New Type of Tracks - Chanel Tracks

[thorn]

Project "Super Chanel Track" (?)

Not being one to leave "well enough alone" I started pondering the possibilities of making these great tracks even better in my conditions, which is primarily deep and often powdery snow. I lucked into some free 6" wide 3 ply (1/2) thick belting from some genorous guys at a local conveyor belt shop when I was buying some Flexco 550 hinge and a belt punch/bit from them. They gave me two 40 foot rolls of it! My plan is to mount a 6" wide outer belt on the grousers and then add some 2"x2" aluminum angle on the inner and outer belt to give me some paddles in the deep stuff. So wider 22" track for 20% more floatation and paddles for more bite. In theory it sounds good. I saw a recent ad (Kiji ?) for Marcel/Chanel track that stated he made them 18-22", so maybe he is already doing this type of set up.2015-01-01 17.28.41.jpg2015-01-01 17.31.51.jpg

I took the outer 4" belt off and used it for a template on the wider belt. I got one wider belt mounted today and am starting to mount the paddles. I also am getting a pair of the knobby tires that Old Tucker is using in his Chanels to either put one in each rear position or one in from and one in back to help with some tire slippage I making sharp turns at slow speeds or stopped. Here are some pics of the track so far:

[Patenteux]

Verry nice job !!

[mightymaxIV]

Not being one to leave "well enough alone" I started pondering the possibilities of making these great tracks even better in my conditions, which is primarily deep and often powdery snow. I lucked into some free 6" wide 3 ply (1/2) thick belting from some genorous guys at a local conveyor belt shop when I was buying some Flexco 550 hinge and a belt punch/bit from them. They gave me two 40 foot rolls of it! My plan is to mount a 6" wide outer belt on the grousers and then add some 2"x2" aluminum angle on the inner and outer belt to give me some paddles in the deep stuff. So wider 22" track for 20% more floatation and paddles for more bite. In theory it sounds good. I saw a recent ad (Kiji ?) for Marcel/Chanel track that stated he made them 18-22", so maybe he is already doing this type of set up.[ATTACH=CONFIG]13104[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]13105[/ATTACH]

I took the outer 4" belt off and used it for a template on the wider belt. I got one wider belt mounted today and am starting to mount the paddles. I also am getting a pair of the knobby tires that Old Tucker is using in his Chanels to either put one in each rear position or one in from and one in back to help with some tire slippage I making sharp turns at slow speeds or stopped. Here are some pics of the track so far:

Wow! Those look like they are going to be great for your conditions. I love folks who can never leave good enough alone!

[riotwarrior]

^^^^^^
seems similar to my thoughts about outter belt being made of snowmobile tracks.

I like what I see and cant wait to see video n pics when done

[thorn]

Finally Done with Chanel "Supertrack/winter kit" modification.

After a lot of unbolting, drilling, and re-bolting the modifications to my Chanel tracks are complete. I put the 6" wide outer belt on. Bolted 2" tall x 3" wide aluminum angle on between every other grouser on both the inner and outer belt. And to stop tire slippage I put two 1/4" hex bolt approx 3" apart from the center of each "chanel" of the grousers. The hex heads keep the tires from slipping and also seem to keep the tires centered in the track/grousers. I also shortened the tracks by 1 1/2" as I think they were a little loose. Four Flexco 550 lacing clamps fit perfectly on the 6" wide belt.

I only got to take in for the a spin in the front yard in 6" of wet snow. Everything seems to be running very smooth. I am going to take it up to the high country this weekend to shake it down in some real snow and will report back. Here are some pics on them installed.2015-01-12 19.07.41.jpg2015-01-12 19.08.03.jpg2015-01-12 19.08.27.jpg2015-01-12 19.09.23.jpg2015-01-12 19.12.33.jpg

[Buzz]

Good job. I think "rockrewls" has a set of Escargo tracks that have very large aluminum angles added to the outer belt of the main track too (separate from a winter kit). You can always use your old outer belt to build a winter kit too. Even if it's only 4", just leave an inch gap between it and the main belt to get +5". Probably could have just used the 6" belt as the winter kit I guess, same thing, but now you might be able to get by without a winter most of the time. As long as you had fun assembling it makes no difference!
What are your thoughts regarding the snow/ice packing between the legs of your channel iron grousers?
Also, if you want to allow your track to more readily squish between trees, you can remove one section of hinge and bevel the belt forward/back (toward the outside) and also roundover or bevel the outer corner of your aluminum angles. It will help with skid-turning when you are sunk into the ground a bit too. Pay special attention to extra load felt driving the tracks too. If that's the case, remove your screws under the tire tread as you might be okay now with the shorter track. Look forward to some videos.

[thorn]

Thanks Buzz. I really have not ran it enough to see if snow packing in the channels is a problem. I am maxed out width wise and only have 1 1/2" of wiggle room in the opening of my new trailer so this is my winter kit. I didn't feel any extra load with the bolt heads yet and it ran really smooth on my little test run. The bolt heads seem to fall in between the chevron bars on the tires for the most part, but that is something I need to watch. I did notice that by shortening the track a bit the grousers seem to wrap around the tires better and the side lugs/knobbies seem to be side loading on the angle of the grousers. I am going to be able to use less psi in the tires as well, which will allow the tires to have a flatter profile to fill the voids on both sides of the tires. I was using 5,5,5,6 from front to back last night. The four center tires are about an inch bigger in OD from the others, so they are still good to elevate the middle a bit to help pivot/turn.

[plott hound]

wow,great job thorn.have you had them out in deep snow yet?

[thorn]

This weekend hopefully. We have had a warm and dry winter in the lower country. I am going up to 9,000-10,000 feet to find some real snow.

[thorn]

I put 23 miles on the wide Chanels yesterday in the back country. We started at 8,000 feet and went up well over 10,000 feet. My buddy with his Piston Bulley Scout snow cat went with me and we had a awesome day. Even got in a few powder shots on the skis. Anyway the tracks performed flawlessly. The combination of floatation and traction allowed me to climb while breaking trail up some impressively steep hills.

The snow had a slight crust and then was sugary with no base to speak of and over 3 feet deep. I had no tire slippage this time and did some steep side hilling with no issues. One of the best attributes to this design of track vs a flat track is that the machine steers so much easier and making corrections while climbing does not bog you down nearly as bad. I did notice that the wider tracks did not want to dig down nearly as fast as the 20" version while having to make steering corrections or sharp turns in the deep stuff. With the 20" chanel or my Supertracks (18") if you applied all power to one side in loose snow you could dig yourself down quickly.

The only trouble I ran into was following in my buddies tracks on inclines I would getP1010041.jpgP1010025.jpgP1010016.jpgP1010042.jpg slightly high centered on the big center snow column between his tracks. His machine would sink more than me and leave a rather tall center that would cause me to drag my belly more than normal. I just broke trail along side of him on that steep slope.

I have this Conquest geared down as low as one can get one between the 3.3 tranny, secondary clutch in the #1 hole, and the gear reduction on the tracks. On a slight downhill on the groomed section I topped out at 12.3 mph (GPS). I really like it this way for climbing in the steep and deep stuff. I was able to use high range much more than normal. I might try the secondary in hole #2 for comparison though. One has to keep in mind that at 10,000, I have lost approx 30% of my engines horsepower. I took some pictures and videos with my old camera, but the video feature on the camera had horrible quality.

[North Country Tough]

Top shelf thorn that's what that post was you are far and above what us flatlanders with tracks encounter and all that you have learned and shared help us out tons,thanks again.Cheers NCT

[riotwarrior]

wow...nice...thanks for the update and awesome pictures....

[thorn]

2015-01-18 14.18.14.jpg2015-01-18 14.25.49.jpghttps://www.dropbox.com/s/n1f76c5hlm...40.19.mp4?dl=0Thanks for the kind words guys. I have gained an enorrmous amount of knowledge and confidence to work on these crazy machines here. I took my ladies up to a backcountry lake for some ice fishing and put another 12 miles on the tracks with much more weight.

I encountered about 18" of slush on top of the ice and the Chanels did not skip a beat. I was actually pushing a wake of slush in front of the machine at times. I would have been sweating with my super tracks, but these things simply chew/swim/paddle/float through anything. The Chanels came out clean, where I know my Supertracks would have been a ice and snow ball.

We managed to snag a few "pan fryers" and of course my daughter caught the first one with her "Princess" pole. We then took the Argo further up a the mountain and broke some trails. Should be a video and a couple more pics.

[guyfox]

Great way to spend quality time with your family.....Nice looking machine you have there.....and some nice looking country in the background.

[Buzz]

thanks a bunch for sharing it all Thorn. Way to go!