NEW Slider Wear Theory

[Super Sled]

same here,you think theyre shot,then you pull them out to find out they still had lots of meat,

I just did that the other nite. Over 2,000 miles and they were my original hyfax. But last weekend trails has no snow and I could smell the hyfax burning. On inspection thery looked like they had worn down a lot that day. So I changed them this week. But upon later inspection I could've gotten another 1,000 miles out of them -- still at least several MM's of plastic cover left at even the most worn down spots. I just wasted $50++ bucks and a few hours replacing them.

 

[sledneck22]

SLIDE WEAR THEORY

Here is my theory to everyone heating your slides up and then cooling them. I don't see this working. I get over 1500 miles on a set of slides when I take care of them.

Alright so I understand the theory here but having a little background in this field I don't know why this would work. Plastic does not have the same properties as metal. Metal can be work hardened with heat and pressure but that doesn't mean it is the strongest and hardest. Unless you have high, consistant heat along with relitive pressure metal is actually weaker when you heat it up... Ever broke a metal clothes hanger by bending it back and forth? It breaks because you make heat and work harden it. Cold rolled steel is actually one of the strongest metals without going to a more expensive and intensive hardening process. And all this information is for metal...
Now lets talk about plastics. The slides that we buy are probably made through the process called Injection Molding. It heats the material up and squirts it out of a tube in the shape of the slide then cuts it to length. This plastic material with the additive of graphite has no specific grain or flow to it like metal does. It is just blobbed out of a tube like tooth paste and hardened. So when you heat these up you aren't flowing the molecular grain together like you are in metal. You are softening the plastic and aggresivily wearing the slide while it is hot. Then shock cooling the plastic after it gets warm. (wouldn't be surprised if you were at actually crack the plastic if you shock cool it too fast) I don't see this work hardening at all. The most it might do is peal/push plastic from the front of the slide to the back of the slide in the least resistant spot where it isn't going to wear anyway. Also, by heating the plastic up you might glob up your clips on your track creating a rough surface thus creating a sandpaper kind of feel in the clips and wearing the slides more.
This is just my opinion on how that works. The best thing to do is keep the slide as cool as you can by the simple addition of scratchers or always duck in and get fresh snow.

 

[RunninRX1]

Here's a couple pics of mine.
The top one has about 900 miles on them. Bottom about 700'ish.
You can see it burned through where the rail starts to make it's bend.
Can't see it, but the bottom one has hairline cracks so it's on it's way to burning through also.

On the 2nd pic, you can see the 900 mile one (top) has melted to the point above the wear line and the plastic has rolled over pretty bad. The bottom one is rolled somewhat but is generally at the wear line. There is about 10.5mm of total material left. This section is between the front 4 idlers and the rear 2 inner idlers on my Attak.
Cutting the bottom one in half and what looks like the thickest part and measuring the thickness left, there is about ~2.95mm left of hyfax before its gone and I'm riding on the rail.
The top one cut in half had less than 1mm left before it's a hole.

I have a fully clipped Cobra track and generally run in good snow. I'm always looking for the best snow to try and keep things cool. I have all updated idlers on it and my limiter strap is pulled up 1 hole and transfer rod is set halfway between STD and MIN and I don't ride like a girl scout.

 

[KevinS]

Re: SLIDE WEAR THEORY

Here is my theory to everyone heating your slides up and then cooling them. I don't see this working. I get over 1500 miles on a set of slides when I take care of them.

That whole hy-fax tempering thing is an old wives tale.

 

[Sled Dog]

Re: SLIDE WEAR THEORY

Here is my theory to everyone heating your slides up and then cooling them. I don't see this working. I get over 1500 miles on a set of slides when I take care of them.

That whole hy-fax tempering thing is an old wives tale.

I totally agree.

The slides wear until they wear down closer to the rail which takes the heat away from the slide keeping them cool and the wear all but stops. You guys are changing your slides too soon.

 

[spike337]

I've heard colored slides wear much faster? Any truth to that?
Duck into fresh snow whenever you can in bad conditions, and kick some in the skid at stop signs when you're waiting for your Arctic Cat buddys to show up.
My buddy bought his first Yamaha. New 08 Vec. Dealer had the track too tight trying to off-set the initial track stretch. Slides lasted 400 miles. (Now i'm embarrassed and concerned because i steered him into a 4 stroke Yamaha.) He replaced them and added a low snow wheel kit and has 5500 miles on set #2. Don't know if it was the wheel kit or not, but all is good now.

 

[spike337]

I don't think 'running rx1' is changing them to soon!

 

[YammyRX1]

I like the theory that they wear until the wheels start to take more of the load, makes more sense than the thinner slide being cooled by the rail because plastic is a poor conductor at any thickness. Yes, thinner would transmit the heat faster but the track would still make the heat a lot faster than the plastic could conduct it without a lubricant like water or snow.

When sliders are manufactured they are extruded through a shaped die like toothpaste out of a tube, not injection molded under pressure into a cavity. I doubt whether this material (Ultra High Molecular Weight Polyethylene?) has any heat treating options. Some other plastics get brittle if you heat them beyond their processing range but then they lose most of their physical properties too. Color is normally an additive to the plastic and they formulate it so that it will not affect the properties.

I didn't have huge wear issues with my old fully clipped Predator track but I just installed a new Ice Ripper that is not fully clipped so I am saving the old sliders for reference in case I have problems. When you change sliders I would suggest measuring the thickness of the old ones every 4" along the length and charting it so that you can tell what part of the slider wears and what features of the skid are in the areas that wear the quickest. Work with the facts and data then change one thing at a time until you see improvement.

 

[copo427ss]

I've heard colored slides wear much faster? Any truth to that?

yes actually, you are correct. the plastic that the colored slides are made out of are softer material, due to additives, so they have a lower melting point. also the graphite ones are a waste of money. the graphite is only impregnated into the plastic so its not actually bonded so to say. so when you heat up the plastic the graphite just washes away. the hardest color for slides is white. look at any new cat, A/C has white slides on all of them. white has the highest melting point beccause it has the fewest additives in it. its a purer plastic

 

[Sled Dog]

I don't think 'running rx1' is changing them to soon!

I have 3000 miles on one set and its an 151 mountain to boot with 2 inch paddles running in praires. I dont do much of any trails at all though.

 

[spike337]

I don't think 'running rx1' is changing them to soon!

I have 3000 miles on one set and its an 151 mountain to boot with 2 inch paddles running in praires. I dont do much of any trails at all though.

I was kind of joking around with the pictures of his slides already worn through.

 

[Sled Dog]

I like the theory that they wear until the wheels start to take more of the load, makes more sense than the thinner slide being cooled by the rail because plastic is a poor conductor at any thickness. Yes, thinner would transmit the heat faster but the track would still make the heat a lot faster than the plastic could conduct it without a lubricant like water or snow.

When sliders are manufactured they are extruded through a shaped die like toothpaste out of a tube, not injection molded under pressure into a cavity. I doubt whether this material (Ultra High Molecular Weight Polyethylene?) has any heat treating options. Some other plastics get brittle if you heat them beyond their processing range but then they lose most of their physical properties too. Color is normally an additive to the plastic and they formulate it so that it will not affect the properties.

I didn't have huge wear issues with my old fully clipped Predator track but I just installed a new Ice Ripper that is not fully clipped so I am saving the old sliders for reference in case I have problems. When you change sliders I would suggest measuring the thickness of the old ones every 4" along the length and charting it so that you can tell what part of the slider wears and what features of the skid are in the areas that wear the quickest. Work with the facts and data then change one thing at a time until you see improvement.

Thank you as you just proved my point. If plastic was such a poor conductor of heat it would not heat up and melt. Aluminum on the other hand is a fantastic conductor of heat and its light so that is why its used on rails. The rails suck the heat out of the sliders but the sliders when new are too thick to transfer the heat fast enough so it heats up and melts until it gets close enough to the slide rail which can and will take all the heat the slider delivers to it. Thus at that point it keeps the plastic cool enough not to heat up enough to melt anymore and the wear stops and stays there for a very very long time. Its been dicussed and proven here lots of time do a search.

 

[YammyRX1]

If the plastic was a good conductor wouldn't it tranfer more heat to the aluminum and not melt as fast? Aluminum will only suck the heat out of what it is touching directly, so the heat has to get through the plastic first. Poor conductors can have a low melting point.

Anyway, a little more research and I found that I was wrong about the color thing so could be wrong about that too:

Most UHMW-PE is supplied as Black – not just because this is the most economic choice, but also because black is manufactured using a double sintering process which work hardens the UHMW-PE to further increase its abrasion resistance. UHMW-PE is available in many other colours yellow, white, blue, green, red, grey or orange...

On Wikipedia it says that you can anneal it (make it softer) but not sure if you could harden it the same as metal.

 

[Daranello]

Does yamaha make white XTX sliders ?

 

[Mooseman]

I had the exact same problem as RX1 at the bend. I read just about every post on here about the slider problems that I had nightmares about them. Just for my own sanity, I switched to Doo 135mm wheels and added TWO sets of marginal snow wheels. My first set of sliders had only about 800Km and they were paper thin in the bend. The rest of the slides were half decent but I wanted to be sure I extend their life as long as possible. After 1000Km of last winter's poor trail conditions on the new setup, the slides are in excellent shape with hardly any wear.

What I have noticed on other brands of sleds is that they generally have a wheel at or near the bend to alleviate the wear there. Why Yamaha neglected this and making us buy these marginal snow wheel kits? Just a little rail and wheel mount mod by them would eliminate this issue for good. You can even see that most Doos have two sets of wheels up front.