Hello guys, I really need some help!: I tore half way through my rubber track of my Kubota 5 tonner. So, taking of the partly torn track was a piece of cake. I loosened the grease valve, grease came out, I wedged a piece of wood between the track and the sprocket and managed to completely retract/ push in the front idler.. BUT, when I at last (4-5 weeks later), had received a new track the damn idler had come completely out again. Now I cannot manage to push it back in . I have made sure the grease valve is open, and I have tried to use a 3 ton garage/car jack to push back at the front blade without any luck. Looking at the picture of the spring in there, it looks pretty hard to compress, but I feel mine will not budge. Any ideas of how to handle this?? I will be VERY appreciative of any help! Best regards Justin
Maybe try a come-along or chain ratchet to winch it back in... Theory is, if clear of dirt and debris it will move in easily
The Idler has just come out of position and needs relocating in its mounting, lift the machine right up using the bucket with the tracks in alignment with the arm and look up into the frame to locate the recoil and adjuster into its mount using a bar to jiggle it home. tctractors
Just done mine on a 25 T machine, use the front bucket as tctractors said.
Thank you very much for your ideas! I will try to see if it has somehow come out of its`intended position, and jiggle it about somewhat more than done earlier..
I found the culprit. I drew the idler out of its place, afterward I managed to quite easily draw the adjuster out. You can see that the chromed rod is all rusty and the seal has come out and jammed it. I also got a bit curious about the spring.. Looking at the drawings it should be able to draw right out also. It came out after many blows with a sledge hammer. It was pretty full with dirt, so I cannot see how it could have been able to compress when needed. So this maybe a contributing reason for the track to tear...These springs can`t compress much without dirt in between all the coils either! I still can`t think way the adjuster rod came out by it self during the 4-5 weeks while waiting for a new track.. Any comments??
Some people don't understand the need to clean equipment, thy think just because they work in dirt it is a waste of time washing or cleaning them. Things need room to move and when packed tight with dirt like you found this one no way things will work as designed. A little OT but a couple years ago we had a Cat excavator, maybe a 345?, anywho this one was used to work a breaker to break up over sized stone in the quarries. It developed a problem with the main boom cylinders. Company took it to the Cat dealer and what they found was the boom cylinders were totally destroyed inside. Seems operator never cleaned the machine around the boom cylinders and the back side was packed tight with stone and dirt. When boom was raised this build up would not allow the cylinders to pivot and put major side load on the cylinder causing the pistons to dig into the barrels. So besides two new cylinders they also had to replace the control valve with good used one due to scoring from trash going through the system. Not to mention complete tear down of the hydraulic system to clean it. Many thousands dollars lost due to "poor house keeping". Operator is a hunting buddy of the big boss for the area so that got sweep under the proverbial rug! A clean machine is a happy and productive machine!