The Snow Toaster is a fine example of what time, money, and skill can do. Is that a Bombardiar Muskeg drive he swapped in? Mainer, what are the major problems and what parts are hard to find with these 4VL type drives? There has to be alot of these Trackmasters out there and it seems like rebuilding would be the way to go especially for a transport cat.
I'm not sure if it's a Muskeg or not... Boggie... you know?
The main things that go wrong with the twin shaft design (from what I've gathered through discussions with various owners that have been in and out and upside down through power divider rebuilds, etc.):
1. Incorrect reassembly...the angles and shaft-balance in properly assembling these puppies is critical. Supposedly it's the part of the rebuild that is the art/experience. This is the main reason that (as Snow Ops said he's known of owners that have broken systems), they break.
2. Bearings within the power divider...not easy to find original but can be replaced with new parts (while maintaing originality, of course!)
3. Clutch disks in the power divider (not all *that* hard to find remakes ... which work great...but the best is the old-school and finding new-old stock is very, very hard...but that doesn't matter that much... I believe it has good ol' "asbestos inside" ).
4. Axles would go if too much load was placed on such as a drag...but replacement isn't bad at all... mine went in the 4T2 with 2,800 lbs. It was fine at 2,000 lbs.
5. The tube between the drop boxes would break so it was upgraded to a thicker wall tube spec. Nothing big.
In the end, it's not that bad although I do believe it's tricky if a person is just going in blind and it's all in pieces... and some components of the system are broken right up front...non-standard comonents that is.