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I was going through some of my footage from last year a few days ago and there's a shot that I was able to hear my something ratcheting relly bad. It was either the torque limiter slipping relly bad or the wheels driving the track. And I just remember hearing looooooooots'a that last season, almost every time I would load the suspension going up a hill with the gas floored, it would do it. Looked at an old thread where chain drive was mentionned, exchanged a few emails with cjgodden.
Then decided to took my torque limiter apart to have a look at it. Theorically, you should open it and clean it every 10 hours, this is something I've never done and that may explain what I was about to see... It was pretty unexpected.... Have a look at the pictures below.
Both asbestos disks are hardly damaged and cracked and one of the 2 is actually broken in two pieces. The core, locked on the shaft by the taper lock bushings, is grinded down by something turning in there big time. All the other disks show major sign of slippage.
I would be really curious to have a look at Cailen's 136 torque limiter or somebody else that has a 136 who rides hard to see how bad it can be on a 136. Mine is an '08 800 144" by the way. But honestly, I just think the Torque limiter isn't a good thing for 800 long tracks snow-hawks. I remembered 2 times having to bail halfway up a hill because that system was only allowing , like, 3/4 of the total amount of horses to the track. Of course it's a security system that protects ADB, so they don't have to give warranty on a countershaft or some other broken components such as bearing maybe... I really don't see any good side of that for me... One sure thing is this system doesn't allow us to get the most out of our Hawks... If the belt or the countershaft breaks because of a more powerful motor, don't put a system that limits the torque ! Find something or build something that will be able to take the extra amount of power, FÂÄAÄÄK ! That's the way I think ! ... all right that's enough, you got my point here anyway... Sorry for that !
Since there is no way I'll put this back on, I'll be working at installing a chain drive to replace the belt driven Torque slipper. CJGodden seem to be the first guy being intersted of fixing the problem, he's got a good chain drive setup, has had it for a season now and so far no problems he said. Got some precious info from his experience. So we can't really overtorque the pressure bolts on the torque limiter, of course you'll get rid of the slipping but you'll end up going through a 200ishh$ cog belt every 4-5 rides... So chain drive then becomes the only decent solution and the simplest/cheapest as well according to me.
Apparently we may have problems with the countershaft if we lock the secondary transmission like I'll do that but my Hawk's got the steel countershaft (probably like all the '08 I think) so i'm pretty happy I won't have to machine one down for it. And if it breaks, I'll make one out of Titanium, that, is not a problem !!! I may have to look at my lower bearings... I remembered still a little too good about that February 17th, sunday at Hawkfest in the dark... being pulled by a rental fanner Polaris with Tony driving it and me behind with no light on one of his 600's that has had the following problem; the bearings were cheap qrap from china and got destroyed by the torque probably. You could see the chips coming out of them... So I'll probably get some nice quality SKF or NTN just to make sure I don't end up having to be towed because of that...
If one of you guys just converted to a long track for next season, you may end up with this problem... At least now we are aware of it and know what to do to solve it !
Looking forward to do the conversion soon.
Then decided to took my torque limiter apart to have a look at it. Theorically, you should open it and clean it every 10 hours, this is something I've never done and that may explain what I was about to see... It was pretty unexpected.... Have a look at the pictures below.
Both asbestos disks are hardly damaged and cracked and one of the 2 is actually broken in two pieces. The core, locked on the shaft by the taper lock bushings, is grinded down by something turning in there big time. All the other disks show major sign of slippage.
I would be really curious to have a look at Cailen's 136 torque limiter or somebody else that has a 136 who rides hard to see how bad it can be on a 136. Mine is an '08 800 144" by the way. But honestly, I just think the Torque limiter isn't a good thing for 800 long tracks snow-hawks. I remembered 2 times having to bail halfway up a hill because that system was only allowing , like, 3/4 of the total amount of horses to the track. Of course it's a security system that protects ADB, so they don't have to give warranty on a countershaft or some other broken components such as bearing maybe... I really don't see any good side of that for me... One sure thing is this system doesn't allow us to get the most out of our Hawks... If the belt or the countershaft breaks because of a more powerful motor, don't put a system that limits the torque ! Find something or build something that will be able to take the extra amount of power, FÂÄAÄÄK ! That's the way I think ! ... all right that's enough, you got my point here anyway... Sorry for that !
Since there is no way I'll put this back on, I'll be working at installing a chain drive to replace the belt driven Torque slipper. CJGodden seem to be the first guy being intersted of fixing the problem, he's got a good chain drive setup, has had it for a season now and so far no problems he said. Got some precious info from his experience. So we can't really overtorque the pressure bolts on the torque limiter, of course you'll get rid of the slipping but you'll end up going through a 200ishh$ cog belt every 4-5 rides... So chain drive then becomes the only decent solution and the simplest/cheapest as well according to me.
Apparently we may have problems with the countershaft if we lock the secondary transmission like I'll do that but my Hawk's got the steel countershaft (probably like all the '08 I think) so i'm pretty happy I won't have to machine one down for it. And if it breaks, I'll make one out of Titanium, that, is not a problem !!! I may have to look at my lower bearings... I remembered still a little too good about that February 17th, sunday at Hawkfest in the dark... being pulled by a rental fanner Polaris with Tony driving it and me behind with no light on one of his 600's that has had the following problem; the bearings were cheap qrap from china and got destroyed by the torque probably. You could see the chips coming out of them... So I'll probably get some nice quality SKF or NTN just to make sure I don't end up having to be towed because of that...
If one of you guys just converted to a long track for next season, you may end up with this problem... At least now we are aware of it and know what to do to solve it !
Looking forward to do the conversion soon.
Be sure to use a rivit link and not a clip link for a master!
