Odd tractor rear drive system

Looks like it might be a ruff ride!

Howard rotoped drive system.Useing chains to pick up pads.

Not rough-riding, it's just a variation on the tracklaying concept, just uses longer 'shoes' than what you'd expect on a track-type.  The US-standard 'method' is to have several bogey wheels and short-plate 'tracks'... doing a track conversion with short tracks involved adding at least ONE additional wheel up front, and a series of wheels to distribute weight across the tracks.

This configuration didn't require all that- it basically just bolted on in place of the stock wheel.  If you look closely, you'll see that the wheel is directly supporting the whole rearend weight of the tractor, and instead of having a 'tyre', it has cog-teeth that roll along the track plates.  If you're working soft surfaces, you get the added surface-contact/lower surface pressure advantage, but I kinda doubt this conversion would've been 'happy' maneuvering around tight quarters, especially after the pins got worn.

I've seen them on youtube pulling trenchers very slowly

I owned a Super Major back in the day and it was  a diesel. Started alttle hard,but pulled good. Needed power steering ,unless you had something heavy on the 3pt.  Always been somebody tryng to perfect the "half track" system for wheel tractors.

CTuckerNWIL wrote: Orange Blood wrote: I would think that the smaller roller chain would be prone to breaking and coming off ALL the time, since it runs in the mudd and rock??? I don't think the roller chain is supposed to be in the mud. The shoes are on the ground, that chain shouldn't touch the ground unless you bury the tractor in the mud and you would be in too deep to keep going.

Hee hee... the small chain isn't really SUPPOSED to be in the mud, but regardless, it's gonna get dusty and dirty... the dusty-dirty 'level' for any tractor, is about three feet above the operator's head. The front edge 'rollers' and pins on those plates definately take a beating from dust and grit- no escaping that fact.

But the little chain doesn't 'drive' anything... the driving is done by the big cog teeth on the replacement 'wheel'.  The little chain's job is to make the track segments pick up, and 'lay out' in a smooth fashion, so it's really not under a load.  The big wheel rolls across the plate segments, they're picked up by the opposite plate, and pushed forward by the 'top' side of the big cog wheel, then laid down, and driven over again. 

My gut feeling here is that, even if that small  chain was broken, it would still drive, but the plates would probably bang around pretty good... mebbie get bound up every so often, but not much more.  It's a clever design, but there's probably a reason why it didn't take the world over and replace tires or short-plate crawler tracks.