This is very valuable information and definitely a story I can learn from and believe me I love and appreciate learning from people who has integrity and the experience. I have taken an entry-level excavator course last year and there are a few takeaways in regards to the undercarriage I recall from my training that can attest to the whole story. A few things I was taught was one, always dig with the idlers in the front and final drives in the rear. This helps with stability and breakout force. Two, the front of the undercarriage is squares which are the idlers, and the rear is circles which are the final drives and the final drive motors in between the rear of the undercarriage. And third although it's related to my second point, and I definitely agree with this personally is that if you've mistaken the rear position of the undercarriage as forward and you pull back the travel levers you will go forward instead of backwards and depending on what you are doing whether it's digging a basement, or even loading a dump truck on top of a spoil pile, you would either fall into the excavation or fall off a spoil pile.

Good video Shane! I'm loving the back and forth aspect of this. All good points and I agree with 100% of what you said. I can't imagine the conversations on the job where he ripped the final drives out. 😂😂😂😂

Your comments are great and makes for a safer working procedure esp. for production work.

That makes perfect sense

Im dating myself here as a old timer but I was always told that you didnt want to pull dirt into your drive chains ! lol started out on a 690 model A

haha i was hoping youd chime in lol another reason too when your clearing trees to have the drives to the rear if you have a tree or branch bust through the front window it will likely push backwards on the travel levers backing you away from the tree instead of it tracking forward into the tree crushing u in the seat

Agreed 100 percent

Its good practice and ive also seen people wreck final drive's because digging over the drive motors, yall are in the south, I am In Canada and the great canadian sheild in Northern Ontario Canada. Came upon a cowboy in a 336, that jammed rocks all around himself all the time.. would backup and those rocks would bang and smash against the drive covers.. no big deal, until he eventually had a rock roll and smack the cover so hard that it punched a hole thru the cover and broke the bolts off the big 336F final drive cover and leaked the gear oil everywhere. Its the same as dont go stump jumping, you will land on the belly pan and damage the belly pan, it falls off and sticks and branches get in there from jumping and landing on stumps and pop goes the hoses... Another thing, both of yous seen to work in a city setting, or on a farm with dirt.. tracking down a Rocky ROW with your drives at the front, the first piece to contact the bald face or jagged rock is the final driver sprocket, the sprocket doesnt let the track flex near as easy as the idler does.. all the machines weight on the sprocket while the 35 ton excavator is just walking to the next structure.. pads seem to bend easier to on the final drive then the sprocket, no room to roll or contour the rock. Great video!

I've ran deep sewer for years and never have I ever dug over my drives.

Everybody learns by their mistakes

That’s expensive!

You can't contradict Brian he knows everything, he's a legend in his own mind

We fired a guy for hammering in a 360 over the sprockets.

Who was it?

both of your examples are irrelevant. both are operator error situations with nothing to do with the myth.