I'm a low-budget-do-it-yourselfer type... Is it entirely crazy to think about building up the wear surfaces on a set of D6B track chain links? According to the charts, they are about 50% worn, but the pins&bushings are only about 20% worn. What are the technical and practical pros and cons of either (a) building up the wear surface with weld, or (b) cutting up some strips of metal to weld onto the wear surfaces? If it IS feasible, what types of welding rod and/or metal strips should be used? What process shoud l use? Is there a CAT technical bulletin that addresses this issue (similar to the bulletin that talks about rebuilding sprocket teeth)? I understand this would probably be a two-day job (maybe longer?), but what else do I have to do this winter? Thanks.

J. Shoots
D6B (44A1621) ... not sure of the year.

Hi jshoots,
see my recent post titled as above. I see you found the articles from the 951C posts.
The reclaimation times and consumable materials are given also. There is another article on welding strips of suitably shaped strips to the link surfaces but I've run out of post ability without sacrificing the posts from the 951C thread.
For a hobby unit I feel the methods are acceptable, it I had a machine that needed this type of reclaimation I would be looking for the cheapest option.
My "A Grade Welder" Father did this type of work after WW2, both for the local Dealer and, his own customers in the 1940/50's.
My Used Equipment Playback, June 1988tells us that the 44A was built between 1959-63 with 90 HP, and increased HP to 93 in 1961. Others may get you closer to build date.
Cheers,
Eddie B.

edb - Again, Thanks for the info. If you find the space to post the article on using strips sometime, I'd like to see that too. My dad worked in the East Rochester "car shop", welding railroad cars after WW-II. I remember him saying he used to go through 50 pounds of welding rod a day! Seems like a lot to me. I learned a bit about welding from him, but wish more had rubbed off on me.

Go to the link below where there is a short wartime film made by Cat about reclaiming parts,its only a four minutes long showing the reclaiming of a piston,removing a ridge from a liner,grinding a crank,building a shaft spline, putting a rim on a sprocket,building a rail,repairing a head,rebuilding a roller and reshaping a cutting edge.
AJ
media.putfile.com/Reclaiming-parts

I have a Berco book and it seems as though most Berco rails are somewhat taller than original Cat rails. The problem may be that although your rails are still tall enough they may be worn through the hardfacing. It might not take too much to lay a layer of hardface on them, seems like I heard Stoody...50? can't remember for sure, I know I have some someplace. You say your pins and bushings are 100% gone, then you are looking at new ones because they have been turned. It will do no good to build your sprockets back to standard because your chains are out of pitch.

This is what I have been thinking lately.....what do you other guys think of this... The sprocket wears at the tips of the tooth, not so much in the root. If you use those weld in cups wont they increase the diameter of the sprocket enough to compensate for the increased pitch. Think about it and tell us what you think. It might look kind of messey but they might give you some more runnable hours.

I have given this some thought lately because my D8 tracks are shot. My biggest problem is the rail height is about 4" on one side and 4-1/8" on the other. This is over 200% worn and long since through the hardface. The only answer would be to weld on strips and hardface. On a lot of old Cats someone has put new pins and bushings in worn out rails in the past. I did it myself once, its called undercarriage denial. My left track is still in pitch at about 98% wear. My right track is climbing the sprocket at 110% wear.

The guy I got it from said I could run it the rest of my life but I know better and paid him accordingly. The pins and bushings could be turned into some other rails but who has the $ for that. I am trying to visualize another set of tracks with about 25% left...I can smell them I know they are out there someplace.

I don't mind tearing up that sprocket, it needs re-ringing anyway. I don't mind the rollers wearing into the pin bosses, they are soft. It has some more hours before the rollers hit the pins but the pins will tear up the rollers and the rollers are real good. The biggest problem right now is the ends of the pins are tearing up the rock guards and I hate to see that go any farther.

Just some stuff to ponder.

Tom

edb----

See that you state that you are out of room to post (presuming picture file space)???

Will be glad to dedicate some of my space to you----if Joe Black can arrange such. Or

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e-mail info to me and I will post for you.

You are always providing some good info

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will be glad to substitute some of your legitimate technical infor for some of my BS.

Same thing goes for any other old pro running short of space.

Will check with Joe Black on the feasibility of getting something done.

Hi Team,
AJ,
thanks for posting the video, that is "brilliant", the link reclaim method shown is the other article I mentioned, although I do not think it would be very long lived, I feel the weld build up proceedure would be the better of the two methods. We used to build up the rails with Submerged Arc at the Dealer.

DD,
thanks for the offer on posting memory space. Recently I tried to improve the images posted from the Conservation articles by upping the DPI to 400 from 300, but as noted it was at the expense of posting space so we will need to see how it goes back at 300DPI. Last lot posted in this thread is at 300DPI so I trust it prints better than it looks.
The conservation articles are printed on orange paper and, are bound in a hard cover book so do not lend themselves to scanning easily. Even though I'm using greyscale it seems to suck a lot of memory. Also I'm still learning how to get the most economy out of scanning and posting with some reasonable clarity. So I will keep experimenting with each individual article.
Cheers,
Eddie B.

Hi jshoots, the info I have shows 44A 1621 would have been a 1960 build rated @ 90h.p.

"jshoots" wrote:

(snipped)I'm a low-budget-do-it-yourselfer type... Is it entirely crazy to think about building up the wear surfaces on a set of D6B track chain links?--What are the technical and practical pros and cons of either (a) building up the wear surface with weld, or (b) cutting up some strips of metal to weld onto the wear surfaces?
J. Shoots
D6B (44A1621) ... not sure of the year.

yes you can do build up on wear surfaces but consider the time required and materials.DEPENDING,some folks use 70000 tensile rod or ER70 mig wire to do buildups on rails,it's easy to weld with,easy to grind smooth,and won't tear up your sprockets+rollers like a true 110K psi hardface rod will.Depending on usage of the machine,it'l last a while but I wouldn't try to make a living with them.I did a few bushings on my old 977L rails(which were used to begin with,but hadn't been turned)and they came out great.If you're talking more than a few links per rail(the WHOLE RAIL?)why don't you just buy some used rails and be done with it? you might even get the track shoes with 'em. for the time+effort,rods/wire,shield gas,electricity you have to use to do a weld buildup,just buy a set of used rails(eBay,my friend-)..you CAN find 'em.when you're all done,scrap the old rails for a couple hundred bux to offset the cost of the new used rails

edb,

AJ's pointer to that great reclaming video gives me an idea - why not use putfile.com as a place to store photos and video? According to the putfile FAQs, the only limits are 5MBytes/photo, and 200MBytes/video. Other than that, there is no limit on total space, and the stuff will stay there "forever".

Jim