If your excavator is tracking to one side there are a few things to look for. We recommend using a qualified and experienced hydraulic technician, who should check that the final drives are receiving the correct pressure from the hydraulic pump. If the correct pressure and flow is not being delivered to the final drives, this will affect their performance. The hydraulic lines should also be checked for blockages, and the condition of the tracks should be taken into consideration.

A good hydraulic technician will proceed with troubleshooting the issue, checking for issues thoroughly, giving due attention to the troubleshooting process.

All external factors should be considered before you decide to replace the final drives, to exclude other causes for the problem. If the reason for your machine tracking to one side is not due to the final drives themselves, you run the risk of damaging (or destroying) new final drive/s because the original cause of the problem remains.

Since the early days of hydraulic technology, designers and manufacturers have been constantly updating and upgrading each of the thousands of pump, motor and final drive models out there. At times, the hydraulic units installed on an excavator can be updated when a newer model of the excavator is released.

Some cross-referencing exists, between machine manufacturers and hydraulic manufacturers, but it’s not complete and cannot always be trusted as our sole point of reference.

We want to supply you with the equivalent hydraulic unit that has failed in your machine, be that a piston pump, fan motor or track drive. So, we may ask for details like the number of bolt holes in a flange, or ask you to check a technical drawing to make sure specifications of your replacement unit are correct.

If you could, would you replace one shoe – without buying the pair? In most cases, you’ve worn out both your left and right shoe and need to replace them both – lucky for you, because they’re only sold in pairs. With final drives, it can often be the case that both sides are exhibiting signs of wear and tear and therefore, both sides should be replaced.

That said, we often have customers who are only shopping for one final drive, and the other final drive appears to be working in fine order. In this case, you need to balance the risk of the second final drive failing at an unknown point in the future, with the overall cost of replacing both now. A lot of our customers choose to replace one final drive (which has usually failed at the most inconvenient time – while out on the job somewhere!).  However, there is always the risk that the working final drive which you’ve decided not to replace, has actually slowed a little over time and many hours of work – if not noticibly, and when paired with a brand new final drive on the other side, it operates slower, causing the machine to pull to one side.

The benefits of replacing two final drives at the same time are obvious, including the machine downtime you’ll save by replacing the second final drive now instead of waiting for it to fail – which could be next week, next month, next year, or anytime between. But, on the other hand, it’s expensive and we understand that sometimes business owners need to make decisions based on their assessment of risk versus cash-flow.

So, whatever you decide – one final drive or two, the Atlas Hydraulics team is here to support you in any way we can.