What did you do with your Chinese baby digger today?

[oldrustysteel]

Ya, that be Moose! ALL earlier crawlers had manual spring tensioners on them. Later they went to the grease crap that never worked!

What causes the grease-type tensioner to not work? Most modern, larger machines use them.
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[Sonny580]

They get water and dirt in them and rust shut making them useless!

 

[oldrustysteel]

They get water and dirt in them and rust shut making them useless!

ahhh I see,, I had hoped that the hydraulic tensioners were a good thing on my L12, but it sounds like I will need to replace them with the old original style tensioners. I would guess that after tracks "break in",
they wont need much adjusting. My first 10 hours needed several track adjustments. Not bad now at 22hrs. How many hrs. on your L12 now?

 

[Sonny580]

Around 20 hours on mine and I only set the tracks when I got it running and didnt touch them since. They are holding for now but its only a matter of time til they start leaking grease and tracks fall off.

 

[oldrustysteel]

Warmed up some today so I got the baby digger out. First snow for the L12. It loved the snow and didnt want to go back to the barn.

 

[oldrustysteel]

I don't always overload equipment,,,, but, when I DO,, HaHa, No Gators were harmed on this project!!

We got the Gator about 2 months ago with 2,400 hrs. Its banged up pretty good, so I don't

mind testing the water a little bit. It did fine and dumped the log with no problem. My first Gator and its impressive.

 

[oldrustysteel]

I also tried to install the muffler heat shield but my razor knife wouldn't cut it. Surprised me the material was not cheap thin junk. will take tin snips when I go back.

 

[dfkrug]

I also tried to install the muffler heat shield but my razor knife wouldn't cut it. Surprised me the material was not cheap thin junk. will take tin snips when I go back.

Yeah, that's really thick. My exhaust wrap was barely as thick as a business card. Here, I am about to re-wrap where the rats chewed thru it.

I think I am going to make future oil changes the Andrew Camarata way: open the drain and let the oil vomit forth over the floor of the house, catching what I can from where ever it drains thru. Maybe the rats won't like getting their little rat feet all oily.

 

[oldrustysteel]

Yeah, that's really thick. My exhaust wrap was barely as thick as a business card. Here, I am about to re-wrap where the rats chewed thru it.

I think I am going to make future oil changes the Andrew Camarata way: open the drain and let the oil vomit forth over the floor of the house, catching what I can from where ever it drains thru. Maybe the rats won't like getting their little rat feet all oily.

I think I will put a drain tube on the Briggs. There is only a small hole about 2 inches square on the 12 mm plate. My oi[ changes make a huge mess that I have to continually wipe off the oil for days.
My first new machine, so I really like working on something without old nasty grease, oil, dirt, rat-crap, Yak vomit, hog snot, bird poop, mouse nests, wasp nests, spiders, ants etc,etc. When I bought the L12, I never considered how nice working on a CLEAN new machine could be. I am going to keep mine as clean as possible, as long as possible.

If I had the rat problems you have, I would have a good old-fashioned, Rat Killing. I would also buy or borrow a Rat Terrier. Those little dogs are amazing.

 

[drawthree]

Warmed up some today so I got the baby digger out. First snow for the L12. It loved the snow and didnt want to go back to the barn.View attachment 848068View attachment 848069

What was the temperature when you fired it up and did the hydraulic system squawk about it? I fired mine up this past Saturday at about 15 degrees fahrenheit and it was not happy... My bypass valve up in the manifold was making an ugly whirring sound until it warmed up a little.