I went and worked on this machine a bit tonight.
I took off the pan under the radiator thinking I could get a socket & breaker bar on the end of the crank to try to spin the engine. There was not enough clearance between the car frame and the rad shroud, so I took off the two small inspection covers on the flywheel to try to spin the crank with a prybar. I could only get about 5 tooth movement back and forth before the engine got stuck.
I gave up on that and rigged up the two 4D batteries I brought with me to see if the starter worked. It worked but the bendix immediately got jammed in the flywheel and the starter was stuck.
I removed the starter and with a remote start button tested the starter, solenoid and bendix with the remote start button, the starter worked fine with 24V. And the nose of the starter that was in the flywheel looks practically new, so it's not a very old starter in terms of hours on it.
Once the starter was off I had better access to the flywheel teeth. I was able to use a bit bigger crowbar and was able to keep working the engine back and forth until I got past the tight spot. I was not reefing on this bar with a cheater pipe or anything, but it did take a bit to get past the tight spot. I then proceeded to turn the engine clockwise as I assume that is the way it spins when running (viewed from front of engine).
I'll put the starter back on tomorrow and see if I can turn the engine over, see how it spins.
The fuel is really old, not sure I should try to bleed what is in the tank through the fuel system or try to drain out what is in there and put in some new fresh fuel.
I noticed the HYD tank has two bolt on caps, one with what looks like a pressure relief and one without. I assume to check the oil level (nothing on sight glass that I can tell, but it's pretty dark like the sight glass is discolored), I remove the cap without the valve on it? I don't want to really spend any money on fuel and oil just yet, so hopefully it has enough in there to run.
I cracked lose the drain plug for the main pump gearbox, good clean gear oil no water.
The left side track was so loose that I had to kick the chain over back on the front idler. I used one full tube of grease and I heard creaking like the slack adjuster was just starting to move but ran out of grease before I actually saw any movement.
For reference, here is what the right track tension looks like:
The front block that mounts the idler is about 1.5" away from the front of the roller frame with that tension. So maybe the UC is decent?
Also, I bought one of those sets of keys with like 60 keys on it for all kinds of construction equipment. Only 3 of them would slide in, none of them would turn the cylinder.
The owner can't find the keys. Anyone know what key on Amazon/eBay will definitely work on this machine?