For snow cats I think it should be a bottle of milk!
-
Please be sure to read the rules and adhere to them. Some banned members have complained that they are not spammers. But they spammed us. Some even tried to redirect our members to other forums. Duh. Be smart. Read the rules and adhere to them and we will all get along just fine. Cheers. :beer: Link to the rules: https://www.forumsforums.com/threads/forum-rules-info.2974/
Kristi KT7 restoration pictures
- Thread starter BigAl
- Start date
Allen, excellent job!
It will be nice to see a new thread from you that is not in the Snowcat RESTORATION area, but rather in the Snowcat ADVENTURE & USAGE area. That is, if it runs. Let me give you one little tid bit of advice that I learned. Fill up the gas BEFORE you go out for your maiden run.
It will be nice to see a new thread from you that is not in the Snowcat RESTORATION area, but rather in the Snowcat ADVENTURE & USAGE area. That is, if it runs. Let me give you one little tid bit of advice that I learned. Fill up the gas BEFORE you go out for your maiden run.
Vance
Member
Hey Al,
Your cool cat got me poking around and finding our more about them. I found this:
http://www.sotc.com/specsheets/kristi.kt3.5.html
Why do they call it a KT3-300 there? Was that just an early brochure?
Just wondering?
Vance
Your cool cat got me poking around and finding our more about them. I found this:
http://www.sotc.com/specsheets/kristi.kt3.5.html
Why do they call it a KT3-300 there? Was that just an early brochure?
Just wondering?
Vance
Vance, I've got a copy of an early brochure showing it as a KT3-300 and a copy of the actual KT-7 brochure. My guess is that its original pre-production designation was the KT3-300. But as it moved toward production and became a reality they changed it to a KT7.
If you look at the dimensions of the KT3 and KT7 they are very similar overall. Both are roughly the same size, both are able to be configured for 4 to 6 people. So it is not illogical for it to be originally conceived as an improved KT3. Further, the KT3 was the highest production unit made by Kristi with roughly 110 units produced over its lifespan so people familiar with the KT3 and wanting to upgrade their equipment might find it comforting to buy an 'improved' version KT3-300.
Just my thoughts.
If you look at the dimensions of the KT3 and KT7 they are very similar overall. Both are roughly the same size, both are able to be configured for 4 to 6 people. So it is not illogical for it to be originally conceived as an improved KT3. Further, the KT3 was the highest production unit made by Kristi with roughly 110 units produced over its lifespan so people familiar with the KT3 and wanting to upgrade their equipment might find it comforting to buy an 'improved' version KT3-300.
Just my thoughts.
Looks great Al...Congrats
Did you ever think of either chroming the KT7 wheels or painting the wheels on the King Ranch red.....
Wow what a diffrence a year makes! Looks great bigAl. Just watch your head when you get out of the truck.
Allen, we have had a lot of fun poking 
at each other for the past year but I am willing to let you get the last poke in today. What do I do? Paint the King Ranch red/orange or the LMC forest green? But, if you look close my wheels do almost match.....
View attachment 10877
at each other for the past year but I am willing to let you get the last poke in today. What do I do? Paint the King Ranch red/orange or the LMC forest green? But, if you look close my wheels do almost match..... View attachment 10877
Attachments
Hey ... It looks good any way you look at it . What a nice looking Truck/trailer combo. I cannot poke fun of that . I think it looks good the painted colors they presently are .
My next cat will be Red with gold pearl . That is if I can find that damn jar of gold pearl out in the shop !!!??? It's out there .....somewhere.
My next cat will be Red with gold pearl . That is if I can find that damn jar of gold pearl out in the shop !!!??? It's out there .....somewhere.
Ok ,All the track bolts and nuts are now hardfaced . I also built a new tow hitch for the back and will install it tomorrow after I paint it .As bad as I would hate to be towed home ,it would be much worst stuck with no tow point to hook to.
So ,I built a real nice "slide in receiver" with multible hitch options . I plan to carry the pintle hitch and used it to pull with and as a ski rope connection .
I also purchased a very nice cast aluminum step , that slides in the reciever and folds up and becomes a reflector when not needed . That should also keep the snow out of the receiver tube .
So ,I built a real nice "slide in receiver" with multible hitch options . I plan to carry the pintle hitch and used it to pull with and as a ski rope connection .
I also purchased a very nice cast aluminum step , that slides in the reciever and folds up and becomes a reflector when not needed . That should also keep the snow out of the receiver tube .
BigAl said:Hey ... It looks good any way you look at it . What a nice looking Truck/trailer combo. I cannot poke fun of that . I think it looks good the painted colors they presently are .
My next cat will be Red with gold pearl . That is if I can find that damn jar of gold pearl out in the shop !!!??? It's out there .....somewhere.
His shop is really clean, so we cannot give him crap about it being lost in the mess... Maybe his neighbor borrowed it???
Well ..... You want the good news or the bad news .
Good news first . I thought I had a miss in the engine and sure enough I did . A bad set of plugs . Change to another brand and it runs like a top .
Also got the new rear hitch mounted and it also came out real nice .
Now the bad news . Yetti will not be going anywhere for quite a while . I am tearing her completely back down to the Hydro drives . She will not engage into hi range ,no matter what I do .This is why I hate hydro drives !!!! There will be no foolin around on rebuilding these . I am replacing them with brand new updated units .The engine must come out too , to remove the drive units . Heres a few pictures of me down by the lake ,playing . That bank is steeper than it appears . Notice the rear of my tracks . They are off the ground a bit!
Good news first . I thought I had a miss in the engine and sure enough I did . A bad set of plugs . Change to another brand and it runs like a top .
Also got the new rear hitch mounted and it also came out real nice .
Now the bad news . Yetti will not be going anywhere for quite a while . I am tearing her completely back down to the Hydro drives . She will not engage into hi range ,no matter what I do .This is why I hate hydro drives !!!! There will be no foolin around on rebuilding these . I am replacing them with brand new updated units .The engine must come out too , to remove the drive units . Heres a few pictures of me down by the lake ,playing . That bank is steeper than it appears . Notice the rear of my tracks . They are off the ground a bit!
Attachments
NO! I am so sorry to hear this Allen. How did she do in low though? What kinda speed were you able to go?
It may just be something routed wrong? I am not a fan of Hydrostats either. Hope its something simple.
Al, as much crap as I have given you through this entire process, I always had faith that once it was together it would end up out performing all the old snowcats and the majority of the modern ones. This is a nasty setback and certainly unexpected, but while I certainly expect that you will see this through, I believe it will ultimately perform as I expected.
B_Skurka said:
I hope so . I have a email sent to the old owner asking for his input on the hydro when he owned it . Maybe he was afraid to tell me it was shot and was afraid I would back out on buying it .I bought it "as is" so that should not have been a issue or mattered . I honestly do not know.
If it was ,in fact ,working correctly when he owned it , it has to be the oil . I replaced the ATF it had in it to with Tractor Hydrostatic fluid . I am sure the hoses are correct .
Al, sorry to here that you having problems.... not fimilar with the KT7 but quite well versed in hydraulics. do you have two speed motors or is the high low mechanical. most two speed motors use a pressure line to shift the displacement from low/high. Did you have the pumps out at rebuild? motors?
What brand of pumps /motors are they. were you backing up the hill in the photo? the lift created looks like you did a hard reverse up hill?
What brand of pumps /motors are they. were you backing up the hill in the photo? the lift created looks like you did a hard reverse up hill?
boggie said:
Hi Brad ,
The pumps are Funk Hydrostatic drives which is now owned my John Deere . I believe they are 61000 series pumps . I believe they are 2 speed mechanical as there is a lever to change from low to high speed .
Yes I was backing up the hill . And "no" ,I did not do a hard reverse . I had my engine rpm's at 2800 and barely engaging the drives when the picture was taken . That hill is "very steep" and the picture does not do it justice .The rear end was climbing up on me as I backed up . The wife told me I had the "body tilt " hydraulic's wrong ,but I believe a good part of the tracks coming up was extreme slope . It would not climb in forward .
Do you have a Clinometer, or tilt-meter inside your KT7? What is the slope angle? According to my copy of the brochure, that thing should be able to climb most slopes, certainly any slope you can walk up.BigAl said:
Ok ! I have talked with the previous owner this morning and other than the KT7 being difficult to find Neutral (Because of the old steering system) He basically told me it worked fine . He only used LOw range for pulling it on the trailer . High range obtained a speed of about 15 MPH .
So I have two things going on here .
1. I changed to a hydrostatic oil from a atf oil .
2. " I must have a oil line crossed ".????
So today I am tearing out the front seats to get down to the motors to "look see"
Here are 2 pictures I took as the drives were reinstalled . Does anyone reconize the brand of the Hydro on the rear of the pump drive ??? I know the pump drive off the engine is a Funk Model 61000 series but not 100% sure on the hydro's .
So I have two things going on here .
1. I changed to a hydrostatic oil from a atf oil .
2. " I must have a oil line crossed ".????
So today I am tearing out the front seats to get down to the motors to "look see"
Here are 2 pictures I took as the drives were reinstalled . Does anyone reconize the brand of the Hydro on the rear of the pump drive ??? I know the pump drive off the engine is a Funk Model 61000 series but not 100% sure on the hydro's .
Attachments
If I may make a suggestion. Change your fluid first. Also hydro stats need awhile to warm up. If the oil was very cold then you would have very little power to the tracks. IF ATF was in them try going back and see how that works. I am going to bet that they will be just fine with the ATF fluid in them or whatever you had in them to begin with.
Snowcat Operations said:
Because of the age of the drives ,you may be right . I have been going over my diagrams all morning and cannot find any hose that is installed wrong . It appears from the limited information I have ,that the hydro Drives charge there own system and that a external oil pressure source is not needed. It just needs a constant flow of oil ,which I have directly plumbed from the tank .
I have since found out that the hydro's are Sperry Vickers model #323805 and the proportional valve is a KV260-A-03-5E-60MF-KH-10 .
Hell if I know what that all means ??????????
The KT7 will rise once again! Never fear BigAl Us Snow Trac guys will always stand behind you. Well unless you keep eating them Pickled Pigs feet.
Al, those are combination pump/motors the pump is attached to the funk drive and the shaft coming out the back is the motor. make sure that you have oil at the pump before you crank the engine ........... I mentioned on the phone I would change back to ATF Type F the older units work better on that. that could be a pressure compensating pump meaning that you may never see high speed if you your load is to great after changing fluid. slowly move you drives forward and backward and let the fluid warm up. then on a level surface proceed forward and see if you can get it to go to high.....
Keep us informed
Keep us informed
Al, if you change the oil you may have to to do it more than once. you will not get all off it by just draining the tank. a fair bit will remani in the system.
You should also change the return filters to.
You should also change the return filters to.
Thanks Boggie ,
I had already figured I would have to. I talked with the oil distributor and he told me the same thing .
Ok ,This is "NOW What I KNOW".
The new steering controls are tight and there is no play .
The 2 speed hi/lo lever was hitting a cross bar and could not fully engage the high speed . I have reversed the linkage and it now clears the cross bar .
Once I did this :
IN the high speed lever position ,the KT7 acted like it was in Neutral at cold start . After a few minutes of checking stuff ,one motor started working and the second motor acted like it was trying to engage .At this point I shut the engine down . I believe that the hydraulic oil warmed up enough to make the hi speed position "semi working" again .
I was at a extreme side hill angle when the KT7 stop moving correctly yesterday . The hydraulic tank was on the low side and I may have starved the motors of oil . Until I shut down the engine and restarted the KT7 it would not even begin to climb back up the grade ,foward or reverse . It also would not climb in forward gear at all .
I plan to drain the Hydraulic fluid in the morning and switch to AFT type F. The oil distributor seems to think it will be fine even if there is Hydraulic oil residue still present .
I will install a new filter.
The Kristi KT7 uses the exact same drive system the New Holland skid steer tractors used in the early 1970's . If I am not mistaken New Holland is a Ford product and the "ATF type F" fluid makes sense to me because it is made for the old Fords .
I have checked and recheck oil hoses and believe that they are connected correctly . This is the only one other area I could have screwed up .
Could you "Hydraulic experts" please take another look at those drive units I posted a couple of post back and give me your best guess on which one is "intake" and which one is "return to tank".
I had posted this question before and went with the best advice . There are no markings to indicate which is which on the 2 connections
I had already figured I would have to. I talked with the oil distributor and he told me the same thing .
Ok ,This is "NOW What I KNOW".
The new steering controls are tight and there is no play .
The 2 speed hi/lo lever was hitting a cross bar and could not fully engage the high speed . I have reversed the linkage and it now clears the cross bar .
Once I did this :
IN the high speed lever position ,the KT7 acted like it was in Neutral at cold start . After a few minutes of checking stuff ,one motor started working and the second motor acted like it was trying to engage .At this point I shut the engine down . I believe that the hydraulic oil warmed up enough to make the hi speed position "semi working" again .
I was at a extreme side hill angle when the KT7 stop moving correctly yesterday . The hydraulic tank was on the low side and I may have starved the motors of oil . Until I shut down the engine and restarted the KT7 it would not even begin to climb back up the grade ,foward or reverse . It also would not climb in forward gear at all .
I plan to drain the Hydraulic fluid in the morning and switch to AFT type F. The oil distributor seems to think it will be fine even if there is Hydraulic oil residue still present .
I will install a new filter.
The Kristi KT7 uses the exact same drive system the New Holland skid steer tractors used in the early 1970's . If I am not mistaken New Holland is a Ford product and the "ATF type F" fluid makes sense to me because it is made for the old Fords .
I have checked and recheck oil hoses and believe that they are connected correctly . This is the only one other area I could have screwed up .
Could you "Hydraulic experts" please take another look at those drive units I posted a couple of post back and give me your best guess on which one is "intake" and which one is "return to tank".
I had posted this question before and went with the best advice . There are no markings to indicate which is which on the 2 connections