Tag Archives: Bulldozer Restoration

Dfab Engineering Trackmaster Dozer Crawler Restoration

Dfab Bulldozer Restoration PArt 5: Transmission and Hydraulic motor

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#60 chain drive off of the 3 speed transmission on my Dfab Engineering Trackmaster Dozer

The first thing I wanted to do, was work on the transmission. Now from these photos you can see pretty clearly that there is a lot of grime, grease and gunk in the belly of this beast. I started by removing with steel scrapers as much of this as I could possibly remove. I took almost 4 gallons in 1 quart containers out by scraper. It was nasty oily gunk mixed with mud and leaves.

yes, nasty cigarette butts in the gunk that is several inches deep on tiny dozer.

Another angle of the transmission, and more of the nasty

close up of the transmission. Notice the top isn’t sealed/closed.

Now part of this restoration project was knowing that the transmission was broken. It’s stuck in it’s mid gear (didn’t know which gear it was at the time) which provides roughly 4.5:1 input: output reduction. The other two speeds are about 1.5:1, and 18.5:1. The low gear in this transmission at 18:5:1 must be feircely slow, because the middle gear is not fast. Anyways, Note the top isn’t attached, and seeing the condition of everything else I feared this would be beyond salvage.

there are three connections to the hydraulic motor, two -10 SAE male JIC and one -4 male JIC (case drain I believe), along with 4 bolts in sliding slots (to allow tensioning of the chain)

Removal of the transmission required some funky bending of my arm to get at all of the nuts. There are 4 all metal lock nuts used to hold down the transmission. The bolts are welded to steel flat (will add a photo eventually) and slide in slots for tensioning of the chain. There was likely a chain guard at some point, there are spots that look like welded steel taps broke off in the correct locations for a chain guard. Additionally there are three connections to the hydraulic motor, two -10 SAE male JIC and one -4 male JIC (case drain I believe).

After loosening the transmission you can pull the chain off. I piled mine over on the rear drive assembly.
While this is heavy, it’s not impossible to manage. I lifted it out by hand, I’d guess it weighs in with the motor attached at 150 lbs

The transmission lifts out relatively easily after disconnecting it from the chasis and hydraulic systems. I used some hydraulic JIC caps and plugs I ordered as a kit to close off the system on the tractor side. This will ensure it doesn’t get any contamination in the fluid causing wear or damage in the future.

In the main shop, ready for some serious TLC

The removed hydraulic motor and transmission assembly. In the next post I’ll show photos of the dissassembly and problems discovered on this part of the Trackmaster crawler.

If someone stumbles across this page with any information about these Dfab Engineering Trackmaster Dozers Crawlers, I’d love to know more. I’d be happy to host manuals and or parts catalogs here on my blog if you have them and are willing to share them with me. Please leave me a comment or email me at my website name on Gmail (no dot com there). I don’t check often, but I eventually will get back to you to host the information. Thanks!

Dfab Engineering Trackmaster Dozer Crawler Restoration

Trackmaster Loader crawler Restoration PArt 03 welding repairs

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The master link pin on the Tracks for my Dfab Trackmaster.

I promised a few pics of the damaged track drive sprockets to some friends, so the first pics of this post are just that. Further down I’ll get to some minor welding repairs pre dissassembly.

Stripped and poorly welded repairs by some hack who tried to fix this before me.
Stripped and poorly welded repairs by some hack who tried to fix this before me. Note the oversized bolt they used to try and lock it in place on the stripped shaft. Sadness

As you can see in the above photos, I’m going to have some fun fixing this sprockets. I’m not sure if I’ll weld metal back on nicely, and then remachine, or cut it all off and weld in a new hub, possibly of a larger more standard size. The spines on these sprockets, and the interior torque hub gears are bothe ANSI B92.1 1-1/2″ diameter shaft with 23 splines, 16/32DP and 30 deg angle. This is a standard involute spline that unfortunately does not seem to have survived to this day and age. Both the 1-3/4″ and 1-3/8″ see lots of use still today. I will have to figure out what to do after I see and learn more about the small Dozers drive setup.

The dirt guard had been cut/split by someone.

The roller/tensioner dirt shield had been split or cut at some point. It was definitely snapped in the rear section, the front had signs of cutting. I clamped/levered this back together and welded it up. Both the upper and lower parts are attached solidly to the frame and it wasn’t hard to pull the split section perfectly together. It didn’t really require much work to weld this up quickly with some flux. I added a few small strips to the front section. I primarily wanted to prevent misalignment from happening if and when I choose to take this apart this winter.

Counterweight on the back of Tiny Dozer, my Trackmaster by Dfab Engineering

Above you see the counterweight on the rear of the Trackmaster. some of these had backhoes on them. Mine has a counterweight. Near as I can tell, these are Solid steel/iron bars welded together, not tubes filled. I measured and did the math, this weighs about 650 lbs. I wanted to pull this off for the repairs this winter. To do that I needed to replace the Lifting hook on the top of it.

Test fitting a new lift hook onto the counterweight on the tiny bulldozer

I found some 5/8″ steel round bar in my stock pile of metal, got my bender out, and bent up a U shape out of it. I’m quite sad I didn’t take a picture of this, I have a Harbor Freight Bending tool, I mounted to a hitch so I can put it on the back of my truck. I didn’t have a location to bolt it to the floor in my shop, and wanted an immovable rugged mounting for it. Turns out this 5/8″ round was pretty challenging to bend up using it. It does list 5/8″ as the maximum thickness, and it definitely is after trying this out.

Repaired new lifting hook for the ~650lb counterweight on the back of my Trackmaster loader dozer

It was a short quick fix, but it felt good to have actually made a repair. While I was at it I cleaned up the factory welds, metal finished them flat, dressed the corners/edges a bit and sprayed it with a weld through/cold Galvinizing paint to keep it all from rusting. I want to pull this with the tractor and it’ll sit outside all winter. Don’t want my new repair to rust.

Stay tuned for more exciting Tiny Tank Progress and repairs.

If someone stumbles across this page with any information about these Dfab Engineering Trackmaster Dozers Crawlers, I’d love to know more. I’d be happy to host manuals and or parts catalogs here on my blog if you have them and are willing to share them with me. Please leave me a comment or email me at my website name on Gmail (no dot com there). I don’t check often, but I eventually will get back to you to host the information. Thanks!