In our last blog post, we revealed how Mark from Dike, IA succeeded in adding a snow blower to his RS1000. That customization wasn’t the only one that he pulled off, as you will soon learn. He also gave his MAGNATRAC® RS1000 a home made rubber track design, in place of the steel tracks that he originally purchased with his RS1000.
For those who may not know, we now offer the RS1000 with a “contractor grade” rubber track option, so buyers can now choose whether they get steel tracks with their RS1000 order or the all-new rubber tracks.
These NEW “contractor grade” rubber tracks are truly the best of both worlds! You get Power & Traction for off-road use, while also getting the gentle touch of rubber for those driveways and garage floors!
So, back to Mark and his RS1000. At the time he made his purchase, the RS1000 only came with steel tracks and those worked just fine until, you guessed it, Mark wanted so much more from his faithful dozer.
Being the hands-on type of guy that he is, Mark immediately came up with an idea of equipping his RS1000 with rubber tracks.
He got some tires that were meant to be used on an agricultural wagon. These particular tires were ideal because they didn’t have any steel cords inside them. It was therefore easy for Mark to cut the sidewalls from these tires in order to make them suitable for use on his RS1000. He used a reciprocating saw to cut the sidewalls off the Ag wagon tires.
After cutting out the sidewalls, Mark realized that the tires were too long, so he reduced the length so that they could fit on the steel tracks.The next task required Mark to attach the rubber tracks onto the steel tracks. To do this, he disassembled the steel tracks from the RS1000 so that he could attach the rubber tracks onto those steel tracks.
The next task required Mark to attach the rubber tracks onto the steel tracks. To do this, he disassembled the steel tracks from the RS1000 so that he could attach the rubber tracks onto those steel tracks.
With carriage bolts in hand, Mark drilled holes through the rubber tracks and used the bolts to attach the rubber tracks onto the steel tracks.
Mark had a bit of a hard time wrapping his “reinforced rubber tracks” onto the sprockets of the RS1000, but with steely determination, he finally got it done.
Like the true hands-on person he is, Mark immediately jumped onto the RS1000 to take it on a spin to see how well the rubber tracks customization worked. “Not too bad,” he observed. However, Mark noticed that overtime, the carriage bolts tended to become loose as a result of the constant flexing of the rubber tracks over the sprockets.
Tightening these bolts has therefore become part of his routine maintenance work, but he checks them frequently.
If making this customization seems like a lot of work, we have a solution for you! Simply get in touch with us and we will give you details on how you can get the NEW rubber tracks for your RS1000.
Here’s one last look of Mark’s completed rubber track design and snowblower design as well.
