Need buying advice...

[lantraxco]

Used to know some contractors would keep two sets of track assemblies on hand, with the alligator master links it was a short job swapping from LGP to Standard shoes and back again. Lay the tracks out on the ground, line the machine up, bust the tracks apart, push or pull the machine like it was on rails (thus the term"rails" in common usage) onto the new set, pull the end of the track over the top and couple back up. Two men with an excavator or stout service crane could usually bang it out in a couple hours.

 

[CatToy]

Another thing. Unless you are going to be working in a swamp IMO you need to get those wide track shoes off ASAP and replace them with something more "standard" or they'll take the whole undercarriage system out.

Cat tech visited today, overall between 10-60% life on track components. Thought I would get 500 hours of use before seeing some failures, which will be more than needed for my use. He recommended not going back wide tracks also, I guess great minds think alike. Interesting idea to have two sets of tracks.

It will spend most it's life with me in my pond digging out silt and smoothing out the area around it. My standard tracked loader has been rescued twice from the hard looking pond bottom that turns out to not be hard after a year of drying. I have not pushed anything in the pond with it but I have driven across the pond a couple of times to see what happened. No rescues yet.

Btw, I have one bent pad he recommended replacing, I said I would just straighten but stated that was not recommended. Will I be doing something bad if I put it in a 30 ton press and flatten it out?

 

[Nige]

If you leave the "bog shoes" on just be really careful if you are ever on hard ground.

 

[John C.]

Bent track pads with likely break if you even have enough press to bend them. Unless the bent pad interferes with something else on the machine as it goes around it is likely best to just run it.