I’m in the process of fixing up the hoe on a new to me 1987 cat 426. I am ready to adjust the wear pads and was wondering how you go about this. The pads don’t appear to have any screws holding them on. Perhaps somebody brazed them in or they are worn to the point where the slot is gone? I have heard 1mm is a good gap. How do you measure this when the wear surfaced are way up inside there? Thanks.
so i am looking around on the net and finding nothing. mine is the older style with long brass strips the whole length of the stick. my parts manual shows them as being 9R387. i see the new ones just have nylon down on the end. looks like a lot smarter way to go. Is there a way to convert mine to the newer style.
Yes you can but you need to be a machinist or have a machinist friend. Probably can't afford to pay someone to do it. It's a big job. Here are a few photos of what I did. Put 600 hrs on machine since, about 300 hrs of hoeing and nothing has broken yet.
thanks for the pics, i have a lathe and a mill and think i could do this, did you buy the wear pads or make them yourself. i relined the band brakes on my dozer with material from mcmaster carr. i see they also sell a wide varity of hard plastic in sheet form. I wonder if they have any solid material that would work for this. http://www.mcmaster.com/#standard-plastic-sheets/=l37q8y just to cliarfy I see the bottom pieces fit under the squares in the sides of the boom and under the plats but how do the top inside wear pads attach to the stick.
I've sent you more photos to confuse you more. The big problem with this job is that the old setup only allowed for thin slider strips. These pads are 3/4" thick so you need to make recesses or pockets to tuck them in. If you look at the top end of the inner sliding stick you will see that bottom slider plate is attached but the top one is not. The pad that fits there is the long one with a split down the centre. You will also se it has been milled thinner so that it fits in the thin space. I don't recall the name of the material but I remember them telling me it was oil impregnated wear plate. I purchased a part of a plate from Piedmond Plastics. No pointy in buying Cat parts as they won't fit and will cost 10 times more than buying a piece of plate. It's like a real hard nylon. I know by cutting it in the table saw that its at least 4 time harder than regular white nylon. The black paint is epoxy primer and the brown stuff is anti-seize for the bolts. Hope this help a bit.
that does look like a lot of work. i am not sure i can justify it for the limited use it will see at my house. i should just get mine working right and it will last for years. here is where i am at now. waiting for dipper cyl seal kit to come so i can put cyl back on and lift it up and withdraw the stick. still not sure how these strips come off. its hard to see in the pics because the website limits me in picture size so i have to shrink them down. there are some kind of small dimples where i guess screws used to be but somebody brazed them in.
Nice pics. Actually, my wear bars were made of steel, welded on the sides. I had strips on the inner stick and another set inside the dipper. The inside ones were a real chore to remove and to smooth off the weld. My inner stops were partly detached so I needed to do something or I was going to have a major jam-up. Also I need to say I enjoy this kind of challenge but I know it's not for everyone. Yours don't look so bad from your photos. I don't know what things are like inside the stick.