Track Installation Trick

[clarence]

Gentlemen, I discovered a great way to install tracks and I thought I’d share it with you all. I’m sure many of you old pros know this trick but if not here it is. I used a trucker’s ratcheting binder to install tracks instead of come-alongs. See the attached picture.

For me it worked much better than wrestling with come-alongs. Inevitably the cable on the come-along binds around the tracks making it nearly impossible to line up the links or the come-along doesn’t allow the tracks to close together because the cable is in between them.

Plus those darn come-alongs are dangerous and are prone to breaking—particularly the foreign made ones. I’ve had several break apart on me—my American made Wyeth-Scott Puller being the exception.

The ratcheting binder works great because it allows the tracks to be pulled together evenly plus is serves as a leveling platform for the tracks to lie on as they’re being pulled together.

The trucker binders are also very strong and allow for a lever for easy cinching. I just fished some chain through the links underneath the tracks and hooked the binder to those chains. It was so much easier and faster to line up the master link holes using this method plus it was a heck of a lot stronger and safer.

Hope this trick helps you guys—thanks to all of you for your never-ending assistance with my two tractors, JD 450 and my little Komatsu D-20. It’s a pleasure to belong to this blog. Clarence

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[jsal]

may give it a try installing new chains on a 450C in a couple weeks after I get my TLC and paint complete .

Thanks JIM

[dillon45]

Say I like that Idea appears that it would work out very good.
Thanks for sharing.

[Lavoy]

The problem with doing it that way, is you have to hold both halves of the track to hook up the binder. If you do the connection on the sprocket like shown in the manuals, the sprocket does pretty much all of the work for you.
Lavoy

[Tigerhaze]

Even when using the method of attachment using the sprocket to hold, I always seem to have a problem getting the track link over the last tooth so the trucker binder trick may be helpful for that.