During this off-season, take a look at the tracked asphalt paver. How do the bogies look? As we’ve mentioned before, you want to clean everything up before you start any repairs; cleaning will help with the upcoming season’s performance, too. Bogies and tracks that have clumps and chunks of material built up on them are not going to flow smoothly. That means the tractor isn’t going to float smoothly or tow the screed smoothly. You’ll have a damaged mat to deal with.
Instead of setting yourself up for quality control problems, clean the paver thoroughly and include the tracks, trackpads, bogies, pins, etc. Make it shine.
Then take a close look at the condition of the bogies. If you see any crumbling or wear, replace the problem bogey. The last thing you want is a “wheel” that skips during paving. (That takes us back to the smoothness discussion.)
Once season starts up again, you can remind workers to monitor the head of material and the amount of material in the endgate. You don’t want to overfeed material while paving and end up with mix falling into the paver track. Keep quality under control and the track clean.
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