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Message: <blockquote data-quote="William Adams" data-source="post: 238948" data-attributes="member: 17783">Tracks! (Everybody wants to know about building tracks) couldn't be easier.... I sourced the chain, sprockets and sprocket hubs from "Red Boar Chain and Sprockets" (can I say that?) Good guys. Super helpful. The chain is 81xhd conveyer chain. The "hd" part means it has internal rollers. The chain pitch is (and this is weird) "2.609" inch... okay....whatever.... weird. Not "2.5" or 2.75" inch. Like I said....whatever. It's got a working strength of 4,000 lbs or so with a breaking strength of over 30,000 lbs. That should keep my 12 HP busy. The chain comes in 10 foot lengths. Each track on my dozer is exactly 10 feet long. No cutting necessary. The track pads are 4"×6 1/2"×1/8" thick cold rolled flat steel. Groupers are made from 3/8" rebar. The whole track is actually pretty light. That's good because I'm pretty old. I used to accel in brute force and stupidity. Now the brute force is all but gone.....Drive sprocket is steel 14 tooth and idler sprockets are 8 tooth. I got hubs for the idler sprockets with a 1" bore center and welded them into the sprockets. I made the track carrier rails from 4"×2"×1/8" wall tubing. The flange bearings are 4 bolt with 1" i.d. bearings. [ATTACH=full]147639[/ATTACH]I made a few jigs. One for cutting the track pads to length (21 pads per side) also used to cut the rebar (42 pieces per side) a jig for welding the rebar to the pads and one for positioning the chain on the pads for welding. The only tricky part (not that tricky) was the fact that the master link could not be welded on both sides. I welded it to the pad on the back side, then welded a 1/8" x 1" tongue to the front link, then drilled that tongue to put  a 14" bolt through the tongue and pad. Now, to remove the master link, I just take out the bolt and slide the outside the outside link plate off the master link. Seems to work...[ATTACH=full]147640[/ATTACH]For the road wheels, I used 5"×2" wheels with full-width roller bearings. There are 6 per side. The little trick I used when mounting them: Rather than mounting the road wheels so they had straight contact along the track surface, I mounted them so they protrude 3/4" further down. I'll explain. When the dozer is sitting on my garage floor, all of the weight is borne solely by the road wheels. The idler sprockets are not in ground contact. The reason is ease of steering. This thing, when on a hard surface, will turn on the center 15" of track. There's very little resistance from the track when turning. When on loose dirt or snow or mud, the track is in full contact with the ground. It's not noticeable when driving as it shifts the load center from front to center to rear, but on the driveway or garage floor, will happily turn in its own length with a finger pull of pressure on the brake stick.</blockquote>

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