Arnold Tractor company

Any one have a point of view in regards to a Ferrit, (not the cat like weasel) Arnold Tractor company made a tracked vehicle called the ferrit. Air cooled lawn tractor Brake steer Manual trans. Fairly small.

I have found one for sale. Going to try to look at it this week, I am mentally not interested in it but need to look.....

the seller keeps calling it a wide track but the information on the web clearly mentions the wide ones are rare and only proto types from back in the day.

I think his perspective is jaded. as this article mentions only one wide track. http://www.leg.mn/archive/LegDB/Articles/10022ArnoldPowerV.pdf
Nice write up about the machine and its diverse use.





Just curious

Mike

Mike that little rig is what my trailer came from they are quite simple and rough riding also slow but will crawl through just about anything.ther was another variant called an otter the one that came with my trailer just sold for around 1500 bucks

Seems right, the earlier ones (according to the article) were otters with chain drive, the later were ferrits, same machine but a differential, all narrow tracked.

Nome was mentioned in the article as well, otters and ferrits were school busses.

sounds like this one has a cab, I can't imagine it is much of a cab.

He claims he used it pull a small shed out on the ice for fishing, and that before that it was used to groom trails.

Mike

Some had drum brakes (older ones ) newer ones had disc ones made in the 90's had the discs the transmissions are the same and some of the older Jim dandy lawn mowers. And DDS is correct wear a kidney belt they are rough on hard ground also the reason most quit using them in Alaska is on grades they
Would flip over backwards they had either 12"wide or 18" wide tracks the forest service used to use them and some of the later ones have pretty low hours
The final drives on the later ones were gears

We have made some hydro units similar to these for a company that does tree top harvesting for Christmas trees much slower than the mechanical counterparts but will pull threw most anything.

as boggie mentioned they were plauged withe the same broblem as the cushman tracksters abd that was with the short tracks they were prone to endoing as any divit in the trail would make the vehicle pitch and roll when assendinng a hill or traveling down an incline the otter up here was gear driven as i remember and i know of 3 trailers one is mine. never herd of the school bus angle had to be in the early days of the schools maybe in the mid 70's