Need some advice. We run a Cat 314 hoe. Its not ran everyday by any means.....might set for weeks at a time and to be honest its a pretty rough machine but reliable. The rails are WORE OUT! Rollers, sprockets, idlers all seem to be fine. I can buy a new UC (idlers, sprockets, all rollers, rails, and bolts for $8500. Of course we do the labor. I can buy a used set of rails/pads that look really good ready to slap on for $3500 or I can buy new rails/bolts and swap my pads for $3800. The cheap part of me says swap them used rails/pads and roll on. Im kinda thinking Ill upgrade machines before Id get my moneys worth out of a new U/C.
How many hours are on this machine? It is pretty common to get two sets of chains out of one set of sprockets, idlers, rollers and track pads. You might consider getting a Cat product support rep out to actually measure all the components and let you know what options you might have. It shouldn't cost you anything and then you can make a decision based on due diligence.
Not sure. Hour meter hasnt worked for years. Was told around 4500 when I bought it.
they did the undercarriage on a bunch of our machines this winter For the 2 14 ton machines it was almost cheaper to buy chains and pads together then to unbolt and reinstall old pads.
Those rails were ran at least a year longer than they should have been. That had to be absolutely miserable to run if you had any tracking involved, slope work completely out of the question unless you pick up each side before attempting to move. What a disaster.
I guess they were quite shocked at how bad they were. The pins were toast quite a bit of movement. I've been told before that just because it has a blade on it, it's not a dozer. But they still do a lot of blade work. Problem with the smaller machines is that they constantly switch operators. A 350 might spend weeks or months on the same job with the same operator. The 14 tons all 3 are jumped from Job to job all the time. No one checks anything. I used to see older guys stick their hand in and feel the pins for wear. I don't think a lot of these younger guys know what to look for. Most of the time these machines are serviced on the side of the road and unless it's an actual mechanic they don't know what to check. Same as our daily inspection books. No one looks at anything. Just check them off. A lot of guys do it all on monday morning.
Chains are junk. Do you have some photos of the sprocket teeth, idlers and rollers? I wouldn't feel bad about the amount of wear. Just means you got all of your money out of them.
The chains were on the ground outside the shop and I hadn't thought about a picture. I took these a couple days after when they were in the scrap bin. Never saw the rest of the hardware. These were off a linkbelt . Im guessing it was a management decision to do the job. One of the owners is an operator as well. Although he's pretty much taken on more of a management roll if he happened to see it he would have called it out. I know 2 years ago, Cat came and measured the D4K and recommended it be done