It finally warmed up enough to hose some of the loose dirt off the D4 in preparation to get it in the shop and start going through it. Didn't take long to find the first gift from the previous owner.
I guess he didn't have a wrench or just didn't want to use one. Hopefully everything is intact and it's just a matter of getting it freed up.
I have a 20 foot trailer coming out of the shop on Tuesday (hopefully) so the D4 can go in. I'll start to clean up this mess and work on adjusting things and change fluids.
I'm sure there will be more discoveries and questions down the road

Some folks have to do it that way. Tight enough is good enough, right?

Coincidentally, I was staring at the d4 I bought couple years ago- this afternoon. I took a couple pics figuring maybe I'd post them on here sometime in the near future and saw this thread-perfect timing for the subject matter. Anyway the "fix" is similar in my case, what concerns me is that although it moves fine, I noticed the idler is cocked slightly. By looking at the yoke I noticed the idler must be just contacting the yoke at times wearing a little groove in the side of it.
Both track tensioners are cut this way with a slightly different configurations of steel plate wedged and welded in. I don't really have a shop setup to handle such repairs but was wondering how difficult it is to replace the tentioner rod and getting the hole assembly apart without getting injured. Got a buddy that is quite familiar with these older cats and probably wouldn't even attempt it myself but curious if I might be able to straighten the idler somehow before something catastrophic happens.

If you search for d4 track spring repair you should find a post showing what I did to repair mine

this machine had its dirt guards on most of its life. this is still available. change urs to a 5 roller frame.

I've been reading through all the articles related to working on the track tension springs. When you say maim and kill you definitely get my attention. So just to make sure and clarify, if I cut my predecessor's mess out of the way and the through bolt is good everything should stay put. Then after that's out of the way if the threads are OK I should be able to clean and lube the threads and adjust the tracks properly.

Correct, but if the tracks are so stretched that the adjusters are right out, you have other problems, the danger is not adjusting the amount of SLACK in the track, (they are NOT in tension, but the springs are, to absorb shock loads) The danger comes when trying to remove the centre bolt to replace it, this is when I hope you don't discover that the spring is a potential bomb.

"Neil" wrote:

Really good timing on this thread because I was looking at my track adjusters tonight wondering how in heck I would undo that spring tension nut without killing myself. I've seen it written that the solution is to sacrifice the spring but wondered if there was another way? Some pics - the track adjustment system is all intact but that nut and the adjuster thread is nasty so I don't think I can do anything with as it is. Track tension itself is ok and I have plenty of adjustment left. My rails and sprocket are actually in decent shape. (Plus one photo)of the cleaned and boiled out fuel system. Had it all apart, replaced seals and o-rings, and set the lifter height - ready to roll!)

Neil--pretty much what I came across on my D2---the track frames were broken and bent out so the guy added Bolts and plates to hold the idler assembly down, the nut was striped on the spring bolt so he added 1/2 cut pipe spacers with u bolt clamps to hold the idler out
what i did was retract the track with a come along to compress the spring--added another come along to hold the idler back while i removed the track
then backed off the adjusting nut and let off on the idler come along until everything wasn't under compression--the threads were good just behind the adjusting nut so i added 2 new adjusting nuts and they held good---strightened the frame. fli ch plated it and reassembled it all--notice the tie downs in the pic

the springs are in compression and not tension---when I replaced the spring in my 941B i cut the old spring out--installed a new bolt ,spring, and 2 nuts--had a friend compress it with a 14 ton load and it held in a compressed condition until i could install it---handled it gently as a time bomb!!