Trackster pics.

[dave_dj1]

Heah all, I helped pick up a Cushman Trackster today to get going for one of the local snowmobile clubs. It has been sitting in a barn for the past few years.
The club bought it and only made it a few miles when the motor blew. They bought a GX 670 Honda "kit" to replace the old 2 stroke. The bulk of the work on installing the motor was done, we had to hook up a couple of wires and adjust the linkage for the forward/reverse. It has a full cab, bench seat and brand new tracks. A little gas and a few cranks with the choke on and it purrs like a kitten.
We have no idea what year it is. It seems to be in pretty good overall shape once we cleaned all the hay chaff off of her. I call it the clown car groomer!
What do ya think?

 

[Snowtrac Nome]

it has the rare full cab i had one i was going to rebuild but it turned out not to be worth it i see you have the new after market tracks those are highly coveted by trackster enthusiasts also did you change the ring and pinion gear so the pumps will turn the 6 to 8 k that they normaly would turn with the 2 stroke motor other wise you are going to loose a bit of pulling power

 

[dave_dj1]

We didn't put the motor in so I don't know if they changed the pinion or not, my guess is not.
We did get all the parts from the old motor with it and I didn't see any r&p.

 

[Snowtrac Nome]

do some research there is a ring and pinion upgrade for f cycle motors to get the most out of the horse power available on a 4 stroke motor the way the se machines are put to gether is cool there is a ring gear that through a spool drives each hydraulic pump one on each side if the transaxle than each pump drives each motor 1 per side each motor thab drives an axle left and right this whole thing is in a nice tidy little trans axle package

 

[dave_dj1]

Well we just took her out for a test drive, it goes pretty well. It seems to go right along. I'm surprised at how loud the hydraulic pumps are. It will be interesting to see how it pulls a drag.
I will mention to the club about the r & p and see what they have to say.
Does anyone know if it will hurt anything by not running it at 6-8k?

 

[Lionhearted]

I'm very interested in what Don ("dds") said about the ring and pinion gear in the hydrostatic drive. We re-powered our trackster with the Honda GX-690 and we changed the track drive sprocket to 9tooth to make up for the lower rpm of the 4-cycle Honda. However I think we are getting excessive slippage in the hydrostatic drive because its running too high of torque. I'm about to change back to the smaller drive sprocket. Changing the ring and pinion sounds like a good idea if could get the hydrostatic primary (pump) spinning faster and reduce torque.

Dan
BC, Canada
www.lyttonnet.com

 

[dave_dj1]

That's a great pic of your Trackster!
I'm not familiar enough with hydraulics to help you. We don't typically get deep snow and only have one hill that I'm concerned with.
I am under the impression that to avoid slippage you could back off the forward lever.
How long as it been since you re-powered?
Keep the pics coming, I have some more recent ones where the rig has been cleaned up and shines like new.
dave

 

[Lionhearted]

Thanks Dave,

I also appreciated seeing the pics you had posted and would love to see more. Has the ski club put it to work grooming trail yet? It's great to see all the resourceful people who continue to enjoy Tracksters! We wanted a really light and small rig to get up to repeater sites in the winter. We ramp it on to a pickup where it rides on 2-layers of pallets. The Trackster is fine for most sites, but one site is 8 miles of narrow, steep, switchback road to 6500 ft. Fresh, unconsolidated powder can be 5ft deep. The Trackster is a valiant warrior but we are having problems with high centering in these conditions and it is a max-out for power. I'm thinking of my options...

I'm curious what you did for the control linkages with the conversion - we ripped ours out and installed push/pull cables from Madison Power Systems.

I'm throwing in another pic - crossing a windfall in 4ft powder on Botanie Mtn. in BC a few weeks ago.


Dan
www.lyttonnet.com

 

[dave_dj1]

We haven't got enough snow to put it to work yet. I will post some more pics of it in action around the shop later.
Ah, the control rods....LOL It took us quite a while to get them adjusted just right. Once we figured out that the only adjustment was the tie rod ends. I unhooked them and centered the two levers on the hydraulics, then made the rods fit. Now the joystick works perfectly.
I'm impressed where you take yours! I don't think we will ever have a chance to try it in that deep powder though...LOL.
How do you find the heat in the cabin? Is it warm enough?

 

[Lionhearted]

Re. cabin warmth? Ha, we don't have the firewall so there is LOTS of warm air from the engine cavity that blows in to the cabin...(we do use ear protection!).

Unless its super cold we usually take off the side doors and rest them in the back. Lots of good design elements in the Trackster - like super light doors that can easily be removed when needed. Also, on really heavy climbs in deep powder we sometimes ditch the hood for better engine cooling.

 

[Snowtrac Nome]

the trackster is a great little atv and quite a work horse once you ditch the little 30 hour omc motor the real shortcomming i see with the rig is it.s too short and prone to rolling end over end on steep terrain but on the plus side they transport easy they also have limited room for additional passengers which is wwhy i ditched my project for a snow trac a family of 5 needs a bigger rig

 

[dave_dj1]

The hood missing must keep the hydraulics cool!
I saw on line that someone put a GEO Tracker motor in the rear.
Maybe it will work better than I expect it to.
I can't wait to try it in some deep pow pow!

 

[squerly]

Damn guys, it looks pretty scarry out there!