Yair . . . Just curious. On another thread it came up that sealed and lubed tracks have plugs in the pins that can be displaced with a pressure washer. I assume the plugs are plastic or neoprene and raised the question as to how SALT tracks go in fires. No replys on that thread. Anyone have any comments? Cheers.
Scrubpuller, Have been involved in a lot of fire work and never had any trouble. Until you mentioned it I've never given it any thought. If we get a dry spring this year I'll probably get a few opportunities to test them again as we have a lot of country down here that hasn't had a burn for awhile given the previous wet years. Firetrack
Yair . . . firetrack. I never thought about it either untill one of the fellers mentioned you could blow the plugs out with the Gernie. On forestry jobs once we got the go ahead to burn the windrows we let them rip and work them hot and we'd be stoking fires for days. I used to worry about the roller seals but we never had any trouble. Strikes me the pins and bushes would be hotter. As I said in that other post, you could make steam slashing on the plates. Cheers.
SALT tracks actually have 2 plugs in the end of the pin to keep the oil in. The big one is like a neoprene stopper with a hole down the centre, the second is a sort of plastic plug (not sure what the material is really) that gets hammered into the stopper after the oil has been filled into the pin joint. If the two are correctly assembled it appears at first glance that there is only one plug, because the faces of both the plug and the stopper are flush with one another. This is especially true of tracks that have been painted after assembling. I have never personally seen a problem with plugs in Caterpillar (and I must stress that, not other brands or aftermarket) SALT tracks getting displaced through pressure washing. It also goes against all logic because both the stopper and the plug are slightly tapered and hitting them with a pressure washer would only tend to force the plug even tighter into the stopper.
I have never had a problem with a pressure washer and tracks. We have had problems with some seals, but it's usually the operator of the washer getting the nozzle too close. Tom