rating undercarriage wear

http://www.scarlett.co.nz/TrackShop/WearLimits.html

I'm sure he knows about those too, lubricated pins and bushings, I think A-C had the claim of first offering these, but CAT improved on them greatly. I've only owned dry ones, but ran plenty of later ones with that type. I worked as an operator in NJ for several years and lived right on the beach, where a D-6D was parked part of the year, they used it to push up a sand berm every year to protect the beach or something, just looking at the tractor, I'd not have wanted to work on that one, especially like the bottom roller bolts, they ought to be ripe for breaking.

The soils in NJ were mostly good, but plenty of rock in Mid-Northern NJ, clay in central NJ like North Brunswick and the sandy material further south. Nothing like grading top soil in south jersey, dark black sandy easy to work with. Worked on a few rock jobs, that became blasting jobs, the ole D8-K with a ripper, there is no doubt about checking a machine for stress cracks, poor repairs and or anything along those lines, some of the operators were really hard on them. When your ripping rock, even at a snails pace you can feel the difference between working in loose soil, start hammering a crawler on rock and you will find the weak areas. All of this kind of equipment, it is wise to really check thoroughly, I know some of those era JD's did not take the abuse well, we had a few old 450's.

Identify the crawler, by it's serial number, then get the specifications for it's track components when new, measure each component properly, record the measurement, then subtract the difference, between the 2, do the math to convert to a percentage, much more accurate than the eyeball, which really is only good to identify suspected worn components, measuring will confirm ones suspicions or prove it wrong.

I would not recommend taking someone's word for the percentage worn or percentage left on an undercarriage, based on speculation. Link below should be helpful.