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martz, sounds great buddy !!! it is very satisfying when you put all the time and effort in and get a good outcome. i hope all the discussions we have had, plus the input by buzz, will give others guidance if they want to make their own tracks. if i was starting over from scratch now, i would pretty much know exactly how to do it. but it looks like mine are going to turn out well. the info buzz gave regarding the tightening i think was right on. promise to have pics soon. johnboy va. p.s i think buzz's advise on turning technique was also a good thing to put into practice.
so we went for a nice ride today. i have a few videos. I also found a flaw in my design, came back with only one track on -_- ... back to the drawing board. I need taller/sturdier guides
14 inches is to wide and the small ruts were twisting them all over the place. The machine was really hard to turn also. I wonder if half tracks on axles 2 and 3 would be better
martz, i am not sure 14 '' is too wide. i went back and looked at your pictures. i'm wondering if because the angle iron is only 1'' wide, the tires don't have enough wide flat surface . in other word's , if you welded a piece of 1 1/2 '' flat bar on the inside of each angle, they would not tend to roll. let's see if buzz has some ideas. johnboy va.
martz, had to go eat dinner. anyway, the other thing is each angle is like a knife edge digging into the terrain. my guides are flat 1 1/2'' flat bar with the 2'' angle exstensions and belts set lower than the flatbar guides. so the angle only comes into play when the ground is soft enough that the flatbar guide sinks. seems like if your angles dig into semi hard ground , when you go to turn there is really going to be alot of resistance.that seems like it will then make the belt flex and then more apt to come off. not so in pudding mud or snow because it will give in a turn. adair track guides are about 1'' wide and flat so they spin easier i think. just tossing out some thoughts. i finished my second half track this afternoon. i cut out maybe a 3'' x 4'' piece of the center belt,inbetween the guides. went down a played around in the mud swamp a few minutes.had to come back and do a few adjustments. need to ride some more down in there to see if i notice much performance difference between the open track and the closed track.ruth's going to take some pictures tomorrow. johnboy va.
i've been sick with the flu all day and in my nyquil induced high i realised that my guides are on an angle, the face of the guide facing the tire is not parallel to it, that lets the tire start rolling on them and getting some bite on them making them easier to come off. I'm going to make another set of half tracks to test my theory. I have enough supplies to do a half track set. I haven't found much info on half tracks but buzz wrote in another post that they were about 80% of full tracks benefits if installed on the axles 2 and 3 but a lot easier on the machine. It's worth a shot since i already have all the materials here anyway. On the half tracks i will bend the angles at 3 inches from each end (right after the belting) so that my guide is parallel to the tires and see how that works. we have a lot of very twisty trails here so i think i can trade off 20% traction for a bit more mobility because it was really a pain on monday. Always had to go back and forth to go around the trail as atvs turn pretty sharp nowadays. The biggest issue i've found with my argo without the tracks is getting out of the hole usually and most of the time its right at that tipping point between the 2nd and 3rd axle so i'm thinking if i track those 2, once the third axle is up the front of the machine goes down and the forth is pulled out of the hole on its own. Would be nice to have the full tracks with a permanent snow kit and halftracks for the summer. i wonder if bearing extentions will be required for the middle axles too now... anyone know?
martz, hope you feel better ! sounds like a good plan. i've been thru lot's of modifications too. i'm going to run my half tracks quite a while to really give them some good testing. like to really test them some where like busco beach again. not in any rush to extend them to full untill for my uses i see the need. it sounds like your guides could be the culprit. i've seen some 8x8 's where there are one set of tracks on the first 2 tires and another set on the second 2 tires. must be some benefits. once you make a half track for 2 tires, you can experiment placing them on the front two,middle two or back two tires. johnboy va.
In the other post i was talking about buzz said that the very best is middle because if you put the front 2, you can get up most ruts/holes but still have a hard time getting out, at the back its the opposite, hard time getting up the ruts/hole but easy getting out once the front end is up. Middle seams to be the best. I'm thinking put the best thread tires at the front to help with grip. 4 biggest ones on middle axles of course. If it works good i might even put 21" tires on the corners and put something with more thread than the runamuks. I don't need them to swim i have a 36lbs trust trolling motor
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