arrow
Super Member
I'm doing the same thing with my DUO's (i.e. reducing gaps) RedNeckRacin. Here's a link to a thread I started about modifying them:
http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/attachments/268885-duo-chains-planned-modifications.html
I ordered the eight DUO patterns Monday and they should arrive next week.
EDIT: ADDED THIS AFTER LOOKING AT THE FIRST PHOTO IN THE REFERENCED LINK:
Arrow, the first photo in the referenced thread shows a couple of plain cross chains I added to try to fill in the gap of my DUO's. Although the plain cross chains are sitting on the lugs you can see how they will thread themselves into the lugs once used. However, I agree that if mounting the chains loosely on my tractor was an option they would not fall in the lugs and would be effective.
I dunno Ken, I think you would have gripped just fine with the way you have it. It does not look any different from mine orientation wise and mine grip like King Kong on the Empire State building. Even if they were between lugs, my opinion is that they would still help as the lugs on your type of tire are rather shallow and thus the chain would always make ground contact. To me the proof of the pudding is the tread pattern shown on the ground. I always have "chain indentations" whether it'd be snow or dirt. I think the advantage of the 2 link ladder chains is you would get a bit better ride as you are attempting with additional cross chains. I'm not a fan of duo's because of their spacing and do not think they offer any advantage at all for lugged tires. So why do they exist you ask? I think mostly for customer's concerns rather than actuality. Our skidders had something like duos only on a much bigger scale. They are called ring chains where the rings actually aided traction as the connecting links. Of course lug spacing was large enough where your splayed hand couldn't touch from one lug to another and the ring connectors were 10 inches in diameter. I think tire chains for compact tractors kind of carried this theme over to much smaller tires and this seems irrelevant to me at the compact tractor scale. If mid connectors for tire chains allowed one to ride on the "chain" part all the time, this to me is an effective design. This is the type of design skidder chains are as well as the Nordic type chains for smaller tires.
Good luck with your tire chains and i hope they operate the way you want.
Lou