She was a working girl. . .

As I spend more time with the OC-3 she reluctantly reveals more of her sorted past to me. My OC-3 was "a working girl", asked to do things that she didn't want to do by bad men who didn't care about her welfare. As I chip through the layers of abuse and neglect I find more evidence that this old OC-3 has lived a hard life.

Sunday was again a very rainy day. I decide to go to the garage to scrape and wash some parts that have not had their turn. With a masterful pitching performance by Johan Santana in the background I took a puddy knife to the final drive housings. After giving the left housing a bath in the parts washer I found a small but significant crack in the housing along one of the bolt holes (the first set of pictures below).

The right housing had an interesting surprise as well. Hidden by massive amounts of dirt and grease, I found a huge braising job from what only could have been a hellacious crack. The braising bead is about 3/4 inch wide by 4.5 inches long. It is found on the outside and inside of the housing (last set of pictures below).

I believe the small crack on the left housing can fixed in a similar way as the right housing. Neither crack should cause any problems with the functionality of the crawler. However, they will be scars that will be with her forever.