Eddie or other knowledgeable welders, I am in process of reconditioning my bottom rolls on the 5U D2. I have the track frame upside down on sawhorses. Can these be done on the track frame without removal?  I will be following CAT procedure as outlined in the reference literature found here at ACMOC. Can this be done without comprising the seals? These have bellows type seal.

Herb

I did mine that way--but i did set up a water bath to keep them cool and only went half around at a time--jumping from roller to roller

what size and type of electrode did you use? could you burn a complete rod? or did you have to jump to another spot sooner?

I have Lincoln Wearshield BU90 I am going strictly by what the Cat service recommendation is. I an trying to find out if I can do the welding on the roller in the track frame without taking everything apart. I don' want to burn up the seals as they are probably made of Unobtainium.

Herb

Herb, I'm not very bright, so tend to go the extra yard when working on a old Cat, I've welded up D2 bottom rollers after they were removed from the frames, it takes a long time, and there is a lot of heat involved even when opposite side passes are used, my advice is seeing you have done the hard part and removed the track frames, go the extra step and remove the rollers now, dismantle them, then weld, that gives you the added opportunity to spin your repaired rollers in a lathe afterwards to give them that professional look, that's what I did.

It should only take a few minutes to rattle gun the bolts off, then you can check the condition of bearings and the seals, and clean out the old baked in grease from within the hub, AND, more importantly prevent the possible damage to those seals, because you would be bummed to discover oil leaks once you put that tractor back together.

Add plenty of anti seize to the mounting bolts when you put it all back together, so the next custodian of that tractor doesn't bust bolts off when they try and service those rollers....... 

The seals used to be available from FP Smith for around $30 a piece, but that was a few years ago, so were new rollers, for around $180 each.
Mike

Mike wrote:

Add plenty of anti seize to the mounting bolts when you put it all back together, so the next custodian of that tractor doesn't bust bolts off when they try and service those rollers.......
Mike
 

I agree. Also if the machine has been sitting for a long time the heads of the bolts will be heavily corroded and need replacing anyway.
Years ago my father attempted to rebuild some D6 rollers that were missing one flange and were heavily worn. He made new flanges up out of round bar and welded them on, then proceded to build up the rolling surface. About half way through the roller had shrank that much from the welding that it would no longer turn so he shelved that idea. I was going to pull one apart and machine the bore back to specs but never got around to it.

Thanks everyone for you insight.
Herb

Got the bellows seals from Florin tractor , 7B9968 $40

kittylover123 wrote:

what size and type of electrode did you use? could you burn a complete rod? or did you have to jump to another spot sooner?

I used 3/16 6013 rods--burnt the whole rod on the half turn--kept one hand on the seal area to see how hot it got
 

I have the entire roll apart. Inside and outside marked for proper shim replacement Have to locate my weed burner to do preheat to 400* It works out to 16 pads per side per layer.Plan on doing 8 pads per roller then stopping to cool. We'll see. I have 5/32 Lincoln BU90.