Stuck new track chains

[Willie B]

Friend has an International TD7E, (7 ton) I'll guess early 1980s vintage. They put new undercarriage a few years ago & it has had very little use since. The little it did see use was in the marble quarry. Crushed marble is corrosive. It has several stuck bushings, won't flex.
Tried heat, drilled the bushings hoping to get some oil in.

I'm afraid I don't fully understand how these are disassembled, & I certainly believe only the master link will come apart without a track press. I have my doubts this will come anyway rusted in as it is.

Does anyone have any wisdom?

My friend has a lot of experience with new track chains seized. His uncle had three dozers replaced them. For a number of years he ran them around enough to keep them free. By his death late eighties he had been unable a few years to exercise them. All were stuck! He freed them with penetrating oil & patience. That hasn't worked on this crawler.

 

[BC Placer gold]

I had a stuck pin/bushing on our 210 excavator (forming a pretty sharp ‘kink’). Basically new chains, but had sat a while….oils etc didn’t work.

Put the ‘kink’ under front idler which I positioned in a puddle of water; then lowered idler/kinked pin onto a piece of heavy steel plate, sat for several days and when I came back to the site it had released.

Note; this was a bad frozen pin that had resisted freeing up over multiple kilometres of walking….

 

[reganj]

My .02,, look under the lubrication section and read post number 05. I found a crescent wrench a few years ago and thought I could free it up. I soaked it in used oil a week with no result. I used the L-640 mentioned in post and it freed up in about 15 minutes. Maybe the company will send you a sample to try free of charge?? If you try it, use rubber gloves because it takes about 03 days to wear off the smell of the penetrating oil.

 

[Vetech63]

Dry rails or sealed and lubed?

 

[IceHole]

Doesn't hurt anything if you keep the track tension ok.

Ran an old international TD15? (I forget, was around d6ish size) dozer that was like driving on Square tires from the chains rusted up. Eventually loosen up... mostly.

 

[Willie B]

Dry rails or sealed and lubed?

Dry.

 

[Willie B]

International built buldozers. Their track loaders were converted bulldozers.
Brothers 13 years apart began in Wilton CT. Charlie would buy only IH crawlers. In my memory, he had TD25?, TD15?, TD7E, & I can't say how many 175 track loaders, I believe converted from TD15 crawlers. About the time of my birth he bought a farm here in VT near me. His brother moved here & started up his own business. Charlie spent his weekends here. By the time of Charlie's death several years ago, he had a whole fleet of construction machinery unused for years. Many were stuck track chains, 3 were "new" chains unused, but aging. Until now the most stubborn has been a 175 loader. They jacked it up, running the tracks, & oiling them. That freed up several stuck pivot joints. Younger brother, now 85 years old was clearing an area to improve his mountain view, used the machine all last summer, got the last of them freed up.

This is the VT brother's TD7, more a trailer queen, mostly used for topsoil on a new lawn. It has about 30,000 hours on the clock, mostly idling. They put new undercarriage on it several years ago, but have used it very little.

 

[Vetech63]

I've dealt with this before several times. I soaked the rails and grousers with diesel fuel several times over a few days and worked the tracks back and forth each time. It worked every time.

 

[oarwhat]

We put new chains on an old 690B. The seller says I've got one I'll sell you cheap and a new one full price . The chains show up and the cheap one it all painted up . We put them on and the worked just fine. Machine sits over the winter and one link is stuck. It frees up but the chain gets worse every time it sits. This chain was brand new but must have sat around for ever.
We tried freeing one up with heat and a backhoe flexing it. Never could get them freed up.

 

[oarwhat]

Vetech we tried that too! no luck.

 

[TomA]

It is nearly impossible to get much oil or diesel in to those pins unless they can be completely submerged and it allowed time for it to seep in. Water is the penetrant of necessity. If the Cat can be parked in a creek overnight that might do the trick. I have a few stuck on a D4, I planned to dig a hole, line with plastic and fill with water. I will investigate that behind idler method. Unfortunately this occurs mostly with nearly new chains because the clearance is so tight.