carrier wheels and tracks

Lynn Eades · #1 14-01-11, 12:04

They have sat a while. They are tight as. What note comes off them when you hit them?

eddy8men · #2 14-01-11, 14:00

you guessed right, they are solid with rust and i was a little unsure whether they were worth the £1250 the guy was asking for them but i went for it as the tracks seem to be the hardest thing to get hold of and when an opportunity arises you have to take it. once i got them home and had a better look at them it was apparent that they had seen little use and are pretty much like new, the wheels still had the mould line that runs down the centre of the rubber but the tracks do need freeing off but i'll just leave them as they are until i need them.

eddy

ajmac · #3 14-01-11, 16:50

That trailer setup was much larger than I had imagined when I saw the bogies, I'll confirm what Eddy said about the road wheels, the rubber is as new, I think the sleds are locally made or at least unissued wartime as those wheels were as good as NOS... appart from lightly rusted rims. It would be interesting the check the dates on all the wheels and see what comes up.

eddy8men · #4 14-01-11, 18:50

alastair
i'll have a look tomorrow in the daylight and let you know, by the way how many wheels do you need for the loyd ?

eddy

Lynn Eades · #5 14-01-11, 19:49

These things go in circles. This has been discussed before. I would break them up now into manageable sections, ans soak them in oil for a few weeks. Then I would try to get each link moving, using a couple of suitable pry bars. I would then leave them to drain, and dry out before fitting. I used waste hydraulic oil, but imagine used auto trans oil would be good.
This has probably kicked off another round of "track abuse" including beating, burning, blasting, dragging etc. You could have just towed those dollies about 20 miles, with a load of power poles on it. if they went around without breaking the pins, they would have eventually come right.
I can, from experience, tell you that when they are really bad, you can use a lot of gas, and time, trying to salvage every second link. Have fun.

RichardT10829 · #6 14-01-11, 20:22

i can recomend the electrolysis bath method its cheap and labour un intensive

eddy8men · #7 14-01-11, 21:06

the last set of tracks i had i freed off with a block and sledge hammer and they rotate nice and easy, the trouble was it was a bit labour intensive although to be honest i had one of my labourers do most of it but this time round i might try my roadbreaker with a bit of a mod to one of the steels, i know there's better ways to do it but i prefer to just hit stuff until it bends to my will.

you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink.

eddy

Bob Moseley (RIP) · #8 14-01-11, 21:08

Hi all - I'm with Lynn on this one. When we built the Blitz half-track we fitted the tracks even though there were some frozen sections. Slow driving freed the tracks to the extent that they now need tensioning. Therefore if the tracks are in a driveable situation, drive. You can always repair broken pins.

Bob