Other than the setting for reverse faster than forward, do you generally speed up when reversing?
It depends on how good your pass was while grading going forward.LOL.Ron G
Boy, Ain't that the truth. I've had to back up slow a few times especially in rocky ground.
Okay if you have SALT tracks, if you only run sealed tracks, don't reverse, make the turn at each end.
Lantraxco, the no reversing sealed tracks is a new one on me. How many hundred miles have I reversed sealed tracks in 32 yrs feeding a crusher?? Mike
The lubricated SALT tracks don't have near as much wear internally because of the captive lubricant. The sealed tracks are assembled dry and the seals are only supposed to kind of keep dirt out, it's just two thin belleville washers back to back on each end. When driving forward on an oval track machine (as opposed to a high sprocket design) the only loaded point of rotation between two links is where the chain enters the sprocket. When reversing there are actually three loaded points of rotation, entering and exiting the idler in addition to entering the sprocket. I will grant that there is much less load on the whole drive in reverse but on average you will have twice as much wear to the pins and bushings of the track in reverse as you will going forward. On short runs or pushing in a notch it doesn't make sense to turn around, but when spreading on a long fill or pushing off topsoil, etc. it's beneficial to keep the machine moving forward. Not too many production machines running sealed tracks these days anyway.
Thats part of the equation, the other part is that when in rev the bush rotates 1/3 of a turn against the sprocket tooth while under load there by causing the sprocket teeth to wear more on the reverse side of the tooth, causing wear on the tooth and the bush, when going fwd the tooth drops into the bush and no more movement occurs under load. If track chains are put on backwards the 1/3 turn under load will be in the fwd direction, there was a real good animated diagram put on here sometime ago on how it all worked which was real easy to understand. As for turning after each push maybe if it was more than 100 mts you would, but then something on wheels might stack up better like a dozer with a scoop behind it