When are tracks worn?
Hi, MTB345.
What Joe said plus a few things. One way to really tell if your tracks are worn is to acquire the appropriate track wear gauge from your dealer/distributor for your particular machine and run all the tests that are recommended. These gauges are relatively cheap - compared with the cost of replacing the track chains and plates, that is.
Further indications are:
If the bottom track roller flanges start hitting on the pin bosses in the links.
If you can feel holes or pieces of the bushes broken away in the sprocket contact area between the track rails.
When the wear line on the sprocket teeth reaches the top of the tooth, which is quite often, as joe mentioned above, the point where the tops of the teeth become sharp also.
Idlers or rollers that appear loose on their shafts when the machine is in motion indicate that those items have a bearing problem - - - - or maybe don't have a bearing problem as they have no bearings left with which to have a problem.
If the idler is not on the same plane as the sprocket, eg, appears tilted in or out when compared with the sprocket, you may have either worn or twisted track frame rails or a worn or broken idler shaft.
Pretty much any crawler tractor or dozer should be able to spin its tracks in first gear under heavy load, even with full grousers. However, if the same machine spins its tracks a lot under heavy load in 2nd gear in reasonably good tractive conditions, it's a fair bet that its grousers need attention - - - - - - unless you've added 2 extra turbos to it, up-sized the injectors and wound the fuel pumps and governor off the map. In that case, it's likely to be the transmission and/or final drives that need attention - soon.
Track plates that are bending - new and near-new track plates seldom bend. It is normally only when grousers get severely worn and/or the plates themselves are worn thin that they bend. Plates will usually take 2, 3 or even 4 grouser re-builds, depending on the conditions in which the machine is working and the type(s) of work it is doing. Drawbar work is usually much kinder to tracks than dozer work.
Hope some of this helps.