Chris in England needed to do a track and sprocket change on his Sabre. Whilst
at it he replaced the road wheels and took the opportunity to tidy up the
paintwork whilst all the normal clutter was out the way.
======
First off, the old track, all the roadwheels and sprocket need to be removed
and cleared away. You do one side at a time, completing that side before
commencing the other side. (The reason for this is that the easiest way to
get the many hundreds of kilos of new track on is for the vehicle to
move forward and help pull the new track on.)
|
|
has scraped the hull side during fast turns - which is a normal
event and not a concern..
|
|
|
|
"offered up" for assembly.
|
|
coming together.
|
|
At this point the vehicle is reversed back under its own power using the right hand side track. The vehicle will follow a straight line, and once the left sprocket is about 3' short of front end of the track, re-tracking can commence. This involves picking up the track end and engaging it on the left sprocket, the vehicle is then slowly reversed and the front end of the track is "helped" over each of the road wheels. Once the end of the track is past the idler, sufficient more is fed over until the track ends are able to be matched up between the rear most road wheel and idler.
As you can well imagine, sticking your hand in the track and lifting it over the roadwheels isn't the safest job around. The best way of doing it is surprising simple. A track pin (joining pin) is pushed through the outer most bushing of the link and then the retaining nut threaded on. Thus the pin is only part way into the link and is held captive by the nut - so it can't slip out. The pin is then used as a handle and allows the helper to remain well clear of the track and wheels.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
of the steel bush and its outer round circuference. Also note the
molded in track pad, which means once the pad wears down, the track
has to then be replaced for road use.
My thanks again to Chris.
 BACK TO INDEX |