Tracks from tires for a walk-behind tractor. Which caterpillar from a tire with your own hands to choose for a playground

To increase the throughput of the walk-behind tractor and use it as an all-terrain vehicle or snowmobile, you can equip it with tracks. They can be purchased ready-made, but they are expensive, and it is not always possible to find the right option for your walk-behind tractor. There are several ways how to make a caterpillar for a walk-behind tractor with your own hands.

How to make a caterpillar on a walk-behind tractor with your own hands

If you wish, you can independently modify your walk-behind tractor, turning it into a tracked all-terrain vehicle or snowmobile. The main rule is to take into account what kind of work the tracks are intended for in order to choose the right material, because they must be not only durable, but also extremely light.

Having the materials at hand, having correctly calculated the length of the caterpillar, you can make it yourself using simple improvised means.

First of all, you need to equip your walk-behind tractor with an additional pair of wheels. For each side pair, the caterpillar track will be worn.

The length of each of the two goslings will be equal to the circumference of one wheel and the distance between the axles of each pair of wheels, multiplied by two.

Important: the wheels on the walk-behind tractor must be of the same diameter.

The material for homemade products can be:

conventional conveyor belt and bush-roller chain;
car tires;
belts and chains.

So, let's consider several options for making a goose yourself, depending on the material used.

From the conveyor belt

This method is the simplest, since it does not require a large number of special tools and auxiliary materials.

When choosing a belt for a caterpillar, give preference to a strip with a thickness of at least 7 mm, because it has a fairly large load. Hitching with moving parts will be provided by a sleeve-roller chain.
To give the tape strength and increase its operational life, it is recommended to sew along the edges of the tape with frequent stitches with a step of about 10 mm.
It is also necessary to sew the tape along the ends in order to connect it into a ring of the desired diameter, or use, for greater reliability, hinges resembling a piano canopy.
Make sure that the additional wheelset that you install on the walk-behind tractor frame is the same diameter as the main wheels on the walk-behind tractor.

From the tire

It is enough just to make a durable reliable goose for a walk-behind tractor from a tire. The process of making from a car tire does not take too long, since it does not need to be stitched and lugs built up - the tire itself is a closed structure with a tread for traction.

Tires from wheels for trucks or tractors with a pronounced tread pattern are best suited for a caterpillar.

The manufacturing process is divided into several stages:

Using a very sharp knife, dipped in soapy water to enhance the cutting ability on rubber, cut the tape for the goose of the required width.
The sides of the tire are cut off with a jigsaw with a fine-toothed file.
The hard parts on the inside of the tire are also sheared off with a knife or jigsaw.

However, here, too, there are several points that you should pay attention to:

The tread pattern should be clearly pronounced, since its reliefs are a kind of lugs that increase the adhesion of the moving mechanism to the surface.
The length of such a track is limited by the diameter of the tire, therefore, before attaching an additional pair of wheels, this should be taken into account.

Of belts and chains

In order to make a tracked all-terrain vehicle from a walk-behind tractor, you can use ordinary belts with a wedge-shaped profile. The connection of the belts to each other is carried out by grousers attached to them on rivets or screws. This gives us a belt track.

To make a goose from chains (chain tracks), you need to take two pieces of the same chain of the required length.

The end links of both segments are expanded in order to connect them into two closed rings.
The unclenched links are clamped again, and then welded for strength.
Sections are cut from steel of the required thickness, which will serve as lugs.
The lugs are bolted from both ends to the links of both closed chains, thus forming a relief track for the walk-behind tractor.

Homemade track links

You can also make your own homemade goose tracks from any suitable material. The main thing that needs to be taken into account is what kind of load you are going to give to your walk-behind tractor.

From plastic pipes

You can use pieces of plastic pipe as tracks for a snowmobile goose. To do this, cut the plastic water pipe # 40 into lengths equal to the width of the caterpillar. Use a circular saw to cut each piece lengthwise into two equal halves, or use a circular saw for wood.

The resulting tracks must be attached at regular intervals to the conveyor belt with furniture bolts No. 6 with large hemispherical caps.

From wooden blocks

Sometimes, if the load on the goose is not very large, birch blocks can be used as tracks. They are not particularly durable for heavy loads, but they are light, affordable, and a track with such tracks can be repaired at any convenient place.

Iron tracks

The most reliable are metal tracks made of high quality iron. For this purpose, metal pipes or a profile cut into pieces of the required length are suitable. A profile metal pipe is cut according to the same principle as a plastic one, and is attached to a conveyor belt with bolts.

However, metal tracks, despite their noticeable strength, also have their drawbacks: they are heavy compared to plastic and wooden ones, and can bend during use. To straighten the track, you need to remove it from the goose, and this is a laborious operation.

When choosing the material from which the track links for your mini-all-terrain vehicle will be made, you should evaluate the degree of load and operating conditions. To overcome snowy expanses, light plastic or wooden tracks are perfect, and for using a walk-behind tractor as a mini-tractor, it is still better to make a caterpillar with metal lugs.

Buy a hitch and trailed to a walk-behind tractor in online stores

Do-it-yourself caterpillar for a motorized towing vehicle

The motorized towing vehicle, popularly called "motorized dog", is the best suited for use in northern latitudes with good snow cover. Using a walk-behind tractor, you can independently make a high-speed tracked vehicle alternative to a dog sled, which can tow a sled with a person or a small load in the snow.

Making a caterpillar for a motor dog with your own hands is not difficult at all.

You can use an old goose from the Buran snowmobile. To increase the undercarriage, you should cut it in half and build it up with inserts. Carriages from the old "Buran" can serve as tracks. Three carriages with rollers are enough. They also need to be cut and extended with inserts.

In the absence of old spare parts, a track for a motorized towing vehicle can be made from improvised means in one of the above ways. For example, from a conveyor belt.

For manufacturing you will need:

conveyor belt from 22 cm wide;
metal tires for reinforcement;
hardwood blocks of wood for crawler tracks.

We bring to your attention a video showing the process of making a caterpillar.

Making a track for a walk-behind tractor is a simple process, although it requires a sufficient amount of time. It is also necessary to apply all diligence and skill so that all the links of the goose are located at an equal distance from each other. This will help prevent the track from skewing and slipping off the bearing surfaces.

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This funny do-it-yourself tire caterpillar will decorate not only the playground, but also the garden area. After all, every owner of a house and a summer residence wants to make his piece of land cozy and not like others.

Those who are unlimited in finances resort to the help of landscape designers who construct decorative ponds, alpine slides, fountains and other elements of the exterior.

But, no less beautiful things can be created with your own hands, using seemingly waste materials - plastic bottles and car tires. Craftsmen easily transform them into wonderful garden furniture and delightful flower beds, into pools and fairy-tale heroes, into elephants, giraffes, frogs, etc.

All you need to make a tire craft is patience, a sharp knife, brushes and paints.

The tires selected for the job must be clean and dry so that the paint does not flake off.

It's very easy to make a caterpillar that kids like and makes adults smile. First, the tires are painted in bright colors, and when they are dry, they are dug into the ground with one of the options below.

Flirty caterpillar in Panama

Scared caterpillar with cute spring horns

It is possible to dig in tires at the same level or differently, i.e. the first and all odd ones - to a shallower depth, the second and even ones - deeper.

Face decoration

There are also several options for this:

it can be drawn on plywood, giving it a fun shape and attaching it to the front of the first tire;
fixing the first tire on the side holes on both sides with self-tapping screws;
create using plastic covers or wheels from a children's car for the eyes.

Making antennae

Springs and wire, plastic pipes and bottles are suitable for antennae. You can decorate the craft by attaching a flower to your head.

Coloration

As a rule, the caterpillar is painted green and green-yellow. The antennae are made yellow, and the color of the eyes is made at will or available material.

The process of making crafts from tires is much easier and cheaper than from metal or wood, and their service life is many times longer. The products turn out to be bright and exclusive. And to create from it does not require either material costs or special professionalism.

It is recommended to dig in tires close to each other, so that, having moved out, the child cannot get hurt or get stuck between them;
You don't need to choose tires that are too bald to prevent the baby from slipping. If there are no others, they can be smeared with glue before painting and sprinkled with sand, allowed to dry and then painted.

A simple option for making a caterpillar

DIY tools and materials

Depending on how long the caterpillar from the tire will be with your own hands, they are stocked with the required number of tires. But, in general, four is enough.

In addition to tires, you need:

a piece of wire and fiberboard;
paints: black, green, yellow and red;
brushes;
self-tapping screws;
jigsaw;
screwdriver.

Tire selection

For this variant, three tires of the same size and one smaller tire for the head are sufficient.

Having finished with the choice of tires, they proceed to sawing circles (2 pcs.), Which cover the holes in the head (smaller tire). Do this with a jigsaw. As a consequence, a funny face is drawn on the fiberboard. It is screwed to the tire with a screwdriver.

For the manufacture of antennae, an aluminum wire covered with insulation was taken. To fix them, holes are drilled in the right place, a wire is threaded through them and the ends are twisted.

After that, they move on to the longest lesson - painting the caterpillar from the tires with their own hands. The tread is painted in a grassy color, and the sides in bright yellow.

The head is painted in the same color as the protector. On it, after the paint has dried, draw the muzzle of a caterpillar.

The only thing left to do was to dig the craft into the ground.

To do this, dig holes deep into the bayonet of a shovel. They put three tires in them, cover them with earth, tamp it well. The fourth tire with a painted muzzle is attached to the first "second floor". How it looks like in the photo.

It seems to have turned out to be quite an amusing piece of work! Such a nice caterpillar, installed in the playground, is well suited for children's play.

Moreover, the guys will not only be happy to play with such a cute craft, but will also be able to relax after active games, comfortably sitting on the back of a kind caterpillar.

Other Tire Crafts

In addition to it, on the site you can install a snowman, their tires, a bunny, a car, a swing and many other handicrafts made from material that was doomed to be recycled, but healed with a new life.

And, if a team of smeshariki also appears, be sure that the guys will be delighted with their favorite cartoon characters.

Video: DIY tire caterpillar

Real SUVs have high cross-country ability (I mean, not city SUVs). However, their cross-country ability is often limited, and it is understandable that this is not a tank "embody". For example, on snowy slopes or swampy meadows, such a car is already ineffective. We have to resort to tractors and all-terrain vehicles on tracks, but tuning does not stand still, but develops by leaps and bounds, so literally in an hour you can put your jeep, even if it is a UAZ or NIVA, on tracks, removing the wheels, thus, we multiply the cross-country ability ...

The effectiveness of tracks has long been proven, but converting a car to such a chassis would mean a deep modernization of the suspension, which is very expensive and not always possible. Therefore, such tracks were needed that would sit in the regular places of the wheels, practically on standard hubs, without deep technical changes. And you know, such options have been around for a long time! Moreover, you can remake almost any car, but, of course, it is more effective to remake frame jeeps, or off-road vehicles with high cross-country ability, such as our NIVA.

Design principle

Now blocks are sold for all four wheels of a car, we just remove the standard wheels, fasten special adapters to the hubs - we put on the tracks.

No, they are not large, but correspond exactly to the size of your car, they just fit into standard wheel arches, there are options even for cars, although this is a little absurd.

The design is also simple, with a triangular metal frame, with five (sometimes more) pairs of rollers at the bottom and one large one at the top. On which a caterpillar is worn, made using a special technology (many will say it looks like rubber), but this is not entirely true, wear resistance and elasticity are at a high level, they remain soft even at sub-zero temperatures. Of course, no one will give you the composition of the material.

In the upper "large" roller, a standard wheel hub is installed and put on a rigid hitch, thus, the rotating hub will transmit the rotation of the entire structure, so the all-terrain vehicle is ready for you. The big plus is that you can turn the steering wheel like on a regular car with wheels, also when you need to just remove the tracks and put on ordinary wheels.

Track dimensions

Of course, many are now interested in the size. So I want to run through them quickly. I personally will take the option for our cars, for "NIVA" for example, since they are more in demand for it.

Width - ranges from 320 mm to 450 mm

Height - about 700 mm

The length is about 1000 mm.

Weight - 80 - 100 kg.

From the side it resembles a triangle, and therefore will fit into any wheel arch.

Manufacturers

In fairness, it should be noted that they were developed in the United States, and only after that they were dispersed throughout the world. Now do several dozen, and maybe hundreds of companies around the world, including Russia.

If we take imported versions, then the most eminent of all is the company - Mattracks, this is one of the founders of the production of such "rollers". True, their prices bite, for the price of a set you can buy a Russian car.

If we take domestic manufacturers, then here we can highlight Chelyabinsk, it is there that they produce rollers for NIVU, UAZ, etc. The cost is several times lower than that of foreign counterparts.

The main advantages

The advantages are obvious - improved cross-country ability. And also an increase. Deep snow in the fields, swamps of small bogs, and simply "well" washed out roads become easy obstacles. If we take for what these tracks were originally developed, it is overcoming deep snow, they were made for rescuers on mountain roads, where ordinary SUVs simply cannot pass. What can I say, the caterpillars have proven themselves only from the best side.

For example, watch the video where NIVA easily passes in deep snow, and "calmly" unfolds.

Re-shoeing from ordinary wheels does not require any changes in the suspension design; you can remove the wheels with your own hands and hang the tracks in literally 1 hour. And if you need to return the wheels back - an hour and they are in place. This adds a very big plus.

Minuses

Of course, there are also disadvantages, where can we go without them. The first, but obviously one of the most important, is the use on asphalt roads - here you need to maintain a special speed limit, almost all manufacturers recommend moving at a speed of no more than 40 km / h, otherwise the track itself is very quickly erased, you will simply throw it away.

The second is that it is difficult for such "rollers", and I would even say impossible, to overcome a fallen tree, even not significant at 10-15 cm in height, ordinary SUV wheels would simply run over it, but the caterpillars would not.

Third, this is a fairly high price, although I will dwell on this in more detail.

Price

Needless to say, this is a very expensive pleasure. It is not entirely rational to take for fun and "ride" on snow-covered fields.

Foreign counterparts cost from $ 3,500 to $ 10,500. What is now at the rate of about 230 to 700,000 rubles!

Domestic manufacturers keep amounts from 100 to 250,000 rubles.

Prices "walk" from your car (the more, the more expensive), load, track width, etc.

Can you do it yourself?

YES of course you can, why not! After all, they are also produced by people. However, you will need to do technical research, calculate the load, weld the triangle. Look for rollers and the belt itself (many also make old rubber). As you can see, not everything is so simple - although it should be noted that it is realizable.

Many people involved in the manufacture of home-made equipment also develop tracked all-terrain vehicles and home-made tracks for a walk-behind tractor. When translating this idea into reality, people use a variety of solutions. But the manufacture of caterpillars remains a big problem for fans of this type of transport.

After all, if an all-terrain vehicle or a snowmobile is made by hand, then the caterpillars must be homemade.

A very simple version of the tracks

It is very common among home-builders to make tracks using car tires. For this, tires are selected, which have a suitable tread pattern, from trucks.

To make such a caterpillar, you need to cut the beads from the tire, and leave the treadmill. This is a rather laborious work that requires good patience, because the tool used is a sharpened boot knife.

To make the work easier, from time to time the knife blade can be moistened in a soapy solution to cut the rubber faster. One option is to use a homemade cutting attachment, or use a jigsaw with a fine-toothed file.

After cutting off the beads, if the track is too hard, you can remove the excess layers of rubber inside the resulting ring. If the tread pattern is not suitable for the conditions of use, then a new lug structure is cut.

The undoubted advantage of a home-made caterpillar from a tire over a caterpillar from a conveyor belt, in an initially closed loop, and therefore reliability. The disadvantage of this track is in the limited width of the workpiece, which can be corrected by using a double-width option.

Many people engaged in the manufacture of home-made equipment also develop tracked ATVs and home-made caterpillars on the walk-behind tractor... When translating this idea into reality, people use a variety of solutions. But the manufacture of tracks remains a big problem for fans of this type of transport, because if an all-terrain vehicle or snowmobile is made by hand, then the tracks must also be homemade.

Homemade tire tracks

It is very common among home-builders to make tracks using car tires. For this, tires are selected, which have a suitable tread pattern, from trucks.

Homemade track for a motorized towing vehicle

DIY tape caterpillar

Continued on assembling the caterpillar from the tape