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Newbie with a Nodwell

caldonia

Member
Time to put the boats away and get the "new" Nodwell ready for the snow season. Ran fine when I brought it home in March but does need a new exhaust manifold gasket. Started by taking the tracks off. Guess this is something I should know how to do. Much better look at the guts of it now. Have been able to soak about half the bolts with pb blaster but can't even see the other half of them. Sure is tight in there. Must be a trick to getting in there short of removing the entire cab. Any thought?
 

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caldonia

Member
Yesterday I worked on the wheels and hubs. Removed each wheel, inspected and greased the hubs. Everything looked good. Each axel had an interesting rubber doughnut and hose clamp combination snugged up against the back of the hub. Seems to be a grease seal of sorts. Never seen anything like this before. Of the twelve hubs and axels only two were missing. Can anyone comment on this setup? Is this a common thing on snowcat axels? The internal grease seals seem to be good on all the axels as I gave about ten pumps of the grease gun to each hub.

Also cleaner up the tensioning device on the front wheels. It is a grease driven piston. Both pistons in great shape.

More to come.
 

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MNoutdoors RIP

Gone But Not Forgotten
GOLD Site Supporter
Yesterday I worked on the wheels and hubs. Removed each wheel, inspected and greased the hubs. Everything looked good. Each axel had an interesting rubber doughnut and hose clamp combination snugged up against the back of the hub. Seems to be a grease seal of sorts. Never seen anything like this before. Of the twelve hubs and axels only two were missing. Can anyone comment on this setup? Is this a common thing on snowcat axels? The internal grease seals seem to be good on all the axels as I gave about ten pumps of the grease gun to each hub.

Also cleaner up the tensioning device on the front wheels. It is a grease driven piston. Both pistons in great shape.

More to come.

The rubber donut is what they refer to as a mud excluder common on Nodwells
Try's to keep the mud from the inner grease seal
 

caldonia

Member
Thanks for the reply Boggie. I thought that might be the case. Is this a product that is till available or do I just build a similar set up out of inner tube strips and a hose clamp?

Here's another look at the mud buster.
 

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caldonia

Member
A busy fall season of work on the Nodwell. New exhaust manifold gasket, replaced all filters and fluids. Installed new fittings and hoses on the blade hydraulics. Reunited the blade that I got from Bill Guthrie last spring. Turns out that this blade came of this very unit 25 years ago whenBill sold it to the Forbes Ranch in JH. Needed a few adjustments to make it work. Had to move the upper ram support up several inches to accept the new ram. Seems to work just fine now.
Went for a quick spin around the sleigh trail yesterday. Was great to be back in the saddle. Engine runs like a sewing machine. Left brake was a little mushy so I'll have to fuss with this a bit. All in all a very satisfying first run.

Need to learn more about the proper tension of the tracks. They were tensioned to the max when we removed them. I ran them at about half that tension yesterday and never jumped a sprocket. Guess that says something.

The blade hangs a little low in its up position. Might need to raise the upper support another few inches. Pushed some snow with it just to see it work.

Since this is a work cat I am most concerned about the mechanical components. It will most likely stay an ugly duckling with is fine as long as it runs well.
 

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