420 rebuild

[ggfossen]

Things I'm learning about the 420. My tracks were shot. Lavoy was my only hope, but he is a long ways away. I found 350 tracks...two sets. One with good rails, and the other with good pads. For the rails, I found it is easy to blow off the bolts with a torch. For the pads, I had to be carefull to save the pads. Much soaking in Kroil (not sure on the spelling), and most bolts broke loose, but with a lonnnng cheater bar, and at the expense of at least two old timey, and quite good, wrenches. The ones that would not break loose, I cut the heads in half with a hacksaw, and split the nuts. Not really difficult, but time consuming.

To mount the 350 sprockets on my 420, I didn't want to ruin my quite good 420 sprockets, so I built an adaptor plate of 7/8" steel plate. A lot of difficult drilling, but it can be done. To mount the 350 sprocket, I had to grind a flat on each bolt head to clear the 420 mounting plate. It can be done. The first 350 sprocket was mounted on the 420 today, and fits up well.

I also found that the track pads can be cut with a liquid cooled power hacksaw. It's slow work, but the end product looks like almost new 10 inch pads. They were originally 14 inch, and quite ragged on the ends.

I've been using spray can paint, but JD is quite spendy. I found that Ace has a JD green that, at least to my somewhat old and tired eyes, is indicernable from the JD paint/color. The Ace yellow, however, doesn't match well. The Ace green is 3 or 4 bucks a can.

To remove one link from the 350 chain, I blew out the center of both ends of the pin, but still could not drive it out of the link. I was able to cut the pin with a hacksaw between the links on both sides. I'm hoping that it was soft enough for the hacksaw because of the heat I first used, and not because the pins are garbage. Time will tell on that one.

These are things I'm learning.

Gary

[Lavoy]

Gary,
You forgot to mention what the Band-aid count is so far?
lavoy

[ggfossen]

Hey, I spent about 8 years building a quite big log house...all alone, and I broke nothing. Maybe a few bandaids, but I broke nothing. Then, doing nothing particularly important, I fell off a ladder, and broke two ribs.

No bandaids on the crawler, yet. They probably will come after I've finished it?

[Lavoy]

No, I meant band-aids on you.
Lavoy

[ggfossen]

Lavoy,

So did I. I can't quite figure out how to use a bandaid on a crawler? And maybe my writing, like, ain't so good, all the time. Then again, given enough time, I might find a place for a bandaid on a crawler, too. Also, if I can ever figure how to carve the little pieces of steel out of my fingers, I might need a bandaid.

I think I mentioned that my adaptor plate bolted up well? Also, it made up, almost perfectly, for the difference in depth between the sprockets.

Did JD use grade 8, or grade 5, bolts for sprocket mounting? I bought grade 8's, but I'm not sure they are necessary, and they are a bit more money.

Gary

[Lavoy]

Don't worry about your typing, just type slow as I don't read very fast.
Grade 5 is fine for the sprocket bolts.
Lavoy

[ggfossen]

Lavoy,

OK, I'll buy grade five on the next go-around. What I now have will be over-kill, but no harm done, other than to the pocket book.

Thanks,

Gary