Can you guy's shed some light on Urethane track pads please . I have a 23 ton digger that i need to drive on paved roads . I need to know :- How many hours can be expected from them on pavement ? Does gravel chew them up ? Does material caught in the chains try and push them off as the sprocket compresses it ? Are there good and bad brands ? How much do they cost ? Will clip on's stay on with a machine of this weight twisting on them ? Thank's Reg .
if it is just for 1 job you can save money by going every other pad. yes gravel and rock is hard on them. you can either get bolt mounted or clip on we have bolt mounted and they lasted about 1500-2000 hrs can't remember. ours came from bls enterprises i believe. good luck
We used rubber blocks on every other grousser on a 180 kommie a while back with great results the only draw back was drilling the groussers to fit them ,o! and the care when loading on the lowloader.They lasted for 3yrs plus but again the operator would mind white mice at a cross roads in a snow storm . Stock
These make the machine tougher to turn off road, have to jump turn most of the time unless the soil is hard or slippy. Traction isn't as good off road either. During the summer or hot weather they will still tear up oily pavement Telescooper
These are excellent points and all true. But even after all troubles like telescooper mentioned, plus replacement, cost, etc., I still think they are worth it. My last TWO jobs were not on the street, but still they came in handy. First one I had to do piers in the back of the house against the construction boundary, so I just went down the street in front of the house - without losing a minute....several times. Second one, small off-street parking area, I went out on the street to grab rocks to hand rocks to my masons - that was all day. If you work in rural areas, probably you can do without (except for the immediate job you are planning Iron Horse, obviously), but suburban or urban, they really come in handy.:drinkup I get my pads from www.mmmachine.com
Here's another source. http://www.tufpads.com/
BLS has some great guys! bought stabilizer pads from them for half the price of John Deere and they seem to hold up 2x as long. I HIGHLY recommend anything that they sell. The salesman follows up a couple times a year just to make sure that everything is still working like it should.:drinkup
Ive spent some time checking the manufacturers web sites and the glowing reports by the users . I'm a little wary of the "users" as they may in fact be fictitious . It's a pitty someone does'nt make a pair of continuous track covers that you could walk into , hook the end onto a plate , walk forward and put a pin in to join it together . You could just slip them on when needed and have the best of both worlds .
Our pc78 has the factory rubber pads on a steel track chain. traction is ok no problems turning. no idea about hours on them but aside from a few broken ends they have a lot of life left