Daewoo SL130-3 Track Replacment

[Kim_Ked]

Good Morning Folks. 
This is only my second ever post here but I log in every day and read all the new posts. Forestry is the preferred part of my two current occupations, the first occupation being an Automation and Controls tech. in manufacturing facilities and process. I have enjoyed fixing up my old Daewoo Solar 130. Its been 2 years in the building but its finally coming together. 
Its been rough, knowing nothing about what I got into when I bought it but I'm glad I did now... I think, maybe...
Since I purchased it, had all cylinders re built, rebuilt the center manifold, a new final drive, radiator rebuild, hydraulic pump rebuild x 2, Finn Rotor rebuild, and a complete overhaul of my Arbro1000, hyd and elec. systems!
I have taken the plunge as well and ordered a new set of chains! They should be here tomorrow. They are the chains, the bolts for all the track pads and the main pins.

My question is.... Who has horror or success stories in getting the new pins in a new set of tracks. This is a 15 ton machine so things are a bit heavy. The dealer said I may have them come for many many hundreds $$$ plus some and they will install the pins with a press and dry ice. They also said I may take the pins to a machine shop and have them take .150" of of them so I may drive them in myself without heat or dry ice and weld the ends to prevent it falling out later.

I kind of like the later of the ideas as I'm not bound to having the dealer come with an expensive price tag if I had to say, change another final drive or idler to remove the pin again. Has anybody ever done this before?

Thanks to all readers and participants! 

[mike_belben]

Welcome aboard.  DO NOT TAKE 150 thousandths off the master pins.  More like 1.5 of them!

.0015"

[Kim_Ked]

That does seem like a lot. 
I was just looking at what that actually looks like with calipers.  
To be safe, I think I'm going to take the new chains and pins to the machine shop and let them figure out exactly how much material to remove to make a perfect fit.
The dealer has me nervous with tales of woo and failed attempts at pin installs, or half installs if you would.  I guess its very bad if the pin only gets in half way or anything but complete before it expands if the dry ice/heat and pressing in method goes south.

Thank you.

[bushmechanic]

I've got years of track installations under my belt and I can tell you from experience that the press is the best way to go, hands down. I have put them together like you are going to do and it will work fine but be sure and weld both sides as these are two different metals and usually the weld will break but the welding knobs will retain the pin. If your track is not a sealed one (rubbers between the links) you can also use dry ice or pin in the freezer and heat the eyes of the link and pound in the pin with a BIG sledge hammer. Good luck!

[mike_belben]

Make a pin driver in advance .. A short, thick rod you beat on welded at right angle to a rebar or conduit handle your friend uses to hold it while you smash with the sledge. 

[chevytaHOE5674]

I've beat a few in with a frozen pin and heated link. A pin driver with a long handle for your helper and the biggest sledge hammer you can swing are a must. 

Wear ear and eye protection as splinters of steel from your punch and hammer are a given. 

Call around and price out somebody with a track press coming out for a service call. The cost maybe well worth it.

[Maine logger88]

Welcome aboard.  DO NOT TAKE 150 thousandths off the master pins.  More like 1.5 of them!

.0015"

Well it would go in easy then lol! 

[woodmaker]

I have put in many master pins over the years. mostly with the heat / freeze/ beat method . The problem with that is once you get the pin through the first side of the track, and start into the second side, the far side link wants to bend on the bushing and the pin binds up.
 What I made was a press ( sort of) from a couple of pieces of 1" plate ,4) 1" threaded rods, and used a 20 ton porta power to push with. The plate on the far side of the 2nd link stops the link from spreading, and the pin coming out of the freezer slides in pretty slick.
 One other thing: I never take that pin out to take the track off, way too much time messing around putting it back together. Take the grease fitting out of the slack adjuster, push the front idler all the way back, and slide it off the front idler.

[BargeMonkey]

What he said... ☝️☝️. Take the new chain to a shop, press the pin and let them put the pads on, slack it off and throw it on, 15 ton machine we are talking 3hrs maybe, used to take a track off a 590D daily 😂

[WCFAK]

You might consider having a shop install a zipper link in the chain then you wouldn't have to worry about driving a pin in or out. One of our 8's up north has zipper links and I wish all our tracked equipment had them.

[Skeans1]

You might consider having a shop install a zipper link in the chain then you wouldn't have to worry about driving a pin in or out. One of our 8's up north has zipper links and I wish all our tracked equipment had them.

The alligator links? Most of the aftermarket chains I've been around for excavators will have a master pin that'll slip in/out and secured with a bent piece of rod. The cats had alligators as long as nothing was extreme duty. The extreme duty uses such as steep ground shovel logging will have a pressed in pin for a master. To slipping them on or off that would depend on what's on the undercarriage do you have full rock guards? Idler spring spacers? Bear Paws up top? Any of these items and you can kiss slipping a track back on easily without pulling the master link.

[Kim_Ked]

So. 
I did not machine the pins!
I threw them in the freezer and went to work cutting off the old pads and removing the chains. 
We set a new chain up on the machine and cleaned the paint from inside the holes on the outter links.
Then we got a piece of solid thick wall pipe and ran as a brace between the new link and the chain on the other side of the machine as to ensure we did not bend the link.
Them came the sledging. I can say, I had no idea how hard it was going to go. Holy cow man. I started getting worried when were only 3/4 the way in and only moving a hair with each smack! Dad just said, "she gotta go" and we kept on wailing. It went!

Now I'm waiting on a seal kit to rebuild the track tension device before installing the pin on side #2. I had a kit already for side #1 but its taking a long time to get parts lately. 

I thank you as well for the advice on slipping the chain off over the tension wheel in the unfortunate event that I had to ever take it off again. I had just replaced the final drive on one side a few weeks ago so I'm not to worried about that but the other will likely need to be done in the coming years and the though of taking that pin back out would have me worried. 

I do have a question about track tension. How do I know how tight to run them? I see some machines on big highway project about the same size as mine with almost droopy tracks, then others that look singing tight. I don't want to over tension but I do spend 99% of my machine time in the woods on rocks and in other crazy scenarios. The machine does have the guides along the bottom of the track frame that keep the tracks from being able to pivot very far on the idlers. 

I thank all for the great advice!

[Ed_K]

 When you do side 2 try the dry ice I believe it'll go a little easier. On my td 6 I used a straight edge and set it between the longest free play on the track and put grease in till the track was less than an inch from the straight edge.

[Skeans1]

So.
I did not machine the pins!
I threw them in the freezer and went to work cutting off the old pads and removing the chains.
We set a new chain up on the machine and cleaned the paint from inside the holes on the outter links.
Then we got a piece of solid thick wall pipe and ran as a brace between the new link and the chain on the other side of the machine as to ensure we did not bend the link.
Them came the sledging. I can say, I had no idea how hard it was going to go. Holy cow man. I started getting worried when were only 3/4 the way in and only moving a hair with each smack! Dad just said, "she gotta go" and we kept on wailing. It went!

Now I'm waiting on a seal kit to rebuild the track tension device before installing the pin on side #2. I had a kit already for side #1 but its taking a long time to get parts lately.

I thank you as well for the advice on slipping the chain off over the tension wheel in the unfortunate event that I had to ever take it off again. I had just replaced the final drive on one side a few weeks ago so I'm not to worried about that but the other will likely need to be done in the coming years and the though of taking that pin back out would have me worried.

I do have a question about track tension. How do I know how tight to run them? I see some machines on big highway project about the same size as mine with almost droopy tracks, then others that look singing tight. I don't want to over tension but I do spend 99% of my machine time in the woods on rocks and in other crazy scenarios. The machine does have the guides along the bottom of the track frame that keep the tracks from being able to pivot very far on the idlers.

I thank all for the great advice!

Do you have full rock guards and bear paws?  What top rollers?

[Kim_Ked]

So.
I did not machine the pins!
I threw them in the freezer and went to work cutting off the old pads and removing the chains.
We set a new chain up on the machine and cleaned the paint from inside the holes on the outter links.
Then we got a piece of solid thick wall pipe and ran as a brace between the new link and the chain on the other side of the machine as to ensure we did not bend the link.
Them came the sledging. I can say, I had no idea how hard it was going to go. Holy cow man. I started getting worried when were only 3/4 the way in and only moving a hair with each smack! Dad just said, "she gotta go" and we kept on wailing. It went!

Now I'm waiting on a seal kit to rebuild the track tension device before installing the pin on side #2. I had a kit already for side #1 but its taking a long time to get parts lately.

I thank you as well for the advice on slipping the chain off over the tension wheel in the unfortunate event that I had to ever take it off again. I had just replaced the final drive on one side a few weeks ago so I'm not to worried about that but the other will likely need to be done in the coming years and the though of taking that pin back out would have me worried.

I do have a question about track tension. How do I know how tight to run them? I see some machines on big highway project about the same size as mine with almost droopy tracks, then others that look singing tight. I don't want to over tension but I do spend 99% of my machine time in the woods on rocks and in other crazy scenarios. The machine does have the guides along the bottom of the track frame that keep the tracks from being able to pivot very far on the idlers.

I thank all for the great advice!

Do you have full rock guards and bear paws?  What top rollers?

I'm not sure exactly what you call it, bear paws or not.  It looks as if when the machine had its forestry cage built around it, they also used massively heavy plate and built what looks almost like gusseted runners just above the tracks on the inside and the outside.  I actually had to cut some material out when I changed my final drive, then I welded it all back up once complete. As for the top roller.  It looks like a basic excavator set up. Everybody that looks at the machine seems impressed with the work done to protect the tracks from rocks and such.  The cage is good to.  You could drop a pretty big tree down over this machine and probably by very OK... Not that I'm going to try it, hopefully!

[mike_belben]

Pics!

[Kim_Ked]

So the other chain is now installed! 
Almost the same procedure, froze the pin, but this time I heated the chain link just a bit. Not red hot by any means, just enough that you wouldn't want to put your hand on it. Got it nice and hot, this time the pin drove in with much less effort.  Still had to really drive it but with fare fewer swings of the sledge. 

Its nice to see it done, its relief when a job that cost you big $$ actually comes together without any major hiccups. Now I'm just waiting for a couple new track pads to come in today and Ill be set. The original owner took a link out of the chain and threw the old pads away! Dumbarce!

Now to get the proper track tension figured. I'm still not certain of how tight they should run...

I tried to post a pic of my track guards. However, I'm not exactly sure ho to post a pic here. I have to do a little reading to figure that one out.  It will not allow me to attach to a post for some reason. 

Thanks for all the advice folks! 

[zinc oxide]

I think I did manage to get a picture of a peacock on my mom and dad's back porch posted... Sideways. I'm hoping the following... https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php?board=93.0
... Will help. I believe it is right at the very last spot on the main page.

Looking at A Massey 200 sometime this afternoon, ' crawler/Loader' I think the style is called. Just now trying to figure out the differences in the 10,000 pound +/- class machines. I think the 350s and 450s are slightly heavier, too much information in Too short a time frame. I thought a 'six way blade' meant that you could angle it up or down left to right, in my mind. Thought that it would make it easier to cut a ' Level ' path on a hillside if you basically had no idea what you were doing. Still not sure about that, fairly common sensation for me. Reading the specifications for the Massey six way, it seems like you can angle to push the dirt to the left or to the right. Don't know enough yet.

I do know that if My retirement plan works out, (Powerball and mega million once a week when I go to get snuff) I will be getting one of those Awassos 35s I think it is called.

[mike_belben]

A 6 way is a blade dozer, a crawler loader has a front end bucket loader on a crawler chassis.  


I would be reluctant to fool with a massey crawler, they just werent popular in america compared to cat deere ih etc so the number of parts machines to still be found will be very low.  Im sure the 5 yr scrap boom got rid of a lot of the parts.   Well... If youre in america, i didnt check. 

[Skeans1]

So.
I did not machine the pins!
I threw them in the freezer and went to work cutting off the old pads and removing the chains.
We set a new chain up on the machine and cleaned the paint from inside the holes on the outter links.
Then we got a piece of solid thick wall pipe and ran as a brace between the new link and the chain on the other side of the machine as to ensure we did not bend the link.
Them came the sledging. I can say, I had no idea how hard it was going to go. Holy cow man. I started getting worried when were only 3/4 the way in and only moving a hair with each smack! Dad just said, "she gotta go" and we kept on wailing. It went!

Now I'm waiting on a seal kit to rebuild the track tension device before installing the pin on side #2. I had a kit already for side #1 but its taking a long time to get parts lately.

I thank you as well for the advice on slipping the chain off over the tension wheel in the unfortunate event that I had to ever take it off again. I had just replaced the final drive on one side a few weeks ago so I'm not to worried about that but the other will likely need to be done in the coming years and the though of taking that pin back out would have me worried.

I do have a question about track tension. How do I know how tight to run them? I see some machines on big highway project about the same size as mine with almost droopy tracks, then others that look singing tight. I don't want to over tension but I do spend 99% of my machine time in the woods on rocks and in other crazy scenarios. The machine does have the guides along the bottom of the track frame that keep the tracks from being able to pivot very far on the idlers.

I thank all for the great advice!

Do you have full rock guards and bear paws?  What top rollers?

I'm not sure exactly what you call it, bear paws or not.  It looks as if when the machine had its forestry cage built around it, they also used massively heavy plate and built what looks almost like gusseted runners just above the tracks on the inside and the outside.  I actually had to cut some material out when I changed my final drive, then I welded it all back up once complete. As for the top roller.  It looks like a basic excavator set up. Everybody that looks at the machine seems impressed with the work done to protect the tracks from rocks and such.  The cage is good to.  You could drop a pretty big tree down over this machine and probably by very OK... Not that I'm going to try it, hopefully!

 

[mike_belben]

Yeah that track aint comin off without a pin pull.

[zinc oxide]

Thanks for the help and info, didn't mean to ramble off topic.