Hard facing grouser lugs

[.RC.]

Anyone ever hard faced grouser lugs?

Not worth it, or the heat input will destroy the hardness of the plate below the weld, so it wears faster when it gets there so no gain in the end?

 

[Nige]

I would say the potential gains in track shoe life would be outweighed by the cost of doing the job.
Options that I can think of: -
1. Let the grousers wear down and replace them (re-grousering). This will work provided the shoe plate is still in good order and has not worn so thin that it starts to distrort.
2. Bigger (taller) grousers, if available.
3. Grousers with Extended Wear Life material applied to them. This is a type of sprayed-on hard wearing material.

 

[.RC.]

I guess what I am thinking of is #3.

I have come across one old D7 that had hard faced grousers. I have also heard old time stories of things people have done like building up with round bar and then hard facing. But those are stories told to me from a person who was doing that sort of thing in the 1960's.

 

[Willie B]

Loggers here "cork" their tracks. I believe the grouser stock they use is a manganese steel described as work hardened. They cork new tracks to prevent side slip. Log jobs on Government land are winter only. Working side hills, there are hundreds of stories of wild sideways rides, usually ending in a rollover.
Grouser stock is cut 1/3 the width of the grouser, welded on in a staggered pattern both sides of one, center of the next.

I've also heard of regrousering, but never done it.

 

[DMiller]

Time and materials to do such as Nige noted is not worth the effort, better off running shoes to nubs then re-grousering shoes or re-shoeing the rails. Did not know what to call the stagger effect re-grousering, thanks. Have seen that in severe rock and frozen conditions where side slip is a concern, seen grouser edges welded in staggered patterns as well for extreme hard surfaces to gain some traction but that was really hard on the shoes/rails on a few loaders.

 

[John C.]

I've done both the staggered and all the pads and neither really worked well. We were running a Komatsu 375 and a couple of D8s. The big dozer had the power and weight to snap off one of the welded bars in a situation where it latched onto a dead head and the operator steered against it. All those bars became staggered whether we like it or not. It seemed to work better on the old D8 as it didn't have the same power to weight ratio. The 8K though worked about the same as the big Komatsu. I've seen a lot of logging shovels with the ice cleats welded on. I've known a few operators that took the long slide sideways down an steep logging road in the winter. All noted the vacuum that they pulled on the seat with their poop chutes.

 

[Willie B]

A distant relative had a logging operation. They talked about needing new pants every slide. You either ruined your pants with battery acid or poop.
They used exclusively John Deere 350 crawlers, little tractors. I believe 60 HP 12000 LBS.

 

[56wrench]

Caulking(corking) if welded properly usually lasts quite well around here. The odd one will break off but usually they wear down and then you weld on new ones in the reverse pattern. Makes a huge difference when working in winter on severe slopes or even on flat frozen ground

 

[farmerlund]

https://www.duratuff.com/grouser-bar.html

good stuff. added them to my D8H full width. havn't lost any yet.

 

[John C.]

I never lost them on the H models. The K models were a different story.

 

[Tones]

I have had grouser bar welded on and it worked well.

 

[Nige]

Last job we re-grousered all our D10’s. Worked fine, we never lost one. Wearing out was a different matter.
We also used Dura-tuff grouser bar.

 

[Tinkerer]

I slid sideways down a 3/1 frozen slope in a pond once. D6 wide track, slick grousers. Nothing I did would turn or slow the sliding dozer. When I broke thru the ice, water flew into the air like it exploded. I stopped sliding when the lower track hit unfrozen dirt under the ice.
What a memory !
Sorry, I cannot contribute the OP's question.

 

[Old Doug]

I have hard faced and welded bars on several sets of tracks my labor was cheap and pads were high.

 

[Welder Dave]

Hardfacing may help but like Nige said probably isn't cost effective. Doing it yourself may be feasible. If you use rebar or mild steel it's too soft for the hardfacing to be very effective. Proper grouser bar is designed to be long wearing. "Corks" or ice cleats can be anywhere from 1" to about 4" long depending on the machine. They are short so they penetrate frozen ground. A lot of excavators also use them. Properly sized and welded they rarely break off. On a large machine that would involve preheating and large electrodes or multiple passes. When doing pipelines or other jobs where machines have to cross the road, they usually throw a bunch of old tires down to drive on.

 

[Shimmy1]

Worked like a charm a couple years ago.

 

[Welder Dave]

Corking makes a big difference. Probably cheaper and definitely faster putting grouser bar corks on than either fully hardfacing the complete length of worn grouser or putting softer corks on and then hardfacing them. For something cheap and fast softer material could be welded on and still last awhile in the right conditions.

 

[Willie B]

Charlie Abbott made it to early eighties. He devoted his adult life to hundreds of auctions. I ended up with a couple dozen 10' lengths of grouser stock. I'm not well versed in current prices, but don't remember them being terribly expensive.

 

[.RC.]

Not one to take any notice of what anyone says (well no one said not to do it) I did a couple or four to test. Plates are standard duty and near 100%, so pointy on top. The hard facing snapped off due to not enough dilution with the base metal. It has extreme service plates where the master link is, that has staying on properly.

 

[Welder Dave]

Not surprising there was spalling but would need to know all the details to determine what the exact cause of spalling was.