[Cooper]

jim , only thing I have found out with dirt packing in between pads is to enlarge clearance. scale wise the pads would be about a half millimeter apart. like you said when dirt is dry it usually isn't a problem. what happens is the small particles of dirt stick together and they don't have enough room to be pushed out of the way and become lodged in. think of it like having a one inch hole with 3/4 inch marbles, they will pass through one at a time but when two are side by side they get lodged. now having a 3 inch wide hole with same 3/4 inch marbles it is less like to get several to line up in a way they jam. like on my dozer the track pads look far apart but it prevents the dirt getting jammed. more fun to run the dozer rather than dig out the tracks. and also I see a lot of people getting the tracked machines fouled with dirt from simply turning too sharp or pushing dirt into tracks (like with the excavators) in the 1;1 machines a good operator will try to keep any loose material from spilling into track links. yes most of the time the machines will simply crush any rock or dirt out of the way but that is hard on equipment. on our toys, they just simply don't have the ability to push or crush any debris and usually end up jamming or breaking something on the machine. I think it would be equivalent of having softball sized pieces of tool steel for the 1;1 machines, sooner or later something on the machine is gonna jam or break.


love youe dozer, sure has pushed is share of material!!!