I'm rebuilding the entire undercarriage on one of my 9U's. It has the old style carrier rollers with giant button head grease fittings. The rollers insides and outsides are wore out and probably not worth fixing. The shafts are also wore somewhat. They are the type that are pressed into the support assembly. Will a newer style roller and shaft fit my support assembly or will they only work with a clamp type assembly. Thanks.

Hi Rick,
Haven't had to do the D6 but on the D4 the lifetime lube units have a slightly larger diameter shaft requiring boring out the roller stand. Also requires a couple of dowel pin holes. I suspect the D6 would be similar although the roller groups are different. Those clamp stands are pretty handy.

38 years or more ago I had a couple of old 3T D7's I thought a lot of. I wanted to upgrade the track system to more mordern stuff, lifetime rollers, bolt on sprocket rings etc.. Couldn't find used stands like I wanted and was to cheap to spring for new ones, so here's what I did for the top roller stands.

They had the old short grease type roller stands. I cut 2 pieces the width of roller stand from some 5/8" flat stock, bored 2 5/8" holes in each one and beveled one side of each for welding. Then I put an 1/8" 'split' in the top of the axle hole with a torch (had steadier hand back then), heated it up with a rose bud tip and drove a wedge in the 'split' until lifetime time roller axle would just barely go into the axle hole (didn't take much). Then I placed the the 2 flat stock pieces along the split (with 2 flat washers between them) and welded them in place "good". Then removed the bolts, knocked the washers out and slid the roller into the hole and using the 2 bolts, clamped it in place. The 2 dowels almost touched the side of the roller stand and here I put 2 good beads of weld on each side of the dowels so the seal wouldn't turn (again, I had a much steadier hand back then, Today I'd build up a couple of spots and grind a slot for the dowels with a side grinder) .

Last thing I did was place 2 pieces of 1" flat steel under each roller stand to jack them up like the ones on my 17A D-7's. Less likely that they'll stop turning with mud under them that way.

May sound like a lot of trouble but it really didn't take long for me to do that back then.

Hi Rick,
Reading old 3T's post reminded me of the instructions I received on making the LT rollers work.......Get out the "gas axe" split the stand shaft journal, install shaft and weld the whole thing up............not the sort of cob job work I do but I'm sure it was frequently done.

Rick,
It is possible to upgrade the 9U rollers to a D6B style roller. They are slightly larger so you will need to pay attention to stand height. Shaft size may be different as well. I have seen some of these done. All depends on how much work your going to being giving the machine and how much time and money you want to invest. Good luck wiht the project send in some photos when you have the job completed.

Thanks for all the good info, guys. I think I should be able to put something together without having to buy all new parts. Might take some cutting and welding but atleast I know it's been done before. I have a question about bottom rollers. Is there any problem with using two different brands of rollers on the same machine? I picked up four used ITM rollers that I'm building up by welding. I'll probably have to buy eight new rollers to have enough for both sides. The new ones are Korean and I can't remember the name. I wouldn't think there would be a problem but I don't want to be surprised. Thanks.

No problem with mixing brands but you may have some info for us after welding on that brand;)