This is a pic of a Bell 4260D articulated quad track tractor unit with a Bell 1810E trailed scraper unit. This picture was taken on the Bell Equipment stand at Hill Head plant show in 2007.

I'd say a very unusual piece of kit , has anyone else seen one before? .

Jim

A quad-track with a scraper - no.

I did see a Case IH quadtrac of some description a few miles north of Southampton on my last trip down south, handling some light cultivators in a field. So perhaps there is some benefit to the quad-track design with Bell jumping in on the action.

How come they don't just stick with machines like the CLAAS/CAT Challenger series?

I seem to remember an article in Earthmovers magazine a few years ago featuring these machines working on coal stocks at Kingsnorth Power Station

There are a couple of Powerstations using this configuration. There was also a twin pan set up being pulled by a Case Quadtrack down on the Bluwater job working along side Neil Becher, i dont think it worked out to well (Neil offered to put the D10 behind it to give it a push.....)

SB

NPT from Leeds run a Bell 4206D and Case 9380 each with a pair
of buggies,but they only worked on the easier soils while our D8,s
done the rest,soon as it rained they parked up
RB

All this shiny new kit is all very well but with the price per cube that`s on offer today, can the high capital cost be justified?
Sure it will burn less fuel and (hopefully) be more reliable but the depreciation and interest on finance etc would scare the hell out of me. Besides.... long may the "8 and box" continue!!
Regards Pete H

The Quadtrac is cronically underballasted in the front .....as it stands there it will rip those tracks off in no time with the spinning that will go on in the front, not to mention overloading the rear axle....track maintenance on them is not cheap anyway but they are throwing away money with it as it stands
The ideal spec. is to have a 60% / 40% split in favour of the front as it stands empty with a scraper hooked and to get this they need a whole load of front end ballast - probably about 30 segments & the related hangers.

Hi Richard, from what i can remember the biggest problem with the Case was track tension and slippage, they couldnt get the belts tight enough to get the Horse power to the ground

SB

Hello Stuart,

the Quadtracs have posi-drive lugs on the inside of the tracks which engage in the drive sprockets so as such slippage doesn't happen - unlike the Deere & Challengers.......but in some extreme high torque situations they will break these lugs off.....thne maintenance is mainly a need to re-educate the owners over the correct set-up and following the service schedules.....then making them aware of the "typical" maintenance costs for 4 sets of undercarriages.

There are a lot of these at work in the Middle East where they use them to construct huge shrimp ponds, you can imagine the wear that occurs driving round ponds with sand & salt residues pulling these scraper bowls....but the reason they use them is that they have found them to be the best combination for the application