I've welded a few of them up and YES a Mig is the only way to go!
I remember along time ago doing pads one winter on an Oilfield Crawler, no heat in the Shed except for the 10 or so pounds of Rod!
Last ones I did was with a Miller Mig. In the photo's, it looks like you ground them afterwards? I've ground a few but generally when I get rolling at the right speed, the wire seems to flow evenly across the surface.

"drujinin" wrote:

I've welded a few of them up and YES a Mig is the only way to go!
I remember along time ago doing pads one winter on an Oilfield Crawler, no heat in the Shed except for the 10 or so pounds of Rod!
Last ones I did was with a Miller Mig. In the photo's, it looks like you ground them afterwards? I've ground a few but generally when I get rolling at the right speed, the wire seems to flow evenly across the surface.

Yes I did grind after welding and my thoughts were to get the surface as close to flat as I could versus having my newly reconditioned 70 plus year old undercarriage have to grind the high spots off. After about 20 links or so its definitely improving maybe by the time I get to the 60th link I might be able to forget the gender.
One thing that helped was to ground each pad individually. When I started I had the ground on the end of the chain and everytime I moved something the ground had to reestablish. Having a pro set up my welder didn't hurt either!

Ran out of gas for the welder so I did a little bottom roller inspection. Apparently there are 3 different roller seal configurations and my salvageable rollers that came off of my 5j are the early 5u style with the bellows type seals.
So the $20 seals that I checked on are for the j series and wont work. I read an old post where D7 idler seals were substituted but so far the best price I found for those is around $70.. Looks like some of my seals will be ok and some, well not so much.

Did some more looking around on my rollers and my hope of salvaging seals is pretty much gone. I talked with Florin and they have the D7 seals for $40. I'm going to order one a d see if it can actually be used as a replacement for the D2 bottom roller seals. I can't tell from the pictures if it has the locating pins like the D2 seals. Might be able to use some type of glue to glue it to the cap to hold it in place. If anyone has experience with this seal substitute I'd appreciate any info.

I read in one of the old posts about welding a bead around the bushing to help release it from the end cap. I welded a little bead around one and tried to pull it with a pilot bushing puller I borrowed. No joy there but I figured the bushing is no good anymore so I welded a bolt into the glob of weld and hooked a slide hammer to it. The bushing came out and until I figure out a better way I guess this is it.

"Neil" wrote:

Gary, try welding a line along the length of the bushing (or perhaps three lines) so that shrinks radially along its entire length. The weld you have there may have shrunk it radially at that point but probably didn't at each end, and may have even bowed it out at the ends making it harder to extract.

Thanks for the tip,my metal worker friend suggested that also. I tried one with the vertical welds and it did seem to come out a little easier.

Took all of the seals out of my rollers and I think I hit the bellows seal jackpot. I have 8 good reusable seals that just need cleaning and gaskets. The rubber is still nice and pliable and bonded to the metal well.

"d2gary" wrote:

Thanks for the tip,my metal worker friend suggested that also. I tried one with the vertical welds and it did seem to come out a little easier.

Took all of the seals out of my rollers and I think I hit the bellows seal jackpot. I have 8 good reusable seals that just need cleaning and gaskets. The rubber is still nice and pliable and bonded to the metal well.

The Seal that replaces the D2 one is Part number 7B9968
I believe it to be a D8 14A seal. I used 16 of them in my D2 rollers and they are a good Thing. Fp smith have hundreds of them. They are a perfect substitute for the original seal.

"Riverina wrote:

The Seal that replaces the D2 one is Part number 7B9968
I believe it to be a D8 14A seal. I used 16 of them in my D2 rollers and they are a good Thing. Fp smith have hundreds of them. They are a perfect substitute for the original seal.

Thanks for the info. There was some confusion in the old post I read if it was a D7 or a D8 but the 7b9968 number was what everyone came up with. I have one on the way from Florin . This is a really big deal because if you use the part number off the D2 bellows seal it is in the $220 range times 2 for each roller. I researched the D3 conversion but really wanted to keep mine as close to original as possible.

"d2gary" wrote:

Thanks for the info. There was some confusion in the old post I read if it was a D7 or a D8 but the 7b9968 number was what everyone came up with. I have one on the way from Florin . This is a really big deal because if you use the part number off the D2 bellows seal it is in the $220 range times 2 for each roller. I researched the D3 conversion but really wanted to keep mine as close to original as possible.

To remove the bronze bushes from caps....
Get you gas torch and heat them up from the inside to a cherry red colour ( the Bush I mean )
Have a running hose ready to immediately cool them once you stop heating.
Cool all the way to room temp with out hesitation, beware of water spiting back at your face.
Once cool the Bush will Literally fall out leaving you a clean and un-harmed cap.
I heat mine near the water Tap so I don't have to move them while hot.
Good Luck