Plastic tracks [TANKS]

["Marc en Wendy" <marcmethorst-at-zonnet.nl>]

John wrote:

 

Plastic track stretches. That seems to be the case as late in battle 2 the track started jumping off the
sprockets on occasion. At the end of the day, both track were much looser than at the beginning. I'll
keep you informed of what I find later this week when I break everything down. Joe , did you ever have this occur?

Looking at the tracks I use on my T035 and the sand that gets in between the hinges the explanation must be that the sand wears the plastic pins (and the retaining holes) out. Even if they wear a few microns per pin, adding it up over the whole tracks (about 80 - 100 treads) can cause millimeters or even a centimeter wear, resulting in loosening them. It seemed that my tracks became shorter first, because the sand got stuck in the hinges and I had difficulty breaking the track to clean it. Because I don't have a tensioning system I widened the shaft slots. The effect in the long term will be the wear and loosening that you report.

 

I think there's nothing you can do about it except clean them thoroughly after every battle, washing it out with water. That's what I did when I accidentally drove over a pile of dog crap, hidden in the grass, whilst showing the manouvreability to a friend :-(

 

Marc "don't like dogs''  M.

Holland