My wheels all just started breaking apart after 20 years. Have only used the CSA Alpine Tracker in the fall/winter, before ski season, to get my legs back in shape. The machine is in great shape so I figured I would fix it but like everyone else could not find wheels anywhere. There is one person that says they have black ones for $9.99 each but you would think after all his posts on different sites he would have posted a picture or someone would have commented that has bought them?
Anyway, I decided to try to fix mine and after a bunch of thinking, here is what I did.
I bought some real heavy duty 1” shrink tubing. Sumitube Part # W5DL. Here it the data sheet. It is 1” Diameter and has a Wall Thickness of .075” (1.91 mm) I bought 4 feet of it so I had plenty to play around with.
http://www.seipusa.com/products/W0207001.asp?parm=W5DL
I did not have a heat gun so I used my toaster oven. Shrink temperature for this produce is 140 C (284 F). Would be easier to shrink evenly, I believe, with a heat gun?
I removed the bearings and I cut a piece of tubing 9/16” wide. I sat the bearing on the mounting bolt with the hub side up so there was a space at the bottom or the bearing for the tubing to shrink around.
I placed it on my oven tray and placed the piece of shrink tubing over the bearing and centered it. I put it in the oven about 3” from the element on the top and turned on the oven with the door open so I could watch. Once the element heated up and started to turn red, the tubing started to shrink around that top side and the bearing. Once it shrank about 2/3 of the way over the top I turned the bearing over and let the other side shrink. Once this side shrank all the way I turned it back and finished the other side.
On a few of the bearings it did not shrink even so I used an Exacto Knife the trim around the hub where the shrink tubing was touching. I set them aside and let them thoroughly cool.
I did all eight wheels on the foot pads. I removed the magnet, that the sensor uses, on the one foot pad because I knew the wheels were slightly smaller and it would rub. I put both foot pads back on CSA Alpine Tracker. The foot pads sits lower now because the wheels are only about 15/16” in diameter instead of the original 1 1/4” but the foot pads slide fine. They do not rub anywhere and can not come out of the track.
I used it for about 2 hours, 20 minutes at a time, and removed the foot pads to check the wheels. The all looked fine.
On the foot pad with the magnet, I left the magnet mounting bracket on the foot pad and replaced the magnet with a thinner one. The original magnet was 3/8” thick and I replaced it with a very strong, 1/2” diameter, 3/16” thick, round magnet I had laying around the house. I did not attach it in any way. The magnet was strong enough to just stick to the metal bracket and not move and the sensor works.
CSA Alpine Tracker back in business! :)
jsuvman, September 2012
