Ok.....My Spanish sucks! LOL Went to a job call Friday...………..operator had spent 5 hours that morning trying to get the track back on the sprocket and idler. I show up and 10 minutes later 2 other operators show up to help. I start looking at what they are doing, check for the idler grease screw to be unscrewed, which is was, but something just didn't look right. The idler was pushed in all the way as I looked at it myself, but there was still room in the rail frame for more. I watch for an hour as these 3 guys try to stretch that worn ass out rail over the sprocket first (fiddle string tight and it isn't close to going on. Then they pull it off, get the sprocket in the rail, and try to pull it over the idler...…….still fiddle string tight. I finally tell them that something isn't right and that I just need to cut a pin out and see whats going on. So I go out Saturday morning and cut a rail pin (most all of them have been welded in place) and stretch the rail on the ground with my truck.
Damages...……. The rail had come off the top rollers while they were screwing with it and broke the heads off 2 end plate bolts.
Not any major damage here, but scared up the drive hub pretty good. It has some real nice burrs!
LOL...….look at these bushings. I could manipulate these rails and make any letter in the alphabet.
So now that the idler/spring assembly is out, why the hell would it not retract further than it did? Something isn't right.
Well, because the retaining nut for the spring assembly has been backing off, and has bent the mickey mouse retaining bracket. It made the assembly longer than specified by quite a ways. So NOW I know why it was impossible for those guys to get the track back on...…...no way was it going. Now the funny part...……..I was asked if we could use a dozer blade and push the spring down and tighten the nut back. Yeah...……..NOOO! I have a machine shop here that can do this nice and safe for me. My big question here is...……….does anyone know what the compressed length if this is supposed to be?
You have a bomb there. In my experience those springs are compressed to the point that they are pushing half of the weight per machine. You have a 30 metric ton machine so there is supposed to be 15 metric tons of push on that spring. With that amount of force on it, I've never seen one come loose. My guess is that it's been apart before and not assembled correctly or the threads are stripped and it won't take much for it to launch. I usually see about a quarter to an inch of threads beyond the nut when it is all assembled correctly. When you pick it up please be careful and don't get in front of the ends. The distance between the coils tells me there is a lot of push still there. As far as the chains go, out here if you can't see light at the ends of the pads, they are still usable.
Welded pins, idler rebound spring about to grenade and bushing worn slick I am afraid I would have said No Bueno, no Gracias and LEFT!!
When asked "What are you planning to do.?"........ You answer "We're going to take steps" ......... "Whaddya mean you're going to take steps.?" "Big ones in the opposite direction"...... Recoil mechanisms scare the **** out of me, and I think that probably applies to anyone else in this game with half a brain.
I dropped the assembly off yesterday at the only place in town with a big enough press to do the job. I wont screw with these either.