My fan belt snapped yesterday, so I went out and bought a new one from JD. Went to replace it, and cannot for the life of me get that hydro disconnect to move. There is virtually no room in there, and short of pulling the pump, or the whole front nose apart to have room to wrench/pry I can't see how to replace it. After some searching, I see some people have used Harbor Freight segmented belts sucessfully. Searching their site, I find "Accu-Link - item#43771". Reading the reviews, it looks like most use these belts for table saws or lathes. Given the stock JD belt is a fairly large belt (Much larger then the v-belts on my toyota trucks), What's your opinion on using these? Seems they would be a lot smaller then the stock belt. Anybody that may have used them before, would 1 belt do, or would I need multiple belts to get the right length for the dozer?
Cata at one time suppied segmented linkbelts as aback up not recomended for long term use where 5/8"-3/4"
Do as you wish, but I"d never waste my time or money on those segmentated belts, its been a few years since I did the belt replacement on that model of dozer, I own one myself, but I don't recall it being that bad. I'd have to go out and look again, but did you remove all the bolts and spray some lube on the slider mechanism, I was thinking it was just slid in place and bolted to the crank pulley, but maybe my memory is bad enough, without looking I could be wrong. If I recall I used a pry bar and lubed up the splines and just worked it gently back and fourth, but before I'd every put those segmented belts on I'd take the nose cone off, a few bolts and its off and easy to get at, I was thinking that was how I did the belt replacement anyhow, far easier than trying to do it with the nose cone on.
Ya, with the "Nose Cone" off , it would be no big deal, I was just trying to avoid tearing the front half of the machine apart as work is being done out in the woods, with limited tools, and not in a shop. I'm building a new home which is pretty far out, and my crap keeps breaking ... lol Thanks for the opinions, when my dirt work slows I will def swap in the JD spec belt, and just keep the segmented belt on the shelf as a spare.
Let us know if it works
I've got a couple hours on it, and so far, so good. It was a cheap, and easy (ier) fix for the moment until I get all my tools on site. Right now I have no way to secure them, so I don't want to leave them there. It was cheaper then the JD belt I had already bought.
I've thought about getting one of those to keep on the service truck to get a truck off the side of the road, or let a machine work a few hours while we get the right belt. I'll have to go ahead and try it. Keep us posted on how long it lasts. Thanks, Mitch