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Excavator tracks locked!

Blackrock

Member
Joined
Feb 8, 2020
Messages
10
Location
Italy
Occupation
farmer
Hi,
I just bought nice O&K RH City Cityline that I'll use on my farm but I have problems with both tracks that don't twist.
This excavator was left by the ex owner on a quarry for maybe 6 mounths without using it and the track became locked. Do you have any solution to solve that without removing all track?
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funwithfuel

Senior Member
Joined
Mar 7, 2017
Messages
5,519
Location
Will county Illinois
Occupation
Mechanic
As Nige mentioned, walking it through water should help. If it was in line or calcium, maybe not so much. What I have done in severe cases is apply waste oil at pin joints, raise the track and free run while applying more oil time to time. It sometimes helps to slack the track some to let the weight of the track do some of the work for you . You want to be careful with chain tension, you don't want undue stress on your travel box or idler. Take your time, work it slow, till it frees up little by little. It didn't bind up overnight, it wont free up overnight either.
Best of luck to you.
 

Blackrock

Member
Joined
Feb 8, 2020
Messages
10
Location
Italy
Occupation
farmer
As Nige mentioned, walking it through water should help. If it was in line or calcium, maybe not so much. What I have done in severe cases is apply waste oil at pin joints, raise the track and free run while applying more oil time to time. It sometimes helps to slack the track some to let the weight of the track do some of the work for you . You want to be careful with chain tension, you don't want undue stress on your travel box or idler. Take your time, work it slow, till it frees up little by little. It didn't bind up overnight, it wont free up overnight either.
Best of luck to you.
thanks for your comment, I already apply some oil + diesel fuel in the pin joints and yesterday I worked some hours but they are still blocked. I'll try in this way in order to unlock. Unfortunately I don't know where the excavator was used in the last time. I'll try to contact through the dealer the ex owner to ask him more info about this machine.
 

Blackrock

Member
Joined
Feb 8, 2020
Messages
10
Location
Italy
Occupation
farmer
Find (or create) a big puddle/pool of water. Run the machine back and forth through it. Repeat until the pins loosen off.
Thanks Nige for the suggestion, we have also small river close to us, I can go there and go un and down.
 

Blackrock

Member
Joined
Feb 8, 2020
Messages
10
Location
Italy
Occupation
farmer
As Nige mentioned, walking it through water should help. If it was in line or calcium, maybe not so much.
Please can you translate "if it was in LINE.." I'm italian and I don't understand how translate "LINE" in that sentence.
 

DMiller

Senior Member
Joined
Feb 21, 2010
Messages
16,432
Location
Hermann, Missouri
Occupation
Cheap "old" Geezer
We have had better luck on dry pin rails with water freeing them as most likely is what set them up to begin with. Rust responds easier to the source(water) than to oils once heavily formed as here.
 

uffex

Senior Member
Joined
Jan 23, 2012
Messages
4,464
Location
Lincoln UK
Occupation
Admin
Good day
I wish you luck freeing the links contrary to the previous comments we had a number of occasions that this was a issue, we found after extensive investigation's that a track chain supplier attempted to increase the life of the chains by assembling with a Moly base grease the result was negative, a hard substance formed and splitting the links was the only way to free off the chain but this proved more expensive than chain replacement. All attempts of running in water - soaking liniks in fuel and easing oil had no effect See attached
Kind regards
Uffex
 

Attachments

  • FAR Track link seizure.pdf
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Ronsii

Senior Member
Joined
Jun 26, 2011
Messages
3,464
Location
Western Washington
Occupation
s/e Heavy equipment operator
Have not heard of this, thanks for sharing that bit of doom n gloom.o_O
That's one of the reasons I started staying away from moly greases long time ago... if people didn't keep up on the greasing the stuff would turn into concrete!!!, it's all good as long as you keep fresh grease going in from time to time but once it goes dry too long all the pressure in the world don't help :(
 

TVA

Senior Member
Joined
May 14, 2018
Messages
2,245
Location
USA
But diesel came from the ground...
The definition of toxicity - basically too much of a good thing in one location!

if you guys think that my comment is little out of place - yeah, I’m just being “smart ass”!
 

Blackrock

Member
Joined
Feb 8, 2020
Messages
10
Location
Italy
Occupation
farmer
Good day
I wish you luck freeing the links contrary to the previous comments we had a number of occasions that this was a issue, we found after extensive investigation's that a track chain supplier attempted to increase the life of the chains by assembling with a Moly base grease the result was negative, a hard substance formed and splitting the links was the only way to free off the chain but this proved more expensive than chain replacement. All attempts of running in water - soaking liniks in fuel and easing oil had no effect See attached
Kind regards
Uffex
Thanks Uffex, I don't think that the problem came from grease, the ex owner left the excavator in the quarry for long time with no use and then the problem come up, but thanks for your comment, looks very interesting
 

Blackrock

Member
Joined
Feb 8, 2020
Messages
10
Location
Italy
Occupation
farmer
I will caution, once they do come loose they will wear as if made of Papier Mache
please clarify what "Papier Mache" is, I don't unterstand the means. We try first to run excavator on the river
 
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