How To Avoid Rubber Track Repair Mistakes

More and more, people are leaning on their web browser to find answers to their problems rather than calling on an expert. Why pay for a doctor’s visit or even call a nurse when you can type in your symptoms and diagnose your illness?

Of course, sometimes you’ll end up scaring yourself, self-diagnosing your head cold as Dengue Fever. Outside of the anxiety it causes you, you might just also find a home remedy online that puts your mind ease.

Many of these “snake oil” cures will probably do no harm. Some might actually make you feel better. So why not just skip the phone call to your hospital or clinic?

Because it’s dangerous. You might overlook a serious health condition or mistreat it. Any delay in receiving proper, timely treatment from a medical professional can make conditions far, far worse.

This is the exact same reason that we never, ever advise you to attempt to jury-rig a broken track.

Why DIY Rubber Track Repair Isn’t A Good Idea

Just as medical consultations are best left to expert healthcare professionals, your tracked vehicles’ care – and your personal safety and the safety of those around you – should not be entrusted to sketchy procedures placed on social media sites, no matter how well-intentioned the poster.

The proper “treatment” is always immediate rubber track replacement with a new, quality-manufactured track following the OEM’s procedures.

Expert Rubber Track Replacement Advice

Dominion Equipment Parts LLC is the exclusive OEM parts distributor for Morooka Rubber Track Carriers in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Central, and South America.

We make and distribute Dominion rubber tracks for more than 35 other, top-brand lines for a network of over 300 dealers. They include tracks for mini-excavators, dozers, skid steers, haulers, tracked mixers, dumpers, personnel carriers…for the construction, landscaping, pipeline, forestry, and snow removal industries.

Trust us – we know a thing or two about rubber track replacement and repair, and are more than happy to share our insights with you – especially when it comes to your personal safety and the welfare of your tracked machines.

Understanding Rubber Track Replacement & Repair Methods

We’ve seen a number of videos posted to social media that offer tracked vehicle owners “the easy way” to save time and money on rubber track repair. The methods use whatever the operator has on hand or can get from a nearby hardware store – aircraft cables or hardware bolts, U-bolt fasteners, and such.

We know the posters meant well. The videos and discussion threads were offered in good will to give operators an “old-school” quick-fix solution to get them up and running in a pinch.

Rubber Track Repair Mistakes

Whether it was a trick they learned from someone else or something they came up with by themselves, they may have gotten away with before without any consequence. It doesn’t mean that you will. And it doesn’t mean that next time they will, either.

First, we want to remind operators that a rubber track most often breaks for one of two reasons or a combination of both.

One is inadequate preventive maintenance. You likely needed rubber track replacement long before it broke due to wear or damage past its useful life.

The second is manufacturing defects. We’ve emphasized this before. Not all tracks are created equal. A “discount track” is far more prone to failure since, in our opinion, the only way to offer lower prices and stay in business is to cut corners, using inferior materials and/or inferior manufacturing processes.

Next, we want to make our stance on this perfectly clear by repeating it. There is only one trustworthy way to deal with rubber track repair, and that’s with immediate rubber track replacement.

We’re not against self-help and DIY videos online. We just urge readers to carefully consider what’s at stake. A novice baker who uses a new proofing trick he saw on YouTube only risks a loaf that comes out flat if that “hack” doesn’t work. Oh well. He can still make toast.

But these ill-advised DIY rubber track repair videos pose dangerous risks to both your equipment and those around it. One rubber track repair video we saw showed how to sew a torn track back together stringing aircraft cable through the track’s hand-drilled holes and tensioning it with the excavator.

That alone is a risky operation in itself. Once the track’s own tension is reset, and especially while the vehicle is operating, the track is under even greater stress. When it snaps, it can damage the undercarriage and, even worse, poses the risk of grave bodily injury to the operator and to those nearby.

It is certainly never advisable to put any tracked vehicle with an impromptu repair such as this back to work. Yet we can’t even recommend it when the operator’s intention is only for the rubber track repair to hold up long enough to reposition or relocate the vehicle to a more conducive place to perform a rubber track replacement.

We know you have to do what you have to do, but we simply can’t endorse even a temporary rubber track repair to move the excavator. The risk is simply far too high.

Don’t Trust Life Hacks For Your Rubber Tracks

Again, the only solution we will recommend for a torn or broken track is to replace it immediately.

Use quality rubber replacement tracks. Always follow proven, industry best practices and the manufacturer’s own recommended rubber track replacement methods.

Learn how to replace rubber tracks