Camoplast Tracks any good ?

[AndrewMawson]

Been offered a set of brand new old stock Camoplast tracks for my JCB 803 - been sat on a pallet unused for 5 years.

How do you rate Camoplast? Price is good, but are they ?

[Muz]

It was my ATS dealer (would you believe) that supplied a set Ive been running on a Volvo EC15 for about 18 months, and Ive been quite impressed so far.

Have tried many over the years .. I'm looking for .. longevity of rubber wear, penetration resistance, cleat and braiding bonding strength.

Its holding up so far, and has another interesting trait that I believe to be quite useful which I will report on later

Ive had some bad experiences lately with Terratrak stuff as supplied by Astrak ....http://www.astrakgroup.co.uk/?gclid=...lJ7RoCtozw_wcB

[AndrewMawson]

It was my ATS dealer (would you believe) that supplied a set Ive been running on a Volvo EC15 for about 18 months, and Ive been quite impressed so far.

Have tried many over the years .. I'm looking for .. longevity of rubber wear, penetration resistance, cleat and braiding bonding strength.

Its holding up so far, and has another interesting trait that I believe to be quite useful which I will report on later

Ive had some bad experiences lately with Terratrak stuff as supplied by Astrak ....http://www.astrakgroup.co.uk/?gclid=...lJ7RoCtozw_wcB

I took the plunge and committed to buy them. Less than half the price of new stock anywhere else (£425 for a pair inc VAT)

... ok now someone will tell me I've been had

[Muz]

I took the plunge and committed to buy them. Less than half the price of new stock anywhere else (£425 for a pair inc VAT)

... ok now someone will tell me I've been had

Thats what you call jumping the gun I use so many .. I take a bit of time to sort the good from the bad .. to be fair as I said they seem ok so far .. might as well tell you the xtra bit now youve bought em .. actually it 'seems' a very good point .. but I wanted to do some 'looking' tomorrow before reporting, which is that , the chains in them have overlapping links, like in steel tracks which Ive never seen in rubbers before, the ride from them is very smooth, but I dont know if they are any more/less reliable because of it.

Also the chain width is thinner, which is not good on a long term basis, as that will cause a narrow bight into your undercarriage wear parts ( ooh missus )

[v8druid]

on the face of it ....... seems like you had a deal Andrew, certainly on price and sounds like they ain't too bad.

Am I right in believing that rubber tracks have reduced in cost over the years, since they were first being used on small machines, comparatively speaking??
Seem to recall being told a long time ago that a lil' 'un with knacked tracks was a serious investment to sort.
Certainly appear to be a lot less of an 'overhead' than they were, to running rubber tracked gear?

[AndrewMawson]

It's not just the rubber tracks that hit the pocket, it's the idler sprockets as the received advice is always to change them at the same time. I think by getting these I've saved about 50% of the track price.

one side of mine is worn to the state of getting very clunky when tracking, but the other side is ok at 80% so I'll change both sides to keep them even and keep the good track and idler as spares against accidents.

[Muz]

Yes the prices have come down a lot now that the Chinese and far east are producing them.

I never change sprockets or idlers, and have never had to. Its only when running steels that Ive needed to do sprockets as they wear out. The main bits that fail are bottom and top rollers, so I do a side at a time with them. And yes I always do rubbers in pairs after a failure and keep the survivor as a spare, more effective for me as I usually have other machines it will go on so more likely to use it.

£425 is a good price £600 would be more normal

[v8druid]

It's not just the rubber tracks that hit the pocket, it's the idler sprockets as the received advice is always to change them at the same time. I think by getting these I've saved about 50% of the track price.

one side of mine is worn to the state of getting very clunky when tracking, but the other side is ok at 80% so I'll change both sides to keep them even and keep the good track and idler as spares against accidents.

Odd the one side is so good, yet t'other is bollo-ed you'd expect them to be reasonably even in wear?

[v8druid]

Yes the prices have come down a lot now that the Chinese and far east are producing them.

I never change sprockets or idlers, and have never had to. Its only when running steels that Ive needed to do sprockets as they wear out. The main bits that fail are bottom and top rollers, so I do a side at a time with them. And yes I always do rubbers in pairs after a failure and keep the survivor as a spare, more effective for me as I usually have other machines it will go on so more likely to use it.

£425 is a good price £600 would be more normal

Am I right in thinking that these used to be a grand a side as normal sort of prices, many years ago Muz?

Looked at a, IIRC, 3 tonne Kub many years ago, 'til I started inquiring about tracks to replace the completely nadgered ones that were on it!!
That was the end of my aspirations to Kub ownership ............ talking '93/4 sort of era. Think the asking for the m/c was only 4-ish K

[Muz]

Odd the one side is so good, yet t'other is bollo-ed you'd expect them to be reasonably even in wear?

Not sure what Andrew meant there .. sometimes one track does get more punishment, but they should both wear together. What I do sometimes find is that undercarriage parts can wear unevenly. Sometimes I see a front idler wear more on one side than the other, or a sprocket too. This ofcourse is caused by small discrepancies in the manufacture of the lower frame causing tracks to run out of alignment. During the build, the frame can get distorted due to poor manufacture practices. Problems such as this have lead to new processes such as underwater plasma cutting to preserve tolerances. But even manufacturers of world renown and those that build bigger kit such as Volvo, are not immune to it. Ive owned some machines including a Kubota, that I could not keep tracks on because of it, it can be a real pain

Am I right in thinking that these used to be a grand a side as normal sort of prices, many years ago Muz?

Looked at a, IIRC, 3 tonne Kub many years ago, 'til I started inquiring about tracks to replace the completely nadgered ones that were on it!!
That was the end of my aspirations to Kub ownership ............ talking '93/4 sort of era. Think the asking for the m/c was only 4-ish K

Well instead of 600 a pair for three tonners, 600 a side was more common as I remember it. But there are huge differences in quality, theres still a lot of steel inside rubber tracks, but everything is in the strength of the bands, and how they are bonded to the cleats ... Ive just gone through a pile of Terrarak's which 8 tonners have been shredding, whereas OEM's on those machines were Bridgestones, a different track altogether, but so is the price.

There even differences between OEM and retail from the same manufacturer. I once got 3000 hours out of a set of OEM Bridgestones on a Volvo 3 tonner - totally unheard of . They were so good I bought a load of them through Volvo. This would indicate that Volvo may make Bridgestone manufacture a track of different compound or thicker, to what Bridgestone make themselves

[Muz]

Heres the odd interlocking camoplast chain which I think is too thin, but makes for a very smooth ride

[AndrewMawson]

Muz, you must remember that this is me sorting the machine in my first flush of enthusiasm having just got it. It obviously has been neglected and I would imagine one track failed or had had an accident, and was replaced, but they struggled on on the other rather than spend the dosh. Hence the uneven wear. Certainly one idler is far more 'pointed' than the other. I'm replacing both tracks and both idlers so that I know everything is as it should be. I hate having 'problem' machines in the farm yard, as otherwise when you REALLY need to use them is when the issues crop up.

[Muz]

Muz, you must remember that this is me sorting the machine in my first flush of enthusiasm having just got it.

Ofcourse .. my time is short, to distinguish short/long term users. so I just post my findings. I've bought, sold, and used , hundreds of diggers over 25 years so I just cut to the chase Sometimes I just rant with miscellaneous findings .. but there will be nugget in there somewhere for searchers and users of similar interests