What do you give up when you convert a dozer from steel tracks to rubber tracks?

[LOGDOG]

Cool. I'll check it out. I may have seen it the other day actually. Thanks!

[Gary_C]

The only place I've seen those hard rubber tracks is on those military tanks and APC's. The rubber pads will let you go fast but will not push much. And what good is a dozer that can't push?

And on slippery spots they are helpless and don't even talk about ice.

[submarinesailor]

And on slippery spots they are helpless and don't even talk about ice.

Ice in Louisiana??  I'm going to need to think about that one........... : ??? : ??? : ;D ;D

Bruce

[mog5858]

i would not do the rubber tracks. a friend of mine i do welding for has a little ride on skid-stear from valmeer and he only getting like 150 houre out of a set of tracks there not whering out just braking or will not stay on. i think you would lose alot of weaght by droping the steal ones and if you wont to push we all know that you have to have the weaght.

[LOGDOG]

Yep leaning away from the rubber tracks at this point. Should have some numbers from the JD dealership towards the end of the week on what the repairs may add up to.

Mog ...150 hrs out of a set of tracks? Is he running rubberbands on there? Something ain't right with that. That's like 4 work weeks. I'd be tossing that machine back in the lap of the dealership I bought it from (if he bought it new).

[Randy88]

Rubber tracks are expensive, steel is the way to go, I have a jd450 as well along with about three other bigger dozers and some excavators, all steel tracks, the part that was left out here is that steel is fixable, if you break a link or a bushing in a link, just replace that link and run them some more, with a rubber track once its broke, throw it away and buy new, I've had dozers that we replaced several links per chan per year or pads due to damage and wear.   

Just jump in the seat and run it, your going to fix it sometime anyhow, might just as well put some hours on it, anything other than a new undercarriage is a percent of new so wear it out.    Pads aren't a big deal, they can be pretty well gone and still work fine depending on the type of work your doing and the condition of the chain are the biggest thing, or rails as its called, that needs to be descent but the rollers as long as they don't leak oil can run a long time, idlers and sprockets need attention on an as needed basis, the point being your not doing work for hire putting on several thousand hours per year so its not that important to have it right up to snuff, theres no need to put 6 grand into an undercarriage that would last 1000-4000 hours if your only going to put several hundred hours total on the machine, nobody else would.    If all the components work so to speak and the dozer moves and its not leaking oil out of the rollers and the bushing aren't cracked or broken and the pads don't catch on anything, I"d say you've got the battle won, go push dirt today maybe tomorrow you'll have to spend some money but that tomorrow might be months or years away.   Unless your making a living using it every day don't get too excited, if the pads have even a little grip on them it'll still push and do its job, if the pads are a little beat up, overlook it and use them, new ones can be just as beat up after a few hours depending on what type of work you do and things you drive over. I once saw a dozer that all the bushings in the chains were broke, the sprockets had no teeth left on them at all, none of the rollers were any good, all had the seals gone hundreds of hours ago and the front idlers had bearings out, my question was how did he drive it onto the trailer to get it here to be fixed?   The answer was, it didn't get in this condition over night, he's run it hundreds of hours like this, question was, how? answer, by sitting in the seat and turning up the radio to drown the noise, remember the key thing here was it ran and he got his money's worth out of it.   I had no more questions. 

Nobody even touched on the fact rubber deteriorates over time and unless you use them all the time they dry rot and crack or get old and brittle and also most have a cable inside of them that stretches over time and once they are out of adjustment you can't take a link out of the chain so you throw them away.  They run quieter but one guy told me that way they quietly drained his wallet, the noise steel makes he figured was costing him a fraction as much per hour and the noise didn't bother him after that

[LOGDOG]

Good points Randy. I got the estimate back from the JD dealership. They did include a new "track group" in the estimate for just shy of $4,000.00. The reason they did was because some of the pads had the bolt holes wallowed out and the rep didn't feel like they could be tightened properly as they were, and taking all of the bolts out to determine which ones needed attention and which ones didn't could eat up a lot of billable time. Well, that was obviously just a shortcut on their part. Then the rep suggested that we weld the underside of the pads to the chain....just stretch the chain out upside down, line everything up, and weld the pads in place. Problem with that is that the chain is good, nothing wrong with it even be the JD guys own admission. If we weld the pads to the chain that hurts or ruins our chances of being able to swap out pins and bushings or do general maintainence on the track. Then on the site YesterdaysTractors I had a fella recommend just welding the heads of Grade 8 bolts to the top of the pads and infilling the wallowed out irregularities where they exist and bolt them from the underside. That way they'd be tight, but if the pad needed to be replaced, just unbolt, pull the pad off with the welded bolt attached and replace with a fresh one. We wouldn't have that luxury if they were welded to the chain. Another guy suggested using Grade 8 washers beneath the heads of the bolts torqued down with an impact wrench. Truth be told a guy could probably welded the circumference of the washer to the top of the pad which would leave the bolt free to come and go but still "define" the bolt holes better than those that are wallowed out at the moment. I tend to favor the washer route.

I've definitely gone away from the idea of a rubber track. There's a lot of good meat on these tracks and it will likely last me several years before I'd need to do anything in the way of replacing the entire track group. By then that little dozer should have earned his keep.

[Coon]

Just remember that washers are often made of softer material that will slop out in a short time bringing you back to square 1. Even being that you mention grade 8 washers if there is any play whatsoever between the bolts and washers a wearing action will be present when in motion and especially in turns.   In my opinion you would be better off welding the bolt head as you described as you would be able to get rid of much of the side play. 

Brad.

[Randy88]

Don't weld the bollts in or the heads down either way you can't unbolt them, you'll end up torching off the undersides of the nuts to get them off, how many are loose to begin with, usually if you torque them down good they should stay tight and don't bother much, use locktight on the threads and they stay pretty good.    The washers are softer and that deosn't work very good, the last guy is right about being softer and it'll egg them out.  The thing I'd recommend is to only take off the loose pads and I usually weld the hole back shut and redrill just two holes, opposite corners and then rebolt them back down and they should stay, but we do it all ourselves so its no big deal.    I'd never weld any pads on the chain ever, then you are sunk if you have problems.     To be totally honest it really doesn't hurt a lot to run the pads with some loose ones on, if your not putting a lot of hours on the machine I wouldn't sweat it much unless say over half are loose, I've just put new bolts in loose pads and impacted them down with an inch impact and let them go awhile, they might run for hundreds of hours, for that matter I've already run a dozer for an entire season with a half dozen loose pads on it because we didn't have time to fix it and took care of it in the off season.    My biggest concern is I'd end up losing them and had to buy new ones to replace them but thats only happened a few times.   Of all the machines I've ever run I've never repaced a pad because it was loose and sloopy, we either torqued them back down with new bolts or welded back up the holes and redrilled them to fit or used a die grinder to reshape the holes once we have the pad back on the dozer with one bolt, thats why we don't reweld all the holes we fit it back on the machine with at least one and then die grind the others to fit bolts and then torqued them down and ran them, for that matter, usually you just need two holes to be good and that will keep the pad from walking itself loose and the other two bolts if tight are to help hold as well, the only way pads can get worn holes is from being loose, if tight they never will get egged out.we seldom ever get the bolts to come back out we always end up torching them off and putting in new ones.    If the chain is good you've got the battle mostly won as far as expense is concerned.    I don't know what type of work your doing or how many hours your putting on but if its just for your own use the last thing I'd do is spend a lot on pads or worry much about them as far as being beat up or needing to be replaced because they are loose, remember whoever you got the machine from has been running it like it is for hundreds of hours if not thousands and unless the pads are bent or mangled beyond recognition its been running for a long time and been used like it is.   I don't know if you have a welder and torch or angle grinder but its not too tough to rebuild pads, we even have to reweld the pads once in a while after torching off bolts to get them off, we cut a little deep on the bolt and it cups some out of the pad and we just weld it back in so the pad is level on top where the bolt sits and put them back on.    The pad has to be flat where the bolt head sits usually if they are loose for a while the bolt wears a cut in the top of the pad so before putting it back on grind it flat and then rebolt it.    The washer thing is a waste of time as far as I'm concerned and if the grouser is worn enough so that the bolt head sticks up above the grouser bar we usually just grind off the bolt head so its below the bar and keep going, now on the dozers I make a living with thats the time I either weldup the bar height on the pad or replace the pad but if your doing it for yourself put it back to work.   If I can help you with anything else let me know.   

[Randy88]

I totally foregot to mention there are plenty of aftermarket places that specialize in tracks, sounds like the jd guy didn't know a lot about fixing anythng to me if he recommended welding the pads on, the aftermarket places should be a lot cheaper than jd factory replacements, remember jd gets a big paycheck to handle the stuff, you need to talk to an undercarrage place that specializes in only undercarriages and parts for them, put on berco or the korean stuff for what your doing and it'll be a fraction of the cost.  The thing that burns me the most is jd doesn't make amy of those parts they outsource all of them so jd replacement isn't jd anyhow its whoever they got the best deal from to build it to their specs. Also don't unbolt any pad to see if its worn, theres no need to, if its tight leave it alone, only do the ones you can wiggle by hand that are loose now.  Just drive the dozer ahead and get off and wiggle the pads, mark the loose ones with chalk or marker and move it again and do that until you've been around the whole track and keep track of how many loose ones and go from there.     I looked at the pictures of your dozer and from what I see without being close up and there I'd say bring it up to me and I'd run it a few months just like it is.    As they say kick the tires and light the fires and lets go move some dirt and put it to the test so I'd know what to fix and what it needs first.   Have you used the machine much yet, is the torque converter good, does it shift underpower and lug like it should, is the shift snappy as they say, and does it run like that after its good and hot, any noises with the powertrain, will it spin the tracks and lug the engine down under a full load in all the gears, does it suck oil and smoke under load, does the transmission run hot and make noise after a while, how many oil leaks do I have to fix, is the hydraulic pump good and will it pick up the blade while under power and a full load, does it turn like it should or are the steering clutches shot, does it start hard after its hot, does the engine run hot and need radiator and water pump work. after all of the above I'd then go and say oh yea I guess the pads are still on and may need some attention after I used it hard for about a week and eliminated all the high priced problems first to make sure its a good machine and worth my time to put any undercarriage work into it  but thats just me.   

[Buck]

Hey Dog, randy is going the long form to tell you what I was saying when I told ya about Mike in Nacadoches, Tx.

[LOGDOG]

I see that Buck. After all the conversations I've had over this machine everyday has brought something new.

Randy ...welcome to the Forum. I can tell we're going to like having you around.  ;D You know all in all the dozer didn't need a ton. I had a 101 point inspection done by John Deere. I told them I wanted all fluids and filters on the entire machine replaced. It's the first thing I do on any machine I buy because I never know how the last guy took care of it. But on this one, based on some things I saw, I knew I better do it. Some of the linkages (shift linkage and control valve linkage)need to be replaced. Transmission is good. Steering is good. Right side was set a little too tight but can be fixed with adjustment. No leaks if you can believe it. Motor's strong. Hydraulics very responsive and snappy. Had a little play in the blade. Going to have that tightened up.  Replacing both top rollers and both sprockets. Probably wouldn't have to do the sprockets if I didn't want to.

You guys have any links to aftermarket parts distributors? That would help. Spent the better part of today chasing some of those down.

Should be a good little machine once we're done. It should do all I need done and when (if) I sell it (who knows could be sold to a member here) then I'll know that it's in good shape to pass along.

Buck I'm going to give Mike a call tomorrow. Does he know you by "Buck" or is there another name i should use. You can PM me if you prefer to do it in private.

Thanks for the great input guys. 

[Randy88]

Depends on which parts your needing aftermarket for.    For the undercarriage there are a lot, but for me its HE parts or heavy equipment parts, it used to be grace track, do an internet serch of undercarriage services in your area, I've ordered from several but HE isn't far from me and a friend is a distributor for them.   Aftermarket for the engine, depending on what you need its just a jd 219 turbo or thats whats in mine anyhow you can get parts about anywhere depeniding on what it is.   For the rest of the dozer check around for used parts and salvage yards, also an internet search or get a subscription to Rock and Dirt magazine or some of the other dirt mover magazines.    I'd have to dig for the websites for some if you want but it might be quicker to just google them.   

Around me even the local dealerships will offer aftermarket parts to compete and sell parts so it might not hurt to ask even your local jd dealers if they offer that service, at least the construction end will here not the ag side of jd but even they are getting better.    I've bought aftermarket clutches, some undercarriage parts,a turbo, wholesale alternators, starters, water pumps and surprisingly thats about all I"ve ever put in the little machine, its been a good unit, whoever had mine before had to have done the torque converter but mine is in need of  tranmission bearings which it'll get this fall and in orde to do that we'll have to totally disassmeble everything so it'll get a complete checkover then.   

What are you going to use the dozer for?   Any perticutlar job or mission so to speak, mine I put over 1000 hours on before I realized I never did get to do the projects I had in mind, others were more pressing after I bought it and that was about 15 years ago and many thousands of hours ago, just be warned, its extremely addictive to run them, my addiction was bad I now own four dozers and several excavators along with way too many other things, my wife calls it a disease that has no cure.      You do these things and that leads to the need for a different machine that can other things and the list never ends.

[LOGDOG]

I think I have that same addiction Randy. Some guys buy boats, fancy cars, 4 wheelers ...I buy heavy epuipment and sawmills. This time I bought the 450 dozer and the 410 backhoe. I've got a 40 ft long concrete bridge that I need to re-do the bulkheads on. That'll be one project. I've got 4/1 slopes on about a half mile of levee I built (which serves as half of my driveway) that I need to groom the slopes on. Also think I'm going to lay down some haul road fabric and spread a fresh layer of rock over it and compact it before the rainy season gets here. I've got a draw that is behind our future homesite on the property. It falls pretty good from the north end to the south end (probably a 30' to 40' drop in elevation). Thinking about cutting that draw off to capitalize on the natural watershed. I have another pond that is beyond that which is about 3 acres to 4 acres. I need to do some grooming on the slopes of it's dam. Going to take down a bunch of trees around the existing home and open it up so the grass will grow better. Too much shade now. Also going to add some dirt and change the grade on the existing home site to deal with run off. Will be adding culverts, french drains, retaining walls, etc.

I've thought about trying to find a 4 bottom plow to till my cleared bottom land for a food plot. I just bush hog it these days and I need to either put it in trees or a food plot. I'm probably going to clear my lot lines as well and put up some fencing. I've had some issues with trespassers that I'd like to line out. I'm thinking about picking up a small dirt pan next ... one of those 1 yarders to pull behind either the dozer or my 45 hp Kioto tractor. Ever run one of those? I've had 3 of the big ones out at my place when we built the levee and the pond. 17-19 yards cycling every 4 minutes. They were moving. That little dirt pan would be a more efficient way to move any volume of dirt any distance. Once I get it where it's going I can spread and compact it with the dozer and a roller.

Always something that needs doing.  What part of the country are you in Randy?

[mad murdock]

LOGDOG, at least buy having a hobby of buying HEAVY toys, you can turn a buck with them, unlike a boat or sports car or what have you.

[Randy88]

Ah, toys, sounds like you need a lot more of them, by the to do list I'd say maybe a laser and the goodies to go with them, if you've got the backhoe, then don't worry about a scraper just find an old converted dump truck box to pull behind the dozer and load it with the backhoe and haul dirt that way, its a lot faster and cheaper along with hauling more stuff per trip   

I live in Iowa and I own and operate an excavation business along with other ventures, we burn a lot of wood and my free help/kids [firewood processors] are all graduating in the next few years and its taking too much time to cut and split all our wood, I'd like to either buy or build a processor.   We've sawed over 40,000 feet of lumber in the last 15 years and have hired a bandsaw to come and do it for us, I'd like to buy a bandsaw and do my own, my grandpa was an excellant sawyer and sawed hundreds of thousands of board feet of lumber and owned his own sawmill setup and as a kid I got to help,  along with logging and anything to deal with trees, a whole other addiction, as they say ones toybox is never big enough or enough time to play with them all.   

Ponds, levies, landscaping, tiling, fencerows, road building, lot cleaing, done them all, the one thing about owning your own stuff, you get to change the landscape and get what you want and do your own upkeep and maintance.   If you do nice work then people will hire you to do theirs as well, income to buy more toys.   As for all the fancy boats and cars, they're not as fun anyway.   

[Buck]

Hey Dog, what the latest on the lil mochine?

[LOGDOG]

Well I reeled in the JD shop on the repairs they wanted to do. I shaved about $10K off the estimates of the backhoe and the dozer (combined). Some things were just ridiculous. They wanted $1400.00+ for a new seat kit for the backhoe! Bought one yesterday from Schafer Enterprises up in IL for $450 secondhand that is in excellent shape. I can recommend those guys.

THe JD shop established that there were 56 pads loose. So I'm just going to have them re-bolt the new pads and torque them down tight. On the few that have wallowed bolt holes we're going to use the extra thick grade 8 washers and a little longer bolt, torqued down and then weld the perimiter of the washer in place so that it won't wash back and forth and lead to more wallowing. Only a couple of the pads are bad enough that they need to be replaced. The JD guy is looking for a few used pads with similar cleat heights to keep things uniform.

I got him started ordering parts yesterday with the go ahead to do the authorized repairs. I told him I'd like to have both machines repaired and up here by the end of two weeks. Overall though the dozer seems to have a strong motor with no leaks showing after all this time. They've had it in the shop while diagnosing the tracks and she's dry. That's a good thing.

I figure I'll get the machine back up here and put some time on it to see how it does. That dozer is small enough that I can put it behind the dually and run it over to Nacogdoches and see what that fella says. I'm holding off on putting new sprockets in (they looked fine to me and the JD rep left them off the revised estimate. I think it was one of those things from the initial estimate where he figured since he was including a new track group and everything was off, let's go ahead and do the sprockets too. They're really not that expensive.

Did make a good find yesterday though. I picked up a new client (well he's an existing client in a 401k plan that I run for a company but we extended the relationship beyond that) he works for a large environmental services company that has a fleet of trackhoes and dozers, probably 30-40 machines. He's their diesel mechanic. I asked him if he does any side work and he said he'd be happy to do anything I needed in his spare time. They don't have a track press though so that kind of stuff would need to go elsewhere. Other than that though he can handle it. I told him I'd rather spend the money with a client than someone I don't know. So that seemed like a good find at first glance. 

We've been getting too much rain for my liking. We're still about 8 or 9 inches down for the year but I liked it when she was bone dry. I'd much prefer that for taking on my projects. Supposed to go back up over 100 - 101,102,and 103 in the next several days. August and Sept will probably dry us out good. I'm anxious to get to work!

[snowstorm]

the problem with the pads being loose its hard on the chain ....the bushings get loose in the link. another thing to look at is the bolts that go thru the side frame to the clutch housing also front cross bar bolts plus bushings the b and early c had problems there and side frame where it bolts to final if you push out stumps it will brake there. one other thing it dose not have a touqre converter. jd didnt have a dozer with a converter till the g series.

[Buck]

That  sounds like you got it all going your way. That really looks like a sweet lil machine.  Hard to beat that ole john deere stuff. You'll get a lot of work out of it, and like Randy told you it is addictive.  I work full time with the LDAF and even with seasonal business with fire duty I cant get enough seat time on dozers.

[LOGDOG]

That sounds like a good gig Buck. Yep, looking forward to cleaning the machine up, taking care of it and working it at every opportunity.

Snowstorm ....welcome to the Forum. I missed you on your way in. Sounds like you know your JD's. Are you a heavy equipment mechanic? I'll have those bolts inspected like you suggested as well as the bushings.

Got more rain today. One of my clients that runs a D8 for a living  got shut down again today because of the rain. Heat's coming though.

[LOGDOG]

Well guys, it's the end of the month and the John Deere guy told me he thought they'd have my dozer and backhoe ready to go "for the end of the month". I'm looking forward to it. Hoping to get them both up here before labor day. Still nice and dry lately. Ground's cracking it's so dry in fact. Good time to turn some dirt. 

[Buck]

Dude, two at once in the John Deere shop....whew!

[LOGDOG]

Yep ... glutten for punishment. Ugh ... the good news is he said today that we're pretty much right on track for the budget we established on the estimate. Had a bit of a hiccup on the 410 JD backhoe today though. It wasn't building the pressure in the hydraulics that it shoudl have been and they were thinking that some of the pistons in the hydraulic pump may have gotten stuck or seized or something. So they were going to take it apart and see what she needed. I'll probably end up running down there end of the week to give them a look over.

[LOGDOG]

Thought I'd share some pics of the progress on these machines. Got the news today that the hydraulic pump is shot on the backhoe. A remanufactured pump is $1950.00 or a new one is $3500.00. Ouch! Pics below....