I finished the next video in the series about tracks and undercarriage. This time it's about the Caterpillar high drive and what to look for when inspecting it. Feel free to post comments and like the video if it provides some information that you could use in the future. A like on YouTube would be appreciated as well.
I thought it was a good lesson in the high drives. Even as long as I’ve messed with them I had a couple aha moments. You have a new subscriber
There was obviously a lot of work went into producing that video. Well done.
Thanks Nige. It always means more from those who understand what they are seeing
I gained some new inspection insights when I go look for friends at sales. Nice video.
Thanks for posting John. I currently have rollers and idlers at 50%,grousers at 75%good,bushes at 80%worn,rail at 82%good and sprockets at 100%worn. Tractor is working in nice soft sandstone,but it's super abrasive. Previous D9T,D8L and 155's struggle to get 1500 hours on complete set.Turning has never been a successful story apparently. Machines were operated in 2nd cog. These days,I've got 1200 hours on general duty Cat chains before sticking £480 ITR segments and taking them on another 450 hours before selling that particular D8R. Cannon wear was still in spec and rollers were just starting to rub bushes,and I feel I would have achieved 1900 to 2000 hours. However,the D8T has the positive pin retention heavy duty chains with around 1200 hours in sandstone and 400 hours on general muck. The D8R and D8T are operated only in 1st gear and are treated very steady. I have Cat out frequently monitoring the tracks,and have been advised a turn is due now. I'm positive in my head,that the general duty Cat chains have given same bush wear as the positive pin chaines at a cost of £4000 less. Cat want £5200 to turn my ppr chains plus I'll have the cost of any hardware they don't reuse and the cost of transporting the track groups about the country to the track shop. The bill could easily be £6500 plus downtime. For reference,A brand new set of general duty Cat chaines are 9k(although they'll do them at 8k),a set of ppr chaines are 14k,a set of general ITM chaines are £5800 complete set and a set of ITR ppr chains are £7800 for the complete set. Million dollar question
You are referring to the D8T I take it then Nicky..? Are the percentage you quote above "% worn" or "% of wear material remaining".? It's not 100% clear. If the numbers are % worn then my suggestion would be to stick another set of ITR sprocket segments on it and give it beans until the tracks reach the scrap limit. If at that point the grousers have more than 50% wear material left on them you could invest in a set of new chains and swap the existing shoes over to the new chains. I've never yet seen an operation where a pin & bush turn was justified financially. There may be some out there and I just have never worked on one, I dunno. We don't turn pins & bushes, we just run them until the tracks fall off. For mining (and also I would have thought anything larger than a D6) IMHO PPR chains are the only way to go and we never use aftermarket, they are cheap for a reason.
Yes,Nige D8T. My thoughts are to run them out. I've never had financial viability out of the ones I've turned in the past. As for ppr,I totally agree in D8 up in hard rock,but I've run general duty in this sand for years with no issues with pins migrating or breaking links. FYI....Segments 100% buggered,bushes 80% buggered but rails 82% good left. This tells me the the bushes are wearing much faster than the rails. The rest of the Cat undercarriage is wearing sound enough for my thoughts,it's just the ppr bushes wear out as fast as the general duty ones, therefore,I'm not getting any bonus or value out of the ppr chains (and they cost 4k more!). Don't get me wrong ,I've ripped with bigger tractors in granite and whinstone,and I believe the Cat undercarriage is the tool for the job
When the time comes,I'll be buying a set of chains.I happen to have a brand new set of 24" Cat grousers in stock,so I'll simply buy some chains and fit the new pads at my leisure. As for the existing chains,the pads are currently around 70% good,so I reckon they would be around the 40%,left when my chains are eventually shot,so they will go back into the shed until I need to fit them on new chains again one day
Only 18% wear on links if 82% left. Interesting. Are you sure the PSSR measured them right..? If correct, that little amount of wear on probably the most high-cost item in the tracks might just be enough to convince me to do a pin & bush turn. TBH I've never come across so little wear on links combined with so much on bushes. I wonder out loud if it is something to do with the interaction between the aftermarket sprocket segments and the Cat bushes.? Maybe my thoughts about another set of aftermarket segments are off the mark.? What's the track roller wear like.? Higher on 1/2 & 7/8 I imagine. Problem is with the arrangement of SF & DF rollers it's harder than it appears to swap rollers from the ends to the centre of the track frames.
No Nige,the entire undercarriage on this D8 is all genuine Cat fitted at same time. As for the link height measurement being correct,the chap is an old timer that seems to know the score
Rollers are all around 50% give or take. Back idlers are actually 52%,worn and front 48%worn. I didn't get him to measure each roller this time as time was an issue on Friday,but Im not too far off the mark with 50% across the board
Slightly off topic,I run Cat cutting edges as they seem fair priced and wear well. However,the Cat general duty rip tip lasts longest,but costs far too much per hour.The John Moor tip has been. Cheapest in the trails per hour at £40.a tip,although MST is now supplying the tips at £90 but they last more than twice as long. Cat haven't a prayer on tips in our particular application. As for shank tectors,assume the ITR tector and Cat tector were absolutely free,the ITR tector pisses all over the Cat one. I have also pictorial measurements at various service intervals that show similar wear on the shanks themselves..... The Cat shank is £7000 although I payed £5800.The Italian CGR shanks made in China are £2200 ......... I'm not suggesting the Cat tracks,shanks and tips are not the right deal for hard rock applications,but in the soft abrasive sandstone,they are more cost per hour than the cheapo stuff. I'm a massive Cat fan,but I'm struggling to be convinced that they aren't significantly more expensive to run per hour in the sandstone. I could be missing something here ,but........
For sandstone have you tried ARM-coated ripper tips..? A good option in relatively soft but abrasive material I would've thought.
Never heard of it????
Thanks for the insight nicky! I've experienced similar types of wear rates on tractors running in glacial till over laying sandstone. The high silica till, when wet, becomes lapping compound and takes out any sliding component wear right away. Sprocket segments and bushings on the reverse sides were maybe lasting 1,200 hours in the winters but the links, idlers and rollers running 2,500 or more. If we put the new undercarriage on in May, we could get to the middle of the following April. If we had to put the undercarriage on in November, we would be rolling chains on in June. When I was at the dealer, they got chains from the gold miners in Alaska all the time for a turn. All were D10 and 11 with PPR and all got wet turns. The chains had to be shipped down to Seattle and then shipped back up. I seem to recall the mine owners had their own supply barge which was running anyway but I could be wrong on that. Maybe running in sub zero weather made a difference in the way things got worn. One place I worked I put some IPD extended life chains on a D8H. The rails were twice as thick as found on any other brand of chain at that time. Instead of turning pins and bushings, I ran the first all the way through the bushings and then bought all new sealed pins and bushings and got the entire life of the rails. I don't think IPD is still in that business and it only worked for the D8 but in those days, I didn't find anything that worked any better. That D9H in the video is used for ripping and scraper operation and they are mixing and matching components from different tractors in order to maximize the wear life on all components. The chains on that machine came from a different machine that got all new. They were going to run the segments till you could shave and then throw some used ones on to run the rest of the undercarriage all the way out. I asked to use that machine for the video because it was a mixed bag like you might see at an auction or on a curb stoner's lot. Thank you both for the insight and your experiences.
Thanks for the insightful reply on the silica and on the unusual wear on the D9 John.. Of interest,The track gent didn't fancy the idea of a system one undercarriage on the D8T for this application.He reckoned the wet sand grinds the seals out in no time~
After speaking with a mutual colleague on here,I've heard abit more on ARM GET products.
TBH I wouldn't consider SystemOne undercarriage on anything larger than a D6 and even then only if it was going to be in really light work. What you're doing ripping sandstone with that 8T cannot by any stretch of the imagination be considered "light work". I think it would tear SystemOne U/C to shreds.
So far most of what I have heard about System 1 is a mixed bag. Komatsu now uses the same track system and they call it Plus. I think a more descriptive name is parallel link, rotating bushing chain. The idlers on the Cat system ride on the bushings now instead of the links which might be a reason the seals show the short life. The Komatsu runs the links on the idlers. At least Komatsu puts a split link in their chains from the factory.
I agree with you both
Some early variations of System One had a conventional idler but the problem with the bush seals was there from the beginning. In my experience two things kill S1, wide shoes and sand. They can’t stand the edge of the shoes running on spillage round the blade edge. SALT seems a lot more robust in these conditions, in fact in all conditions.
Have seen nothing or heard nothing good of S1, do not understand the value when does not stand up to nearly anything.
Abit of an update for you. I've decided on a new set of Cat segments at £940 for both sides. They were fitted on Monday morning. Finning are giving me some strange prices over the duration of these 2 tractors in the last 3 years. It seems,I tend to get approx 25/30% cheaper if I simply ask my chap on the stores counter.He consistently offers me his best price first, whereas my Product support chap seems to struggle and keeps coming up with better offers after consulting his bosses. They've also made an error in the pricing up of the pin and bush turn..........It's now a £1000 cheaper. None of this caper gives me any confidence in them at all to be honest. As for pricing up the ARM tips,I've had no reply yet.
In saying all that,the product support chap is quick on his replies and service. I feel he's been held back somewhat by management into squeezing more coin out of me. That's business and fair game,but is slowly driving me elsewhere.
I had some work done in Finning track shop a couple of weeks back, they charged £75/hr. I don’t have a problem with that rate but I suspect they padded the hours for the job a bit. Taking two sets of S1 for some new box links this week, it’ll be interesting to see how they charge for this job.
The product support people get paid a commission on the sale so the more they charge, the more they make. The parts people are hourly so they don't care. If you have a good parts guy, he will let you know about all the promotions and ways to get a better deal.
A good man on a Parts Counter can be worth his weight in gold. Look after him Nicky.
I've known the gent nearly 30 years on the counter,and we get on very well.He's often pointed out a few things I need that I've forgotten to order. This is priceless service,but Finnings are currently driving parts ordering through a parts app to avoid human interaction.
I've been to the ripper this morning to turn the MST hardox long centerline tip at 52 hours. It's certainly going to squeeze another shift out of it. Tomorrow,I have an identical Cat long centerline tip to replace it with. I've moved to another quarry last Monday which is much harder,yet seems less abrasive to me.No powder sand builds up any where on the machine.
Nearly all large HE/Heavy Truck providers are swapping to electronics applications to speed up their end, to seemingly simplify their delivery of products while at the same time reducing the needs of manpower as our Old Friends at these counters retire. Money talks in these conditions, they are no longer quite so concerned of quality of service but quantity. We have to make multiple calls/trips, they only need pull our requests.
I suppose part of what you are saying is true but then again why are all the Cat dealers adding personnel to their sales forces? You have the whole goods people getting sales territories split up and new people added to them. Cat forced the dealers to add a boiler room sales force as well to call all customers even if those customers have already been dealing with a regular sales rep. New product support people don't come from the parts department anymore. Most I've had dealings with come from off the street and seem to be selected first by who they know, and second on what they look like. Anyone with industry knowledge gets cycled to the side jobs like administration or gets pushed toward service. Add to that the customer lists or territories are getting cut and most of those guys can barely make a living anymore. Commission sales on small territories encourage dishonesty and little to no knowledge of the product lines mean end users start looking for other companies to supply their needs. From my point of view, Caterpillar is trying to move toward direct sales and dropping the dealer networks all together. Want to buy a part, log in and pick what you need, how you want it shipped, the delivery point and now you give them a credit card number. Want to buy a machine, log in and work through a spec log list, work your financing on line, give a delivery location and Big Brother will provide.
Not so much around here dealers have standing hiring ads, seems fewer and fewer are even applying even as they do try to split off zones.
I fitted the Cat long centerline ripper tip on this morning. I've totalled 61 hours on the identical spec MST Easco tip(including 8 hours on it bring turned around). By my reakoning.....At 61 hours and a cost of £82 the MST tip has done well enough. The identical Cat tip is £140 and will need to rip for 104 hours to simply break even on cost with the MST tip. FYI,the D8 is ripping 2 landfill cells out next to each other.The operator spends a 10.5 hour shift in each cell to allow for differing hardness in the sandstone and to give the test a fair crack of the whip
Today
In my experience the Cat product was a huge waste of money. We were ripping with a Komatsu D375 with a single tooth ripper back in the early nineties and tried different teeth. The Komatsu tooth would go about twelve hours. Next was a Cat long tooth and it was lucky to get four hours of ripping. We made a bet with the Esco rep that if he supplied the quarter shank and guaranteed to at least triple the work life of the Cat tooth we would buy a case of points. If his product didn't hold up he would buy a new quarter shank so we could switch back. The Esco teeth went nearly four times longer and we converted all the rest of the dozers to Esco products. The change to the Esco product changed the operation of drilling and shooting glacial till to just ripping it. That was a trailer load of powder saved each week and the drill and shoot after that was only used for sandstone. Maybe the products have changed since then? Let us know what you come up with Nicky.
If the tractor is being rented by the customer per operating hour do you need to make any adjustments for differences in downtime necessary to change/turn ripper tips, just in the spirit of keeping the playing field level..? The Cat long tip has approx. 10% more wear metal on it than an intermediate length tip. I emailed you with ARM photos yesterday. Did you get it.? How about some photos of the tips that come off.? It would be interesting to see how worn down they are.
John, that was an excellent video and very informative. I will subscribe to your YouTube channel immediately now that I know it is there. Thanks again for sharing your knowledge and helping others continually, you are truly a wealth of knowledge.
Thanks for the kind comments. I'm working on putting together another video on the new technology. Caterpillar System One and Komatsu Plus is in the writing stage. I should have it done in a couple of weeks or less.
John,I'm starting to think you are right in the Cat g.e.t been a waste of money.
Nige,The tractor doesn't stop in the 10.5 hour shift for tea breaks.It stops for refueling,tip changing and **** time. The 61 hours are clock hours whilst the tip is on the tractor.I'm not actually monitoring tip in the ground time as I'm not there all the time,but it's measured over the job.I suspect actual tip in the ground time will be around 40 hours. I will get pic of the worn tips in due course chaps. I'll take a look at my e.mail later Nige. Thanks.
Cat fit a master link (not a split link) that clamps onto the pins. You undo the bolts and it’s a pry bar or hammer job to knock the outer links off. Not too convinced on the idlers killing the seals. After all, they run on the sprocket which is actively pushing at them. We ran a D6K with shouldered idlers and the bushes still went.
I had a knowledgeable fellow tell me today that he’s seen issues with S1 on wide tracks. Sort of backed up what I was thinking.
I've changed S1 links on D6Rs with standard gauge and pads. Customer keeps 4-6 links in the parts container and all of the (finger pinching) press tools.
My source was pretty emphatic about what they call the box sections being packed with debris and then riding over the idlers causing the bushing and seal failures. It also caused a lot of front idler axle shaft failures in the early days. Now most of the machine I've looked at had relief holes cut between the pad bolts. The look like snow pads now days. If you look at the sprocket teeth you will see they have a relief cut at the base in between the teeth to help clear the packed material. I know for a fact that the chains on new machines ordered for the local rental fleet did not have master links installed from the factory. I was told it was an add charge for them. It might have changed in the last year or so and I would suspect most other Cat dealers just ordered them in on new machines as a matter of course. I agree totally on the wide track statement.
A close up of the MST Easco tip at 61 hours
I know the master link is an option, should have put “Cat can fit...” be interesting to know what your fellow’s machine was running in. All of the machines i’ve operated with S1, packing with mud hasn’t caused the problems, but running in fine granite sand has started to take bushes out in a matter of weeks. The wide track 6K suffered the most.
What does it look like underneath in the LH photo..? Just wondering out loud whether or not there was a hole in it..?
No hole in it. Looks the same top and bottom. So far,I'm 38 hours on the same spec Cat tip. However,it's wearing in a different way all together than the MST Easco tip. I'll be off scraping next week,but the pilot is monitoring it and will get photo's when it's dead
If you want to get your last pound of flesh out of the tip run it until it gets a hole in it, then turn it over and do the same on the other side. Cheapskate.? Me..? Nah ….. It'll need a fair bit of attention from the pilot if you plan on that course of action though.
We had operators running them till there was a hole all the time. We ended up putting noses and quarter shanks on regularly as well. Once the dirt touches that soft shank, the teeth will get stuck and not come off without extraordinary means. I removed part of a tooth with a twenty pound hammer. Most of the metal stayed on the shank. The part that came off was stuck half way in the middle of my right leg between the tibia and the fibula. It took surgery two months later to remove it. It kind of looks like an arrow head and is sharp as a razor.
OWIE!!
Nige,I turned the MST Easco tip and got another 8 hours out of it (approx 15/20%). The driver and I tend to change tip when the tractor starts riding up and out of the ground due to bluntness.When we have to start operating the top rams to alter the pitch too often we tend to know it's ready to change out. However,I feel the Cat tip may stay sharp until the death. Nige,I have replied to your e.mail sir. John,that sounds rather a rather unagreable way to treat your leg mate!!☺
The hole in my leg was so clean that the doctor asked if I thought the piece was still in there. It lit up like a search light on the Xray. I'm paying for those types of education now days.
John Same thing happened to me on my left leg ,working on a D9T ripper just missed my artery,no feeling around the incision. Like being shot, arrowhead shaped piece
Have had small pieces of 'Fly' metal come to the surface over the years, turns black comes up like a sore then pimples out and the foreign body slips out. One had been at home in me since 76 or 77 uncertain as to absolute year, came up in 2017 on right calf area.
It's kind of funny we had similar experiences. Even down to the shape of the shrapnel. Did you get your removed? Mine felt like it got hit with a small hammer and I hit the tooth a couple of more times. Noticed some blood on my boot and pulled up the coveralls to check it out. Lost my balance a bit and put weight on that foot and blood shot out about three feet. I clamped the hole with my hand and limped over to the truck. Got the dozer operator to haul me to the office and they had the engineer haul me to the hospital. No searing pain or anything. That came a couple of days later.
When I read your post, it brought back the memory of the account Wow this happened to someone else. Felt like a pin prick,then John, mine felt like needle prick, then felt something warm running down my leg, finished replacing tip. Took Off my rain gear and coveralls, seen blood ,picked up my tools got in the service truck, drove to the scale shack boss drove me to the hospital. Had surgery next day with the aide of ultrasound . The piece was 3” into the thigh, had the ripper tooth and piece for yrs, threw it in the scrap bin when I moved this spring. Doc was worried about it moving, really lucky
I guess that kind of makes us blood brothers. Mine went in just below the middle of my calf. They left mine in for a few weeks. It was in a bad place to try to retrieve. Doc did time in Vietnam and said he sent lots of guy home with more shrapnel than I was carrying. My foot would be numb in the morning and after falling on the floor two or three times each morning before I got feeling back, my wife got aggravated and told me to get it removed. They did surgery to get mine out also. I still have the piece in an old camera film bottle.
Spent a week off work. My Boss said it was my fault, he was bipolar shouldn’t have ever been a boss, but was related to the owner. He didn’t last long, I could tell you some stories.
Well,after reading the thread and all the gory details, I'll refrain from turning the tips to squeeze the last bit out of them.It seems to raise the risk of holeing it through,which then becomes a pain in the leg getting the buggers off.
Increase wear life https://www.thefabricator.com/produ...IKDgJQjLLEo9nMuJB08iMI0RMe45i89wg4hXVpZbqilIM
Used hard facing Wire when wrench at the Utility on the auger flighting and flat earth bits, on the Carbide bit headed augers used it on the climbing side of the flighting to extend wear time where also used it in smaller machine cutting edges and chain style trencher teeth root bases.
We still turned tips after my little faux pas. Just do it before you get a hole in it. The other issue was operators that didn't pay attention and would lose a tip and still keep ripping.
Well,there's 45 hours on that Cat tip,and it's got to go another 60 to break even with the MST Easco tip. Can't see it happening! Unfortunately,the D8 is going on blade duties for next 2 weeks,so won't have the final results just yet.
Do NOT believe a flip will do you much value there. Run it til she gets weak then swap to a replacement.
Better pic! In truth,we never bother flipping them DMiller. I've just flipped this one for the benefit of the trail.In the 61 hours we got,8 hours were after the flip.
Ditto, I've never flipped a ripper tooth in 53+ years. Purchase aftermarket like BlackCat and have A.R.M. applied either using Mig matrix-TC granular GMA carbide embedding process or Plasma Arc. Plasma Arc is better for higher impact conditions because the TC granules are fused directly into the parent parts' base metal, versus an overlaying weld's puddle. Local outfit https://www.broco-rankin.com/hardfa...IlZCG8BxaS5dImqlUcY2-CAj2I4DxaBN7T4HUZUWOaUQM
Right chaps. The verdict is in. The two tips uses were Cat long centerline tip and MST Easco long centerline tip recommended by their respective manufactures for my particular application. I'll enclose pic. As Tony Coates says,what can't speak can't lie
If I figured that right, the ESCO tooth costs 44 percent less to use than the Cat. I think they have improved since my days in the coal mine.
You figured right John. The Cat tip cost over £1 per hour more than the Easco. I'll be giving MST cutting edges a try next. The Cat ones I fitted in February were £1000 and seem to work well enough. I'm also happy with Finnings price on the cutting edges,but their price and quality of their shank tector and tips is dreadfully lacking in putting any sort of smile on my face. There will be no more Cat shank hardware in either of the quarries I work in.
Give the info to the Cat people and see if they get a little more responsive on other wear parts. I got better prices on dozer edges and bits after we abused the product support rep about the ripper hardware. He might give you a good deal to not try someone else's wear products.
John, unfortunately I don't have that much pull with them as I only run 1 D8 these days.Times have changed on our shores.They do show interest until it comes to pricing,then it's often the same old story. Quality come at a cost is the sort of line,however, clearly it comes at a greater cost than Esco in this case. I'm not saying their quality is not up to the job,it's just too expensive per hour. Will Cat cutting edges really last twice as long as MST?,I don't know yet,but I doubt it,but they'll need to if they want to be financially equal to MST. As for tracks,in 30 years of D4 to D8 ownership,I've never been impressed with Cat hourly costs.In saying all that,I've only run them in mixed clays and soils etc,never had a D8 dedicated to one job,such as the sandstone I'm in now.I've always convinced myself that Cat must be so expensive simply because it comes into its own on D8 size upwards in real tough conditions,but I'm not so sure these days......... The fact is,the ITR shank tector lasts longer than the Cat tector,and the MST Easco tip lasts longer than the Cat tip in my particular application,then when you also take the price into consideration,Cat looses the race by a country mile.
I will say something positive about the Cat tip.......In the harder rock,I swear it made ripping easier on the tractor,thus more productive and cost efficient. However,the bean counters will NEVER EVER see that,but I have concluded that if ever I get to the stage where the D8 is too small for the hardness of the rock,I'll personally pay for the Cat tip and see how it goes before throwing the towel in and buying a D9. The Cat tip did stay sharper which would prove itself cost effective in a hard rock quarry.
I know it’s hard to convince the bean counters, but the driver ought to be cost per cubic meter produced, not cost per hour. Also if the tip made ripping easier did the fuel burn come down also.?
Have you got rid of the 8’s and boxes, Nicky? What have you got left?
Not noticeable as such. Was burning around 37 litres per hour consistently
Yes,the D8 and boxed went 2 years ago mate,but I still work with them seasonal
I upgraded the ripping D8 last spring from a D8R to a D8T
How are you finding the T? And where is it working nowadays?
The T is simply the best tractor I've ever driven.I'm biased obviously,but there it is. I have a number of customers that have quarries in the North that seem happy to share the tractor as non of them have full time work. Sometimes it only works a couple of days a week,sometimes it has to be split shifted 6 days.