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Track rebuild.. bolts... Grade 5 or Grade 8

4TrackCat

4TrackCat

New member
I removed the tracks on my Spryte last night and will be replacing the rubber and hardware this summer.

I found that I was missing more bolts than I realized and it appears they snapped off and fell out. All the bolts are using teflon lock nuts so I doubt they just vibrated out.

Other than a bit of cost difference, is there and reason not to use grade 8 bolts? Would they be too hard and brittle in the cold temps?

I plan on using 5/16" x 2 1/4" bolts with flat washers under the head and under the teflock nut. I assume standard torque is ok on the rubber belts (17ftlbs grade 5 or 25 ftlbs on grade 8).

20140516_175445.jpg
 
I would use grade 8 it's what I used on my 2100, mine were also 7/16 I would recommend nyloc over a bowama lock just do be aware that you have to regulate the speed at which you spin on nyloc nuts or you will melt out the nylon masking the lock portion of the fastner in effective. my bolt package was speced out with lock nuts and what came was standard nuts so as time was of the essences I bought up a hundred and fifty dollars of red lock tite and I have only to date had 3 come loose I believe that was the result of me using child labor on the assembly line and constantly hounding thm to use the stuff sparingly, as I had the last bottles in town
 
The factory calls for grade 8 with nyloc nuts on a 1963 601 Thiokol. I also made a jig to cut all 1280 holes per track and used stainless steel lacing. :thumb:
 

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Thanks for the pictures. They help bring up good question. Looking at mine, I have four 5 inch belts per track. I'm wondering if I should get 6" wide belts or even use two wide belts per track like the 601? In your experience, does the extra flotation have an effect on traction or do the spaces add traction? Seems like now is the best time to ask dumb questions.
 
_AJ_ said:
Thanks for the pictures. They help bring up good question. Looking at mine, I have four 5 inch belts per track. I'm wondering if I should get 6" wide belts or even use two wide belts per track like the 601? In your experience, does the extra flotation have an effect on traction or do the spaces add traction? Seems like now is the best time to ask dumb questions.
Click to expand...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X24u7FIsZuk This video shows it going through soft snow, I never had a problem in deep, fresh, un-packed, snow.

I think the biggest reason they may have used "several narrower" belts, is just to save weight on such a wide track. I don't think traction or flotation would show any "noticeable" difference whether or not you had one wide belt (such is my case) or several narrower belts such as in your case....If I am wrong, somebody please correct me !
 
If you use grade 8 bolts be sure to use grade 8 nuts. Lots of grade 5 and lower nylock nuts out there. Remember 1 time use only and slow rpm when tightening. Easy place to waste money if you don't know. I would consider using fender washers to keep it from working into the rubber over time.
 
Aj the wider belts will provide a little more flotation but in experiments. done by the Canadian government they found the ladder track concept gave the best traction in traction vs. floatation testing. if you wanted a little more float add wider belts the trade off will be tractive force in soft snow. it's not just pulling power if the grouser bars can't get proper compaction and penetration your hill climbing ability's will also suffer. I have to tailor my cats to the environment I operate up here,you may want to do the same. in my opinion a lot of thought went in to those tracks , pb and bombardier all use the same concept. it must work the best with multiple narrow belts with large windows in the grousers .
 
pistonbully sent some exponential tracks to our local ski resort last winter. part of the testing was narrower belts to let the snow fall out.
 
I just talked to the driver from pistenbully who was picking them up this spring. he said they worked good. as you know we have lots of wet snow here so that could be why they were testing a narrower belt. So more will fall out of the tracks. the resort has 19 pistenbullys. when I seen them they were delivering them and were all rolled up and wrapped in clear plastic. so I didn't notice anything different.
jim
 
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