srukke 18 #1 Posted March 7, 2015 After rebuilding the undercarriage and remachining the rollers and pins I reassembled everything and took her for a test by pushing some gravel around. Everything ran beautifully but then the RR side started to drip gearbox fluid. I disassembled the track and roller assemblies and then had to drill out the two set screws on the hub as they were frozen solid and broke my hex wrenches. I put a standard 8" puller on the hub which promptly broke. I then got the big boys puller out which is a 12-ton hudraulic unit. No go. I then applied two torches to heat the hub with the puller on. Still no movement. I then decided to split the gear reduction box and remove the entire lower axle assembly and gear to see if I could get it into my 20 ton shop press. I put 20 tons of pressure on the shaft trying to push it out of the hub and then the frame of my press violently exploded sending bolts flying. The failure of the 20 ton press was shocking. The bolts actually stretched and the frame bent. I decided to weld all the frame joints and put in new bolts and beefed up the metal with some heave plating. Once that was done I put the hub and axle back in and tried again. Still no go. I held full pressure on the axle and hub and fired up the torch again. As soon as I started to heat up the hub she finally let loose. Pretty violently too. I can not believe the amount of pressure it took to push the axle out of the hub. Now with new bearings she should go back together fairly easilt. These were the last bearings to replace on this machine. I was not going to replace them until the one started leaking. 3 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
boovuc 1,090 #2 Posted March 8, 2015 They are cool little machines. Thanks for sharing this. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
KC9KAS 4,741 #3 Posted March 8, 2015 No wonder the 1st 8" puller broke! That sucker was tight! Glad you weren't hurt when the press let go. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
