Hi 075:
No that's not my FMC. LOL! The gimped road wheels were my first clue. I did a couple of pondage contracts on the Revelstoke Dam and the mica in the soil there just evaporated the road wheels. The only worn part was the narrow width of the wheel where it contacted the track. I remember buying them by the pallet load! Had brush rakes on the FMCs after we logged off the contract area. I couldn't afford the cost of the road wheels, surprise, surprise, so I had a machine shop roll some 1" thick T-1 by 2.25" wide bands and welded these to the road wheels. No more road wheel problems. EVER!
I see that machine has the earlier blade ram end. They would strip the cap threads if the blade was put down all the way and contacted an immovable object. A daily occurrence it seemed. Later units had a really crude, cheaply made 4 bolt cap but it didn't fail. It also has the older type track which was lighter than the later cast pads. I figure this machine to be a mid to late 70's unit. If running gear was affordable, that old soldier would pulling wood again. The inside running gear was strong and not too pricey to repair.
The cast pads were thicker and less easily bent but the bushings were still the problem. I schemed up a pad design that would greatly increase bushing life with no real cost to pad manufacture but couldn't get the dealer interested. I'm sure he had bigger fish to fry. The design change was simply an extra grouser at the back of the pad which would come up against the front grouser on the adjacent pad when the pads were being negatively flexed beyond the design limits of the rubber bushings.
All was fine, sort of, with the bushings as long as the pads weren't being flexed severely in the opposite direction of flex that would be experienced as the track went around the sprockets and idlers. Like when the track is being tortured when passing over a small high stump which pushes the pad hinge too far the other way when between the road wheels. Presto! The bushing rubber begins to tear loose from the steel core the bushing rubber is vulcanized to. Well, that's my theory and I'm sticking to it.
I did a power line contract at Port Hardy in '77. I'm just now digging thru old pics. I'll get a few on this forum one day. Is the Sea Gate Pub still standing? If drunks attracted lightning that place would have burned decades ago. A fight broke out, not unusual for that place, but nobody was getting hurt so the bartender was letting them tire themselves out. Well anyway, the cops showed up somehow. Eventually the combatants were cuffed and loaded into the cop car. Oh well, we thought there goes the entertainment. But no, there was more to come. Suddenly the doors burst open and in come the cops. Mad as hornets. The usual thing. One cop was bellowing about somebody letting the air out of a tire on the cop car and wanted that person to come forward. LOL! Well that went over big. Lots of laffs. So anyway, I went outside to see a cop actually doing some work as in changing a tire. But not to be. The tow truck showed up and pulled the cop car complete with cops and the boozy brawlers sitting inside to the cop shop. I figured that was illegal but I didn't bother pursuing the matter.
Today there would have been a gun fight, several dead. Where have all the men gone? It's no wonder women are buying strap-ons.
