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Early Tucker Track question

berg

Member
Novice guy here again... hope you don't get sick of my questions..

How do the early Tucker Track Systems work?

The way I see it is that a series of grousers rotate around a fixed housing to move the cat... seems like that would limit the flotation quite a bit and forces working against each other so to speak.
In reading Lyndons post about Tuckers being king of Antarctica.. is that the same system they used in 58' ?
I'm not seeing the engineering here on that system.. heres a pic.
can't imagine that would be good for deep powder.
bring me up to speed.
 

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Lyndon

Bronze Member
GOLD Site Supporter
Steel grousers that are esentially a 'Chain' that carry little 2-3/4 inch diameter trolley wheels that crawl around a hollow body called a Pontoon that has hardened track facing on it. They are noisy, are difficult to greese, top speed is about 11 MPH, at which point the rollers are turning at about 3000 RPM's. Tucker machines had this design from about 1938 to 197?. And YES the Antarctic machines all had this type of roller. And as to their ability in snow: the Tucker 222 (Kitten) in the above photo will just about out climb any make or model of snow cat in just about any snow condition! they were a highly effective design. They could operate at lower temperatures than most belting of the 1950's could take also. Never undrestimate the abilities of a Steel Track Tucker.
 

snotrans

Member
Boy ! Have not seen thak Kitten in a few years. Glad to see it is still going. That is the one my Wife and I used in our snow survey business for the USDA and Forest Service during the early 197O's We still have a Kitten in our warehouse but it seems to be alot smaller than it used to be for us to get into. Like Lyndon said ,do not under estimate our Tucker Sno-Cat's they have been proven the World Over , and still in business,To me that says it all . Happy New Year to all Thanks for another good year and may we all keep our tracks up right in the snow Bill and Mary @ snotrans
 

berg

Member
Not to beat a dead dog here but explain how this chain trolley could be effective in deep snow... doesn't it all come down to how much PSI per square inch of moving track does the work?
If you were in deep powder ( see yellow line in pic) you would have only the amount of surface area of the trolly/chain on the pontoon to pull you along.. The belly of the snow cat might drag as well.
I am not disputing that it works ... I just don't see how.
The underbelly of that track housing is not moving so that too would create a drag IMO.
Skool me a little more....
 

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mbsieg

awful member
GOLD Site Supporter
The bottom of the pontoons is what you would calculate the psi from not the chain, works like a kids sled....
 

berg

Member
The bottom of the pontoons is what you would calculate the psi from not the chain, works like a kids sled....

but the bottom of the pontoons is not moving.... err right?
Just like laying a cookie sheet down on the snow and dragging
a chain under it... :bonk:
so you have to drag that cookie sheet along with you like a sled.
probably a bad example but still not seein it.
 

Lyndon

Bronze Member
GOLD Site Supporter
Steel Track Tuckers may look crude, but they work! For quite a period of time they dominated the landscape at Ski Areas, like 20 or 30 years! When I learned to ski, in Mass, Vermont and New Hampshire in the mid 60's there were definately more Tucker Sno-Cats operating than any other make. And they were all Steel Track machines. Vermont boasted over a hundred ski areas, N.H. a similar number. The fact that they could drive them across 2100 miles of the Antarctic, across snow and Ice up to 2 miles thick, that had never been traversed by man or beast is quite a testament unto itself. It is also prudent to note that they were manufactured and produced with this design for some 30 plus years( 1937 to 197?). Thats longer than T-Model production! Hell, thats almost as long as VW Bug production, the all time record holder! They may be slow, and high maintenance, but they could climb rough terraine, and float over deep snow and hardly ever de-tracked..... Something about: "if it's not broke, don't fix it"...
 

Melensdad

Jerk in a Hawaiian Shirt & SNOWCAT Moderator
Staff member
GOLD Site Supporter
but the bottom of the pontoons is not moving.... err right?
Just like laying a cookie sheet down on the snow and dragging
a chain under it... :bonk:
so you have to drag that cookie sheet along with you like a sled.
probably a bad example but still not seein it.
You have it wrong. It is like a cookie sheet being dragged over the chain fence, not like dragging a fence under the cookie sheet.

If you think about it the steel grousers set in the snow and do not actually drag through it. They simply grab snow and don't move. What moves is the pontoon, it slides over the top of the grouser. If grousers slipped in the snow the snowcat could not make forward movement. In ideal conditions the grousers do not slip at all, under soft powder conditions there is slippage but not enough to prevent forward movement.
 

berg

Member
Ding Ding Ding.....:thankyou2

Your explanation was right on... I get it now.... interesting tech ... I would have never thought that. Grouser do not rotate aroound housing.. housing sort of rotates forward motion around grousers.
Now another question.. anyone got a pic of one of the pontoons with the side off?
I'd like to see how they do that....

thanks again
 

berg

Member
Thought my curiosity was cured but now would like to know how the track is rotating around the pontoon ...what gives it the power. I assumed there was a connection right there in the top middle of the pontoon but as you see in the pic... there isn't...

school me again................:smile:
 

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Vance

Member
I'm no expert (don't own one... yet) but here goes.

On the Kitten pontoons (maybe all of em) the drive sprocket is at the rear of the pontoon. You can see the chain drive in your pic and the drive sprockets in the pic below.

hth,

Vance
 

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berg

Member
Ok.. the Kittens look like they have the sprockets at the rear and on the big boys the sprocket is at the top center of the Pontoon?
 

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pezman

New member
yes that is correct. my brother has a tucker 543. I 'got educated' while he was rebuilding his tracks and pontoons.
 
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