Dragline Crawler Build

[Jared]

That's great, Jim! But I don't think that driver was very happy with the way you treated his truck It walks just like the Link Belt LS-52 I've been around a little. Tracks snap, pop and squeak just like it. Rollers will make it smooth as long as they stick down lower than the tumblers/idlers. You don't want the bottoms of the tumblers and idlers at the same height as the bottoms of the rollers or it will still hop. When the pad transitions from flat on the ground to the tumbler, the leading edge goes up but the trailing edge has to go down since it cannot conform to the radius of the tumbler. If you see any steel tracked machine that is hopping along, it means the undercarriage or at least the bottom rollers are worn out. Sucks when you are trying to hold a grade with a dozer or walk it any distance on hard ground.

Did you have to do much monkeying with those drive chains to get the proper amount of slack? Where'd ya get 'em at? Looks like the direction I might want to go.

I see one more item to add to the list: a fairlead to keep the drag cable away from the tracks.

[Rvjimd]

Thanks guys!

Ya, Jared, you got it right on the truck driver. I was cracking up when I watched the video the first time. It was like I was sleeping as I swung around and clanged into his truck.

If I had a fairlead on the drag rope it wouldn't try to boom up when the rope get stuck on the track. My current rope path goes around two pulleys low on the boom so when it pulls hard it booms up

The chain is from servo city. It is .25" plastic and I used their plastic sprockets. It comes in a little bag with all the parts loose and you have to snap the links together. I got lucky with the slack, I didn't make any adjustment allowance in the drive tumbler or motor mount. I could put on a smaller tumbler sprocket if needed but I was able to pull it together with needle foreseps and pop the links together. On one side I removed the pin from the tumbler and assembled the chain and then slid the pin in place. I already had some standard steel chain bit the plastic stuff is going to work good and is munched easier to work with.

Jim

[9W Monighan]

Looking good Jim. We could bind that up to my controls next month.
Anyhow, Try changing the host chain length and dump cable length. I noticed the drag chains not pulling like they should because of the dump rope. Just some minor experimenting you will be able to dial it in I'm sure.
There seems to be an art to getting a bucket to work correctly as I had found out with mine.
Next project would be to build a fairlead to get the drag rope out away from the track.