Adair Tracks in extreme cold?

[Rock Doctor]

OK, So I managed to get some things done. First off, I did get the tracks converted over to the wider spacers and am now 18" wide. That was a bit of a job, but nothing that a couple buddies and a few drinks couldn't handle. Right now I've gone with 1.5" x 1/4" bolts through the extensions, but I may up that to 2" bolt in the future if I decide I want a little more. I've put one Cleat on every 5th Grouser, staggered, and also on that Grouser is 1 Gold Digger Stud. There is also 1 Gold Digger Stud on 2 of the Grousers between each Cleated Grouser. I worked my way up to that fairly quickly, but stopped there as it was feeling pretty good.
In this pic, the Cleat is not mounted, it's just sitting there with a screw in the pilot hole. I ended up mounting the Cleats with 1.5"x1/4" bolts

A little hard to see, but there it is



I tried a little "Spinaramma", from WOT on the road, and as you can see, the tracks are biting in hard. Pre Cleat/Stud, I would probably ended up 50yrds further down the road.
I'm not standing very far in front of the machine


Now that the tracks are wider, I have installed the Track Tuners on the center axles, and Standard Axle Extenders + 1/4" spacers on the front and rear axles. We went for quite a long ride today with both machines. Mostly Hard pack trails and Winter Roads, but also about a half mile up a frozen Muskeg Creek. The creek had some nasty deadfall, a few steep banks, small Beaver dams, ect. I have to say that, in their current configurations, the Adair Tracks outperformed the Supertracks in every situation. Not once did we slip a tire in the Adair tracks, with only the front and rear tires driving. We had a med load in the machines, 8 of us with a bit of winter gear (just in case).
Track Tuner


Up The Creek


Keeping in mind that this trip had many "Firsts", and was not a long (maybe 10 miles) or technical ride, I have nothing but good to say about the Tuners and the Tracks. I might go so far as to say the Tuners improved the performance of the machine, but there is no way to prove something like that, way to many variables. But the machine did "feel" very good, and had no problem keeping up to the machine with 30% more HP

Will post more later
RD

[Rock Doctor]

Little clip of the wider tracks on the hill in our back yard. Prior to the modifications, it was a struggle to get up here. We had freezing rail, and the hill is a sheet of ice under that bit of snow. The snow is pretty chewed up by the time I took this vid (Sorry about the "wobble", my hands were getting cold)
You can see the Track Tuners in the center axles when the machine comes up the hill the second time.

Happy Campers


RD

[guyfox]

Nice pics there RD. You have some great country to play in. Seems like the adair tracks are the way to go. Even with a little snow and ice the can out perform other track systems.

As for the snow, I hope you can keep it on the west coast....Here in the east there is no snow and my wife thinks her tulips may come up any day now.....Don't care for the stuff anymore......

[JohnF]

That's what I'm talking about!
I bet that steep rocky hill is doable...

[smog]

it's getting a lot better, Tim and the team at Adair Argo are very serious about making the BEST track system

[DerekF]

RD,

are you running the 24 inch tires in the mid and 22s on the ends?

[mudbug3]

Rock Doctor

Since you have the track tuners intalled on your 8x8 , I assume that you also have the 24 " inch carlisle tires mounted on the middle two axles and the 22" inch carlisle tires mounted on the two out side axles? How does this set up perform compared to the Argo tracks with 8 tires of the same size on both sides of the machine?

[mightymaxIV]

RD, I am so impressed, I can't wait for a full trail ride, those ice cleats look like they will do the job in just about any terrain, I can't wait to see how those 18" tracks perform in deep snow.

Funny about appearances, side by side the 18" super tracks look bad to the bone, just by looking it's hard to understand just how good the Adair tracks are until you have driven a vehicle with a set installed, it's an exciting time to own an amphibious vehicle.

[Rock Doctor]

RD,

are you running the 24 inch tires in the mid and 22s on the ends?

Sorry guys, I'm just not that far yet. The lower tub must be modified before I can attempt that. It might be a rather large undertaking, and I just don't have the time yet. In fact, my original intent on that front was to do that tub mod on my next Conquest Project Rebuild. I can see that the interest is there, but keeping in mind that Winter is my busy time, I will have to just see how things work out

RD

[mightymaxIV]

Sorry guys, I'm just not that far yet. The lower tub must be modified before I can attempt that. It might be a rather large undertaking, and I just don't have the time yet. In fact, my original intent on that front was to do that tub mod on my next Conquest Project Rebuild. I can see that the interest is there, but keeping in mind that Winter is my busy time, I will have to just see how things work out

RD

RD, I don't see why it's an issue anyway, you're never gonna get stuck with the current set up in mud or swamp, and the system you have works great in snow and ice so what's the point? The Adair tracks already turn well, you seem to have solved the ice issue, if you run the tracks "as is" in mud this summer you are going to run circles around every machine in Canada so why bother with the 24" inch 22" set up? The idea here for the track tuners is less wear and tear on the machine right? Seems to me that you have already accomplished everything you set out to do so just go out and have fun with the machine and shoot some video so the rest of us can enjoy just how well that conquest works. I am absolutely dieing to see any 8x8 Argo with Adair tracks in snow, ice, mud or any other condition soooooo, video please!!

[Rock Doctor]

RD, I don't see why it's an issue anyway, you're never gonna get stuck with the current set up in mud or swamp, and the system you have works great in snow and ice so what's the point? The Adair tracks already turn well, you seem to have solved the ice issue, if you run the tracks "as is" in mud this summer you are going to run circles around every machine in Canada so why bother with the 24" inch 22" set up? The idea here for the track tuners is less wear and tear on the machine right? Seems to me that you have already accomplished everything you set out to do so just go out and have fun with the machine and shoot some video so the rest of us can enjoy just how well that conquest works. I am absolutely dieing to see any 8x8 Argo with Adair tracks in snow, ice, mud or any other condition soooooo, video please!!

Haha, excellent post Dan, I love your enthusiasm and am looking forward to putting on some miles. I do have a vid to post, shot on Christmas Day. I will post it in Model Citizen's Thread "Winter Wonderland". I had both machines there, but was running the one with Supertracks up and down the hill.

Check it out

RD

[Rock Doctor]

Well, it's been a while coming, but here is a little clip from when I widened the Adair Tracks. It didn't turn out very well at all, I had issues with my VIO POV1 Headcam, so all I managed to get was some footage with my Cell Phone. You will still get the idea though. Procedure was to split the tracks, then take the end Grouser off one side. Then move one Grouser over one position, replace the narrow Spacer with a wider one, then move the next Grouser over. work through the tracks and then finally put the original removed Grouser back on at the end of the track.

I did break a couple of the screws, and had to try to get the broken piece out of a couple of the Grousers, but it was not a big deal.

RD

[Obsessed]

Hey RD...as time goes by we are getting a little smarter with the wide tracks and I just wanted to pass on some new things we have just recently learned...first, when you assemble the wide track with the wide spacer, if you lay the next spacer UNDER the last one ( instead of on top of the last one) then it helps by opening the gap up for the chain to fall into instead of pinching it closed and requiring pliers to force it down into....another helpful change in the last week or two is the little rectangular plastic plugs that drop down into the chain link are now CNC'd for a perfect fit and less bloody knuckles...lol

Wish we had learned all of this before you went through the process of converting yours and I could have saved you a lot of effort. Thanks for getting some good video and helping show the process so it is a little easier for others to see whats involved :-)

Tim