Never broke a machine down this far for idler guides before. In this case they were to loose to shim and dancing idlers are death on track adjustment seals. Normally the guides are rebuilt at undercarriage time it looks like the previous owner ignored the swing frame guides so we get to do it now
That sure is a nice straight machine. What S/N is it?
Thanks, 77V18843 with a 46A stack
Wow that is a nice cat DPete!
Nice looking K model there Pete. I recall many times doing the guides. Never took the track frames off to do them though. When possible, I would just weld in a strip on top and bottom, but if it goes too far, you have to arc off the whole thing and replace the triangle piece. I must say that part looks much easier with the track frame off the machine.
The triangle pieces don't have strips anymore, just a wide bead of hardface. It took 3 hours to get the frames off where we can flip them over to air arc and weld instead of fighting it on the machine, we'll get a better job that way.
Agreed, sharp looking cat, I have serial number 77V18532 sitting in my yard. I have a couple of 77V3000 and under machines too, i like the older machines without the spacerplate. They seemed to have more snap..... but once the top of the block is irrerepairable, they are junk.... theres not enough flexible blue gasket maker in the world to seal lowered liners.