Rubber track wear

[jmfox]

Does hard surface road travel cause excessive wear on the rubber tracks of compact track machines? I suspect turning causes wear but I wonder if forward travel is a problem.

jmf

 

[machmeter62]

Does hard surface road travel cause excessive wear on the rubber tracks of compact track machines? I suspect turning causes wear but I wonder if forward travel is a problem.

jmf

I think it depends on the tire type; R-1's with their deeper lugs would be more vulnerable, and some claim they will "split the lugs," but I think that is a myth? I have tractors with R-1's and R-4's, but prefer R-4's when traveling on a hard surface for ride comfort only! Tight turns on most tractors will cause wear on the outside tire, because of the radius of turn issue. I have the three major tractors; and JD's have the radius issue down to a science in my opinion?

 

[machmeter62]

Does hard surface road travel cause excessive wear on the rubber tracks of compact track machines? I suspect turning causes wear but I wonder if forward travel is a problem.

jmf

Sorry, I was distracted when I replied, and responded before re-reading it? I have no experience with rubber tracks, but would suspect when the forward section of the track contacts the hard service as it rotates, it will cause increased wear with the slight binding?

 

[jmfox]

Thanks for you sharing your experience and opinion. I did talk to ASV and they did not hesitate to recommend limited road travel for their machines. It has the speed and suspension that makes it possible. I don't have a trailer and I wanted to rent and pick up attachments from a dealer about 5 miles down the road.

jmf

 

[diyDave]

Asv tracks are warranteed for 2K hours. That being said, mine only goes 6 mph, so your trip down the road would cost you 2hours of time. If the Asv you are talking about is the Rc 30, most of the attachments are small enough to fit in the back of a mini pickup. Lots cheaper to run the mini pickup down the road, and leave the heavy machinery to do the heavy work!

 

[jmfox]

Which ASV do you have? The one I'm talking about is the SR-80 which travels at 12+ mph. I checked out the mileage today and it is only 4 miles so the trip would be about 40 minutes with no loading or unloading.

jmf

 

[DmansPadge]

Maybe once or twice at the most... I wouldn't make a habit of driving a tracked machine 4 miles. Turning or not the pavement will wear the tracks a whole lot faster than dirt. Those tracks are really expensive also. I replaced a set on a small excavator a few years back and it seems that they went for about $1500 each

 

[jmfox]

According to ASV this is a feature of their design. The factory gave me examples of many customers who get over 2,000 hours on hard surfaces. Their point was that the track is as good on hard as it is on soft surfaces for straight travel. By appearances, the ASV track design is much different than the others, and according to ASV they are more like tires than convention rubber track machines.

jmf

 

[White Shark]

I try to avoid as much road use as possible, but my CAT 247B tops out just over 7 mph, so I trailer whenever distance is an issue, just for time issues if nothing else. I've driven a few miles to quite a few local cut and grade jobs though, and the wear isn't much.

You can reduce wear by making very gradual turns, and avoiding pivot turns by doing a 3 or 4 point turns. This will definitely reduce wear.

I would avoid doing a lot of high speed distance runs if you have steel bands in the tracks though. The steel really heats up from continual high speed flexing which can cause early track delamination. The CAT tracks use a kevar/fiberglass/rubber bias ply which is less prone to this type of heat up. A similar construction is used in the huge CAT Challengers that top out at 24 mph.

IIRC, the ASV track is virtually the same as the CAT since they share undercarriage technology. Don't forget the slow moving vehicle triangle on the back when running on the road. It's cheaper than a ticket.


See the fancy triangle?....

..

 

[jmfox]

The ASV tracks do not have the steel wire, and I will be careful not to pivot. BTW, how do you like the 4-in-1 bucket?

jmf

 

[curtisfarmer]

On thing to avoid is turning on tar where there is even a bit of crushed stone present on the surface as it tends to slash the tracks. If the tar is warm, and you turn, you smudge the tar.

 

[groundhawg]

Have you considered that you can pick up a good low-boy bumper pull for less than half the cost of 1 replacement track? I would avoid long travel distances w/ a tracked machine unless money is no object. Just my opinion.

 

[White Shark]

The ASV tracks do not have the steel wire, and I will be careful not to pivot. BTW, how do you like the 4-in-1 bucket?

jmf

I can't live without the 4 in 1. That thing is the greatest. If I could only own 1 implement, it would be the 4 in 1 combo bucket.

I also have a Virnig rock bucket (sifts out rocks and dirt <3"), a dirt bucket (standard bucket with teeth), and the 4 in 1 with a straight cutting bar. I also have a set of pallet forks.

The 4 in 1 gets used 99% of the time. I can cut, grab, doze, and scoop with it. It will grab concrete slab pieces that are not completely broken up, move small boulders, grab logs up to about 10" diameter, grab branches and cut brush piles, and I've even used it for trash haul outs.

It's cool to crush washing machines and dishwashers with the 4 in 1 (the housewives always love to see the old stuff go. It means they are getting new appliances. ). I have had a couple of friends who needed to clear out rental properties, including broken appliances, mountains of torn out carpeting, torn out kitchen cabinets, furniture, etc. I tell them to make a huge pile in the drive way and we crush it and dump it into the dump trailer for haul out. They are happy to pay $300 to have the problem go away and it's a local 2 hour deal on the weekends. No biggie, and a few extra bucks. If I don't do it, the tractor sits around unused anyway, so it's a nice little piece of cake type of job on the side. I can't count how many of these tear outs I've done. The 4 in 1 also works great on large dog house tear downs. I had one of those recently on a job where we were doing some custom excavation and concrete work...

I can also open the 4 in 1, and pull the materials up and onto the scoop, then close it up and pick up most all of the material without pushing it all over the site. In other words, there is very little shovel work left for smooth grade and clean up jobs.

Just make sure your buckets are the same width or wider than your track width to protect the track when cutting alongside walls and rough edge cut ins.


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[DirtyWorks]

Hey Shark, the Cats already have a "built in" triangle