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Any info on ratcliffe cats

L

lildyl31

New member
I recently picked up a Radcliffe snow cat needs a lot of work somewhat runs does anybody have any real info on these things
 
Heres a pic
 

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I have a 1980 all hydraulic unit. All I've been able to find is engine and drive motor info.

Same cheesy tracks. Is your machine powered off the rear axle? Mechanical?
 
Yes off of a drive wheel with the same plastic guides I'm going to pull the tracks all apart remove the rear wheels put sprockets there instead of wheels get rid of the plastic guides what all do you know about the motor and hydraulic setup on this thing does yours have one handle for driving it or two want to make mine up dual handle one for each side also does yours have a Subaru engine have you had any problems with it running
 
Some related pics are in posts awhile back , search for "loud Ratcliffe hydro" should do it.
Powered by subaru 1.6 driving a tandem variable displacement pump setup, each of the pumps has its own lever, one on the right of the seat, one on the left. Right lever has throttle.
Haven't really had issues with the power pack, the engine main crank seal got pulled into the cam gears once for some reason, still a mystery.
The pins holding the plastic track pieces together were rusted away and broken, so I cut off the lugs connecting the pieces, added 2 belts and used carriage bolts to hold it all together. So the plastic pieces are just track guides and not under tension.

Machine is usable without the tracks. With the all tire drive on the tracks it doesn't like hills, the tires will spin in the tracks unless tracks are fairly tight. Fortunately pretty flat here.
Good luck.
 
lildyl31 said:
Yes off of a drive wheel with the same plastic guides I'm going to pull the tracks all apart remove the rear wheels put sprockets there instead of wheels get rid of the plastic guides what all do you know about the motor and hydraulic setup on this thing does yours have one handle for driving it or two want to make mine up dual handle one for each side also does yours have a Subaru engine have you had any problems with it running
Click to expand...
That's interesting. The two that I had had sprockets in the rear as drive. Not wheels and tires. Made a couple trips in the red one before it was sold. And broken by the person that purchased them. Last I knew they were still for sale.
 
Ya I live in Colorado so I'm gonna be using it in the mountains so I definitely need to get it rip top and wanna try to make it move faster
 
Assuming you have 2 hydraulic motors?

See if you can find manufacturers manual on the motors. Will show max rpm ,flows, etc. Give you an idea on how fast you can fling those tracks.
 
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