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Rear Diff

Nojeeep

New member
I've seen bits and pieces about different rears and trans-axles used. I would like to build a snow machine, relatively small (2-3,000 pounds), and was wondering if an open diff out of a truck could be used. Has any one tried this and if so, does the vehicle track straight down the road as one axle bares the burden of power?
 

300 H and H

Bronze Member
GOLD Site Supporter
They have and it has not been very succesfull...

You can find information on this forum as to how this has been done commercially in factory built rears, or fronts as some drive in the front of the track assembly as in the snow trac...There are several ways to go about this, but unfortunately none of them use a truck type rear, except Tucker, and they use an articulating driveline under the cab to do the steering.

Hope this helps, Kirk
 

Snowtrac Nome

member formerly known as dds
GOLD Site Supporter
if time and money were no obstruction a truck diff with a varriator like the snow trac uses would be one way of doing it trying to make a skid steer out of an open truck diff is not practical. i have seeen the results of trying this and the machine has been pared for over 30 years if you want to custom build something tru to find an old clark rear end out of an m29 weasel that will give you a good solid steering diff that won't break the bank. after that we want lots of pics. in the long run it just might cost less to buy a snow trac or imp to rebuild
 

Nojeeep

New member
Thank you both for the feed back. It is pretty much what I suspected...I just needed to hear it from someone with experience. I friend of mine has a junkyard with old tractors and bulldozers sitting around. I guess I'll start the search for something along the lines of an OC4.
 
I've seen bits and pieces about different rears and trans-axles used. I would like to build a snow machine, relatively small (2-3,000 pounds), and was wondering if an open diff out of a truck could be used. Has any one tried this and if so, does the vehicle track straight down the road as one axle bares the burden of power?
I installed a rear end from a 1986 chev s-10 and had no problems used chev stock brakes rear end is same width as stock spryte rear end and very cheap and plentifull compared too factory rear end. If you contact me I will send you pics. I also got tired of the lack of power in my 1201 so installed 350 chev with 400 turbo trans .will do 70 + in a strait line am working on new high speed track system now
 
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