I have a Deere 450 H LGP that is breaking 3-4 track bolts a day. It is root raking in dense palmettos and scrub oak. Undercarriage is about shot. Are the sprockets somehow breaking them? There are no unusual pops heard. Are we over torqueing them? Or is this normal at the end of the undercarriage life.
Not normal at least on other brands, no experience with Deere. We had tracks worn so bad the bolts had the heads almost completely worn off and not break. We did have a bunch of trouble with aftermarket track bolts in years past. We tried to run them and started to break a bolt or two every week. I finally gave up and bought a complete set of OEM bolts and never broke another one. Not saying that's what you have but maybe.
Track bolts shouldn't break if they are tightened correctly OEM or aftermarket. You should have 9/16 track bolts on your machine. I would check your tracks for loose bolts and possible retighten any that are loose. Good Luck
If your sand traps are worn very low on the pads, it will let the the limbs and roots catch in there and put a lot more pressure on the bolts as they work their way toward the bolts. I would check the grade of bolt that was installed the last time you changed the tracks (if you have done that). Should be grade 8 bolts. I have broken pads in the rock rather than break the bolts off, but I have had bolts come up missing so it does happen.
Not trying to badmouth aftermarket generally. We've used aftermarket track bolts since without a problem. On that set after we started breaking bolts I tried re-torquing all the bolts with a torque wrench. Only about half of the ones I tried would torque to spec, the rest would just yield at about 75%. Bad heat treat or just poor metal.
For the price difference it's hard to buy OEM...aftermarket can be had for about $1.00/hole for bolt & nut.
I have a case 450C that I just installed new sprockets and chains re used the track pads had to torch all the old bolts off as the heads wouldnt take a socket. I installed new OEM bolts and Nuts then torqued them to 100ft pounds have had them on for over 500 hours with out any issues.
I just bought a TD7G. Doing the same thing POND DIGGER did plus rollers. My track chains were so worn that I removed them without splitting them. Really, really loose. None of the pad bolts were missing or broken. Also had to torch them off. New chains and sprockets are made in Spain and new pad bolts made in Italy. It is hard to know what quality anything is now-a-days unless you deal with it all the time and learn the hard way. The biggest frustration is that it varies so much batch to batch.
Past 2 days have not broken any more but it is not raking. Now it is pushing down piles of millings for a road.
One thing to consider, an LGP machine is not the ideal machine for raking and clearing. Running over logs and stumps on the outsides of those wide pads puts a lot of leverage stress on pad bolts as well as track chain. Not saying you can't use one for this purpose, just saying it's rough on them.
My D 3C series 3 Hystate dozer which seems to break a lot of pad bolts. I have the standard pad width with the XL undercarrage. I have always replaced with OEM bolts. Does anyone know the proper tourque for these bolts? Soil in NH is very rocky.
For the 9/16" domed head bolts on my TD7G ( about the same size as D3C )the service manual says 170 ft-lb for grade 8 and 235 ft-lb for grade 8.5. TD7G max pad width is 16". It also says don't intermix bolt types but doesn't say why.
You really need to check with Cat. It seems to me (memory is useless) that they specify a torque plus x degrees of extra turn. I think track bolts in general are supposed to be much tighter than you would expect.
According to my undercarriage book. The min. and max. torque spec on a 9/16 track bolt is 190-210 ft lbs. Good Luck.
Buy cheap. Buy twice, or 3 times even. Plus the pain of machine downtime........... It's usual practice with track shoe bolts to put plenty of graphite anti-seize under the bolt head and on the thread before installing. Then torque to recommended value. Torqued right I've never seen epidemics of shoe bolt breakage, maybe an odd one but no more than that.
Current Cat machines the track bolts are "torque" + 120 degrees. Reason is to take friction out of the equation and make sure the bolts are pulled down to the correct stretch. On a D10 it's 650 + 120 deg and that adds up to a torque of about 2000 ft.lb. from our tests.
All Cat nuts & bolts have been made in Italy by the same company since the mid-60's AFAIK. That doens't worry me as much as seeing things like Cat differential housing castings with "China" & "India" cast into them .....
65 ft. lb.+1/3 turn.
From what is being said it appears that I need to torque to bolts to the proper specs. The old 1 inch ratchet and 6 ft of pipe is not cutting it. Out comes the torque wrench. Thank you all.
190-210 lb/ft for 9/16" track pad bolts.
A 450H should have 9/16" track shoe bolts and the spec for torquing them is 65 lbft (2 passes) + 120°. Also make sure the rounded edge of the nut is against the link.