Cat 941b resurrection/ Under carriage

[charles walton]

Cat977, do you know of any good tricks for this problem?

 

[Cat977]

With assemblies in general things should go together fairly easy. When it doesn't most of the time you will need to pull it apart to find out why. You may have damaged the shaft and bore if you pulled too hard on a dry assembly that wasn't going in straight. Did you lubricate the cross shaft? I would use super lube grease on the shaft and bore on the finale. In the picture it looks like there's a good ways to go yet. I would try backing the bolts up till you can rotate the sprocket. I bet you need to release the clutch. "REMEMBER I HAVEN'T DONE THIS JOB BEFORE." I would think it could be wiggled because of the clearance between the gears. Measure the gap between the finial drive casing and the main frame all the way around. Then tighten the bolts by the biggest gap while wiggling. Give a holler on how its going.

 

[charles walton]

With assemblies in general things should go together fairly easy. When it doesn't most of the time you will need to pull it apart to find out why. You may have damaged the shaft and bore if you pulled too hard on a dry assembly that wasn't going in straight. Did you lubricate the cross shaft? I would use super lube grease on the shaft and bore on the finale. In the picture it looks like there's a good ways to go yet. I would try backing the bolts up till you can rotate the sprocket. I bet you need to release the clutch. "REMEMBER I HAVEN'T DONE THIS JOB BEFORE." I would think it could be wiggled because of the clearance between the gears. Measure the gap between the finial drive casing and the main frame all the way around. Then tighten the bolts by the biggest gap while wiggling. Give a holler on how its going.

I pulled it back apart and found that one of the rollers on the pinion bearing inside the case had dropped down and hung up on the race on the end of the pinion shaft and it damaged it oh so slightly!!! I'm going to have to completly disassemble everything to replace the bearing now. All of this happened with grease packed into the bearing so maybe there was more wear than I thought to allow the roller to drop down.

 

[Cat977]

Good to hear your back on Track! The Super Lube grease is a very light weight synthetic grease. If its used, just a light coat is plenty. Too much could interfere with getting things metal to metal tight. I like it because it stays put and easy to clean up. Oil maybe better.

 

[Cat977]

Just a bit more on this subject. I use homemade guide pins a lot. Cut the heads off a couple bolts. Sometimes long, sometimes so short you need to grind a couple flats on the tip and use a needle nose pliers to get them out. I make them different lengths so you can get one started and then try for the other. Point them on the lathe or grind them. Then have the top tipped back to help cancel out the work of gravity. Have a Nice cold Beer when Done !!!
Best of Luck

 

[charles walton]

Just a bit more on this subject. I use homemade guide pins a lot. Cut the heads off a couple bolts. Sometimes long, sometimes so short you need to grind a couple flats on the tip and use a needle nose pliers to get them out. I make them different lengths so you can get one started and then try for the other. Point them on the lathe or grind them. Then have the top tipped back to help cancel out the work of gravity. Have a Nice cold Beer when Done !!!
Best of Luck

I got the assembly apart and replaced the bearing with a new aftermarket bearing. I was expecting a Chinese knock off but it turned out to be a Bower USA bearing which is exactly what the OEM part is. Got it all back together and installed, now I'm working on the roller frame.

 

[Cat977]

Its good to see things coming together for you!

 

[charles walton]

Its good to see things coming together for you!

Been a busy fall and winter but now with bear,hog and deer season over I can get back to posting about my progress on the loader. I got the left side all back together and used it for a few minutes to take out three big oaks that were in the way of my kennel expansion.Now I have the right side torn down and working on it. No duo-cone leaks on this side so I'm not going as deep on this final.View attachment 251643 View attachment 251643 View attachment 251643

 

[gasifier]

What’s the latest on the crawler?

 

[charles walton]

What’s the latest on the crawler?

Well, I decided to take a look and it seems I will have to replace the hub and possibly bearings on this side too.

 

[charles walton]

 

[gasifier]

I wish I had your patience and skill to do that kind of work. Nice job. I can’t wait to see it when your done. Keep us posted with pictures and descriptions. Please and thank you.

 

[charles walton]

Its good to see things coming together for you!

Here's the results of when I looked inside

 

[Cat977]

Doesn't look too bad to me Charles, you aren't going to the races. Take a small stone or burr on a Dremel tool and grind out any sharp edges in the pits. They can start cracks to get more flaking or even chipping stay off the tooth face. If there's rough spots on the face of the tooth buy a new very hard and smooth honing stone and smooth them up. You did the other side this should be a brezzzzz.

 

[charles walton]

Doesn't look too bad to me Charles, you aren't going to the races. Take a small stone or burr on a Dremel tool and grind out any sharp edges in the pits. They can start cracks to get more flaking or even chipping stay off the tooth face. If there's rough spots on the face of the tooth buy a new very hard and smooth honing stone and smooth them up. You did the other side this should be a brezzzzz.

Thanks for the encouragement,I was thinking about honing the rough spots but I just wasn't sure. I did not want to tackle the job of changing the pinion.

 

[Cat977]

Keep all of the correct contour of the tooth you can. Don't dip the honing stone into the pits. You want to keep as much of the tooth contact area as possible. Always ride the contour of the tooth you are feeling just for high spots. Use cutting oil or a most any that keeps you from scratching the shine. The hard smooth stone just touch's on the little bits that stick up. Don't go wild with it. It should not scratch a smooth highly polished tooth at all. Use a high quality oil of the proper spec. oil check Cats price 1st then Mobile I'd stick with them but shell and Conoco Phillips some others are ok, no universal, F&F, Farm store.... TDTO Best or TO-4 power (skip the TO-2 too) transmission/drive oil probably 30W(sae) maybe 50W(sae), check. If its always hot when you work I would mix 2 bucks of 30w with 1 50W. That's just what I would do. My 977's use 50W in the finals, winter its way thick, summer not near that.

 

[Nige]

A couple of thoughts.
Unless the Cat dealer has an oil promotion running you will likely find that Cat-branded oil (is it still manufactured by Mobil.?) is more expensive.
From experience I'd happily use either Mobiltrans HD or Conoco Powerdrive in that compartment.
SAE50 viscosity over SAE30 any day of the week, especially based on the user's location.
As @Cat977 pointed out - use nothing where the words "farm, tractor, or unviersal" occur anywhere either in the name of the product or of the store selling it.

 

[charles walton]

New bearings and seals and pressed back together.

 

[charles walton]

Bolted back on

 

[LCA078]

Charles- This is amazing work documenting your steps here for the rest of us to learn from! How's everything holding up?

Side question: I noticed during your disassembly there was a fair amount of grease in the front parts of your hubs. Is that normal? I thought all the parts were lubed by the final gear oil.