Case 850-C Track adjustment problem refresh

Hi RBoots, lets get right into this. so you said that the bolt right in front of the idler pulley held the wear strip on, Well i kind of won this war and lost this war at the same time, see, i removed the bolt, on both sides and successfully tightend up both tracks perfectly today before i logged on and found that you said that the bolts hold on the wear strip and i never new until i just seen you reply, so i took them bolt out and tighten up my track and i was so happy, you know, obviously!, and then i drove it like 150 feet to get it out of the way of the workshop. I hope i didn't hurt anything with that bolt missing holding the wear bar on. So basically your saying that i cannot run the dozer with that bolt missing then. unless i welded something, do you think you could show me a picture of what would need to be welded? sorry for asking to much, i just, i hope i can easily weld this wear bar, because after the bolts, and everything, i really got my tracks snug like they are supposed to be, its great.. Thank you Ross.

Levi

Ok, if you can understand this terrible artwork of mine, the blue circle is the area you are working on. Nevermind the errant blue mark I made. Now the red arrow is where you would weld the wear strip on. There is a shim in there, but that'll burn in when you weld it. You didn't hurt anything by running it that short of time. Most likely it would be fine without anything holding that wear strip, but better safe than sorry. It just protects the track frame itself from direct wear from the idler brackets. I've seen many that were so worn out the welds wore off and there was no remaining wear strip left, and they had been that way for a long time (lot of wear on the track frame). If you get that area cleaned up, you'll see the wear strips in there on the bottom side of the top rail of the track frame, both sides of each frame. The wear strips are roughly an inch wide, about 10 inches long, and around 3/8 of an inch thick. If you weld it, just weld it horizontally across the 1 inch width of the wear strip. That will allow you to cut it off easier when you can afford to fix it correctly. Now in the course of running it, if you happen to see the track losing tension, that will be because the adjuster shaft is maxed out and grease is leaking around the seals. Thats where some guys will make the spacers to go in between the adjuster yoke and the idler bracket, to get the idler farther out without running out of stroke on the adjuster cylinder. Like I said, once it starts getting out past the end of the track frame very far, that is when you'll really need to start doing something, fix the tracks or take a link out to buy a little more time. Hope this makes sense.

Forgot picture...

Ross

Okay, thank you very much, you were the best help i have ever experienced on this forum. though I'm not done yet, all i have to do is take some good pics of it, because i got all the dirt and stuff out of the tracks, all pressure washed and clean, and the wear marks on the frame you were talking about, oh yea they in fact they were so bad, that i had to take the little cover off on the side and wiggle them little two square anti wear pieces that slide on top of the frame. i will take pictures tomorrow immiedatly, and send them to you, but really, i will be including a pic of me pointing out where i think i have to weld the wear strips and have you tell me if I'm welding it at the right spot. Thank you very much Ross,

talk to you soon,

Levi

Hi, I also wanted to say another thing to RBoots, in my old post, you mentioned somewhere about "there are wear pads on the track frames that wear out and can bind up from wearing in one spot for a long time." you are absolutely right, i took that side cover off, and it was really worn, in fact yea, the front plate was blinded up, jammed bad, so when i took the bolts out of the frame to see if i could tighten the tracks up, i got them just a pinch tighter, then it locked up, so thats when i found out about the plates being so worn into the frame, it was binding up. So what i had to do was take the front plate out, and then the track slid really nice down the frame , though i can't get it back in. though i took it out, it still has 3 other plates, so it has 3 out of 4 wear plates. i don't think it would wear that bad with me having to have that plate out, because everything is so wore out, i just need to get this to hold up temporary for a year or two, then i can get a whole new track system rebuild. It might sound complicated, but i swear i will have pictures this evening. and it will show everything, and everything i explained will make perfect sense, but then i just need you to make sure it is okay for what i have done, in the pics. well talk to you soon my friend, thanks.

Levi