Need some opinions on Tracks

[golpher76]

https://secure.balerbelt.com/baler/mdsiprogram.jsp

I am thinking about ordering one of those and attempting to manufacture my own lugs to keep in on the tires. It says it is low stretch and very strong and comes complete with tread. I have been doing a lot of track research and they all look very cheaply made or are lacking in the tread department, I'm not too worried about swimming but i bet they would swim enough to be somewhat usable. The belt is 12" wide and it is designed to carry multiple bails of hay at a time, I am just looking for a cheap and effective alternative that maybe all of us money-tight guys can benefit from.

Any and all opinions will be greatly appreciated.

[Ronaldlewis]

my view is that baler belts are too thin at 1/4" or so wont be strong enough to hold up

[golpher76]

I was thinking the same thing at first but snowmobile tracks aren't very thick either and these belts are nylon reinfoced so they should have good tear resistance. I also forgot to mention that I planned on only running these in the winter for snow not durring the summer through mud and such. I appreciate the concern though I also have that in the back of my mind.

[Obsessed]

love your ideas....

food for thought...i have been playing (and dreaming about) track designs for years, and in my opnion, the snowmobile track is the best option...the problem with standard rubber belting is it is flexible in both directions so it is dificult to assemble with wheel guides that won't just fold over and walk the tracks off when turning, this is similar to Mudd-Ox tracks, so Matt connected both left and right side wheel guide into one solid unit of steel to give it the strength needed to keep them on, downside is weight and cost...strength and stretch is not really an issue, as each layer of fabric inside the rubber belting is typically rated at about 75 lbs tear strength per inch per layer, so a standard two or three ply belting times the width of the belt is increadibly strong...what snowmobile tracks have accomplished, and Argo has incorporated into their belting is internal structural cross components usually lightweight fiberglass rods molded into the rubber, so that type of track will only bend one way and is very stiff the other (prior to that, old snowmobile tracks used standard rubber belting then several metal "grousers" layed accross the track to give it support)....modern snowmobile belting is just about perfect, but the problem that i have had with it is that those track systems are usually driven by a single set of drive sprockets and the inside of the track has the profile needed to do that, which makes it hard to use for our application...the solution would be to grind off all of the individual parts and try to make the inside of the track smooth, from there you could simply use lightweight plastic Argo track guides to keep them on your tires...second problem that i have run into is that even newer long track sleds like 151, and even 166 machines are barely over 13 feet long in actual track length and would have to have several splices to wrap the circumference of a 6x6 or 8x8...for example a new 8x8 Argo track is approx 19'2" long and a new Mudd-Ox 8x8 is about 2" longer than that...also long track snowmobiles typically run a pretty tall lug these days anywhere between 1.25" up to about 2.5" both of which will start to cause clearance issues...Argo rubber tracks use a 1/4" belt and a 1" lug for a total height of 1.25" and often that is pretty close to rubbing the underbody...so if you do it start with 3 or 4 matching short track, short lug snowmobile tracks (typically 121" or just over 10 foot long)...important to use common weight track materal to keep the tracks from flopping once they are installed and spinning...other problem is the connection between belt ends, considerable more expensive then you would think and will require 4 of them assuming 2 splices for each track...also considering cost is the number of nuts, bolts and washers required to piece it all together...last i checked i think there are approx 1,500 pieces that make up a rubber track kit for an 8x8 when you start counting each piece of individual hardware...you could save a little by simply overlap the belting and try bolting it together, but it creates a rough spot and clearance issues at that point...those that i have talked with that have actually sucessfully built their own tracks (myself included), have commented that the end cost was considerably more than they had initally expected and didn't really create much savings...another friend of mine who made one of the neater sets of homade tracks actually used recycled belting and plastic track buckets from a grain elevator that had replaced and discarded them, but quickly ended up cutting a large opening in the underneeth of his tub due to miss calculations in fit and clearance...

for you handy do it yourselfers...one of the first ideas that i had was to take common smooth rubber belting and use standard wooden deck boards for an outside track surface and then 4x4 boards cut into wedge shaped blocks and screw them to the inside to create wheel guides (sandwiching the belting between the wooden pieces),... i tend to believe that they would actually hold up for quite a while under normal use (never actually built a set like that as my thoughts soon evolved and belting and splices are not really that cheap)...my next thought was to replace the wood with recycled plastic deck boards, etc, etc, etc... all things considered, it seems like a project that should be so easy, but in my experiance (and after quite a few attemps), it is really more complex than one would think, and the challenges and considerations are almost overwhelming...if you do build a set of "wooden" tracks, i would love to see them when your finished and one of the those innovative homeade tops made from sticks and a tarp (found in another story on this site) would make for a very functional, really cool, and pretty unique machine that would have hardcore outdoorsman written all over it :-)

Best of luck

[smog]

OEM Argo Centaur made with baler belts





Picasa Web Albums - Argo - Centaur 30" S...

[Obsessed]

wow that red centaur is absolutely awesome...in my opinion, it is probably the ultimate hardcore 8x8 and is just short of a full blown tank...these are great pictures and really show how to properly use standard conveyor belting in a track application very similar to a 70's something snowmobile or a modern snow cat machine...the photo gallery attached really shows a good look at how they have cross supported the belting with steel sections that run the width of the track and how they have attached the left and right side wheel guide into one solid piece, similar to the mudd-ox tracks...very effective design and also gives the option of using twice the belting and twice the steel grousers to make a super wide track design much like a high dollar snow cat machine...only big downside is weight and cost...

the green avenger below (by the way, i love the custom 1/2 top) has in my opinion, what currently represents the ultimate setup in terms of deep snow performance...that well developed setup extends the normal 18" footprint of the argo super tracks to a huge footprint of about 24" give or take...obvious downside to these tracks would be weight and cost also as they start out with a fairly expensive set of factory wide tracks and go up from there...

another really cool setup to look at is a company in canada that builds a unique set of rubber and steel tracks called escargotracks and by many accounts, they are revolutionary and truly unique in design, and they also appear to be very unstoppable...you can find tons of video and pictures on the internet of their design...

while its really hard to beat the "bite" of a wear sharpened steel cleat, something to consider with most tracks designs that use steel grousers and run a relatively tall lug is that all of these designs almost require the use of smaller or specialized tire and wheel combinations and add to the final project cost...also every machine that has ever ran a set of tracks has probably at some time thrown one of them, including ultra expensive, heavy duty construction equipment....with that said, i would guess that any of these machines with steel cleats would get quite a "belly ache" when they do derail a track...i have recently started to adapt some other common snowmobile technology to my own tracked machines by adding custom tunnel protectors, as modern argos have 5 or 6 screw heads that hang down inside of each fender well and you don’t want a track cleat to hook one of them and do damage...i think that it might be a good practice for the machines pictured above, and I am curious if these track designs are currently installing them for added tub protection

with that thought, most of these machines struggle when they attempt to skid steer or turn...notice how the avenger track and also the escargo track design (not pictured above) have both been intelligently engineered with a rounded grouser profile to help them slide sideways without catching and rolling off of a soft round atv tire...the centaur has a more aggressive lug and pretty much requires the use of stiffer square shouldered tire and wheel combinations that help eliminate tire flex and provides other necessary benefits...as you have noticed, most rubber track designs do uses a straight tread pattern and are intended to give more traction forward and backwards, but less traction sideways than other designs that might tend to catch and roll off easier during turns

advantages of smaller tires over the stock tires and wheels that come on these machines might be huge weight savings in some cases, and also a noticeable reduction in final drive gearing which would also help offset the increased weight of these track designs...most of which might weigh in at possibly over 400-500 lbs. and in some cases, could end up being almost 1/3 the total weight of the machine...

other considerations are too much wheel slippage inside the tracks...not enough wheel slippage inside the tracks...etc, etc, etc and you start to see some of the many challenges in designing a usable set of tracks

have fun