Cat's New style track chains

[3rdGenDslWrench]

Has anybody else been around some of the newer ( last 3 years) Cat track equipment? Whats up with the new design chains? They're set up kinda like a bicycle chain. Larger outter link and a smaller inner link that connects the 2 outter links. I noticed this on a D6N we have and a 963D. The thing that concerned me most was.....there's no longer a master link to separate the tracks! One of the guys in the shop said if you have to split the tracks a Cat tech has to come out and use some kinda special tooling to press the track pins out.

 

[rare ss]

yeh, we fitted 2 sets to our dozers, D6R and a D10R, they are a pain to fit as you need the right track press gear.. they give alot longer wear life though so much so that we had one of our dozers working along side another hired machine with the old track design and the owner of the hired machine was claiming our operators were abusing his dozer because his chains were wearing out quicker than our machine
(i dont know how you can wear the chains quicker from abuse but hey)

 

[Tinkerer]

I was once told by a shop foreman that high speeds in reverse is a cause of rapid chain wear.

 

[Lee-online]

They do have a master link on them now and if we split one without a master we add one.
They almost look like a regular link so you need to look close. Instead of the link being a press fit it is a clamp.

 

[Lee-online]

Instead of a press fit, it is clamped with the shoe bolts. These are torqued in sequence and stages to clamp the link evenly. To remove, there is tooling but it is just a forcing bolt the spread the clamp so it slides off.



They are standard on most system one tracks now but was not in the past.

If we had to break track for any warranty work, warranty would pay for a pair of masters.

 

[John C.]

That is the System One undercarriage and so far from my experience they outlast standard SALT track by a factor of at least two and a half times and usually more than three times the life. The bushings rotate as they ride in the sprocket which eliminates reverse gear wear. The idler tops are thin and fit in between the track links so the bushings now ride directly on the idler.

I saw some issues at first, the master link being one, but there were also some issues with hard rock getting into the centers of the links and damaging the idlers and tracks.

I would recommend a good look at them when buying a new machine.

 

[3rdGenDslWrench]

Thanks Lee! I'll have to pay closer attention to that next time I'm close to them. I'm wondering...if the rails on our machines dont have that master link set up....is it possible to change the idlers by just collapsing the track all the way and removing a few of the track pads that would be in your way and kinda pulling the chains to the side?

 

[QuickTrax]

We have seen quite a few Cat dozers with system one undercarriage. We just swapped the undercarriage on a 963 back to the standard undercarriage (at the customers request), it had 4500 hours on it and the chains were worn out. From what I have seen, the system one is not lasting nearly as long as cat has expected but I have heard they worked out the kinks. If the kinks have been worked out and they are going to get the estimated 6000 hours of life out of the system one it will be worth the money.

I've probably quoted over 50 swaps from the system one back to the standard undercarriage and have only swapped around 8 back to the standard undercarriage. The catch is that cat made a different bolt pattern on the pads and they will not match the standard chains. Needless to say, cat knew what they were doing.
Good Luck,
Quicktrax

 

[Lee-online]

I have never tried to slip the tracks off a system1 track machine but, i have on a 953 that had the master welded together. It took some work with pry bars but it came off.
You could try the attco method with pipe between the track and idler to slide it off.

 

[rare ss]

the master link looks to be a nice design.. that was the only issue with them i saw, lack of master link, we havent run them long enough but its hard to judge their success by measuring them on hours works, should have acouple machines working side by side with a batch of differant operators on each, hard for most companies to do this though but like i mentioned we had really good life so far on them

 

[Per Eriksson]

Cat had alot of problems in the beginning with the seals failing letting the pin and bushing run dry but a new process is used and the chains we get now as replacements seem to run longer.

 

[Lee-online]

Yes, we had to replace a few box sections when we found them leaking. If we found more than 5 then they got new chains.
We haven't repaired any in a long time so i guess cat has the problems worked out.