In the autumn last year I bought a 14-15 ton excavator with rubber tracks. I use it for help around the farm like some landscaping, loading, road making and stump pulling. I have seen that these jobs are pretty harsh conditions for rubber tracks since moving over tree roots and sometimes rocks is pretty much inevitable in our environment. The tracks have still about 60-70% of life on them but have been subjected to some deep cuts and cracks, so I am thinking of switching to steel tracks. Now the standard width of tracks for these machine models is 500mm(20inch), but in my parts manual there is also an option of 600mm(24inch) and 700mm(28inch). I am thinking of going as wide as possible. I wonder if there would be any drawbacks to this. I have never seen this model of machine equipped with wide tracks (Takeuchi TB 1140) and these are very common models in my country, always just 500mm, even on ads all over the world. But I see lots of other brands of this weight class that have wider than 500mm tracks like Volvo EC140 and Komatsu PC138. The reason I want wider tracks in the first place though is because I often work in tilted environments and because this machine is pretty compact for this weight class and also has an offset boom it feels like this machines center of gravity is pretty outwards toward the hoe attachment. So my thinking is to try and add as much weight to the lower part of the machine to somehow also reduce lifting off tracks and tilting when operating with a full bucket or extending the hoe attachment outwards. Wider tracks would also probably be beneficial on soft and muddy terrains which I also work often on to prevent sinking. I am aware that there will be faster wear to the sprockets and rollers. Maybe more fuel consumption and reduced travel speed? Any other failures I can expect like in the final drives?
I'd go with the 24" tracks.
Why with that width?
It's a good compromise. If you're in soft enough conditions to require 28" pads over 24" pads, it's probably too sloppy to get much done. The narrower the pads the easier it is on the undercarriage. See if you can find a chart with the ground pressure of different size pads. I'd bet 24" pads are no more than 4.5 PSI ground pressure. 28" under 4 PSI but do you really need to be able to go into swampy ground?
Replacing the wider steel track will indeed increase the weight of the undercarriage and thus increase stability, but the cost may be much more expensive than the rubber track because you have to buy additional chain-links. Maybe next time you replace the rubber track, you can consider replacing the track with a different tread pattern and width (I don't know if it is an effective suggestion)
A lot more to it than just changing the track links. I think it would be quite an expensive conversion.
yeah, i think so. but It may be easier to find the right size of steel tracks and chains than to find wider rubber tracks, because as far as I know, 600mm width seems to be less common than 500mm width.
He was never talking about wider rubber tracks. He was talking about wider track pads for steel chains. Regardless of width the chains would be the same.
No, I just re-read the message sent by the Hffhvg, and I see that he is currently using rubber tracks. And he wants to know if it would be more appropriate to change to steel tracks.
The chain size is the same, I agree.
Wider pads typically wear the chains faster than narrow pads. Does your machine have a blade? The wider pads will make the travel path wider than the blade. That may not be an issue for you, but something to keep in mind. Most likely to switch from rubber to steel tracks you will need to change the rollers and idlers and possibly the sprockets to ones designed for steel chains. So basically you will be replacing the entire undercarriage, which could be quite expensive.