Right after buying my very used 1988 Case 1550 dozer, I had the track brake on me while pushing over some small pines. I was very new to dozers then and didn't have a clue what to do. I called a friend who gave me the number of a guy who fixes his equipment. The guy said he'd be there, but never showed up. Then stoped answering his phone. Two more mechanics with the same results forced me to figure out how to do this myself. The tracks are not orriginal Case, so the dealer was of no help. I honestly don't know if the bolts were broken when I bought it and didn't notice it, or if they broke off while I was running it. Either way, the master link came apart on me. I tried to get the broken ends of the 3/4 inch bolts out of there by drilling them and using easy outs, but that didn't work. I tried every brand of oil, lubiricant and break free that I could find. Nothing worked. I tried to use my torch, but chickend out when the bolts started to melt. I was hopeing to get it hot enough to break free, but that never happened and I was afraid of making it worse by melting the threads on the track. Cypress Equipment specializes in fixing this sort of thing, plus just about any undercairage problems. I called them and they said no problem, but I had to bring the track to them. Getting it the rest of the way off was easy. I just drove it off the track!!! Then I used my backhoe to pick up the track and put it on my trailer. At Cypress, they spent about 4 hours working on it. From what I could tell, they have a spreacial rack to hold the tracks on, and they melted the broken bolts out of the threads. Then they retaped the treads, gave me new bolts and charged me $100. Yes, just one hundred dollars. I can't find any pics of me putting it back together, but it was really pretty easy. I jacked up my dozer and blocked it into the air. Then I dug out the dirt below the sprocket, rollers and idler so that the track would slide under there without hitting anything. I unrolled the track with my backhoe, lined it up and slid it under. Then I hooked a chain to the end of the track and pulled it over the idler. When it was all the way over, I used a come along to pull both ends together so I could put the bolts in. Once I had a plan, it was really that simple. I put tension back on the idler and drove off of the blocks. I spent more time trying to get somebody out there to fix it for me then it took to just do it myself. Eddie
Another one of those moments that I'd love to be able to undo was filling in a stump hole. It had water in it and the dirt just turnd to mush when I put it in the hole. In hindsite, and how I do it now, I should have used my backhoe to get the water and mud out of the hole, then fill with dry dirt. I know that now, I didn't know it then. I also knew that it was too soft to drive over, but thought I could get close enough to make it smooth and look good. It was getting late out and I couldn't see very well. I was working from feel as much as sight, and that was another big mistake. When I sank, I went down quick!!!! I probably made it worse by trying to drive out of it. I know it didn't help anything by spinning my tracks. Oh well. The next day, I dug out around the tracks with my backhoe. I got down under the tracks to the point they were floating in the air. That's when I learned about the belly pans sticking to the mud. That really sucked!!!!! I crawled under it with a shovel and started removing dirt. It was slow going and I was not having fun. It took most of the day, but I finally got all the muddy dirt out of there and dug out enough dirt under the belly so that the tracks were supporting it again. Then I just drove it out of the hole like nothing was in the way. That was sure fun, but not something I ever want to do again. Eddie
The 1550 is a hydrostatic drive dozer. I have three hydraulic pumps. One for each drive motor and one for the blade. While smoothing out one of my roads, I lost control of the dozer. It just sort of spun, lunged and did it's own thing. I had no way to control it when pushing or just driving forwards. Since I couldn't go that way, I tried going backwars, which worked. I backed up all the way to my home and parked it. All I could think of is that I didn't have a clue what was wrong, or what I shound do. That lasted for about a month. I searched the net, talked to people and tried to find somebody to come fix it for me. Along the way I decided to call Cypress Equipment and see if they knew of a place that would fix it. I had come to the conclusion that my left drive pump was fried. It wasn't putting out any preasure and my filter was full of metal particles. Pulling the pump was a nightmare all in itself. I had to crawl in through the back for most of the hoses and bolts, but then others were from the bottom and of course, a few had to come off from the top. I used a come along to hold the pump from above, while manhandleing it out the back. Life really wasn't much fun doing this. The pump is a Sundstrand that was also used in the Deere 850. I assumed it was a common pump when I bought the dozer and thought that if I had a problem, it would be a standard fix. Now I know that nothing is standard or simple. The repair shop had to fabricate some parts, but were able to buy most of them. Repair of the pump cost me $2,000. They said that I had to pull the drive motor so they could go through it as well. If not, what was in there would get into the pump and ruin it. Rebuilding the drive motor cost another grand. The problem was caused by a spring the broke. Parts of the spring ate up some gears and ruined other things as well. It's more then I understand, or want to learn about. They fixed it and I needed to put it back together. That was worse then taking it apart. One thing that I had to do was run it without any resistance. The tracks had to be off the ground and able to turn during break in. As you can see in the pictures, the dozer is heavy and really left an impression on my wood blocks. Eddie
Thanks Eddie, You did a remarkable job on every thing... looks like you have good " frustration management control "... and actually answered every question I was going to ask. Our JD 750c is set up about the same way. Sundstrand, pumps and motors... btw, the motors are called " bent axis "... notice how they are angled... again, outstanding work. With respect: OCR PS, one more thing... did it catch on fire at some time? Looks like the area back by the left final has the paint burned.
eddie...by chance did you build a pond on your property? (i seem to remember reading somewhere on another site about one and i coulda sworn it was the same dozer and hoe)
I'm not sure what looks like it's caught on fire, unless it's where I torched off the bolts to get the covers off of the cylinders to keep the tracks under tension. Don't remember what that cylinder is called right now, but getting to it was a challenge. Otherwise, it's probably a combination of greese and dirt. I'm a fairly regular poster over at www.tractorbynet.com and chronicled the building of my pond on that site. I've dug four small ponds that were under an acre in size, but nothing like this one. Finished, it came in at 4 acres of surface water with a dam/dike that's 940 feet long. If anybody would like to read the full thread, it's at http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/projects/52101-creating-lake.html My parents are retired and live in California. They come out here for months at a time, so while here, I put them to work. Dad loves running the tractors, but is limited in what he can do and how quickly he can do it. At 69, he's still learning new things, it just takes him awhile to get it all figured out. We cleared 7 acres of land to accomodate the dam. That was pretty much non stop, seven days a week for several months. Eddie
Once the trees were out, I started to dig. The area for the pond is a natural depression that sort of resembled a very low, wide valley. I dug a keyway with my backhoe where I wanted the dam to go and then filled it with clay and compacted it by driving over it with the backhoe. I filled the bucket and just kept driving along it over and over again until it stoped sinking on me. With the location that I had to work with, I had to build a dam along two sides of the pond. In reality, it's more of a dike or levy, but I call it a dam. For dirt, I just dug from the middle and pushed it up into the dam. I'm 12 feet deep at the lowest area, which is close to an acre, and 8 feet deep through the rest of it. I dug down 4 to 6 feet through most of the ground and kept building up the dam. My original expectation was to have a dam wide enough to walk along and use the extra dirt to give it a natural slope for mowing. I also wanted it to look like it had been there forever and not look like a dam. From the outside, the dam is only 4 to 6 feet tall with two feet of freeboard. I kept a few trees along the edge of the dam for shade and to look nice. As I built up the dam and added more and more dirt to it, the dam got wider and wider. The trees that I had planned to keep away from the dam ended up with dirt piled right up to the edge of them. I was worried about them dying, but figured that I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. So far, two years later, none have died. Eddie
While pushing dirt, I noticed that I was losing power and the engine was starting to smoke. It kept getting worse and oil started coming out of the oil fill tube. I had never heard of blow by before, but I was about to learn about it. A friend happend to come by and told me that my turbo was fried. $500 later for a new turbo and some very creative wrenching, I had that problem fixed. Eddie
Great pics. For someone who hadn't had any experience with a dozer you have done a job better than some "operators". That and tearing into the machine yourself is wonderful, as many people now a days won't even touch a grease gun let alone turn wrenches. Thanks for sharing and good luck with your future projects. Trbo
The new turbo didn't fix the blow by. It wasn't what I wanted, and realizing that the problem was the engine was a hard pill to swallow. I don't have any knowldege or experience working on diesel engines, but have rebuilt quite a few gasoline engines in you younger days. With help from the guys over at tractorbynet, and posting allot of pictures, I was able to do this one step at a time. To start, I built some ramps to get the dozer in the air so I could get under it. With it so high in the air, I attached my cherry picker boom to my loader bucket to handle the weight of the cylinder head. Then I ran into the issue of how to get the sleeves out. This was something that really had me scratching my head. I've never taken out a sleeve, never seen one before and didn't understand what was meant by replacing the sleeves. Case is the only place that I can buy the rebuild kit. Even though the engine is a Cummins 8.3, nobody can get the parts for it based on it's serial number but Case. I did compare prices for similar rebuild kits from Napa and other suppliers, but I don't remember what it was right now. I want to say either $6,000 for the parts. After buying the kit and looking at the sleeves, I realized how it worked. I tried to buy a tool to remove them, but the only one that I found was from Snap On and cost $800. Nobody had one for rent either, so I just made my own tool. It worked, but I had to replace the threaded rod after the first three sleeves. The problem with the engine was the two pistons closest to the firewall. They didn't match the front four and I think somebody replaced the first four, but not those two. They were very dificult to get to from under the dozer, so maybe that was it. The rings were broke and the cylinder walls were totally wore out. The blowby issue was from this wear. I put it all back together, but messed up the timing. Luckily one of the guys over at TBN cought it when I described what I did and corrected me. When I had it all back together, it fired right up and ran great!!!!!!!! 500 hours later and it's still running strong. Eddie
Here's a few recent pics of the pond. I have it stocked with fathead minnows, copper nose bluegill, channel catfish and large mouth bass. Nature has added bullheads, which was a suprise that I wasn't happy to learn, but they are in there and that's that. There are red ear turtles, snakes and several types of frogs, including bull frogs. The most common duck that we see in there are wood ducks. We have a few deer that feed around the pond and wild hogs that dig up some of the shoreline, as well as rolling around in the mud. We have allot of wild hogs here!! LOL There is a red shoulder hawk that has a nest in one of the trees I kept, and we've seen kestrals drinking from it as well as dozens of other types of birds. Eddie
NIce job Eddie. I admire your wherewithal to figure out and solve your own problems. Nice job on the dirt digging and wrench twisting. I am a big case dozer fan also. Great pics. :thumbsup
Great job from a learner. To quote from a boss of mine 40yrs ago, "Patience, perseverance and profanity can stretch a mosquitos *** hole over a 4 gallon bucket". You've done good!!!!.........C ya.........Ray
Great pics and commentary Eddie!:drinkup Nice job. There ain't nuttin' like a run whatcha' brung operation. The pond looks great and having my own small pond in my backyard, the wildlife that is attracted to it never gets boring watching it. I really like the sleeve puller you made. We made one for a NPK hammer to pull the inner bushing out, except your contraption looks a little more "polished" than the one we made. Never the less, it worked. Hats off to "shade tree mechanics and back pocket engineering".
Hello Eddie, Well, looks like you've become a cat skinner... mechanic... engineer... and a dam good pond builder. ( rather poor pun ) Kind of glad you got the dozer? Also, looks like you joined tractorbynet on this very day... 5 years ago. Happy anniversary. Looks like you made a lot of posts too; nice to have access to so much information on sites like this and others, and to have people that are willing to share their experiences and opinions..." almost in real time "... ( no quantum physics jokes, please )... I guess we can keep this thread going as long as people want to post?? More questions to ask... first one, how bad did Rita hit you? We were sent to Beaumont with are water tender ( truck ), and it looks like Tyler is only about 194 miles from there... I'll post a pic. of truck later... OCR
Ain't owning your own equipment a JOY:Banghead Just finished putting the swing motor/gearbox back together in my 320B, man was it fun!! If I could find the engineer that designed that lovely piece I could very easily shoot him with a large caliber pistol and not think a thing about it:guns
i thought that was you eddie...for anyone that went to the other site and saw how long the thread was (took me 3hrs to read it start to finish a few months ago) it is worth the time....what a cool project!
Thank you everyone for the kind words. I've been a lurker on this site for awhile, but had problems being able to post and find most of what you "pros" do real interesting, but way beyond anything that I can comment on. I've never operated a trackhoe, but I sure want to some day. Maybe I'll find one that I can work on and fix up that's in my price range, who knows? LOL Rita hit the day we had carpet installed in our new house. My wife (girlfriend at the time) and I had just finished building the place and wanted to move in before the end of the month. Predictions for Rita were in the 20 inches of rain and 80mph winds. It never happened and except for a steady rain, it was a pretty normal day. The carpet guys did drive off of my gravel driveway for some reason and I had to pull them out with my small tractor. Straight gravel driveway and he drove off of it. Go figure. If it wasn't for sites like this and TBN, I would never have been able to do what I've done with my land, and tractors. There's just so much information out there and fortunately, some amazing people willing to share their knowledge. I try to help out when I can, but I'll admit to receiving way more then I've contributed. Thank you, Eddie
could not tell for sure, but I do not think that is a track bolt that you are showing in picture- could be why it broke.
Looks like you ended up with a real nice pond. I feel your pain when it come to machine troubles....I think I'm trying to build the most expensive D6c on the planet. Had it 1 1/2 years and only have a few hours use out of it. Had to fix: Oil pump, Rod & Main bearings, Rebuilt turbo, Overhaul fuel pump, Head gasket, New Radiator, New Fan, Overhaul final drives, One new track spring, new blade trunions, new cutting edges, and now I need to pull the steering clutches....and then, and then. It could be worse....you could have my dozer.
Nice work! That's a good job there Eddie. I'm glad it's turned out well for you and how's the rest of the resort coming along?
Eddie: You certainly are a inspiration and a person who had their share of dozer problems. I am on my 4th small dozer and have had my share of repairs, but nothing like you. I 've read many of your posts on TBN. I enjoy HEF because because here is where the old hands hang out and I have gained alot ot valuable information. Out of coursity. What did your dozer cost, plus the cost of repairs you have to put in it? If you had it to do over again, would you buy the same type of dozer? Different make? Or one with less hours. Like you said, owning a dozer is a big money pit. I use mine to make a living but it still eats up alot of profit.. I guess you cant put a price on doing something yourself and the joy and satisfaction of doing it the way you want it, when you want it. I had no intention of starting a business when I bought mine. Things just snowballed and it envolved into a small business that I enjoy and have made money at, and had fun.:usa
I paid $25,000 for the dozer and have around $10,000 in repairs. If I was to do it again, I really don't know what I wold do different. I wouldn't want a smaller dozer. Mine was too small for digging my pond, but size costs money, and that's all that I had. Case has been pretty good on parts. They have everything I need, it just takes a few days to get it here. The parts guys are great and the mechanics have been awesome. If I have a problem, they tell me how to fix it and print me out copies of their manuals. Now that my pond is done, I just use the dozer for finish work, so a smaller one would be nice, but really isn't needed. I can spread and shape my dirt piles pretty good with this dozer, so there's that's good to. If I wanted to make money with a dozer, I don't think this is the machine. It's too heavy to move around and hiring it done is $500. Nobody wants to pay that fee plus what it costs to run and make it worth my time. I've put over 2,000 hours on it, which if I was to hire that out, would have cost an easy $100,000 more then what I spent on fuel, oil and greese. By the time it's all said and done, I'll probably have another 2,000 hours on it, so the savings is considerable. Even taking into consideration that a better operator would be able to do it faster then I can, I know that there are allot of scammers out there who fudge their hours and charge for time not running their machines. It's a real issue in my area and one I've had to deal with every time I've hired out dirt work. There is also the time and effort that goes into expaining what I want done when hiring it out and making sure it's done the way I want it done. I'm a general contractor and I deal with guys to prepare the dirt for a building or addition. In those small jobs, it's either a cake walk or a nightmare, depending on who I can get to do the work for me. In that respect, I might still sell the 1550 and buy something small that I can use myself, but it's not a priority. I'd just as soon not have a dozer and look forward to the day that I sell it and just have tractors with tires. If I sold it for what I paid for it, which I think I should be able to do easily, I'm still way ahead dollar wise. It's just a matter of time to do what I want with my equipment. When it's done, I wont owe anybody anything and I can move forward with my other plans. If I only had a smaller job, or projects that were not measured in thousands of hours, then I would just hire it out. Hope that made sense, Eddie
Eddie: Yes it made sense. I know what you mean by trying to hire it done. I had some small jobs I needed done. I had a hard time finding some one to do it and when I did, they did not do it right and padded the hours. I had three different dozers out. Since I had alot of other dozer work that needed to be done at different times. I decided to purchase the smallest dozer I could find. (as all of my work was small and I didnt want to have to purchase a larger truck and trailer.) I started out with a ** 200, a Case 350 a Allis challmers HD-4 and presently a Mitsubishi BD2. All small dozers, and a waste of time in many dozer owners opinion. It wasnt long before someone would ask me to come out after my regular job of a evening or on week end and do a small job that no one else would do. I started getting pretty busy. A felllow who was in the septic business asked what I would charge to cover up after he installed so he could move his backhoe and crew on to another job and be more more productive. I gave him a price and he kept me pretty busy. I was at retirement age so I retired from my full job and just started doing small jobs. I was busy while the boys with the JD &Case 450 had them sitting. I even did a couple of jobs over 75 mi away because no one would even come out and give the fellow a estimate. There is nothing like doing your own work the way you want, when you want. I since have purchased a small backhoe and keep it pretty busy also. Dad always said you dont send a boy ( my Mitsubishi) to do a mans job(450 or larger) I say dont send a man to do a boys job. Thats why I have stayed small and had mini equipement. Ocassionally someone will not take no for a answer and I will bite off more than I like to chew (larger job). I think as this econmy continues to decline, I hope to stay busy when others have to park their equipment. I would'nt think of building a pond or the type of work you have done with your dozer. I guess its just some kid in all of us that we enjoy doing it. Large or small.
Eddie, Great work my man. I am in the process of putting the finishing touches on my horse farm. Cleared 6 acres of wooded land in roughly 13hrs with a rented 650 dozer, and it has taken me 2 years to clean up and finish the rest with my 580K and Stihl 441. I will post a few pics soon. Patience is truely a virtue. Cheers:usa Jay
Jay, Welcome to the Heavy Equipment Forums:drinkup
Eddie, My dad has this same machine and has had some of the same problems as you. We have the machine with the drive motor on the right hand side out and had it repaired (broken splined shaft) and he droped a bearing in the bottom of the final drive. We are looking for any information and drawings of the final drive and the planetary so we can get this bearing out. Any inforamation would be a BIG help. He went to the CASE dealer today in Kenner, LA and no help at all. my number is 225-445-3177 or [email protected] . Thanks Matt
Nice job Eddie. Look at it this way...you may have some money tied up in your dozer but how much would the experience you got have cost if you got it some other way? You have property you can be proud of.. You can proudly say YOU did it when asked. You can say YOU did it when asked what you had to do to the dozer and who fixed it. You learned some of the basic truths about dozers.. They ALL cost money in some fashion... Everything on them is heavy and hard to wrangle. That there are only 2 kinds of dozer operators: those who have gotten stuck, and those who will. There is nothing to be ashamed of about getting stuck..but what you do after it happens.....is a different story all together!! Did you quit while it was a little stuck, or keep going 'til all you could see was the top of the stack? You also seem to be doing a real good job of making the most with what you have. Good luck with the future! Alan