Track Frame Hangers - Restoration & Repair

[oliverchris]

Trying to educate myself here. I have TONS of worn track frame hangers lying about. They seem to be a weak point in the OC3 HG design.
I have seen some kind of shim or bushing fall out of some that I have disassembled.

I presume the proper internal diameter would equal that of the trunnion or 'boss' at the back of the final drive cover.

1. Is that the same diameter (inner and outer track frame hanger)?
2. How best to refurbish these for re-use?

Thanks in advance.

[oliverchris]

I was talking to Ray Zimmerman. So I can answer some of my question
The inner track frame hangers (that is, on the back of the final drives) had a larger diameter because they held a loose sleeve [these are the 'shims' I see drop out from time to time on disassembly].
The outer track frame hangers had no sleeves and just pressed onto the trunnions.
A restoration technique for the outer hangers that Zimmerman's used was to turn out the diameter from the worn oval back to a round shape, then press in a bushing.
Any other ideas?

[oliverchris]

Two more things.
Earlier HGs had same track frame hangers, inner and outer.

OC3 and OC4 had zirk on side. HGs had zirk on top.

[hotratz]

Great information, I wondered about some of this same stuff when I did my restoration. I know one of my hangers had a pressed in bushing in it. The rest had shim stock wrapped up inside.

[Jack in NB]

I restored mine the hard way. For the inners, I built up the worn final drive bosses with braze, pushed the axle out of the final drive housing, pushed in an arbour, made up a belt-driven fly cutter mounted on a piece of bushing stock (sort of mini lathe) to fit the arbour, and turned them round. Tapped the end of the arbour for a piece of redi rod, welded wings on a nut for a handle, washer between nut and bushing stock, and fed the cutter forward with that feed setup. Took many light cuts.

Built up the worn surfaces of the hangars with braze. Made a bracket to hold the track hangars, clamped it onto the drill press, and bored the hangars out with a commercial fly cutter to match the bosses.

Replaced the axles.

Same process with the outer hangars - built up the worn hangars and blocks with braze, trued them up, bored out the hangars to fit.

Then tapped the hangers for grease fittings opposite to the existing fittings, to be sure to get grease to the front (heavy wear) points.

I tried to put rubber dust shields on the inner hangars, but they did not last any time. I now grease every couple of hours to blow out the dirt.