[Bill Schwab]

I just spent the better part of a day at a Cat training seminar for what they label as MTL's, Multi terrain Loaders. Before going to this seminar, speaking to other owners, seeing the demos, hearing the engineers and seeing design capabilities, I was somewhat leary about these machines. I learned alot and the following are some outtakes.

First, there are definite advantages to these machines. On a stright on, straight off drive, you can run buckets of materials over exisiting lawns and all you will do is cruush grass blades. If you turn or make repeated runs off and on, the lawn will trash just like a skid steer.

My biggest question was overhead and the recovery there of. Fact is, all track drive loaders require more maintenance than rubber tired, and how well you perform that will determine how much overhead you will need to recover. So, we will need to charge $150.00 per hour for the machine and operator to recover operating costs and profit from the usage.

Let us first mention the myths about a track, and this holds true to ALL tracks. Over tight track tension will help the track live longer. This is false. What will occur with a rubber track is similar to an over inflated tire. you will wear groves on the top side of the track, where the rollers are sitting. The way to adjust a CAT track is by setting a 100 lb weight on top the track and measuring no more or less than 1/2" of flex in the rubber. Tensioners on the 257B which we are getting next week are adjusted with a 1 1/4" wrench and a turn bickle. Loose tracks under load will cause the planetary drive wheel to spin inside the cleats and eventually break them off. Cracking and tears depending on how, and where, can be from superficial to waranteeable, depending on how, what etc.

Full tilt 360° turns such as in your skid steer should be avoided. 3 point turns are recommended. What occurs when you do a 360 is that rock and dirt can get jammed into the wheels and cause abrasion. And since we are on that subject, you must clean the tracks nightly after running the mac hine. ASV/CAT style tracks have more clean outs than any other brand.

You should also avoid running on transitions., where one track is on the flat, and the other is on the slope, as this will place undue pressures on the alignment blocks and caster sides.

How long your track lasts depends highly on what surface you are running on. Try to avoid running on steel, demo, abrasive such as gravel, and asphalt streets, but on average, you can get 2500 plus hours out of tracks, and even longer out of rollers. Tracks for the 257 cost $4,000.00, rollers about a grand.

The Cat compared to Bobcat, Gehl, Tachehuchi, etc. Cat uses a bias ply fiberglass track. All other use vulcanized rubber onto steel. I can't tell you how many motor mounts i have broken when I dump a clutch, and this is what can happen with a steel vulcanized track. The ride is worse on a bobcat style since there is not suspension, and the steel gear builds alot more heat than the planetary drive rollers of the Cat. There are no areas to clean out the track on Bobcat/Gehl or Tachehuchi machines. On the plus side for bobcat, it is virtually impossible to throw a track due to the way they have been designed. Where you can run torn Cat tracks if you cut off the flapping rubber from the cut, when a bobcat track gets ripped, the steel will work it's way out and eventually render the track useless.

Slopes. These machine will work on a 3-1 slope for cutting pads and such. They will crawl over trenches, and provide years of life. The B seriies has an automatic attachment uncoupler, so, by flipping a lever, you can connect anything you want to run.

We got ours with a tooth bucket, 6 way angle blade, set of forks and an auger. Delivered price was $49,670.00 tax frieght and out the gate. We are going to run the GPS style lazer grading tool, it uses satelites to tell us how deep we cut or how high we need to fill. Two other guys who grade with them swear by this system because you don't need to move any tripods or se thtem up in the tight spaces our area offers with houses.

We are now certified operators of CAT MTL's, and i can easily see that by taking this course, there are do and don'ts of these style machines. I spoke to over 15 owners, some that had the series one ASV, that uses the two handle style stering it used tio run before Cat. That machine has over 2300 hours and the tracks still looked new. I think as these machine become more popular, the cost of rubber is going to drop. Right now production is less than it could be, so the cost will be higher.

Anyhow, if there is any questions that I may be able to answer, I can look it up in the book and see what they got to say!