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Scratch building a snow machine

Krazy4mud

Krazy4mud

New member
Since I sold my big trailer queen, I am looking for a new project. I am thinking about building a snow machine from scratch.

I am thinking about a tube frame 2" 0.083 wall DOM tubing. fiberglass body of some sort. Aluminum 4 or 6 cylinder fuel injected, liquid cooled engine 3 or 4 speed auto matic transmission, a drive-line disc brake. And a home made copy of a very special drive axle. 12' tracks about 24"-30" wide.

Do you "snow machine" owners have any advice for me.

Thanks,

Rich
 
I'm not really sure why I chose to go with a snow toy, as I live in NJ. The state of NJ does not allow us to do anything fun. And we still have no SNOW!!!
:snow_smi:

Rich
 
Rich, one suggestion I would make is to take a look at the photos of the THIOKOL snowcats here on the forums. Many of those machines have an all terrain track design that might be a great option for you. The track design has a raised central rib as opposed to a basically wide/flat profile. The wider/flatter the track the harder it is to operate on a surface like grass and some machines will literally drive right off their tracks if you try to turn them on grass. The raised ridge of the Thiokol allows them to handle grass or snow. It may not be suitable for deep powder conditions, but I doubt that is going to be an issue for you.
 
That is a very good point. I will keep that in mind.

What is a good ground pressure to shoot for? I am thinking about 0.4 lbs per square inch. Is this good?

Thanks for your input.
Rich
 
On "powder" snow you would be in excellent good shape. On wet or heavy snow you can probalby go as high as 1.25psi. I believe a Snow Trac puts down about .75psi. and a wide tracked Snow Master puts down under .5psi.

153139395973_3300.jpg
 
Cool to hear that others are in building mode too. I currently have most of my parts gathered and ready to start assembly this week. The way I have it designed it should be around 2600 lbs and is on 18" wide tracks. That should give me about .75 psi. I am using a Subaru H4 1.6L engine w/3 spd auto tranny and a mechanical steering clutch system which will all be sitting on a partial Chevy half ton frame.
 
Check out the Homebuilt Snowcat topic for some of my pics. We just moved into a different place and I haven't been able to work on it lately. Heck, I don't even have it here right now. Just waitin for some snow to melt so I have the room to work on it. Atleast I will have a welder here and not have to go anywhere else to get the welding done.
 
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