Hello everyone,
I have an old D3 I bought a couple of years ago ser. 79U4366, I just use it around the house for fence lines, taking down trees or whatever, a dozers real handy around the farm, I decided recently to replace the chains,rollers and sprockets here at home, I bought after market parts and spent a month doing it by myself, a heck of a job, I started dreading working on it as I don't know how many times I got beat up, mostly when something slipped and I hit it with head, arms etc, anyway everything got installed,checked,torqued and it looked good.
I drove it a little and did a final track adjustment per my CAT manual specific to this machine, I was all pumped up as I have a one acre pond that needs some long overdue work, I bet I hadnt worked for 5 minutes and started getting loud machine shaking pops in forward or reverse, the undercarraige at that point was getting packed with sand/clay and the tracks were as tight as could be, you couldnt move them if you jumped on them, I've read you should readjust for the operating conditions which I did but it still popped, the popping was the chain bushings slipping past the sprocket teeth, at times some of the sprocket teeth were pushing into the center of the bushing and as the sprocket turned the bushing would slam between the teeth where it should be normally, I didnt know what to do at that point so I called the company I bought the parts from, their within driving distance from me and sent a guy out to take a look the next day, he made several measurements and we removed the covers over the springs, and after looking at them he felt sure they were the problem because basically it couldnt be anything else because it was all new, I agreed to have the machine delivered to their shop at my cost and pay to have new springs installed and pay to bring it back home, after 4 weeks I got a call telling me it runs fine and tracks straight so I called my guy and he delivered it back to me, well the tractor ran great for a few minutes until I got it dirty, then same problem as before.
The same guy returned and basically told me he didnt have a clue what the problem is after looking at it again, however, before he arrived I checked my manual for some dimensions and found two things that bother me but the technician says dont matter, one is the bushing diameter, my old ones were 1.8" and the new ones are 2.1", the new chains are SALT, I'm not sure if the old ones were SALT either.
but the manual shows they should be 1.8", also there's a dimension from the springs to the front idlers that comes up short, couldnt too large diameter bushings cause this? now they want me to pay to have it brought back to their shop to look at the springs again, I've already paid them once and I'm not going to do it again, those springs cost me $3500.00 not including what I paid for everything else and I'm not convinced they needed replacing anyway.
At this point I feel like buying new chains with the 1.8" diameter and returning the other ones for a refund and call it a day, I'm tired of talking about it with them and getting nowhere, the company is known nationally and I originally expected this to be a simple fix for them but I guess not, am I wrong? I'm no expert dozer mechanic but I really feel its the bushings, I've been very patient so far even though I've lost my window to work due to winter rains now.
I have an old D3 I bought a couple of years ago ser. 79U4366, I just use it around the house for fence lines, taking down trees or whatever, a dozers real handy around the farm, I decided recently to replace the chains,rollers and sprockets here at home, I bought after market parts and spent a month doing it by myself, a heck of a job, I started dreading working on it as I don't know how many times I got beat up, mostly when something slipped and I hit it with head, arms etc, anyway everything got installed,checked,torqued and it looked good.
I drove it a little and did a final track adjustment per my CAT manual specific to this machine, I was all pumped up as I have a one acre pond that needs some long overdue work, I bet I hadnt worked for 5 minutes and started getting loud machine shaking pops in forward or reverse, the undercarraige at that point was getting packed with sand/clay and the tracks were as tight as could be, you couldnt move them if you jumped on them, I've read you should readjust for the operating conditions which I did but it still popped, the popping was the chain bushings slipping past the sprocket teeth, at times some of the sprocket teeth were pushing into the center of the bushing and as the sprocket turned the bushing would slam between the teeth where it should be normally, I didnt know what to do at that point so I called the company I bought the parts from, their within driving distance from me and sent a guy out to take a look the next day, he made several measurements and we removed the covers over the springs, and after looking at them he felt sure they were the problem because basically it couldnt be anything else because it was all new, I agreed to have the machine delivered to their shop at my cost and pay to have new springs installed and pay to bring it back home, after 4 weeks I got a call telling me it runs fine and tracks straight so I called my guy and he delivered it back to me, well the tractor ran great for a few minutes until I got it dirty, then same problem as before.
The same guy returned and basically told me he didnt have a clue what the problem is after looking at it again, however, before he arrived I checked my manual for some dimensions and found two things that bother me but the technician says dont matter, one is the bushing diameter, my old ones were 1.8" and the new ones are 2.1", the new chains are SALT, I'm not sure if the old ones were SALT either.
but the manual shows they should be 1.8", also there's a dimension from the springs to the front idlers that comes up short, couldnt too large diameter bushings cause this? now they want me to pay to have it brought back to their shop to look at the springs again, I've already paid them once and I'm not going to do it again, those springs cost me $3500.00 not including what I paid for everything else and I'm not convinced they needed replacing anyway.
At this point I feel like buying new chains with the 1.8" diameter and returning the other ones for a refund and call it a day, I'm tired of talking about it with them and getting nowhere, the company is known nationally and I originally expected this to be a simple fix for them but I guess not, am I wrong? I'm no expert dozer mechanic but I really feel its the bushings, I've been very patient so far even though I've lost my window to work due to winter rains now.
New chains popping on D3
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