I would appreciate some help, advice, and trick of the trade.. I guess equipment operators are like just like motorcyclists, there are those that have been down and those that are going to go down and there are those who have thrown a track and those that are going to throw a track. I'm the first on both counts. I've looked at the exploded view in the parts manual of the track idler cushion assembly. I assume the fitting the grease fitting screws in labeled the "lubricator" is the valve I must remove to allow the grease to relieve so I can push the idler sprocket back. I can use the front blade to jack it back. Will this be enough to get the track back on, considering the track is stretched out some to begin with? It was fairly tight on the sprockets before it came off. This is the first time in the 1,100 hours I’ve had the machine I lost the track, so I am a newbie at this. There supposedly are 4 master links in the drive chain. How do you de-link a track and reinstall? I hope I don't have too, but I have no idea.
You too huh? I threw the right track on a JD450C years ago, and we did just what you're thinking, removed the zerk fitting and compressed the idler cushion then with tamper bars and a lot of grunting got it back on. Since you've got the hoe, you could position the bucket and use a come-along instead of prying like we did.