they are on my progect durango which will be swaped to a sas with a dana 60 in the spring but now they will do fine for the winter, the set up consists of bearings machiened to a chevy 6 bolt axel on a housing which is mounted to my frame rails with sliders and idlers, tonight i put on 120 kms, no problems so the front will be done the same this weekend, i was able to reach 60 mph with no vibrations or anything that felt not normal really like the way they work.
anyone have seen anyting similar or have any coments? i am going to be putting something on to stop them from turning in the wheel well some sort of shock spring set up.

 

i am going to be putting something on to stop them from turning in the wheel well some sort of shock spring set up.

the wheeltracks anti-roll thingy:

american tracktruck - for something similar (but I don't know if they have anti-rollover)

 

Very cool. If I were to make tracks I'd give the lower wheels at least a little bit of articulation though. I'm sure that would jump the complexity up quite a bit. Yours are very similar to American Track Trucks track systems, just with fewer wheels. Do you anticipate excessive wear on the tracks from these higher pressures?

 

Very cool for a home build.

If you nose up to a ledge/rock/curb...(flipoff2)....What stops them from rotating on themselves?

 

Looks like that leading edge of the fender will get nailed by the track on even a small bump...you going to cut the fenders?

Regardless, it's cool to see this project.

 

Looks good. These are some old mattracks, there were pictures of another Sami with home made tracks around here somewhere.............

 

Those aren't Mattracks, for the record.

But they ARE very old. Like 35 to 40 years old.

http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/showthread.php?threadid=97409&highlight=snow+track

 

These ones are similar to yours

 

 

there is more wheels to go in under it waiting for them to show up, and for hitting the frame i am going to build an arm of some sort with a shock to stop from overturning, they are similar to american tracks i am un sure that they use some sort of device to stop overturning of the track?

 

I don't think they do...Mattracks pretty much has the market covered patent-wise with anti-flip devices. As long as you don't start to mass-produce these you shouldn't have any issues with patent infringement. Good deal, hope they work out well.

The first one Corey Young posted as well as the M715 that Mikel posted are military-built tracks, not Mattracks. There hasn't been a picture of Mattracks posted in this thread yet, surprisingly.

 

http://www.howeandhowetechnologies.com/vehicles.php

 

That doesn't look to difficult to build either.
interesting!
Bobby

 

go to www.wheeltracks.ru and check out their pics - google will translate it if you want as well.

 

Wowie zowies thats the most neatoest blazer Ive ever seen.

The Howe tank is cool, but unless your planing to drive to the north pole like the chapps from Top Gear, tracks are kinda um ....ya know.

But it is definatly cool that you built your own!!

 

... tracks are kinda um ....ya know.

OK I take it back good job, Im impressed.

If its cool enough for Ken Block....

YouTube - KEN BLOCK'S TRAX STI CAR

 

Where do you all buy the track material for these? Bobcat shops or something?

 

Snow mobile tracks

 

That's amazing!

Can you post more info on the wheels, how they interact with the track and the overall buildup (such that after reading it someone who hasn't messed with tracked vehicles could get started on a similar project). Also info on sourcing parts would be cool too.

Looks like you got it figured out pretty well.

I want to be a rural surgeon and dream about what I'll build to get me to the hospital when the weather is just too nasty for other vehicles or for doing disaster relief. I think you just helped inspire that. If this is cheap enough (obviously within reason), I think we may see some tech spinoff of these although they probably aren't great for crawling. I imagine a small high power SUV like what you're using with some major cutting up of the body and some selectively grafted in tubework that allows lowering the COG a bit by raising the axle a bit.

What are your plans for the suspension? Just thinking aloud here but I don't think you'd need much travel. A 4link with limit straps and timbrens as bumpstops along with a mild swaybar could be dialed in to give you the ability to articulate over some stuff without it getting too crazy.

Very cool. Thanks for posting up and hope to read more tech about the specifics!

 

i will see if i am able to put up a video of it working in the snow and on the road so far works excellent, the build is quit simple i will put up a detiailed list of how i did it shortly. the front will be done today but need more idler wheels soon to come hopefully.

 

ok here is how it goes first i researched and researched, there are very few threads of guys building tracks for trucks not info like a sas on a truck anyway i knew i wanted it simple and easy to build with local parts and has to last so sliders are from the local skidoo shop idlers wheels are form the local arcticat shop along with the alumunum wheel supports and other wheel supports...
first i got an old track 121" and set a rim in for the idea and i made up some templates for the rails and cut out of 1/4" steel, that was the start, i started to look for some thing to use for the axel support had to be strong yet easy to get a hold of so i used a 6 bolt axel 32spline and cut it down to slide fit the 6208 roller bearing, the main hub was machiened at the local machiene shop for an excellent fit and finish. i dont have any picts of that set up but might take some later.

 

Very cool. I would never do it myself but the time spent figuring that out and making it function is very awesome. Great job!

Whenever I see those tracks this is what I think of:

:laughing:

 

i then welded the two rails toghther with 1.5" x 3" steel and made a jig up for making the drive axels round pipe welded onto a 15" rim then more welding and ligning it up it is a finished product. paint it and get ready to assenbly of the idler wheels and sliders.

 

sliders are held on by 1" x 1/8" flat bar sliders are standard skidoo idlers also tapered the holes where the axel gets bolted to the truck (wheel studs) and the finished product stilll need some sort of anti ratchet system i think i have something figured out thow.

 

Do you think it would do better with more wheels on it? I know very little about them, but I would think your sliders are going to wear FAST, unless you were to put a few more on?

 

So you just used old snowmobile tracks? I was looking into this too.. although I think I have enough projects on the go already . But the thing that got me really stumped was finding cheap(ish) skidoo tracks.. 4 of them.. all the same..

 

That was nice use of use of available snow mobile parts! Here is a link to a motorcycle built with small John Deere tracks. It's worth a look near the end to see the finished bike. Page 5
http://www.oldminibikes.com/forum/project-logs/4274-tracked-2x2-mini-build.html

 

Nice work! I have alwas wanted to do something like this (with tracks only on the rear so steering would be easier. One question though, could you use 4x4 with that setup? It seems to me like you would have to play around with the gear ratios to get the front tires and rear tracks moving at the same speed.

 

i just built the front ones last noght waithing for the rest of my idler wheels to show up to put them on hopefully this week

 

I've added a bunch more tracks pics to my supermotors album - borrowed pics from the wheeltracks.ru site - seems fair, they borrowed some from me, lol

http://www.supermotors.net/registry/7029/62149

There are also some vids of my small and big tracks(UnaTracs) there. I'll see if I can find the vid of BigDan's Cherokee on the Unatracs - he actually did some real trail running, and got stuck and UNstuck .