Track Tuners Conquest 8

[Rock Doctor]

current escargo spacing is 4" centers. They used to be 3" until recently.

So, is that the only difference? Could a guy pull an older set apart and go to 4" centers? What would that be? Leave every 4th grouser, pull the 3 in between, and replace 2 at 4" spacing? Would that work?

RD

[Buzz]

just what you need, right.....another set of tracks. Yeah you bet!

Your plan sounds right. Leave the crossers that are on 12" centers and replace the 3 crossers in between with 2 instead on 4" centers.

Kind of tedious I suppose, but it's a good garage project. Or you just redrill some new rubber from scratch. I think the old rubber was 2-ply, new rubber is 3-ply.

You'll end up with a lot of extra crossers (spare) too. I thought about 6-inch spacing, but that's probably pushing it. That would give you enough to make 2 sets of tracks Either way it'll be somewhat lighter.

[trapperjack]

I've been running track tuners for about 45 days. I was very impressed. However, in severe off-road situations, I experience tire slipage. Also, one weld on one tuner broke- left me stranded 8 miles in the woods while I was trapping beaver. On flat ground, no slippage. I had to air up to 8 psi, front and rear, to stop slipage but the track was too tight. These tuners also stop a lot of my chain and chain tensioners problems. It freed up a lot of power. They replaced the broken tuner, no questions asked. I can put up with a little tire slipage vs. a;; the damage, chains, and tensioners that I've replaced. Also, I am an extreme off-road Argo user.

[Rock Doctor]

I've been running track tuners for about 45 days. I was very impressed. However, in severe off-road situations, I experience tire slipage. Also, one weld on one tuner broke- left me stranded 8 miles in the woods while I was trapping beaver. On flat ground, no slippage. I had to air up to 8 psi, front and rear, to stop slipage but the track was too tight. These tuners also stop a lot of my chain and chain tensioners problems. It freed up a lot of power. They replaced the broken tuner, no questions asked. I can put up with a little tire slipage vs. a;; the damage, chains, and tensioners that I've replaced. Also, I am an extreme off-road Argo user.

Some questions, if you don't mind:
Why couldn't you drive out on 3 tires, you still had the track on, right?
What machine were you running?
What Tracks?
Big or small load?
Type of terrain, rough or snow covered?

The reason I ask, is that I had something similar happen to me. I was loaded very heavy, riding through a mixed Black Spruce/Muskeg area. Lots of ruts and heavy Roots to ride over that would load up each axle individually as I rode over them. I knew it was going to be a test of the Tuners well before I even started the trip. Anyway, I was riding along a wet spot, and felt the machine run over something hard on the right side. Of course I just kept on going, lol, very shortly after, I heard a strange noise, stopped to have a look (was thinking I had picked up a sapling or something with my track. ) Found that one of my tires looked a little odd:
[IMG]

So, then I thinks to myself, F$@#%& How did I bend the axle THAT bad?
[IMG]

This is what I had just come through
[IMG]

It turned out that I didn't bend the axle, I broke a Tuner...... Not totally unexpected actually, since I WAS trying to test their limits. So, I pull the tire/wheel out of the track, have a good look at things and find that I didn't "break" the Tuner, it had a flaw in one of the welds (Lack of Fusion). The weld looked good from the outside, but was not fused to the base metal on the inside. (A "Mag Particle Test" would have picked this up before it left the factory, but that's not something I would expect to be done. )
I was a ways from my truck.... farther than I wanted to walk anyway, no cell coverage, so I strapped the tire on top of the load and turned the machine around. I had already abused the heck out of the Tuners on the way in, so I figured the remainders would get me back out. I was a little more carefull on the way back, but had no issues.
I also had mine replaced without question (I just had them send me a new Spindle, then put my hub on it and sent the broken pieces back). Tim and I spoke about it for a while, and came to the conclusion that my Tuners (An older version) were probably hand welded by a newer employee, at the time. "Stuff" happens sometimes, right?
I have not had any issues since with the Tuners, and I have even talked a large Gas Production Company into run Tuners on some of their HDI's. No problems yet

RD

[Obsessed]

Thank you guys for being very kind with regards to the weld failures that we had last year.

some time back, after we had made some slight revisions to the product design we had a short run of 24 pieces assembled for testing of our new jig fixtures... we found out about 2 months later (when RD actually broke a weld) that it was "the new guy" in the fab shop that had welded those few pieces for us and was later that week let go for similar poor performance ...we have replaced as many of those parts as we could find (as they were eventually mixed in with regular production parts) and i think that we have had a total of 3 or 4 actually fail ...When RD's broke i thought to myself "...well its just RD after all, and i shouldnt be to suprised if he could break it...lol ... but its probably not a repeatable problem....after the second report of a failure we immediately took the position that if we find even one piece that should break we just replace everything and apologize for the mistake ....by looking at the bad part that RD sent back it was easy to see that the weld was very weak with little to no penetration...we have since (and as a response to the failure) replaced the old standard short circut transfer welder with a new Miller Mag 350P pulse MIG welder and have dedicated individuals that are responsible for certain parts we build....we are now very impressed with the quality of the welds that we have been getting for the past 6 months and dont expect any more "learning curve" with that particular product

again, just want to say thank you for the honest but very kind remarks, and we sincerely apologize for the inconvience due to our mistake.

tim

[Rock Doctor]

Tim, I have NO complaints about your products, or your service, it's always a pleasure to deal with you

Now, I'm thinking that "someone" is going to ask why I never posted this little issue in the past. Like, Oh, I don't know, back when it happened. Simple really, I went with the intent of abusing the crap out of these "new" Tuner things. I would not say my plan was to break the Tuners, but I was intending to load and run the machine to the point where I was starting to fear breaking something other than a Tuner. Mission acomplished, from this point on, I had the confidence, in the Tuners, to take whateve I might throw at them. They are a cool idea, well played, well made.
I didn't think it would be "fair" to take a product out to abuse the poop out of it, then come back here and claim I broke one, knowing full well that I was "running it like a rental" or "Driving it like it's stolen"...... This is how we get a better product, like I said: "Stuff" Happens

...When RD's broke i thought to myself "...well its just RD after all, and i shouldnt be to suprised if he could break it...lol ...

AAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA

RD

[Obsessed]

honestly RD i appreciate all the feedback that you and others have provided...if it were not for guys like you and guys like Mudbug (and countless other) testing our ideas and products to the point of failure we would have a very difficult time moving our product designs forward...every improvement we have made was the result of what we learned yesterday...and truth is we sincerely owe everything to many of our friends here who have helped push us forward...

as for the broken part, i am kinda pleased that your other 3 have held up anyway...by contrast, the new welds are much better and a redesign of the two individual parts have allowed for much more weld strength also

thanks RD

tim

[plott hound]

newbie question,do you guys run track tuners on the 4 center wheels?man i gotta read up on these suckers,they look like a good addition to my super tracks.