CHAPTER 193: CHAPTER 191: THE MANUFACTURE OF TRACK WHEELS

For Chen Xin, the simplest and most direct way to acquire enough supplies, aside from the extremely inefficient and dangerous method of scavenging for trash himself, is through Li Yulong.

The SWAT team was originally a very suitable partner, but now all their energy is focused on capturing terrorists, naturally they have no extra energy to exchange supplies with Chen Xin.

Previously, Chen Xin had expressed his desire to exchange more supplies with the SWAT team, but their response was that it needed to be postponed temporarily.

This was clearly because the SWAT team did not have enough manpower to handle the matter, so they had to temporarily postpone it until the issue with the terrorists was resolved before they could have the time and energy to deal with exchanging supplies with Chen Xin.

Thus, Li Yulong became the only channel through which Chen Xin could obtain supplies.

However, Chen Xin did not show this, as the members of other survival groups could also exchange for supplies. It’s just that the amount they could exchange was too little, and few people could reach his place to exchange supplies with him.

Li Yulong, upon receiving Chen Xin’s request, acted quickly, preparing the supplies he needed and sending them to Chen Xin’s home without much delay.

Besides the scrap tires Chen Xin wanted this time, there were also the auto parts he had discussed with Li Yulong, for modifying his vehicle.

"Brother Chen, I’ve brought you the things you wanted!" Li Yulong personally came over, greeting Chen Xin while flatteringly saying, "Considering I’ve been so diligent, can you make me a set of those snow tracks first?"

Chen Xin listened to Li Yulong’s words, showing a smile on his face, and said to him, "Your RV shouldn’t need this, right? Plus, making snow tracks for such big wheels is quite challenging."

Chen Xin was not deliberately refusing Li Yulong; as he mentioned, Li Yulong’s RV already had large snow tires, and with its high chassis, it could smoothly travel even in conditions where the roads had more than a meter of snow, so the demand for snow tracks was not high.

Moreover, large tires naturally require large snow tracks.

Compared to ordinary car tires which may only reach the knees of a normal person, the tires on Li Yulong’s RV could reach the chest. Such large tires need large snow tracks, and they have to be made bigger accordingly.

But enlarging the size isn’t just about making them big.

"How could such a thing be difficult for Brother Chen?" Li Yulong, full of flattery, spoke to Chen Xin while praising him, "I just want to try out how useful these things are! If they are good, they could be a specialty product we put on the trading market, right?"

"Are you hoping to sell snow tracks as products in the trading market?" Hearing Li Yulong’s suggestion, Chen Xin rubbed his chin but did not oppose.

A trading market, besides providing a platform for other vendors, must have unique products that cannot be easily copied by others to attract more customers and vendors.

Li Yulong originally prepared geothermal heat pumps obtained from Chen Xin for the market, which were certainly attractive to customers, but who would complain about having too many profitable goods?

At least Li Yulong and Chen Xin did not feel that way.

So the two quickly finalized a new cooperation agreement, with Li Yulong providing materials and Chen Xin helping to manufacture snow tracks.

Furthermore, thinking the technical difficulty of making these things wasn’t high, Li Yulong suggested that Chen Xin teach his people how to manufacture snow tracks, and at the very least teach them how to repair them.

After all, snow tracks are different from geothermal heat pumps; unlike the heat pumps which require little maintenance once installed, snow tracks are consumable items prone to wear.

While they don’t break after a single use, they require repairs and part replacements after some time, which is very normal.

Especially since Chen Xin uses rubber tracks, which naturally wear out and need regular replacement.

Considering Li Yulong’s proposal to teach his people, Chen Xin thought for a moment and agreed.

However, Chen Xin only agreed to teach them how to repair and did not agree to teach them manufacturing techniques.

Although Li Yulong was somewhat disappointed that Chen Xin didn’t agree to teach his people the manufacturing techniques, mastering repair techniques was already quite good, so Li Yulong readily accepted.

Moreover, Li Yulong was very eager to stay by Chen Xin’s side, wanting to see how he made the snow tracks.

Chen Xin did not mind Li Yulong following him, and once his men had moved the delivered supplies and materials into his storeroom, he sat at his workbench, ready to create the first snow track.

Ding Ning and Qin Lan, who were temporarily staying with him, naturally gathered around quickly, curious to see how Chen Xin would make the thing.

Facing the three onlookers, Chen Xin didn’t mind, and he directly used the system interface to pull a scrap tire from the warehouse, and began the modification.

In the system interface, a scrap tire with worn out grooves was rapidly melted and reformed, weaving its inner steel together into a new shape, and a component of a rubber track quickly appeared on Chen Xin’s workbench.

Chen Xin could naturally see how the scrap tire turned into a track component, but from the perspective of Ding Ning, Qin Lan, and Li Yulong, they saw how Chen Xin skillfully cut open a scrap tire, flattened it, trimmed it to suitable size, and finely processed it into a track component.

"Brother Chen, your hands are truly deft! A scrap tire turns into art in your hands!" Li Yulong couldn’t help but praise, and even Ding Ning and Qin Lan nodded in agreement.

Chen Xin did not take the three’s praise seriously, and said to Ding Ning, "Xiao Ding, please bring me the parts I finished over there."

Responding to Chen Xin’s request, Ding Ning eagerly brought over the parts Chen Xin had previously made, placing them in front of Chen Xin.

The structure of a track isn’t just the track itself, but also includes drive wheels, load wheels, guide wheels, and support wheels, where the drive wheel uses gear-teeth engagement to transmit power to the track.

However, the snow track Chen Xin was making was just a track component, not needing drive wheels to provide power, so he didn’t design this part on the snow track, only including load, guide, and support wheels.

Load wheels, as the name implies, are used to bear weight and regulate the track; guide wheels lead and support the track, while support wheels hold up the upper track.

In addition to these, there were several other parts, but snow tracks aren’t tank tracks, with simpler structures making them easier to produce.

Just by assembling these wheels onto the already-made frame, then assembling the track components and placing them onto the wheels, finally installing the fixtures, a snow track is completed.

Looking at the finished snow track, Chen Xin felt the thing looked really rough.

But it didn’t matter, as tracks are inherently associated with an impression of being rough and bulky; as long as they worked well, being a bit rough was no issue.

This shared understanding was also the perception of the onlooking Ding Ning, Qin Lan, and Li Yulong.

As long as it works well, why care about its roughness or fineness?

In this apocalyptic world, demanding whether something looks good or is refined is either foolish or simply too well-fed.

"Brother Chen, is this a snow track? How do you use it?" Li Yulong curiously asked Chen Xin about the snow track he had just made.

Chen Xin tapped on the newly assembled snow track and explained to the three onlookers behind him, "By using a base plate, the car wheel fits into this groove, and after securing the fixtures to ensure it doesn’t slip off, you only need the wheel to turn to drive this transmission mechanism, then the snow track will move and propel the vehicle forward."

"Wow, isn’t that convenient?" exclaimed Ding Ning in admiration.

Chen Xin nodded slightly, "Though the transmission efficiency isn’t as high as directly removing the wheels and installing a track system, the convenience of these snow tracks is much greater—it’s easy to put on when needed, and take off when not needed, much simpler than changing wheels."

Hearing Chen Xin’s introduction, the three onlookers nodded; they were not clueless and understood the difference between directly changing wheels versus adding tracks, but clearly, Chen Xin’s tracks were more suitable for current use.

After all, most vehicles still use wheel structures; removing wheels and switching to tracks is not only tedious, but also requires professional technical personnel, unlike these tracks which are easy to set, by simply driving over them.

Having witnessed the making of the first track, Li Yulong eagerly said to Chen Xin, "Brother Chen, make the other three quickly so we can install and test them!"

Hearing his request, Chen Xin nodded and said, "Help me bring a few more scrap tires over."

Responding to Chen Xin’s instruction, Li Yulong hastily ran to Chen Xin’s storeroom.