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I am looking at a used early 2000 ish Argo frontier with 23 hp briggs. It comes with an extra set of wheels and tires with factory 14 inch tracks. I will be using mostly for ice fishing and not hardly at all in summer, no mud and no snow deeper than a couple feet. My question is are the tracks good enough for that or should I be looking at getting an 18 inch wide set , or is there a way to ad a couple inches of width to the factory 14 inch ones? Thanks
I would think the standard tracks would be fine especially if snow has any crust at all. Ice cleats away from body may be needed as the plastic is very slick on bare ice.
depending on the style of tracks ( rubber or plastic ) and design ...you may be able to bolt some flatbar to every other cleat so it sticks out 2'' on each side , then run some 2'' wide belting on each side as long as you have the tub clearance . flat bar needs to be thick enough not to bend or possible angle metal short pieces on each side like on some argo tracks . 2'' belting comes from mcmaster carr co. just some thoughts for you , good luck j boy va.
the plastic tracks will help a good deal in snow and especially mud. but it comes down to operator finesse for the most part. it takes time but obviously breaking hard/suddenly on soft snow for example will cause the Argo to sink into the snow. you can get good enough to avoid the sudden braking and sharp turns but sometimes you have to. cleats and or extensions may be a good idea as well as said above.
I would probably try your 14 in tracks before you invest in 18 in ones. I have had both. The narrow ones I had were 13 in plastic that didn't overly impress me in the deep snow. but they were ok. That was 10 years ago so the memory is a little fuzzy. Now I have the 18 in super tracks with ice picks/ice cleats, whatever you want to call them, on the outside edge of the tracks. I don't ice fish but any ice that I was on they seemed to help. Also gave me more traction in the swamp, if I broke thru the ice, to help climb out. The 18 in definatly give more floatation in the deep snow. If you run in only a couple of feet of snow you may be fine with the narrow ones. Somewhere on Utube there is a video of a guy bolting strips of chain to the tracks for more traction. I have not had a great deal of experience with either so best to take the advice of more seasoned riders.
great advice, I agree and would hesitate trying to purchase ($$$) rubber tracks, then have to adjust length/hinge installation (and tire guides for 10” wide tires) only to find out that the machine (is it an air cooled response?) would struggle badly when trying to skid turn the rubber tracks. Your drivetrain also would suffer. You can always add extra width to the factory plastic tracks. Not perfect, i but that plan would work on snow anyways