homemade tracks question

[john swenson]

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.

[martz694]

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

[john swenson]

martz, what do you think happened ? you thought earlier they may need tightening. maybe we can tell by the videos. johnboy va.

[martz694]

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

[martz694]

Sorry I should say narrow deep ruts. And they were sidehilling too.

[john swenson]

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.

[john swenson]

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.

[martz694]

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?

[john swenson]

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.

[martz694]

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

[Buzz]

A flat track (especially one with great traction), can really be chore to turn. The wider your contact patch, the harder it becomes. Some of that can be overcome with power and technique, but you have to be careful as sometimes the guide tips can move and have a hard time keeping the tires in the right spot...the track wants to stay put while the machine wants to drive. It can be compounded when you're on really uneven ground.
People have given me input..and have suggested avoiding turning uphill when in sticky terrain...or instead back-down while turning to re-orient your nose uphill..instead of turning uphill in the forward direction. I know that works during steep climbs where your machine cannot drag one side and climb at the same time. So you just drive past the turning point, then reverse downhill to orient yourself in the right direction before going forward again. Taller, stiffer guides might help you, but there are certain conditions that are going to be challenging with a flat-track that has so much bite. It would be interesting to see the videos.

[john swenson]

hey guys, went out and rode around this afternoon again with my half tracks on my max. so far, very happy with the results. i crawled thru some soupy mud easily without as much effort or spinning as would have been with just tires. they turn easily on the grass also. did'nt feel like either one was going to come off. i watched each track as i drove thru the mud. the one i cut the squares out of on the center belt did seem to let out more mud and water between the tire and belt. was hard to tell if the open or closed side got any better traction. i like the open better because as buzz said the tire grips the grouser better and less chance of the tire spinning on the muddy belt. they sure seem simpler than full tracks. will keep testing. ruth was going to take pictures when she got home but was tired. will get good closeups of the design in the next couple day's. wish i lived a few miles from busco so i could run over and really give them a workout. johnboy va.

[gusgus]

Just found this youtube video on someone making their rubber tracks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P64mbTZ8ACk

[gusgus]

looks like they removed it, too bad, informative video