I need to reseal my track adjuster. Question is , does the idler have to come off or can the adjuster be removed thru the access plate. S/N 03Y01878
If it is the same set up as my 951-C check out my thread as to how I proceeded with the adjuster removal and rebuild. I took many pictures of the process. My D4-E was the same. It is not a bad job and the second side will be twice as quick as the first. I broke the tracks on the D4-E and slid the Idlers forward to do the job as it had the bolt up masters. The 951 did not have the bolt up master links. You can see in the pictures on my thread how I did them without removing the rails. Time wise, it was about the same on both machines. You can actually re seal the adjusters without removing them from the bore but there is one o ring that you can't replace and you can't do a nice clean job.
Check out my thread. If I understand your question correctly, I think you will need to pull the idler out because the shaft is too long to get out between the wheel and the housing. If your talking about the adjuster portion that has the spring on it you will also need to remove it and you will need a special press to deal with the spring. HeavyEquipmentForums
No need to remove the idler to fix the adjuster, BUT as Georgia mentioned, you either need to compress the spring before unbolting, or cut the spring to remove the tension.
GI , so it looks like the roller frame has to come off to do this repair? Its on a jobsite and I've taken the idler off. I may put it back on and bring it in. I can see in your pics that the 1 1/2 bolts that hold the carrier for the rod , the equalizer bare goes around that so that means the roller frame has to come off? Or its looking like it anyway.
Still not sure which part you are having problems with but based on the amount of time and tools I needed I would carry the machine back to the shop. I took a look in the service manual and the track adjuster shaft housing must be removed to access the spring assembly. If you let me know the specific problem or area I will check the manual and tell you exactly what to do. It seems like you are saying that the grease is leaking out and you are loosing tension?
GI , yes sir , the grease is leaking out. I pumped it up and in 15 minutes time is was way loose again. I do believe I'll stick it together and bring it in. I have had thoughts of buying another machine , but it would be used as well so I figure I may be better off riding this out a little more. The actual adjuster where you put grease in is loosing it and when I reviewed your pics I noticed the drum that the 1 1/2" bolts hold in , the equalizer bar bolts to it. That's when It hit me , roller frame must go.
It shows taking everything apart to get the adjuster out. But from looking at the pics it seems like it might be possible to just remove the shaft that the grease pumps into. The center shaft and grease nipple sit in a bore housing, the housing has a seal and that is what keeps the grease in. Leaving the bore portion that contains the seal in place, it seems that you could get the sliding rod out and then dig out the old grease seal in the bore with out removing it and get a new seal back in it in place. Digging the seal out threw the access port might be hard, however. The bore is held in by studs/bolts that also contain the spring. If the spring needs out, the roller frame needs off, remove everything you can and then take the stripped frame to cat so they can use the proper tooling to get the spring loose. Many warnings on injury and roller frame damage if you don't compress the spring correctly. Looking at the lengths of the parts in pictures is hard to gauge if this is possible without removing everything. Its is going to depend really on just the length of the grease shaft and its fittings, if its not too long then it will come out with just pushing the track adjuster rod as far forward as possible without needing to remove anything else. But based on my experiences I would bet the idler needs to come off, and the equalizer bar supports which means the roller frame also needs to be removed. Everything in the pic below can be removed for repair.
GI , I ran into an older gentleman today that was familiar with my repair. He advised me that the roller frame didn't have to come all the way off. his instructions , remove the idler , remove the cap on the equalizer bar , remove the round cap and just loosen the bolts holding it to the axle. He said this would allow enough room to remove the barrel as he called it. So GI , what you came up with was about the same. Now I have a plan. Gather a few tools , 1 1/2 " socket with 10' minimal strong arm. I plan to get the adjuster out and see what I need clean things up , get my parts and hopefully it will go back together pretty easily. Afterwards I may have a date night with Miller Lite.
Yair . . . No business poking my nose in here but this thread seems to have some conflicting advise. I know nothing of this tractor but cannot imagine a basic common repair like a track adjuster seal would involve any manipulation of the recoil spring . . . or track frame removal for that matter. Splitting a link and knocking a pin out is relatively simple and most adjusters are quite accessible once the idlers are out of the way . . . think things through fellers before you start messing with that spring. Cheers.
I agree 100% Scrub. But not to my liking , the roller frame has to be manipulated to replace the seal in the adjuster. Its a poor design as far as service ability goes. But the equalizer bar ends seem to hold up better than the newer ones. I guess you give to get. I'll try to get some pics when I do all this. The roller frame can be removed in a couple hours as long as the bolts come out. On a 30 year old machine , this could add lots of time. GI did about the same repair to his 53A. I have revisited his thread several times lately. I won't have to do anything with the spring. The adjuster is actually loose now , I just have to remove the barrel the equalizer rides on to get it out. GI's pic shows this.
Yair . . . Gotcha mate, stay safe. Cheers.
You have read some of my posts on this tractor. I surely hope to be getting the bugs out of it. It is wearing on me some. My wife ask me to give her as much attention as I have this little loader. I replied , I did at least three times , My son and two daughters
Yair . . . Gotcha mate, stay safe. (grins) Cheers.
I've only resealed a couple of these before and at the time it was part of the job of replacing the recoil springs so they had to come out anyway. What I can say is; Regarding the idler. You may get away with removing the yoke and swinging the idler forward to give you room to work, but for the sake of six bolts, I'd take it off. The track frame needs to come off, or at least far enough away to clear the equaliser bar. I personally would remove the track frame from the pivot shaft assembly. The pivot shaft assembly is a sealed, oil-filled unit and disturbing it is asking for trouble. The equaliser bar trunnion needs to be removed. This where it gets a bit sketchy. SIS tells you to remove the recoil spring. Now I can't see any reason why the adjuster piston can't be pulled out leaving the rest of the recoil assembly behind. In theory you can then replace the seal. The only problem I can envisage is if the cylinder is mounted so far back in the track frame that the seal is too hard to work on.
The bolts that hold the cap on the equalizer bar came off very easy , almost a little to easy.
Best I can tell remove the caps and the roller frame is lose. The outer cap bolts came off fine , the inner are breaking of which I can address when the frame is off. I plan to try Nige's candle wax trick.
] This was the final that I replaced and ended up having to rebuild the one I bought. Looks nice with the new segments on it.
The adjuster seal is back in the spring housing from what I can see. So it looks like the spring will have to be compressed to reseal it properly. I think the two round either dowels or retainers hold the forward spring plate in place. I am going to remove the frame and take it to my guy that has the tooling to handle this. As far as I can tell , this repair would cover all A models 43 , 53 , 63. The B's are much easier for sure.
Now I understand why you wanted to swap track adjuster jobs with me!
Nitelite , I'll do both of yours and an oil change if you want to take this on. Got my cribbing earlier. Guy I know that builds decks had a bunch of 6x6 posts , lengths from 3' to 18". Just what I needed. I plan to run in the morning and hit the shop about 3:30 tomorrow afternoon and get it ready to go to the repair shop.
I bought some cross ties and cut them into four pieces each to use for cribbing. They make good cribbing blocks but they are heavy to handle, especially while laying on your back trying to stack them under the machine. If I lived closer I would give you a hand. I did both of mine and changed the oil too. It wasn't all that bad of a job ****. I was working on a Tennessee tractor. You are working on a Kentucky tractor. I just guess that work goes a little bit easier in Tennessee than it does up there in Kentucky. To make life easier, you might consider moving to Tennessee if you plan to continue working on those old tractors.
I may have to move closer to Lynchburg. I was unable to get the axle caps off today so I to the end cap off , the one with about 8 bolts in it and 3 bolts under the cap. That will let it slide of. The down side I need to make sure the seal is good when I go back. It had oil in it. The cost of parts is minimal compared to the labor involved. I think GI's axle caps came off from his pics. To bad they don't sale dynamite at the local hardware store anymore.
The last time I was in the hospital they sent me home with nine bottles of one hundred pills each nitroglycerine. Will 900 nitros dislodge it for you. Pack em in there and hit it with a sledge, it'll go off, guaranteed! I just don't know if the bolt will separate from the tractor or will the tractor separate from the bolt.
I am still fighting this mess. The adjuster seal is behind the two pins that retain the recoil spring. I'm not messing with that for sure. This is definaitely a **** poor set up as far as repairing the seal. I almost have the frame off. One of the clamps will not let loose. I'm going to drill it out tomorrow afternoon. If I can get the frame loose its off to my guy to install the seal. These things will drive you to drinking.
Dickjr, looks like that roller frame is being a PIA. I have the worst luck with broken bolts, manly in fixing them. Customers don't understand the costs with owning these machines either. I just got burned on payment from a builder/customer. I went out to house site based on a hand shake and gave a price. They both told me to go. Did not bother taking the time to fill out the paperwork then, what can go wrong with a firm straight up price that is witnessed. Well when payment time came. Builder said customer does not want to pay. He is going to decide how much he wants to pay. He told me that I needed to call customer because he does not have the money. Called customer was told 3 things. I worked to slow. Loaders go for 85 per hour. And that he did not authorize 2 full days of extra work in removing a building and building his new shop pad. They got me for almost 6k. Nothing I could do. I sent the estimate to them by email but they never signed or okayed it. And They were pushing me to hurry so we could start footings. Of course they used someone else to do the footings. I trusted the builder would make sure I got paid. I should have smelled a rat when I first met him and he kept saying he makes sure his contractors always get paid... This just happened to me.. I have worked almost always on a handshake. In the end it's my fault because I normally make them pay every few days so the tab does not get so high. Which I pushed on because the builder lead me into a trap, telling me he can't get my check for one week since he must meet the home owner. In order to get any money I had to sign a lean release. I just got education once again... The hard expensive way! I am done. Going hunting.. actually I am in a tree now..
You can still have a shot at getting this. If they received the email they were notified of the costs. Verbal agreements have and still hold up in court. Also you can apply a mechanics lean. If it has been less than 60 days since you were last on the property. Fortunately for me , I have a friend that is an attorney and he gave me a course on how to get my money after hearing me get beat a couple times. I would not let it go. Around here anything over 3000$ calls for a jury trial. It may cost you a grand in legal fees but you can ask for that if you get judgement. 85 an hour gets a wheeled skid steer here. A 53 gets anywhere from 125 to 150 and hour. I get 115 on the 43. Sometimes a simple letter with your intent to collect from a law firm is all it takes. This kind of thing p o's me as bad or worse than this roller frame deal and I don't have a dog in this fight. Just read your post again , about signing the lean release. Check to see if you can still lean the property as a whole. Also if they are going to have a mortgage and you know what bank , let that bank know of your intent for a settlement. 9 times out of 10 , they will see to it you get paid. They do not want any issues like this.
I agree with Dickjr, if you sent anyone a estimate then then there is paper to trail out and a lien on the deed is a option if they will not settle. As stated most banks or lenders will not hesitate to tell a building family get your ducks in a row. Our local HE grading contractor also gets $150/hr for anything steel tracked, 110 for a skid steer and 90/hr for dump truck service on a jobsite. Job gets estimated open ended time and per hour that is what you pay.
I finally got the roller frame off. If the clamp caps had came off it would have been a lot easier. Had to remove the pivot shaft axle. Took it to the shop today. The guy looked at it and said the spring is going to have to be compressed to install the adjuster seal. Just as I figured. At any rate we are at ground zero heading the other way. This little machine has eaten a lot of profit this year. My only hopes are to get a good year out of it. hopefully. Both finals check clean , the trans is strong and responsive and the engine seems a little tired but starts at the bump of the switch , leaks oil but I can live with that. I hope to get the roller frame back before Thanksgiving so I can spend Thanksgiving work on getting it back on its feet.
I finally got the seal in and roller frame mounted back. I opted to get new bolts for the axle caps, rock guards and take a thread chaser and clean all the threads that had bolts that had to be removed. Come to find out the roller frame did not have to be removed all the way but loosened enough to get the pivot bar connection loose. Essentially the roller frame is completely loose. It was a pita to get back lined up with the eq bar and the axle. I resealed the axle or pivot bar with a new foot ball seal. 21.95 what a bargain. Seems to be holding oil. Cost of this repair was 350$ labor for shop to install seal , 90$ for the seal and 40$ worth of bolts from CAT. These type things I like to use the CAT bolts. As for the seal , the barrel for the adjuster piston is retained in the spring with two dowels. The seal has to be folded up to be put in the recess area in the spring cap. I am posting this for the next poor soul that needs the information. Now for myself , I hope I can get some service out of it now.
Thanks for the insight, I have to replace the seals on one or possibly both track adjusters on my newly acquired ** 300 loader.
LT , I don't think yours will be the same other than broken bolts. Yours should be easier actually. Post up some pics of how the adjuster is built.
http://s32.photobucket.com/user/daniel_matthews3/media/IMG_0291_zpsqbgqwgwq.jpg.html I'm new here, this is my first attempt to add a photo.
Here's a photo of the old girl from a couple of weekends back when I first got herhttp://s32.photobucket.com/user/daniel_matthews3/media/IMG_0291_zpsqbgqwgwq.jpg.html
Here's a photo of the old girl from a couple of weekends back when I first got her http://s32.photobucket.com/user/daniel_matthews3/media/IMG_0291_zpsqbgqwgwq.jpg.html [/QUOTE]
I am not familiar with ** loaders , but it seems like yours should be fairly straight forward to fix. I would recommend getting a repair manual or make your own thread on your specific tractor. There is a recoil spring in the roller frame that has enough tension on it that if not dealt with correctly , it can cause harm or death. In your thread you might want to start from day one , and you can add pictures directly to the site as well. I will follow the thread out of curiosity of how your repair goes. Folks on here like lots of detailed pics to help with problems. Not trying to run you off this thread , but you might have a better chance getting help with your own.
thanks Dickjr, I'm just still working this site out but plan to get a thread started soon
Have started my own thread here HeavyEquipmentForums Will keep adding to it over time Have a good day