wood heated snow cat

The "Gonkculator" Custom built by old timer Harley Goodwin of Yellow Pine,Idaho... Willys cab with 44 fwd gears,4wd track drive,6 way blade and wood heated living quarters!

Category:

Autos & Vehicles

Tags:

• snowcats
• motor
• sport

[balongaboy]

this shall survive the apocalypse or zombies

[patton223]

that thing needs some wd-40 !!!

[Jesus45U]

@anapeg100

Allright, it seems God and Caterpillar are with me on this one then. :)

Making the chassis as a tub, will probably be the most efficient, just remember to have a way to collect, and bail water from it. Don't want it to gather in a spot where you can't get a hold of it.

With hydraulics you also get a fairly compact package, so you should have fairly good room in it. The motors might not have a high RPM as max though, but you can "gear up" by using bigger drive gears.

[anapeg100]

@Jesus45U Final drives in the rear are a given. God and Caterpillar have deemed it so. Barry, the more optimistic of the pair of us thinks we will have a tunnel and traction by spring. I will wait and see. We start assembly in the near future and it is more or less design on the run. What we end up with will be determined by what is laying about. Mike

[Jesus45U]

@anapeg100

Awesome. :)

Heck, if you get some old belts and undercarriage off of a mini excevator, you might be able to scavenge some old hydraulic motors as well.

I recommend putting the engine in the front, so it'll take the brunt instead of your face if you crash. Plus it'll make it better at climbing hills if it's front heavy.

Though I do recommend putting the driving cogs in the back, so that the tension from pulling goes along the underside of the wheels and the slack on top.

[anapeg100]

@Jesus45U Barry, my friend mentioned the hydraulic drive and my son is 42. No kids in this group. Mind we all act childish. We have a three cylinder John Deer turbo diesel and a rather large snow machine motor and some assorted valves and hoses in our box of "goodies" so far. We have started manufacturing our own rendition of tracks out of used conveyor and metal "C" channel. Seems promising so far. I will keep you posted. Both Barry and myself are retired so we have a million other things to do

[Jesus45U]

@anapeg100

How about hydrostatic drive ?

Then all you need is engine -> geabox -> pump -> hoses -> valves - hoses -> hydrostatic engine -> hoses -> back to pump

That way, you would also be able to go from full forward, to full backward in no time.

Offcourse, hydraulics steal power too, but that's just how it goes.

I have no idea how fast you want it to go, the son could be young and all that.

[anapeg100]

@Jesus45U The part where I am lost is steering clutches for a "real" tracked pivot turn as opposed to just a spinning turn. Could be expensive, heavy, and not sure of the size limitations. Mike

[Jesus45U]

@anapeg100

Right ... *calculates* ... so about 1.2m x 2.4m, ... 'bout the size of a door.

Well, at such small sizes, the powerplant will probably be the bigger limiter. Tracks take a fair bit of power to run.

If the powerplant is kinda small and it doesn't have to be tracked, you could use a bunch of narrow tires and overlap them like on the german Tiger tank, for increased footprint, and then skid steer it like a Tank.

Takes less power than tracks.

Should be good fun. :)

[anapeg100]

@Jesus45U Motor cycle type say 4 feet wide by 8 long and a fairly low centre of gravity.

[Jesus45U]

@anapeg100

by "a standard four wheeler" do you mean a 4 wheel motorcycle, or a 4x4 truck/car ?

[anapeg100]

@Jesus45U To be honest, all we have is ideas and some really crude drawings. What will determine size will be what we end up with for parts. Originally I had thought of something the size of a standard four wheeler but now am leaning strongly to something much larger and heavier. The size of a car? Not what I envisioned but not ruling it out,..........yet.  Mike