In the last 3 photos the treads are loose, still need to find a way to remove one link and fasten them together.
Unfortunately there's no easy way to shorten those tracks. The brute force way I've seen done is to take out the link, drill a few small holes through the two track pads on each side of the new join and literally sew them together with black thread. You'll be able to see it if you look, but, if the join is under a road wheel, it will be mostly hidden.
The alternative is to buy one of the available aftermarked T41 track sets and then assemble them leaving out a link or two to get the right length. This will provide a much better looking track (the end connectors will be properly located, i.e. joining each two pads and not in the middle of each pad as they are on youur old Tamiya kit) but the cost will be about 15-25 bucks depending on which maker's tracks you get. Panda makes great tracks and are the least hassle to assemble and install. Bronco and others make somewhat nicer track that depicts the way the tracks work a little more accurately at the cost of being a lot more involved to assemble.
Fruil makes individual link metal tracks that would try the patience of Job to assemble and still leave you with far too great a track sag to be accurate for American "live" track, so avoid these.
Paul
