Hey guys, Recently we purchased 4 used track presses and wanted to ask someone with experience of similar machinery about the tooling. We are looking to make the tooling for pressing in the pins and bushes and wanted to find out what the best material for this would be? I was thinking of turning some bits out of mild steel and then hardening them but i am not sure if that will last? can anyone recommend a good steel type to use? I have some CBN bits as well i can use on our lathe if we need to turn high hardness steels as well. Thanks
How larger tracks are you planning to break?
Hey Simon, We will be doing mostly Cat 312, Cat 320, Cat 330 and i think largest would be Cat D6 dozers. Its a 250t press Thanks
IMO mild will do for that. The only time youll see a problem is if it is slightly out of square when applying pressure. I'd even consider not hardening the parts as they will then become brittle. I'd rather see a bend than shatter, especially with any degree of pressure.
Assuming you don't have a jig for everything to sit perfectly square... Maybe something else to think about?
Hi Simon, We tried Mild and like you say a tiny bit out of alignment and it deforms too much. thats the problem. I take on board your suggestion. But the tooling takes quite a bit of wear pretty quick. i was thinking of something tougher (especially for pressing the pins out etc). The good thing is that we reduce the risk of damaging the UC because the tooling is softer than the undercarriage.
Might talk to these folks, I used to deal with them and always found them helpful: http://www.wtcmachinery.com/wtcmachinery-tooling.html