Recently bought a Volvo EC700C machine with some cosmetic body damage. Wondering how something like this is typically repaired if wanted to? Also what typically causes this damage?
I would not repair that, I have better things to do like changing final drive oils and swing gear oils, stuff that matters. On a big machine like that, it was down in the dirt and rocks and brought some up on top of the tracks. Then you swing into it. Or you are in a hole and tracked next to taller stuff and swing into it. That looks like the former, crap that got tracked around to the top. The solution is to be aware of where you are at, lift a track at a time and clear them before you throw them.
Saw a guy on utube that did something similar on a fairly new rental machine. The story was that the machine was a write off because that is part of the ROPs structure. He had bought the insurance.
If it doesn't interfere with anything and is just cosmetic don't worry about it.
Paint it and forget it. Just a few battle scars.
Do like the cool kid, PNW shovel logger builders do and cut it off and replace it with heavy duty cat walks.
Excess material buildup on the undercarriage would be my guess. Wouldn't waste my time fixing it. The fix would pretty much be to cut the D-channel out and weld a new one in.
Like with Pacific, Their guard packages are pre-fabed and ready to install. Would probably be less expensive than trying to fix the original sheet metal.
To answer your question. Get your local sheet metal shop to bend some lengths of steel to the correct profile, then cut n weld.
If you had a shop and really wanted to fix it, it could be a winter or off season project. Too much trouble to try and straighten. It would be easiest if you could cut the bad section out and replace it with 1 piece formed to match the original profile.
How badly was that hoe bent up?
Ripped a belly pan off once on a Hitachi 200. branches stuck in tracks, rotated and it peeled it off. Never got fixed, "mehhhh, it's fine" Yeah.. was fine for a while till same happened but sticks when up in the pump bay and ripped some hoses, junctions, wiring, etc apart.
It wasn't a good looking machine. A couple of the outriggers had been bent upwards, hence the surgery.
It looked kind of mangled at the back.
As said, I wouldn't waste a moment of time on it. When we performed that repair for the rental side of our shop, we did as Cmark suggested. We had a local shop bend and form a length of sheet steel, then we cut out the ugly and welded in the pretty. Then we would build up and grind smooth the seems. The frustration came in when they leased it out to someone else and it returned beat up and caved in again. I get it, a 700 is a big beautiful machine and having evidence that she was kicked in the shins just sucks. But it's a non critical area, it doesn't matter. Those big grousers are gonna pick up more and do it again. Belly pans are what deserves your attention.