I have identified on the machine. It tells how to remove and reinstall the track by removing that master pin, but doesn't say what's different about the master pin, vs the other pins, and whether a link can be removed. Obviously, back in the day, the 'correct' fix would have been to replace the chain, but that's not viable anymore.
Heh, at least I didn't get it stuck this time.
Thanks for your thoughts.
Brett
I finally got the right combination of warm sunny days, on Saturday, to get my pond pumped down and started to do some digging. 2.5 hours in, I lost a track, worse, I did it below the water line and a thunderstorm is predicted for Monday. doh!
So 3 hours, two guys, never having done it before, we got the track back on. Learned some interesting things, including that it's MUCH easier to do it on an excavator, where you can lift the entire side off the ground. During that procedure, as we tried to back off the idler wheel, we found out why the track adjuster wasn't "working". I had tried to pump more grease in it recently as the track seemed a bit slack, but it didn't budge. Well, that's because the track chain is so stretched that the piston had actually come out of the cylinder, therefore, couldn't extend any further. We managed to line it up and slide it back in, which allowed us to get the track back on.
So, the question is, can I remove a link from the track chain. I have a repair manual for an earlier version, mine is 53A4721 and I can only find manuals for 53A1 through 53A1906 (which is the book I have) or 53A4797 through 53A8886. (anyone got one to sell?) In that repair manual, it mentions the master link pin, which I have identified on the machine. It tells how to remove and reinstall the track by removing that master pin, but doesn't say what's different about the master pin, vs the other pins, and whether a link can be removed. Obviously, back in the day, the 'correct' fix would have been to replace the chain, but that's not viable anymore.
Heh, at least I didn't get it stuck this time.
Thanks for your thoughts.
Brett