Reproduction UC Track availability?

[ajmac]

Hoping to find that out very soon. Speaking to various machinists when you mention Mn Steel the phone usually goes dead Currently looking at alternate free machining steels with good wear resistance... If they are Mn Steel then the holes would most certainly have been cored as drilling solid bosses would have been a mass production nightmare!

[Wayne Henderson]

Our local (SE) Australian Carrier track version was cast with the holes in place. The rods or pins were cast sand and laid up in the boxes for the end pour. These original casting pattens were saved when State Engineering Works (SE) closed post war.

[Jordan Baker]

About the sprocket meshing. Sorry for the confusion. The problem would be that the track and sprocket both wear. Track wears out to the point that you've actually removed i think a maximum of 10 links. Now you go and re-drill them and fit oversized pins. It will tighten the whole track up again and you need those 10 links back. However now the spacing between links is different so it wont properly mesh on the worn out sprocket. Does that make more sense. Basicaly you'd also have to replace the sprocket and get it bang on. If you don't and one or the other (track or sprocet) is out they will wear each other out much faster.

[cantankrs]

Hi Wayne,

(Nice to meet you at Brookton back in March!)

Originally Posted by Wayne Henderson

These original casting pattens were saved when State Engineering Works (SE) closed post war.

Are you saying the patterns still exist?

Originally Posted by Wayne Henderson

The rods or pins were cast sand and laid up in the boxes for the end pour.

I think you're saying there that a molded sand 'core' was placed in the mold after the pattern was rapped and removed, such that the molten metal filled everywhere except the holes for the pins?

Regards

Alex

[Wayne Henderson]

Hey Alex.
There is a seperate mould for both pin holes. The pin holes were cast in sand and placed on the alloy frame. Metal goes in, sand falls out, there's the hole.

[George McKenzie]

I was just at my friends place and he has all his trackpads drilled over size .Made up oversize pins from cold rolled steel and harden them about 25ooo and is now assembling them If you harden them all the way they will brake NOTE if you take the pins out be sure to save the cast washers that will be put on the new pins .If you turn the sprocket backwards they will be like new unless they are badly worn .Friend Jim is going to rebuild a few sprockets .He does great work .There are two types of sprockets .One has a flange on each side ,the newer ones are flat on the sides from the top to bottom It will be almost impossible to get some one to do this unless you have a big checkbook

[colin jones]

Hi George, it is not very expensive to get new sprockets profile cut then case hardened. You just need to put it on CAD for them. I would estimate around $500 a pair. To save on material you could also segment them in Halves or thirds. That would save a lot of waste from the centre.
Colin!

[George McKenzie]

Good sujestion I have done Caterpillar crawler tractors under carriage and they had sections to replace the old ones. With so much interest in these carriers I can see where someone will be making them

[cantankrs]

Originally Posted by Wayne Henderson

These original casting pattens were saved when State Engineering Works (SE) closed post war.

Ron, Wayne wrote the above earlier in this thread, about Fremantle built carriers. I'm not clear on whether it's one or more track link patterns and/or some coreboxes for molding the sand cores for the track pin holes. Even some photos of these patterns and or coreboxes could answer some questions.

Wayne, any chance of acquiring and posting some pics of said patterns?

It seems rather crazy that they would have cast track links individually. It seems to me more likely that they would have built up a match plate of link patterns arranged in a radial fashion and then perhaps even stacked and clamped these 'flat' molds so that they were pouring what would result in a 'tree' of tracklinks once the sand was shaken off. Much like Ford SV V8 piston rings were cast. Ron do your NOS good links clearly show grinding marks where the feeder and runners were cut off - that might provide more clues to how they were arranged during molding.
If they did it this way then pattern numbering becomes more interesting...

Regards

Alex