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Thiokol Snowcat Project

Thefatsquatch

Active member
Just want to document my first snowcat restoration. I bought it February 2019, and drove to Mullica Hill NJ on spring break to get it.
It has taken me the last 11 months to get it to where I could actually put it in the snow! I also plan to post future trips to this thread.
 

Thefatsquatch

Active member
These are the first pictures of the way home. (If I can sort out how to do this right, I won't be replying to myself.)
 

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vintagebike

Well-known member
I have a 245 page scan of the Thiokol 2100B illustrated factory manual - operation, service and parts for both the V8 and L6 engine. PM me if you want and can download a very large Google file. :thumbup:
 

Thefatsquatch

Active member
Finally got it home and the tracks back on. Backwards. It started and ran, with the choke all the way out. But, it's a start. At the time, it looked like what it needed was some wiring work, and a new set of full sized tracks. I want to be able to ski back-country stuff with this, so I want as low of surface-pressure as I can get!
 

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Thefatsquatch

Active member
This is where I learned this project was going to be bigger than I expected. The mice had gotten in an eaten every wire. They pee'd on every gauge. They made a nest in my instrument panel. I planned to salvage what I could, but that still meant re-wiring the entire thing, ground up. Pulling new wires through the chase and everything.
 

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Thefatsquatch

Active member
New tach, and all new wiring. Everything is run to the blocks so I can just plug in the wires. I did the same thing at the other end of the chase in the motor bay, incase I have to take the whole cab off.
 

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Thefatsquatch

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Looks like the top-lights are not salvageable. I have been wanting to do LEDs for everything anyway. Just a lot les load on the wiring for the amount of light I am going to get.
 

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Thefatsquatch

Active member
New lights mounted. New ignition switch to run it all. The lights look sweet when they are on... But when they are off, not so much. I re-painted the hood the closest I could get to Tucker orange before I had a serious realization:
The whole time I have been researching snowcats, it looked like there were thousands out there. Then I realized there are only hundreds of any given model, but lots of pictures of each one. Turns out maybe only Tens of each model, and a lot of pictures of each one throughout it's career/lifespan. I found this forum and realized I was looking at my very own cat, in 2001, 2006, and 2007! I found out the color this cat looks best in is Kubota orange!
Time to paint!
 

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Thefatsquatch

Active member
Huge issue. Took off the tank and started sanding to prep for paint, and I came across this. It's not the only spot of body rust, for sure. But it's the only place it just blew through like that. A lot of cutting, cleaning and welding, and in the end, I ended up having to finish it with bondo. I just couldn't keep the metal from buckling when I was welding. I was able to get looking pretty good, and I guess it's behind the tank anyway.
 

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Thefatsquatch

Active member
So paint. I got my paint off Amazon, and honestly, it was really nice paint. The first coat I sprayed too thick, and had to reduce it a bit. And, no matter how many times I painted it, the Tucker orange hood kept showing through! It was also getting really foggy in the mornings when I sprayed this, and that kept taking the gloss off. It looks like I will have to have a real painter do this again in the summer, but for now, it's all one color, and it won't rust.
On to bigger things!
 

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Thefatsquatch

Active member
With paint done, I was able to focus on finding lights that would look/function like I wanted. The big top-lights have the LED equivalent of 210 Watts each, when run lo-hi at the same time. I wired them in to run each, or both. The side lights and back lights are brighter than the headlights on my truck. I decided to do the deck (and later side-boards) with some tongue and groove we had left over from building our house. Still seeing that lighter orange in the hood, 5 coats later.
 

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Thefatsquatch

Active member
With paint and electrical done, I could really focus on the hard stuff. Ran to California and bought a single parts-track from Tim at Remote Access Service and Repair. Plan is to make two 44" tracks from one 57" track, by alternating grousers with what I have. The issue is, that's 1200 bolts to take out, and even more to put in. Bought myself a 1500 foot/pound impact driver and promptly smashed my finger! But, I eventually got all the bolts either removed or broken off. Then to set up a jig and start drilling holes for re-spacing the large grousers. It's only 3/32nd metal, but it's a heat treated, non-4130 chromoly, and it's a PAIN to drill. About 4 minutes per hole, and the cobalt bit explodes about every 20th hole. (That's my son, drilling holes.) After another several hours with a razor knife and a straight edge, and a template of old belting and a paper drill, we started putting it all together!
 

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Thefatsquatch

Active member
The tires are bad on the whole thing. Really bad. And, WAY too heavy. For commercial use, I absolutely get using filled tires on heavy, steel, two piece rims. But for family-fun rig, I decided to go a different route. Guess what went out of style right after this was produced?... That's right. 12" 5 on 5.5 wheels. The options were literally zero. So, I decided to roll the dice with some wheels I liked, Center bore them, and re-drill them. I even tried changing the hubs to a 5 on 4.5, but the axles aren't built the same, and I didn't feel like cutting each axle out and welding a new one in. Price wouldn't have been terrible, but it would have taken another month, and by now it's late January. My initial test date was set for the 26th!

Finally got a few wheels made and the second track mounted! Still need to put the last belt on the first track, but at least I can move it around!
 

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Thefatsquatch

Active member
Snowcat is operational. Now to prep the trailer. It's a box style thing a friend gave me, and I think it is a touch worrying that the tongue points up, and seems to be welded to the front cross member instead of pierced through it.
 

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Thefatsquatch

Active member
Aaaaand this happened.
So, that set me back while I examined every weld on this thing. I was not impressed. Turns out someone thought a 12' stick of metal and a 4' stick of metal make a 16' stick of metal. So, I cleaned up and added gussets. I'm not a welder. But, it aught to hold. Then, This happened. While looking at the hitch failure, I decided to replace the tongue. Now we are ready to go!
 

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Thefatsquatch

Active member
Finally, February 17th, we get to go in search of snow! We decided to go out the 3000 line out of Toutle Washington, assuming there would be bugs to work out. I initially wanted to take it out Marble Mountain Snowpark, but I can just imagine being the traffic jam for 300 snowmobilers trying to get up the mountain. The truck was the weak point, because I could only get through about 6 inches of snow towing the trailer. So we unloaded in 6 of snow, and set out! It was truly a blast! I have caught the bug!
My first turn at speed just about took the kids out of the back!
We crawled up into about 2 feet of snow, and went straight up some skidder roads.
We did blow a hydraulic line, and could only turn left on the way back out. Then, one of the wire connections fell off, so I had to trace that down to get spark. But all in all, it was so much fun!
New things on the list are: Steps for the back, Seating for the back, Hydraulic lines, (That is a cluster under there for sure!) new head lights that don't fill with water when it rains, and a bench seat inside, incase someone gets too cold and needs to be warmed up.
 

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PJL

Well-known member
Awesome job Mr. Squatch, bringing that old cat back to life. I'll admit I cringed a bit seeing your son drilling with "exploding cobalt bits" and not wearing eye pro.
 

Thefatsquatch

Active member
PJL: Yes. Unfortunately I think he was drilling a little fast, (in terms of pressure) and was at the helm when the first bit blew up. No injuries, Luckily! I turned the drill speed up a bit, and used less pressure, but just in case, we used eye protection. And we still blew up a bit every couple grousers. That stuff is HARD!

KickerM: I'm so glad to see that logo! It's a pretty sweet sticker, so I certainly left mine on there. Lobster Red sounds like a Perfect color! Excited to see the adventures of my Kitty's Cousin!
 

Thefatsquatch

Active member
So, the girlfriend, (who initially said there was no way she was going out in this contraption into the wilderness) has decided she’s game to go... as long as she doesn’t have to ride in the back. It took me a while measuring seats at junk yards, but a dodge caravan second row 2/3 seat measures 42 inches without the armrest, and has a pillar to mount the controls on. This also required a tractor throttle, because I have to be on the clutch side to drive, but we got it mounted and running.
It’s a bit wide on the trailer, but to be fair, that’s not a full width trailer either.
So, we met some co workers and their kids, and my girlfriend and kids, and headed to Skate Creek snopark. Gate was locked, so we headed up the nearest logging road until I couldn’t drive with the trailer.
The road was clear for a mile or so, but not as far as I wanted to go.
Turning around to push a tree out of the way, I blew another hydraulic line. This time an auxiliary line out the back. But, it took me hiking back to the truck for another gallon of fluid to get us out of there.
At least the kids had fun in the snow!
And the little boys were crawling around in the snow afterwards saying, “I’m a snowcat!”
All in all, not a bad day at all.
That said, if I want to clean this up, and simplify, do I just run the non-priority line back to the tank from the splitter?
I’m not going to use the ports in the back, and I don’t really want to replace 20 hoses I don’t need.
 

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Thefatsquatch

Active member
I forgot to get the picture of the crack in the fuel tank, but luckily it was on top! I think I must have banded it in there too tight. I was able to repair about 6 inches on the top edge, using the Dry-Ice purging method. I didn't grind it down quite as far as the rest of it, and I think I will end up lining the inside of it anyway.
Now on to simplifying the hydraulics!
I think I can just run the priority splitter to the steering, and the non-priority back to the filter.
I really don't need the rear ports just using it for a ski-rig.
 

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Snowtrac Nome

member formerly known as dds
GOLD Site Supporter
the steering just uses bypass pressure for steering, you don't want the whole 2500 psi going to the steering cylinders it will break your bands. the system is kind of genious there is a pintle stops return to the tank, allowing pressure to build up in to the line going back to the slave cylinder .
 

Thefatsquatch

Active member
the steering just uses bypass pressure for steering, you don't want the whole 2500 psi going to the steering cylinders it will break your bands. the system is kind of genious there is a pintle stops return to the tank, allowing pressure to build up in to the line going back to the slave cylinder .

Gotcha. Currently it goes to a priority splitter, then the priority side, (the brake side) runs to a regulator, and the other side runs to my ancillary, (pressure bar) controls. I guess I really don't even need the splitter, just the regulator, since I am not running anything else. I just figured I didn't want to bind up the pump, so I figured I would run the priority splitter, tie into the blow-off for the regulators, and run it straight back to the filter.
Just trying to figure out what I can take of without constricting flow and burning up the pump.
 

Thefatsquatch

Active member
Well, first trip of the year is in the books. I spent the summer replacing every hose on the kitty, and I still have a leak, about 1 gallon an hour. Looking at the spin-on hydraulic filter, I think it had a pinhole in it, but I can't be sure if that was from me taking it off. We got into about 6 feet of snow, but it wasn't particularly new, and we didn't sink at all. Well, until we stepped off the cat. Interesting finding: When low on hydraulic steering oil, and heading up very steep slopes, an old Thiokol does not have steering. I really need to figure out a back-up plan for manual steering. Also, my left track is hitting the tunnel and taking a bit more than paint. Anyone dealt with that before?
 

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Snowy Rivers

Well-known member
The zero offset in your new wheels is placing the track 3/4" closer to the tub.

I am not sure as to how much clearance you had before with the stock wheels in place ???????

We did chat about the wheel offset when you were up here a while back.
Easy way to fix this is to make a set of 10 aluminum 3/4" thick spacers and put between the wheel and the hub.
This issue is why I am fabricating the custom wheels for mine.

All trailer wheels are "usually" zero offset (On center of the wheel) and the stock wheels are set outboard by 3/4" (Negative offset)

Here is a piccy of what I used as a drill jig....this would work as a pattern to make spacers (Water jet cut the alloy plate with 4.020" pilot bore...drill the holes at 17/32")
This is going to be cheaper than redoing the wheels at this time.
 

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Snowy Rivers

Well-known member
I have an extra one of these rings....You are welcome to it if it will help.
Or if you wanted to get spacers cut....C'mon over and we can use my jig and then drill the plates here.
We can knock those out PDQ.

I have the right size transfer punch to mark the holes with and all the tooling ready to go.

I am still working on my "Snowflake centers".....so the tooling is all sitting on the mill.
 

Thefatsquatch

Active member
The zero offset in your new wheels is placing the track 3/4" closer to the tub.

I am not sure as to how much clearance you had before with the stock wheels in place ???????

We did chat about the wheel offset when you were up here a while back.
Easy way to fix this is to make a set of 10 aluminum 3/4" thick spacers and put between the wheel and the hub.
This issue is why I am fabricating the custom wheels for mine.

All trailer wheels are "usually" zero offset (On center of the wheel) and the stock wheels are set outboard by 3/4" (Negative offset)

Here is a piccy of what I used as a drill jig....this would work as a pattern to make spacers (Water jet cut the alloy plate with 4.020" pilot bore...drill the holes at 17/32")
This is going to be cheaper than redoing the wheels at this time.
It is weird through. The front wheels are the metric ones, and run either zero offset or whatever the stock ones were. It rubbed with the stock aluminum ones too. The 4 center axles are the 5.3/r12, but it only rubs on the Left side, top of the front wheel. I must have a bent grouser on that side or something. I think I have decided to go with a 1/2" spacer on the front, and 1" spacers for the 4 center axles. The 1" ones have counter-spaced studs so I don't have to worry about not catching enough threads.
 

Snowy Rivers

Well-known member
One thing though.

Your cat has had the frame narrowed up a bunch and the tracks had the outer bands cut off IIRC ?????

You added new outer bands back on the track to make the tracks wider....IIRC the tracks were at 28" when you got the machine ???? and you went to 43" ?????

What you might do is measure from the tub to the center of the drive sprocket.....the center of the tires need to be the same to keep the tracks running straight....

The original clearance between the inner edge of the track and the tub was about 3-1/2"
Unless there was a broken grouser or some other issue the track would not hit the tub.

Losing a front tire (Flat) could see a track derail and get into the tub.....but normally there will not be any problems with the track hitting

What is the tire center/center dimension on the axles (side to side) as they are now ????

Ideally you should have about 3" clearance between the edge of the track and the tub to allow things to move around.
At the least I would say 2" would be getting very skimpy......
 
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