Hello gents,
Please permit me a brief introduction in my first post. I am a chartered mechanical engineer in Australia and hold a financial interest in an engineering shop in Ballarat, Victoria. We complete engineering and machine shop jobbing for automotive, transport, agriculture and manufacturing businesses. We have a keen interest in keeping old machines running, and personally, my interest is in Australian cars from the 50's.
A colleague who is restoring his own Universal Carrier alerted me to this thread just after it started. My business has contacts in metallurgy, pattern making and NC machining so we decided to invest a few hours to see whether it might be economical to manufacture repro UC track. I also spent 12 years working for Caterpillar so I have a reasonable knowledge of the engineering of tracked machines.
We secured one unused link and contacted our pattern maker. His birthdate pre-dates Universal Carriers and his knowledge is encyclopedic so I greatly respect his professional opinion. We have a copy of Nigel Watson's UC reference text describing the use of manganese steels, cast steels and malleable cast irons. Our pattern maker assures me these materials were used because they were the best technology available at the time. Based on the low utilization of restored carriers (ie who would do 100 miles in one year in their carrier?), his suggestion is a tweaked 500/7 ductile iron, which will suit the job and is relatively cheap. I don't believe there is any good technical reason for attempting to replicate the original material as this will only increase the price.
His iron foundry work is completed in China as he has not located a foundry in Australia able to compete. Our pattern maker has his own business manufacturing brake components for automotive and earthmoving equipment, and has assured us of a first class casting. With his own business and reputation on the line, I have to believe him. The pattern is quite complex, as has been discussed in detail above, and accounting for shrinkage with the given material is where the skill of our Chinese friends will come into play. We are investigating a sample run and trying to keep this as cheap as possible.
We are attempting to determine an ex-works price from our workshop in Australia for assembled field service track sections to suit a single machine (obviously to make manual handling the link sections safer when they arrive at its destination). Tooling costs have already been supplied from China, and are in the vicinity of US$2500, so this is not a cheap proposition. I have piece prices from one supplier (pre-drilled for the pins) ex works in China so I need to work out shipping and duties over the next couple of days.
I do need some help from the forum, however. The track pins, according to Mr Watson, are hardened along most of their length to permit the free end to be peened. I have one pin, but the end was ground off to free it from a track. What is the free length of a new pin, from one end to another? I have estimated 10" under the domed head to the plain end, based on the track link being 9.5" wide and allowing for peening or split pinning. Any thoughts from the forum?
Anyway, we have plenty still to do to determine a price, but would be interested in comments from the forum members. Obviously the more interest, the cheaper the parts will be, as we would amortize the tooling, shipping and duties over the entire run. I'm thinking about enough links and pins to supply new track assemblies for 20 machines, on the assumption there are at least 20 guys somewhere around the world who want (need?) new tracks for their carriers.
Oh, and these would be English pattern links. I understand the Aussie links were different due to a wider bogie wheel.
Here is a link to our website, you can see our equipment and local engineering and machine shop pricing, plus links to our contact details and LinkedIn profiles.
Regards,
Matt McLeod