My Trackster Build

[ashland]

brushcutter I'm in Natchez, Ms. Here are some photos of mine.

[CROSSBOW]

Nice ,tough looking like to see it in the mud.

[Noel Woods]

Nice ,tough looking like to see it in the mud.

That's what I was thinking. Would love to see this mean machine going.

[ashland]

Thank you. It's more fun swimming it. Swims well with two people, dozen decoys, guns, etc. It will swim with 4 people but they need to be pretty still.

[mudbug3]

What makes you machine swim? I can't see how the shape of the lugs on your tracks are able to give any water propulsion at all. Does it use a jet pump in the rear?

[brushcutter]

Nice... really NICE... What?!?Natchez, Ms.! Holy cow dude, were only 3 or 4 hours apart, when I get mine going we will HAVE to get together. Also there is a guy up in Monroe, La that has one, Jody McKoin, might hook up with him also, he's the guy who really got me fired up to own a trackster and we've been supposed to meet, just never have. I wanted one for several years after having seen one, but after talking to Jody, hell, I had to have one. LOL He's also the guy who told me about putting the grease fitting in my bearing housings. Said he's never replaced a bearing he did this to.

Is your camo a wrap, or? Bet that works good for hunting. Any chance you might get some video of it swimming, wait, nix that, I wanted to be the first to post video of a trackster tearing it up in the mud, but hey, if you feel like you just have to be the first, well, we would all LOVE to see it in action.

[ashland]

mudbug, there is an angled piece of metal located at the front of the machine above the track. It is visible in the first picture I think. That little piece of aluminum traps the water being pushed by the track and is what makes it swim. It is required if you want to move at a decent speed through the water. A buddy of mine has practically the same machine and put a trolling motor on the back of his to make it swim faster. Honestly the machine will swim just fine without the trolling motor.

brushcutter, that is a wrap on camo and I forget where I bought it but it is very durable. Mine has some scratches but it was just was better than painting a camo on it. I believe we used a heat gun to apply it. Wish I had filmed it swimming. Used to swim it alot when I hunted.

[kghills]

mudbug, there is an angled piece of metal located at the front of the machine above the track. It is visible in the first picture I think. That little piece of aluminum traps the water being pushed by the track and is what makes it swim. It is required if you want to move at a decent speed through the water. A buddy of mine has practically the same machine and put a trolling motor on the back of his to make it swim faster. Honestly the machine will swim just fine without the trolling motor.

I was also curious about this. I see the deflector but just don't understand it. It sits so low in the water you would think it would not move at all without some sort of outboard like this guy has.

Keith.

[ashland]

That's a good video. Wonder if that water had current. My cushman seems to swim about that speed without a motor but there is no current in the water I've been swimming in. The new tracks that I have seemed to have a little more paddle or tread than the older tracks that I replaced. I have a faster transmission than the older models too. I don't know. I will say that it really helps when you have two people, one running the cushman and the other running the outboard or trolling motor. The T-bar steers the cushman pretty well in the water.

Well never mind I just saw that that was a river crossing. It did well. I've crossed water with three and four people in mine but we had to shift around to equal the bouancy.

[Noel Woods]

Ashland and Brushcutter:
Please advise when yall are going to get together for a ride. I would like to see these machines firsthand. I'll bring a Max or Argo just for comparison purposes.
I really like the idea of hydraulic power, and those Cushmans have the good looks as well.
Hopefully we can get together somewhere this fall for a ride. Thanks for posting the info/photos/vids on these rare machines.

[mudbug3]

ashland

If your trackster swims as good as the trackster in the video with the 2 hp out board motor on the back of it, it swims good enough to suite me.

[brushcutter]

Ashland and Brushcutter:
Please advise when yall are going to get together for a ride. I would like to see these machines firsthand. I'll bring a Max or Argo just for comparison purposes.
I really like the idea of hydraulic power, and those Cushmans have the good looks as well.
Hopefully we can get together somewhere this fall for a ride. Thanks for posting the info/photos/vids on these rare machines.

Roger that! But I've got a ton of work to do first... might ought to get to the shop.

[ashland]

No problem Noel. Mudbug, it just seems like mine swims at that pace. I wasn't facing a current either. I wouldn't swim it in a fast current unless I had a motor like that. I usually ran the trolling motor and would have to do some quick direction changes to dodge brush in the water. Only problem we incurred was if the bank was very steep or soupy. If its soupy then the tracks would just spin. You don't want to run the machine at an angle along the side of a steep hill or bank. The tracks may slip off. They are easy to put back on but its best to go straight up and down a steep bank at a crawling speed.

[brushcutter]

The bogeyman is DEAD!

I finally quit dreading it and jumped off into the glass work to day! The boys helped me get the tub up on some sawhorses then I strung out an extension cord and hooked up the grinder with a 50 grit sanding disc attached. Then I put on a tyvec suit with hood, gloves, dust mask, face shield and boots, our heat index was about 3 degrees cooler than working directly on the surface of the sun so even before I turned on the grinder I was already sweating profusely. I'm not sure which I had been more apprehensive about the heat or the dust/itching. Well it turns out that the heat is by far the worse of the 2 bogeymen. The suit does an excellent job of keeping the dust off, but allows zero airflow so it is HOT! The mask worked great, I never sneezed once, which is a great thing. The sanding pad works extremely well and doesn't load up, so in about 45 minutes I was able to get all of the old gel coat off of approximately 1/4 to 1/3 of the easier to reach areas, and I'm still going with the original pad. Then my Dad called which was a good thing, I needed to cool off anyhow, otherwise I would have probably kept going until I fell out from heat exhaustion. Ya know, it's one of those things where once ya finally get going on it ya want to get all of it done. I'll get back on it tomorrow, if it's not raining I'm doing it outside the shop, so as not to cover the whole shop with green gel coat dust. But either way I killed that bogeyman today and I plan to be ready to start modifying the float ring and attaching it to the tub next weekend. YAAAYY!!! WOOHOO!

[brushcutter]

I finished sanding the gel coat off last night. Wearing a tyvec suit, face shield, dust mask and gloves in 100+degree heat indexes is not fun. Not sure exactly how long it took, but I think it was something like 700 gallons of sweat.

Here are a few shots.
tub work 002.jpg The large flat areas went fairly quickly using a 4 1/2" angle grinder and sanding attachment.
tub work 003.jpg
tub work 009.jpg The outer perimeter of the tub will be covered by the float ring and the ring is filled with foam so it isn't necessary to sand the gel coat off.
tub work 2 002.jpg Time for crack repair. I was surprised to find there are only a few spots that need attention. Then I can cut the ring as required and glass it to the tub.
tub work 2 006.jpg This is a pic of a "cookie cutter" I built to make my own sanding discs. The discs like the one at the lower left are not cheap, so I used a roll of fiber backed stuff that's been here for some years to cut my own out of. Set it on the sandpaper, give it a rap with the hammer and you get the disc at the lower right.