Hello everyone. Love this forum! I have a 2003 cat d5n xl. She’s has 6500 hours on her, does everything I need. I have a small hobby farm where it will probably spend the rest of its life. If I put 100 hours a year on her from now on I’d be surprised. That being said, the track shoes are Hammered. They gotta go. So to get to the point, let’s just say everything else in the undercarriage is fine (for what I need). And let’s also say I have the time and a burning ambition to do a ton of work. Can I replace each grouser, any tips or tricks before I start, and where would be a good place to buy 82 of them plus hardware? Thanks!
Yes you can but make sure it’s worth it in respect to the rest of the undercarriage. for farm use a good aftermarket brand for the shoes would probably do ok. I don’t know about their quality for hardware I might buy my hardware from the Cat dealer just to make sure. There’s a torque spec and you’ll be putting lube (make sure it’s the right kind) on the bolts. You’ll want at least a real 3/4 impact and very well may need a torch to cut the old ones off if the head is lunched. I don’t think you’ll need a 1” gun but I don’t know what torque you are going to need off the top of my head. bear in mind undercarriage can have a ton of options for any given model so make sure you get the right stuff for what you need. for track nuts I use a prybar to brace the nut while I loosen or tighten it. You can’t fit a normal wrench in the window. Cat has special low profile bar holder for the nut but a prybar works well.
JD955 has asked the big question but I'll answer this one........... Grouser bar. Best on the market is Dura-Tuff. https://www.duratuff.com/ They have the necessary instructions for installing grouser bar on the web site. You can even get curved bar that will weld straight on to worn grousers without the need for expensive gas-axing. The only comment I have is that to make it worthwhile re-grousering shoes the base of the shoe has to be sufficiently thick to resist bending. If that is not the case then you would be working for nothing and would have to replace the shoes in short order afterwards. It may pay you to price replacement shoes so that you can check if the price of re-grousering makes economic sense in your particular case. Post some photos so we can see what the shoes look like. In fact post some photos of all the undercarriage
i figured he was talking about replacing each shoe vs weld on grouser bars. I don’t think I’ve seen anybody in my area weld grouser bars on seems like everybody replaces with either factory or aftermarket shoes. The real cheapies just run with worn slick shoes (those machines often are also missing a handful of shoes on each side)
JD, I saw this and immediately thought of replacing grouser bars. Reading it again it is possible the OP means replacing complete track shoes. Oh well. At least he has another option now.
The other thing worth mentioning if the OP does replace track shoes is the absolute need to remove all the paint from the back side of the shoe in the area where it mounts to the track link. Fail to do that and it will be impossible to keep the shoes tight on the links forever after.
Thanks for the info! I would replace the shoes completely. They are too far gone for anything else.