Had to clear a lot for a new home today and last night it went down to 20. When I got to the site the temp was still 20 and everything was froze solid. I worked the machine yesterday Komatsu PC150 but when I left didn't shovel tracks out. Big mistake. I will do this when temps are cold but no told me it was going to be this cold April 5th. I tried to shovel today, forget it! I am going to wait till monday. Any one have this little pleasure from mother nature happen to them? At least the fuel didn't gel up again. I was going to heat them up, but I much rather wait till Monday. View attachment 4667
O yes. I hate mud and this time of the year. Where I work shoveling out your tracks is a daily must. Some days this winter it was so cold shoveling was a 2 to 3 times a day so they would not freeze. Had the pleasure of dealing with this the other day in the mud. Hmmm, can’t add picture. I know it is the right size, but I keep getting a error.
in northern ontario frozen tracks are common in winter months what i do is put rock salt on frozen dirt on undercarriage works good .also i spray dieselfuel on bucket or blade to help dirt from sticking
Trying again.
That sucks, Truckie. I have some calcium cholide in my garage from plowing this winter maybe I will put some of that on the tracks.
Holy track tension Batman! Truckie, those grousers are sagging more than a wannabe gangster's britches!
I AM NOT RECOMMENDING THIS! But I will pass it along... I have a friend who's about 87 years old, and has done all sorts of work in this field. He told me that he used to run a coal stripping operation, and in winter, they'd park their dozers on old tires. That would keep them from sticking to the ground when they froze. If they still wouldn't move, they'd light the tires on fire and after a few minutes they could drive right off. The people that owned the mine had another one a few miles away, and when they asked Jim how he was able to get moving in weather that shut the other job down, he said, "We just make sure we clean the tracks real good..." :cool2
Digger, I have some old tires, and I belong to the fire dep’t. So I could give it a try. You know those damn neighbors will be calling the cops on me. The funny thing is, back 40 years you could do stuff like that.
We have set fire to rags soaked in diesel fuel, placed judiciously on the frozen parts.
Jmac, you mentioned before you've a "Reddy Heater". If you had a generator also, you could fire that up while onsite and aim it at the tracks, adjusting where it was aimed every few minutes.
If it isn't extremely cold, a flex tube on the exhaust that has a y down to both tracks. Warm up the engine and the tracks at the same time. About an hour does the job.
Maybe this would help:
For the sake of the final drive seals, track roller seals and track link assemblies in my opinion you guys should be cleaning your tracks thoroughly whatever the temperature! On an excavator dig out the mud from around the track frame with a (hand) shovel, lift up each track in turn and rotate them at high speed to fling all the crap from around the links and bushings. If you are gone for the weekend in cold climates you should consider parking it in a a clean area or on wooden blocks.
Squizzy I like your idea. I could make a few hot dogs with that thing. Jeff, I could I do that but I didn't want to drag generator and heater to the site. My generator is heavy and I am getting old. Funny thing or not so funny the GC called me around 3pm and said the surveyor could not put stakes in because my dirt piles are in the way. I asked if he wanted me to get my friend Jeff to come over and find them for him with his truck. I did try and use dozer but the dirt is frozen solid and under the topsoil is about a foot of water so traction is not the best. Think it would take me twice as long. Dozer did move but almost got it stuck and with the excavator not moving I decided to put dozer away for the day. Tommarrow is another day; I will bring a propane heater, the one with the wand and hose conected to a tank with me and see if that works. Bob's idea is a real good one! Could keep that thing around for future uses also.
Wolf, absolutely. Who new it was going to be so damn cold. Case of me being to lazy. Wish I did it before it froze up because now it is like concrete.
I bought a small trenching shovel at Home Crapo a couple years ago. It looks like a regular shovel, but is only 4" wide and is perfect for cleaning tracks. I lift the entire machine off the ground with the blade and boom and can clean it out in minutes. It is definitely a PITA if you forget.
Frozen snow will do the same thing...
Part of the problem is that really wet mud will get in the spaces between the rails and the rollers, and around the sprockets and the idlers, and unless you're willing to use a spoon and a toothbrush, you can never get it all. It can be frozen enough that the tracks don't even sag away from the rollers when you lift it off the ground. In that case, I'll lift the machine off the ground, one side at a time, and use a sledge hammer to beat on the tracks, both on the top and bottom, cracking the frozen mud, (like cracking cement). In a lot of cases, that'll get it loose enough to run.
The last job we did in January was all wet clay, it took an hour and a half to get it all clean, not counting behind the sprockets. When we went to load the next day, the machine wouldnt go on the trailer because the pads were full of that frozen crap, so Dad lifted the tracks and walked it slowly while I beat it to death with a sledge, it's amazing how much crap will stick in your pads.
Yeah tell me about it. Last week put new seals in the adjuster and it worked well for about 3 days and then we were back to the sag. Ordered rebuild kit for the adjuster and will have it on this week. That is our Link Belt 290 and my brother running that one. Thank God it was not me. Digger I have also done this servile times my self and it works pretty well. A lot of the times we will park on the old tires because it is so muddy were we work, never had a problem parking this way.
You no what's the worst about frozen tracks at this time of the year, is when you finally get them unstuck and everything cleaned up it almost always warms up!
Be careful when trying to get a machine unstuck from frozen ground, one company I worked for ahad a JD 160c Excavator, and one day it was frozen to the ground so the operator tried just to walk the machine loose, and wound up blowing a final drive COSTS: About $8,000. Park your machine on boards !!!
I am not frozen to the ground just mud frozen solid in and around track. Not going to warm up for a couple more days so went to Harbor Freight and bought blow torch thing that uses a propane tank. About $30 and it had a starter with it. Got to love China when it comes to making stuff cheap. No wonder USA doesn't make anything anymore. I have to use it Monday so I will spend some time heating mud and hitting with sledge. I was conerned about doing some damage if I just kept trying to break it free on its own so I stopped. Both tracks are caked with fozen mud. My blow torch isn't as nice as the one Squizzy posted. That thing could dethaw my machine while sitting in my warm truck.
We always park on boards or tires. This is what we use for frozen tracks. Takes 5 min to break loose carrier rollers. Weed Dragon
Rino, funny that you posted that, thats what I bought today. See smart people think alike. Well......... maybe smart people clean tracks before they freeze.:drinkup
If you are VERY gentle you can sometimes curl the bucket teeth under the top track near the sprocket and front idler to gain that little bit of slack to start the track moving back and forth a little.I would caution anyone trying this to use very little throttle as it would be easy to break something and anything over half throttle will surely be applying more force than than the equipment was designed to take,especially so when the oil is cold like that. I like to grease in the morning while the machine warms up and the heat from the engine will help if your are dealing with a frozen undercarriage. Just rock the sprocket forward and back a little at a time and eventually it will move and you will begin to see progress.Dozers are the most at risk for final drives because there is so much power available but operators in cold climates are aware of the risks and know what to watch for.I like to park on wood if I can,I will even park on a brush pile if there is nothing else at hand. It takes me about an hour these days to clean the tracks on a D8. Ron G
I was going to try that Ron but was scared to, didn't want to brake of a track pad. I heated the track up with my new blow torch. It took a tank but was able to get tracks moving. Huge chunks of sod stuck to the bottom of track. Went to clean up with the dozer and yup frooze. I left it, grabbed my coffee and went home. Was white out conditions today. The dozer in this photo was when it was clean, not so today. View attachment jd450.bmp
This may be a stupid question but seeing as we don't freeze too often down ere...(Like never) ...wouldn't a pressure cleaner/Gerni with the diesel heater on it be best for cleaning the tracks out in those circumstances??...this would give warm pressure washing...No???
jmac, If you decide to try the flex hose on the exhaust, put end caps on the end of the flex hoses and make 1 inch holes about every 12 inches along the hose down near the tracks on each side. Lay the hose at the bottom of the tracks and the heat coming out of the holes rises up and heats up the whole area of the tracks, rollers, etc. If is it super cold and windy this won't work, but if there is no wind it works pretty well. By the time the engine is good and warm you are ready to go. If windy or super cold, laying a tarp over the tracks covering the flex tube will usually work. It traps the heat in the area of the track.
Squizzy, "mister pink hard hat guy" since you have not seen a snow flake in how long? I think that yes that would be good, except for no water.
Well that, and the fact that you shovel what, a couple of wheelbarrows full of mud from each side? That's a lot of mass to clean out with a pressure washer. Now a fire hose....
So after all that the flame thrower is the go then cepting maybe rubber tracks Do rubber track machines freeze as well??? (thats the serious bit) Snow flake .....We have Corn Flakes
Good question on the rubber tracks. I have never dealt with rubber tracks before, but I would imagine the rollers and wheels would freeze, but I don’t know if the track would freeze to the ground like the steel ones do. I would think so, but maybe a bit easer to get them unstuck from the ground. :beatsme You have corn flakes, but are they frosted corn flakes?
We have a 287B with rubber tracks and its a real booger to keep clean in the winter. It has eight sets of rollers three deep and the inside ones are impossible to clean. Very little clearance so mud gets in and freezes the rubber rollers. You can smell rubber burning. That is if you can get it moving. Not enough power to bust loose like a dozer, but if you keep working it, it will eventually go. Have the same problem with small rock getting wedged in and tearing up rollers. Try to keep it powerwashed as much as possible helps. At least it's easy enough to move with a pickup and trailer to bring it to a shop to thaw and wash out.
Funny that you mention the pressure washer. One of our friends has a trucking business. He sells topsoil, shale, fill, stone, etc... He rented a crusher in the winter to crush excess stones and his dad got the bright idea to wash out the hopper. LOL.....they were in there the next day with picks breaking up the frozen mud.
Our RC100 suffers from the same problem the 287b does...very hard to keep totally clean but luckily we are in a mostly temperate climate here so we have only have the track rollers freeze on us 2x...I dont thnk that the tracks would freeze to the ground like steel ones but I really dont know...the rubber really doesnt get quite as cold as the metal...its mostly the mud inside the tracks that freezes...it took us about 45minutes with a hot water diesel power washer to clean and thaw out the first time it happened..now we just clean the tracks after every job..time consuming but worth it..we also dug a small pit and concreted the inside so that we can flood it to about half the depth of the tracks and run the skidsteer back and forth through it..that really helps break up the mud but wouldnt be feasible on a big machine i guess
My Takeuchi 135 will freze-up. Usually it has enough nut to turn the track, but the rollers won't, so it's best to shovel it out at the end of the day. My steam cleaner works great, if I'm in the yard, but to haul it to a job site and find water that isn't frozen solid is nearly impossible. I find it best to load the machine on the trailer in cold weather, just in case. That way if I have to I can haul it home and steam it. It's only happend a couple times that I have forgot it, but it sure was a pita. And like someone else said, snow and ice is almost worse than mud.
Here's the shovel I use, it works great for cleaning in tight places. http://www.gemplers.com/shop/toolsequipment/digging/G44023.html
Put the machine on planks and spray down the tracks with fuel using a spray pump--simple