Anyone use em? pros and cons? I do bush work and moving/rough grading dirt, no final trim such as in construction. Looking at my options. cheers
em? 1. Electro-magnetism? 2. Electronic moldboard? 3. Electron microscope? 4. Elected moron? 5. Ummmm...........
Have pic of a 299 with solid steel UC at the local Cat Rental Store that was set up for mulching. Other than that I haven't seen a CTL running a steel UC around here. IMO I don't think a steel UC is a good option for CTL's due to how they operate. If the machine is making long runs with out much turning they may be an option. There is just a lot of unforgiving metal on metal side movement with steel. At least with rubber tracks the rubber cushions the t bones in the tracks somewhat. JMHO.
I had steel tracks on my 299, thought they would be great as I work in a lot of rock. You're limited to single speed because they'll grenade your machine with vibration otherwise. I couldn't have the side windows open because of how loud they were and they wear on the chains I think because of the idler being smaller in relation to the constant speed I was running at. I would not do it again for a general purpose machine
I had a 279 with steel it was converted using 299 and d3c undercarriage. It was great pushed good hung on hills good. The bad rough on finishing (yards) the really bad part was the vibration and the noise. A d11 doesn't have the undercarriage noise this thing had. The neighbor called it the Sherman tank!
Only place I saw it used was on a 299D that was armored up with a mulcher on it. I'm guessing it was done because rubber tracks probably don't hold up well in that sort of terrain.
I am finding its one those situations about compromise. My CASE Minitour DL550 has rubber as I thought overall it would be better and I still think it will be. However where I am now, single grousers would ideal. I have run these machines with steel and they are louder, and slower and of course you cant use them everywhere. On a machine like a CTL, unless you are only going to be only in the dirt (and maybe not even then), you wont be happy all the time regardless. It would interesting to see if someone couldn't come up with a way to overlay rubber tracks on a single grouser steel track.
I have seen 312 and slightly large Cat excavators with rubber pads bolted to the steel track shoes. The rubber pads extended about 1/2" above the grousers. Probably would take a couple hours to swap them on/off though.
Yea, I have seen those as well. I have only seen them on triple grousers, I don't think I have ever seen them on singles. The test data on my machine showed that the single grousers had the best push ability, next was rubber tracks and then triples. So running triples doesn't make a lot of sense in this application. I was thinking of a rubber track that overlaid the singles with the single grouser setting inside the rubber track. I know there are a lot of reasons why that would not work, I am just a guy that wants the ability to run singles or rubber on the same machine.
Good info, never would have thought of those drawbacks as have only ever used steel track on full sized excavators. Was thinking of steel tracks for our 5 ton mini….will rethink that.
JMO but I think a steel UC on a 5 ton mini would perform well. Mini's are a different animal UC operating wise. I've thought about spec'ing our next 305 with steel tracks. Saw this new 304 at the dealer a couple of months ago.
My personal thoughts concerning steel on a mini is, unless your in a rock, demo type environment all the time, I don't see the benefit of it. Your limited on what you can do on improved services. Steel tracks slide around on asphalt and concrete more than do rubber. Mini excavators tend run on improved surfaces probably more than anything but a wheeled skid steer. Rubber tracks are comparatively cheap on a mini. It would likely cost 8-10 to get steel I bet, you can buy a lot of rubber tracks for that kind of money and still use it everywhere.
That would be good, we operate strictly off road, and the rubber tracks really get sliced up by sharp shale etc…
All good points, I suspect an even higher Canadian price. Will have to check out…. We took delivery of a Deere 50d with the most worn out rubber tracks I have ever seen…being ‘frugal’ I thought we will just try to walk it on site (11km) that was 2 years ago….
Just did a quick search on parts.cat and metal chains for our 305E are $2,100 a piece plus $2800 for pads and hardware. So $7K + tax. Not sure if the sprockets, rollers and idlers would need to be changed. The bolt on rubber pads add another $3,300. $40 a piece X 80. For reference OEM Bridgstone tracks are $2,300 + tax. Like KSSS said one could buy a couple of sets of OEM rubber for the same price as retrofitting. We do a lot of site demo - asphalt, concrete curbs, slabs, sidewalks, etc and it's rough on rubber tracks. The rubber on our 305 is worn smooth but haven't broke yet. If I were to go with steel I'd buy it on a new machine. Easier to price down extras when you're negotiating a new machine.
Will post up pricing as comparison for Deere (dealer here is Brandt). I know on the Deere all the lower rollers are single flange….will see what all is involved.