Hi Guys, Just bought a TB68S, the engine is locked up tighter than alcatraz ( I got a great deal on the machine because of this) The problem is I have to move it off the old owners property, and the access is terrible. It needs to be able to roll so it be pushed by another machine to where it can be loaded on a trailer. I thought I could just pull the sun gear from the drives, but it seems like that's a lot harder than I thought with this style of drive. Id rather not have to make adapters and a slide hammer to remove the cover plate if I can avoid it. The machine is remote so its not easy to make trips back and forth to the store. Does anyone have ideas how I can get this machine to roll?
Or if someone knows for sure what size the fittings are in the plate so i can buy the right fittings and fabricate the slide hammer adapter in advance? I'm only going off what I could find online for KYB motors, they look the same..
Myself, I would use pipes or cheap sleds to just slide it around.
It needs to move about 100 yards before I can get it to an area wide enough for a trailer. I'm going to try pulling the planetaries tomorrow. Thanks though
Can you access the all sprocket bolts? If so, just unbolt the sprockets and, with them still in place, drag the machine.
I thought about that, I'm worried about the wear on the drive from the sprockets dragging on them for that distance
Well 100 yards would be a fair bit but not an unreasonable amount of winch cable. What's the ground like, fairly flat and open, rocky, stumps? using 3 foot long small diameter logs and a bottle jack, lift up one side and get some rollers under there and start pulling, add more rollers as it moves
It's a muddy swamp. It needs to roll out. I don't trust dragging it with the drives in place without damaging them. It also has to roll off the trailer at my end so making the drives move is my only option
Well dragging shouldn't hurt any of the pieces, an excavator doing heavy digging might be dragging against its tracks quite often. At least dragging it to the road would give you the option of releasing the planetaries or sprockets for a much shorter trip. Also once it starts sliding and the grousers are full it'll slide a lot easier. I've dragged a small dozer with a locked up track up a fairly steep hill, it took some planning an no rushing. muddy swamps, why does it have to be muddy swamps - Not Indiana Jones
Always the way isnt it.. not a bad idea dragging it to a more accessable spot.. I'll report back how it goes.
Was working with a buddy, mini-ex in a swamp, spotted the track starting to tear, walked it to the landing and my friend says 'well that sucks!' I said no what would suck is snapping that track and changing it in the swamp, now we can change it at the landing next to the truck.
Getting it off the trailer should be the least challenging part. I dragged a skid off a trailer with a car hood and a SXS and winch. Depending on the ground and equipment available, dragging will probably be easier but if you can get the tracks moving that will work.
Well I'm stuck, couldn't get the drive plates to rotate using a bar, I only had 3" 3/8 npt pipe nipples to use and they broke off. So I took all the bolts out of the drive sprockets and dragged it 100 yards, the gears would not rotate on the drive motors, must be rusted solid to them. So I'm back to trying to get the covers off so I can get the gears out. I need something solid to thread into the plate so I can get it to rotate with a bar, any thoughts?
Just wanted to follow up on case this helps someone in the future. I made new threaded tools by driving a bolt into the 3" pipe nipples, and welding them in to create a solid fitting. Then after heating the outter edges of the drives with an oxy acetylene torch we finally got the plates to rotate with a tool my dad made up. We were able to get the lock wire out, planetaries removed and it rolled on a trailer. Thanks to everyone for the help, I'm sure I'll be needing more resurrecting this old girl.
Looks like a nice sized machine. That would be perfect for me. lol Nice job, getting it to move.