Note: While much of the following is Tucker specific, there is a fair amount of information applicable to other brands of snowcats.
Snowcat track belting is an interesting topic, and it seems to come up with some regularity on the forum. Putri - Zilla needs new track belts, and Scott and I are kicking around a possible Thundercat modification... that would require new belting as well. And the 1544’s belts are less-than-optimal. So we're in the market for a whole bunch of new track belting. The standard Tucker belts for decades were two ply, 220 PIW (pounds per inch width) belts. I bought my first Tucker back in 2008, and IIRC a new belt from Tucker then was $225. The last time I inquired about belts from Tucker they only sold three ply 330 PIW belts, and at a significantly higher price. (I think like north of $300 per belt.) If I bought all new belts for Thundercat, P-Z and the 1544 from Tucker, that would be in the vicinity of $15K, so I have a lot of incentive to find a cost-effective belt option!
There is considerable information out there, but I wonder how accurate some of it is? Most snowcats use rubber belts for their track material with aluminum or steel grouser bars bolted to the belts. In terms of belt construction, there are typically two, or more fabric layers separated by a thin layer of rubber, called a "skim coat", as well as a layer of rubber on the top and bottom of the fabric plies. Those top and bottom layers of rubber are called covers. From my understanding, snowcat belting is essentially conveyor belting, though in much narrower and shorter lengths than the typical conveyor installation.
There are many different conveyor belt applications and depending on the application, different characteristics for the belting material are important. For example, some conveyors are installed underground. Those belts aren’t exposed to harmful UV rays, so that’s not a consideration, however resistance to fire is.. Some belts are used in food production - so sanitary concerns are paramount. And some are used in asphalt plants to move hot asphalt, and high temperature tolerance is crucial. Well, in a snowcat we do care about UV rays, but not about sanitation or very high temperatures. We are concerned with cold temperatures, belt stretch, minimum pulley diameters, abrasion/cut resistance and UV tolerance.
Brad, the man behind Minnesota Outdoors was the most knowledgable person I've ever spoken with about snowcat belting. I bought some belts from him and they were high quality, reasonably priced and delivered quickly, but very sadly Brad passed away, and the company is no longer in operation. He mentioned at one point that if you’re looking for what I’ll call generic belting; meaning it does a pretty good job, and can be bought fairly inexpensively, look for grain elevator belting. It works well in cold temperatures and has minimal stretch. Brad told me he bought his belting in Europe and shipped it to the US….
A little bit of history: Goodyear was a major belting manufacturer in the United States, but they sold the division that made belting to private equity company The Carlyle Group back in 2007. Though the products still carried the Goodyear name, the company’s named was changed to Veyance Technologies. However, eight years later in 2015 Continental, AG, bought Veyance Technologies. Part of the deal was that after a limited amount of time they could no longer sell products under the Goodyear name. It’s now called "Conti-Tech”.
The advantage of buying belts from Tucker, or aftermarket suppliers like Fall Line, is that they supply ready-to-install belts with all the holes punched in the belts and the belt lacing installed. But if one is willing to put some elbow grease into the project, perhaps some significant money can be saved. That was my objective when I started down this Rabbit hole. I called Applied Industrial Technologies, a Continental distributor in SLC, to start the process of gathering information… and quickly ran into a brick wall.
I sensed the gentleman I was speaking with genuinely wanted to help me, but when I answered “snowcat” to his question about what the belt would be used for, the tone of the conversation changed markedly. He said he couldn’t sell belting to me for that purpose due to liability reasons, as the belting wasn’t specifically designed for that application. (What’s ironic is Continental’s own website has a photo of a snowcat with aluminum grousers and rubber belts.) He specifically mentioned Fall Line as a belt supplier, and said that though the belting itself might be identical, because I would be buying it from Fall Line, they had the liability for the product, and not them. Really? The other day I needed to blow my nose, and grabbed some toilet paper for the job. Unsurprisingly, it worked well. I wonder if Costco senior management is worried about customers using their toilet paper for other than its intended use? I’m thinking they don’t lose a wink of sleep over it…. (Note: It was none other than William Shakespeare who is credited with the quote "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers".)
I called another Continental distributor in SLC; Kaman Industrial Technologies, and did not use the word “snowcat". But they didn’t seem very eager for my business, and I wasn't holding my breath for their pricing. Now, a month later... they never even called back. Nice. I also talked with a third company in SLC, McGuire Bearing, as well as Capital Rubber and Gasket in Sacramento. I also spent quite a bit of time doing research on Al Gore's Internet, trying to become more knowledgeable about belting. I think most customers buying conveyor belting purchase, what is to us as snowcat hobbyists, HUGE quantities of belting. We are, in the scheme of things, not even small potatoes. That means it’s very likely what a local supplier may offer you are choices of remnants from big customers’ orders. If you look at belting manufacturer's websites you can find a combination of belt fabric material, number of plies, cover material, and cover thicknesses that seem ideal for our application. That's great, except it's pretty much unobtanium for us as far as being able to purchase it in the quantities we need. My impression is Fall Line sells Continental Plylon Plus (a name leftover from the Goodyear days) with Defender Plus covers. Okay, but compared to other Continental cover options, the Defender Plus maybe aren't the optimal covers for snowcat use. The bottom line is if you are looking to buy belting for your snowcat, chances are strong you’re going to be compromising with what’s available, versus what you really want.
When it comes to belting itself, the strength comes from the fabric, and very little comes from the covers. The cover’s purpose is actually to protect the fabric. Typically, a top cover is a multiple of the bottom cover’s thickness. It seems the most common multiple is 3:1, hence 3/16 top cover and 1/16 bottom cover on snowcat belting from Fall Line. But there are other cover thickness options available. A significant consideration for snowcat belting is the minimum pulley diameter rating of the belting. As a general rule, more fabric plies and thicker covers require larger pulley diameters. And, those same extra plies and thicker covers add weight and require more power to pull the belt around the pulleys. Brad of Minnesota Outdoors had mentioned “balanced covers”, which I took to mean the top and bottom covers were the same thickness. Talking with one belting representative, he told be "balanced covers" means the top cover is twice the thickness of the bottom cover. “Equal covers” means the covers are the same thickness.
Before starting to do research I thought “Gee, the belts on P-Z are 43 years old. In that time technology has advanced significantly in terms of fabrics and rubber compounds, I’ll bet there are some much better belts available with Kevlar fabric, for example”. I asked one supplier about that and he said aramid fabric belts (Kevlar is actually a Dupont brand name.) have great strength but he said they stretch quite a bit and the aramid fabric doesn’t stay adhered to the rubber covers as well as poly and nylon fabrics. That was a surprise! But there is now a trend toward using fewer plies of stronger fabrics. In a single ply belt, sometimes called mono ply, the fabric is woven differently as well. People I spoke with said a single ply belt actually has greater puncture resistance than a two ply belt. Another advantage to single ply belts is they are thinner in cross section and they weigh less. Cool! That may be an option.
At this point I started getting calls back on pricing, and I was pleasantly surprised. The first call was from McGuire Bearing, a SLC company whose belt shop is in Idaho Falls. Their available 220 PIW belts were 12” wide and they’d slit it to my desired width of 4 5/8”. You could get two 4 5/8” belts out of a 12" wide belt, but I’d have to pay for 12”. The price was $7.37 per foot for the 12" wide belt and a $50 slitting charge. (That might work, but let's see what else is out there.) Capital Rubber in Sacramento are very nice folks, and you can actually say “snowcat” and they don’t treat you like you have a third eye in your forehead! They gave me pricing on two different 220 PIW belts. One was the somewhat standard belt with 3/16" and 1/16" cover thicknesses, and the other had 1/8” and 1/16” cover thicknesses. Both numbers were less than $3 per foot.
The single ply 225 PIW belt turned out to be more expensive, though not egregiously so. However, the real problem is the somewhat standard method of attaching belt lacing with Flexco's special bolts for either their 375 or 550 series belt lacing is not recommended. They suggest using a completely different method of attachment involving riveting the lacing, and of course that requires some very expensive special tools. Pretty much not an option for us….
Okay, let’s stop for a second. P-Z’s tracks have 31 grousers and they’re spaced 6 1/16” apart. That requires a belt length of 31 x 6.0625 = 187.9375”. Let’s round up to 16 feet. Three bucks a foot times 16 feet is 48 bucks for a belt. No, it’s not punched and it doesn’t have belt lacing, but compared to Fall Line’s price of $225 per belt, that seems downright reasonable. Belt lacing adds up, but still that price difference is compelling.
The Capital Rubber representative (Andrew) asked where I lived, and when I told him he said shipping costs were going to be expensive, and I might be better off buying locally, or at least closer than Sacramento. I explored those options. But of the people I spoke with, Andrew was the really good; knowledgeable, friendly and helpful. I value customer service highly and if the final prices are close Andrew will get our business. I have since called California Industrial Rubber in Carlin, NV and Ram Enterprise in Elko, NV. I also called Ram’s SLC office, but they never responded to my voice mail message.
I eventually did speak with the Ram representative in Elko and he asked that I email him my requested belt specifics. I did so, and asked for pricing on all three belt options. When I did get an email with a price quote, they only quoted one of the three. No comments on the other two. Okay, I have never worked in sales, but this doesn’t strike me as difficult. If a customer requests pricing on three items - you give them pricing on three items. Yes it’s a cliche’, but I believe in the saying "You never get a second chance to make a first impression”. And, their quote was "FOB Sacramento”, which completely defeated the whole purpose of calling them. Incidentally, the pricing on the one belt they did quote… was almost twice that of Capital Rubber.
California Industrial Rubber's pricing was roughly a penny a foot more than Capital Rubber’s pricing. However, their delivery time to get the belting to their Carlin, NV location was estimated at about a month. The representative I worked with was Tommy, and he was great. Very knowledgeable and helpful, excellent pricing. I liked him, and wouldn’t hesitate to buy from him.
I placed the order with Andrew at Capital Rubber.
I also shopped the Flexco belt lacing. Flexco offers two styles of bolt-on lacing; the 375 series lacing is rated for 190 PIW, and the 550 series is rated for 300 PIW. Pricing is close, so I ordered the 550 style. The 550 lacing is available in different materials at different price points. They also offer different lacing widths and different fasteners for holding the ends of the lacing together. We use 5/16-24 Grade 8 bolts, so whatever means of holding the lacing that comes in the Flexco box doesn’t get used. I shopped for steel lacing with the cheapest method of holding the lacing closed. The vendor I bought from was MRO Supply in California. I also bought belt punches from them. They had the lowest prices and their customer service has been top notch. That’s a winning combination.
On the 2-ply, 220 PIW belting, Tucker used 3/8"-24 x 1 1/4” Grade 5 bolts and NyLok nuts. We go a different route, which we think is better. We use 3/8"-24 x 1 1/4” Grade 8 bolts and 3/8"-24 Class G Lock Nuts (think of them as flanged Stover nuts). Tucker uses no washers, either under the bolt head or under the nut. As I mentioned, we use flanged nuts which spreads the load in a larger area than a nut alone. We also install flat washers under the bolt heads, If track bolts get loose, the hardened bolt heads tend to wear into the grouser's steel surface. Using a washer spreads that load over a greater surface area. If you've ever watched a rubber belted Tucker’s tracks as it slowly moves over hard ground or a packed trail, you can see the grousers rock back and forth as they transition from one idler wheel to another. That rocking action accelerates the wear a bolt head makes into the grouser, or similarly what the nut does to a backing plate. Adding washers isn’t expensive, and it seems to offer an extra measure of protection. We use Grade 8 flat washers, either standard thickness or thick washers, depending on the application. Here again, we're purchasing significant quantities of fasteners, so it’s prudent to seek cheaper pricing. My supplier of choice is Redding Fasteners in Redding, CA. They have great selection and their pricing is excellent. I worked with Martin, and he was great.
At this point everything has been ordered, and once it arrives we have the task of punching all that belting (760 lineal feet) and installing the lacing.
Snowcat track belting is an interesting topic, and it seems to come up with some regularity on the forum. Putri - Zilla needs new track belts, and Scott and I are kicking around a possible Thundercat modification... that would require new belting as well. And the 1544’s belts are less-than-optimal. So we're in the market for a whole bunch of new track belting. The standard Tucker belts for decades were two ply, 220 PIW (pounds per inch width) belts. I bought my first Tucker back in 2008, and IIRC a new belt from Tucker then was $225. The last time I inquired about belts from Tucker they only sold three ply 330 PIW belts, and at a significantly higher price. (I think like north of $300 per belt.) If I bought all new belts for Thundercat, P-Z and the 1544 from Tucker, that would be in the vicinity of $15K, so I have a lot of incentive to find a cost-effective belt option!
There is considerable information out there, but I wonder how accurate some of it is? Most snowcats use rubber belts for their track material with aluminum or steel grouser bars bolted to the belts. In terms of belt construction, there are typically two, or more fabric layers separated by a thin layer of rubber, called a "skim coat", as well as a layer of rubber on the top and bottom of the fabric plies. Those top and bottom layers of rubber are called covers. From my understanding, snowcat belting is essentially conveyor belting, though in much narrower and shorter lengths than the typical conveyor installation.
There are many different conveyor belt applications and depending on the application, different characteristics for the belting material are important. For example, some conveyors are installed underground. Those belts aren’t exposed to harmful UV rays, so that’s not a consideration, however resistance to fire is.. Some belts are used in food production - so sanitary concerns are paramount. And some are used in asphalt plants to move hot asphalt, and high temperature tolerance is crucial. Well, in a snowcat we do care about UV rays, but not about sanitation or very high temperatures. We are concerned with cold temperatures, belt stretch, minimum pulley diameters, abrasion/cut resistance and UV tolerance.
Brad, the man behind Minnesota Outdoors was the most knowledgable person I've ever spoken with about snowcat belting. I bought some belts from him and they were high quality, reasonably priced and delivered quickly, but very sadly Brad passed away, and the company is no longer in operation. He mentioned at one point that if you’re looking for what I’ll call generic belting; meaning it does a pretty good job, and can be bought fairly inexpensively, look for grain elevator belting. It works well in cold temperatures and has minimal stretch. Brad told me he bought his belting in Europe and shipped it to the US….
A little bit of history: Goodyear was a major belting manufacturer in the United States, but they sold the division that made belting to private equity company The Carlyle Group back in 2007. Though the products still carried the Goodyear name, the company’s named was changed to Veyance Technologies. However, eight years later in 2015 Continental, AG, bought Veyance Technologies. Part of the deal was that after a limited amount of time they could no longer sell products under the Goodyear name. It’s now called "Conti-Tech”.
The advantage of buying belts from Tucker, or aftermarket suppliers like Fall Line, is that they supply ready-to-install belts with all the holes punched in the belts and the belt lacing installed. But if one is willing to put some elbow grease into the project, perhaps some significant money can be saved. That was my objective when I started down this Rabbit hole. I called Applied Industrial Technologies, a Continental distributor in SLC, to start the process of gathering information… and quickly ran into a brick wall.
I sensed the gentleman I was speaking with genuinely wanted to help me, but when I answered “snowcat” to his question about what the belt would be used for, the tone of the conversation changed markedly. He said he couldn’t sell belting to me for that purpose due to liability reasons, as the belting wasn’t specifically designed for that application. (What’s ironic is Continental’s own website has a photo of a snowcat with aluminum grousers and rubber belts.) He specifically mentioned Fall Line as a belt supplier, and said that though the belting itself might be identical, because I would be buying it from Fall Line, they had the liability for the product, and not them. Really? The other day I needed to blow my nose, and grabbed some toilet paper for the job. Unsurprisingly, it worked well. I wonder if Costco senior management is worried about customers using their toilet paper for other than its intended use? I’m thinking they don’t lose a wink of sleep over it…. (Note: It was none other than William Shakespeare who is credited with the quote "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers".)
I called another Continental distributor in SLC; Kaman Industrial Technologies, and did not use the word “snowcat". But they didn’t seem very eager for my business, and I wasn't holding my breath for their pricing. Now, a month later... they never even called back. Nice. I also talked with a third company in SLC, McGuire Bearing, as well as Capital Rubber and Gasket in Sacramento. I also spent quite a bit of time doing research on Al Gore's Internet, trying to become more knowledgeable about belting. I think most customers buying conveyor belting purchase, what is to us as snowcat hobbyists, HUGE quantities of belting. We are, in the scheme of things, not even small potatoes. That means it’s very likely what a local supplier may offer you are choices of remnants from big customers’ orders. If you look at belting manufacturer's websites you can find a combination of belt fabric material, number of plies, cover material, and cover thicknesses that seem ideal for our application. That's great, except it's pretty much unobtanium for us as far as being able to purchase it in the quantities we need. My impression is Fall Line sells Continental Plylon Plus (a name leftover from the Goodyear days) with Defender Plus covers. Okay, but compared to other Continental cover options, the Defender Plus maybe aren't the optimal covers for snowcat use. The bottom line is if you are looking to buy belting for your snowcat, chances are strong you’re going to be compromising with what’s available, versus what you really want.
When it comes to belting itself, the strength comes from the fabric, and very little comes from the covers. The cover’s purpose is actually to protect the fabric. Typically, a top cover is a multiple of the bottom cover’s thickness. It seems the most common multiple is 3:1, hence 3/16 top cover and 1/16 bottom cover on snowcat belting from Fall Line. But there are other cover thickness options available. A significant consideration for snowcat belting is the minimum pulley diameter rating of the belting. As a general rule, more fabric plies and thicker covers require larger pulley diameters. And, those same extra plies and thicker covers add weight and require more power to pull the belt around the pulleys. Brad of Minnesota Outdoors had mentioned “balanced covers”, which I took to mean the top and bottom covers were the same thickness. Talking with one belting representative, he told be "balanced covers" means the top cover is twice the thickness of the bottom cover. “Equal covers” means the covers are the same thickness.
Before starting to do research I thought “Gee, the belts on P-Z are 43 years old. In that time technology has advanced significantly in terms of fabrics and rubber compounds, I’ll bet there are some much better belts available with Kevlar fabric, for example”. I asked one supplier about that and he said aramid fabric belts (Kevlar is actually a Dupont brand name.) have great strength but he said they stretch quite a bit and the aramid fabric doesn’t stay adhered to the rubber covers as well as poly and nylon fabrics. That was a surprise! But there is now a trend toward using fewer plies of stronger fabrics. In a single ply belt, sometimes called mono ply, the fabric is woven differently as well. People I spoke with said a single ply belt actually has greater puncture resistance than a two ply belt. Another advantage to single ply belts is they are thinner in cross section and they weigh less. Cool! That may be an option.
At this point I started getting calls back on pricing, and I was pleasantly surprised. The first call was from McGuire Bearing, a SLC company whose belt shop is in Idaho Falls. Their available 220 PIW belts were 12” wide and they’d slit it to my desired width of 4 5/8”. You could get two 4 5/8” belts out of a 12" wide belt, but I’d have to pay for 12”. The price was $7.37 per foot for the 12" wide belt and a $50 slitting charge. (That might work, but let's see what else is out there.) Capital Rubber in Sacramento are very nice folks, and you can actually say “snowcat” and they don’t treat you like you have a third eye in your forehead! They gave me pricing on two different 220 PIW belts. One was the somewhat standard belt with 3/16" and 1/16" cover thicknesses, and the other had 1/8” and 1/16” cover thicknesses. Both numbers were less than $3 per foot.
The single ply 225 PIW belt turned out to be more expensive, though not egregiously so. However, the real problem is the somewhat standard method of attaching belt lacing with Flexco's special bolts for either their 375 or 550 series belt lacing is not recommended. They suggest using a completely different method of attachment involving riveting the lacing, and of course that requires some very expensive special tools. Pretty much not an option for us….
Okay, let’s stop for a second. P-Z’s tracks have 31 grousers and they’re spaced 6 1/16” apart. That requires a belt length of 31 x 6.0625 = 187.9375”. Let’s round up to 16 feet. Three bucks a foot times 16 feet is 48 bucks for a belt. No, it’s not punched and it doesn’t have belt lacing, but compared to Fall Line’s price of $225 per belt, that seems downright reasonable. Belt lacing adds up, but still that price difference is compelling.
The Capital Rubber representative (Andrew) asked where I lived, and when I told him he said shipping costs were going to be expensive, and I might be better off buying locally, or at least closer than Sacramento. I explored those options. But of the people I spoke with, Andrew was the really good; knowledgeable, friendly and helpful. I value customer service highly and if the final prices are close Andrew will get our business. I have since called California Industrial Rubber in Carlin, NV and Ram Enterprise in Elko, NV. I also called Ram’s SLC office, but they never responded to my voice mail message.
I eventually did speak with the Ram representative in Elko and he asked that I email him my requested belt specifics. I did so, and asked for pricing on all three belt options. When I did get an email with a price quote, they only quoted one of the three. No comments on the other two. Okay, I have never worked in sales, but this doesn’t strike me as difficult. If a customer requests pricing on three items - you give them pricing on three items. Yes it’s a cliche’, but I believe in the saying "You never get a second chance to make a first impression”. And, their quote was "FOB Sacramento”, which completely defeated the whole purpose of calling them. Incidentally, the pricing on the one belt they did quote… was almost twice that of Capital Rubber.
California Industrial Rubber's pricing was roughly a penny a foot more than Capital Rubber’s pricing. However, their delivery time to get the belting to their Carlin, NV location was estimated at about a month. The representative I worked with was Tommy, and he was great. Very knowledgeable and helpful, excellent pricing. I liked him, and wouldn’t hesitate to buy from him.
I placed the order with Andrew at Capital Rubber.
I also shopped the Flexco belt lacing. Flexco offers two styles of bolt-on lacing; the 375 series lacing is rated for 190 PIW, and the 550 series is rated for 300 PIW. Pricing is close, so I ordered the 550 style. The 550 lacing is available in different materials at different price points. They also offer different lacing widths and different fasteners for holding the ends of the lacing together. We use 5/16-24 Grade 8 bolts, so whatever means of holding the lacing that comes in the Flexco box doesn’t get used. I shopped for steel lacing with the cheapest method of holding the lacing closed. The vendor I bought from was MRO Supply in California. I also bought belt punches from them. They had the lowest prices and their customer service has been top notch. That’s a winning combination.
On the 2-ply, 220 PIW belting, Tucker used 3/8"-24 x 1 1/4” Grade 5 bolts and NyLok nuts. We go a different route, which we think is better. We use 3/8"-24 x 1 1/4” Grade 8 bolts and 3/8"-24 Class G Lock Nuts (think of them as flanged Stover nuts). Tucker uses no washers, either under the bolt head or under the nut. As I mentioned, we use flanged nuts which spreads the load in a larger area than a nut alone. We also install flat washers under the bolt heads, If track bolts get loose, the hardened bolt heads tend to wear into the grouser's steel surface. Using a washer spreads that load over a greater surface area. If you've ever watched a rubber belted Tucker’s tracks as it slowly moves over hard ground or a packed trail, you can see the grousers rock back and forth as they transition from one idler wheel to another. That rocking action accelerates the wear a bolt head makes into the grouser, or similarly what the nut does to a backing plate. Adding washers isn’t expensive, and it seems to offer an extra measure of protection. We use Grade 8 flat washers, either standard thickness or thick washers, depending on the application. Here again, we're purchasing significant quantities of fasteners, so it’s prudent to seek cheaper pricing. My supplier of choice is Redding Fasteners in Redding, CA. They have great selection and their pricing is excellent. I worked with Martin, and he was great.
At this point everything has been ordered, and once it arrives we have the task of punching all that belting (760 lineal feet) and installing the lacing.
