Patching a rubber tyre

[Matty F]

Yes it's a TE20. Spare tyres are easily available, but the genuine original needs to be used. It needs to show the wear and tear from travelling over 2000 km of ice :)

[Matty F]

Yes I thought of that, but whatever is done needs to able to be easily removed one day if necessary.

[andrew heggie]

Do you remember the leather, lace on, steering wheel covers? How about making one of them in kevlar sailcloth and putting it on the inner tube prior to inflation?

AJH

[Matty F]

Yes something like that would be best. The tube could be inflated on the floor to the maximum size required, and something laced up around it, then the tube is deflated while it's all put inside the tyre. I still like the idea of winding steel wire over some non-stretchy material around the tube, but how to hold the wire in place while the tube is deflated? How about winding the wire over duct tape facing outwards, then more duct tape on top.

[Andy Dingley]

If it's really only for light use, then sew a hemmed canvas patch into the inside of the tyre carcass, so as to support the tube and stop a hernia forming. This canvas must be strongly sewn in, so as to catch the sidewall fabric. If you simply glue it to the rubber, it'll creep over time. A sailmaker's palm is useful, together with a great big foot-long upholstery needle.

Hide the outside stitches with a spot of bitumen paint.

[Lobster]

So what's the full story here, then?!

David

[Bob Mannix]

An interesting problem. Thinking outside the box, and guessing at some of your criteria, why not forget the tyre altogether? If money isn't a problem, could you manufacture a cradle/stand with jockey wheels that the rear of the tractor lifts on to for moving/display purposes. It strikes me that any of the proposed solutions would involve heavy disturbance and possible damage to the old tyre.

[Matty F]

For display purposes the tractor should certainly be on axle stands. Now that I think about it, I don't think it should move under its own power at all because that would damage the floor. Either lift it with a fork lift or fit jockey wheels to one end and tow it. OK you can all give up with the helpful suggestions thanks! Problem solved I think :)

[Matty F]

Oh well I suppose you all deserve to know:

's nothing to do with me, but I perceived a problem that probably doesn't need fixing. It's just a tractor with metal tracks and no steering wheel, and it's very hard to move it around on a painted floor!

[Phil]

Some shim steel glued inside, covered with something soft (spare inner tube?) to protect the inner tube.

Phil.

[Bob Mannix]

Ah, a grey Fergie, thought it might be. Difficult to overestimate the contribution to British agriculture in the post war years of these fine pieces of engineering. My grandfather had three that ran for 30-40 years without a serious hitch. An hydraulic system that was simple, worked and could be rebuilt on an old sack in a barn. Those were the days!

[Matty F]

I don't think the problem needs solving any more thanks. I was told that the tractor has been moved under its own power but that cannot be correct since it has metal tracks fitted, and the steering wheel removed. So it can only be steered by using the brakes, and the tracks would wreck the floors of the buildings that it is put in.

[Andy Dingley]

Run them in on bits of old woven carpet (NB - not modern foam-backed). For something the size of a light agricultural tractor (take any ballast weights off first) this is enough to save the floor. The steering forces just skid the carpet around over the floor, rather than scraping the floor surface up.

[meow2222]

There were also split rim wheels with no locking mechanism, air pressure in the tyres held the rim in place, and it just sat in a groove on the wheel, looking insecure. Scrape the edge of pavement while driving and you had a problem. Still it was a big advance on sprung steering!

NT

[AJH]

If it is at all similar to the half tracks forestry machines use, then the front idler wheel of the track can be lifted, so the tractor steers as normal, the idler is lowered to engage the whole track with the ground (often simultaneously lifting the steering wheels clear of the ground), done hydraulically with these later machines but screw jacks may do something similar?

When we loload a tracked machine we will drag 2.5m lengths of old rubber, quarry conveyor belt to protect the road.

On one site they laid a teram geotextile and covered it with woodchips for me to extract over, it was quite amusing seeing 50m of track being pulled toward me and piling up after the tractor wheels.

AJH

[Roger]

The message

from Andy Dingley contains these words:

I was in a queue of traffic stopped on the A40 between Brecon and Sennybridge a couple of years back to allow a large tracked vehicle working on the new gas main to cross the road. The temporarily paved the road with old tyres. Seemed a very cheap and effective solution to me.

[Lobster]

Blimey! I can now appreciate the need to preserve the tyres. I withdraw my earlier suggestion of a Quikfit Fitter...

David

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Matty F saying something like:

Is this the actual Antarctic Fergie?

[Andy Dingley]

Near Sennybridge / SENTA? You'd think the odd digger would be the least of their worries.

[Matty F]

It is claimed to be one of the three that reached the Pole. It looks like one at the Pole in the photos. Actually I'm not impressed that the tyres were worn out after only

2000km! . . . P.S. that's a joke!