D6R Track Wear

Queenslander · May 1, 2019

Anyone like to take a guess how many hours these tracks have done?
Iam looking around for a lowish hour D6R and this tractor, which I haven’t seen in the flesh yet, seems to fit the bill except for undercarriage.

Nige · May 1, 2019

Hard to say how many hours the tracks have done but judging by the first photo the pins & bushes appear to have been turned, so I would say plenty.
The links are pretty well gone as well, as are the idlers.
IMHO budget complete replacement undercarriage into the offer price. Let's face it U/C is all "bolt-on", it's not hard to fix.

Vetech63 · May 1, 2019

Looks pretty much wore out on those rails to me. Those bushings having been already turned are thin.

John C. · May 1, 2019

Do you have a photo of the bottom rollers. The pin bosses on the chains don't show any sign of the bottom roller flanges riding on the them. You might have some wear left on them.

Queenslander · May 1, 2019

This is an excerpt from the ecm download.
Must of been working in some nasty shite with only 3700hrs, 37% of which were idle time.

Nige · May 1, 2019

Do you have any idea at all of its history..? It could have been working in some really abrasive conditions.
I've been on jobs where we could take a set of brand new undercarriage to 120% worn in under 1500 hours. Not usual I grant you but I have seen it. On the same job we were changing cutting edges on graders twice in a 24hr working day.

It's been working pretty hard when it was working. Crunching some numbers the engine Load Factor for the 63% of the time when it was actually working was somewhere close to 70%.

John C. · May 1, 2019

That serial number doesn't show up in any of my books and I've only seen read outs like that on T model tractors. I'm not sure what we're are supposed to believe at this point.

At any rate that load factor is kind of bogus in my eyes. They are taking a possible total fuel number which assumes that if the engine were running at 100% load factor and dividing that into the actual fuel used which is a calculated number done inside the machine computer. In essence there is really no way to know how hard that machine was pushing when it wasn't at idle. What I see is plenty of time in a corrosive environment in some sort of standby mode at best and just plain stupidity at worst. Total hours minus total idle hours equals 2,334.55 productive hours and possibly undercarriage traveling hours. I have seen that kind of wear on LGP machines plenty of times.
I've been told by more that one person from the Cat dealer and one factory rep that one hour of idling is equal to three hours at full output. Might not be the best machine to consider for purchase unless the price is very good.

Cmark · May 2, 2019

4ZF is the engine serial number. The machine is AAX580, Built Jan 2004.
If it's priced as a fifteen year old machine and those hours are correct, I'd say it's worth looking at. Forget the condition of the UC, that's all replaceable. Mechanically wise, it should be barely broke in.

Queenslander · May 2, 2019

I believe that that is the engine no., when I enter it in Partstore it shows machine no. AAX00580, a 2004 series 11.
It has been imported 2nd hand by a dealer and was previously owned by a land developer in Canton, Connecticut.
In any case, it is well out of contention because of the cost of replacing undercarriage.
As luck would have it, I rang an old mate, who I haven’t seen in a while, to ask him to come along with me to look at tractors.
Turns out they have 2012 series 111 with 5000hrs that they are selling due to the end of a large contract.
We look at it on Tuesday.

I typed over the top of you Cmark

My mates tractor is 10k cheaper with 60-70% undercarriage and a solid set of Lewis rippers to boot.

JimP · May 3, 2019

I live about 50 miles from Canton Connecticut. I can't think of any horribly abrasive conditions there. Building and land development has been in a slump for a few years so I could see it sitting for a while. Sounds like you have a better alternative though. Jim

Nige · May 3, 2019

Maybe the CT land developer was not the original owner..?

epirbalex · May 3, 2019

Number of starts looks high , may account for the long idle hours warming up . Can it be determined if the track gear was what was supplied new with the dozer ? Could have been swapped .

Queenslander · May 3, 2019

The possibility of a chain swap did pass my mind but then the idlers are in the same poor condition so probably not likely.
This is another tractor..with extremely comprehensive service records... that I was keen on.
These chains were replaced 2500hrs ago.

Nige · May 4, 2019

What's the Part Number on that link..? It's difficult to read from that photo.

Queenslander · May 4, 2019

According to the records, track group 3969704 replaced 6/10/15

Nige · May 4, 2019

That makes sense. The 418-xxxx number on the lnik htrew me a bit. Those are General Duty (as opposed to Heavy Duty) Track Groups. Don't expect them to last long in anything abrasive or if you start giving them a load of hard work.

Queenslander · May 4, 2019

So what is the biggest gripe about system one undercarriage on a tractor this size?
I haven’t heard too many favourable opinions of it.
These pics are of a 6R with 8300 hrs. on the clock.

John C. · May 4, 2019

The biggest problem I've heard and seen is for dry links. It takes a special press to replace ruined boxes and joints and I've heard two guy most of a day to do one link. Lots of times there were three, four or five bad links and Cat prorated the value of the chains and applied that cost to a set of new ones.
There were also issues for people working in river road that potato sized rocks would get stuck in the chains and crunch over the idlers. The front idler will give when the rock is real tough. The rear idler, not so much. The solution I saw was center holes punched in the pads.
The last issue concerned track adjuster cylinders. Originally the chains had no master link so repairing a leaking track adjuster cylinder became an ordeal that lasted at least a day when a master link could be taken apart and assembled in less than an hour of labor. When I left the dealer employment, a master link was something that had to be special ordered on a new machine or even a new set of chains.

Nige · May 5, 2019

Ask the seller how many times Cat have been out to work on the undercarriage in those 8300 hours.

Queenslander · May 21, 2019

So, we have decided to buy the tractor from my mates family that I mentioned up thread.
Undercarriage is a bit of a mixed bag..plates very good, idlers down a bit, chains look OK but cannons are out a little, sprockets stuffed but we’ll replace them before taking delivery..hopefully, should get a lot of work out of it before spending much more.
It is an S6T prefix, built Dec. 2013, a third world version..has C9 motor at tier2, so is essentially a 6T vintage tractor without scr/dpf etc.
I haven’t been able to track down a spec sheet for it so if anyone has any info on the series I would be keen to see it.

D6R Track Wear

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