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Two track snow cats

ALLEN PARSONS

ALLEN PARSONS

New member
Why did some cats make it, and some did not?
Well, lets start with the 300 series tucker. It was the about the same size as the ST4 and the same weight same length same width, and when it first came out it had a small VW motor the same as the ST4. So what went wrong. The ST4 was a big seller and the tucker, Well you could say the total number of tuckers sold you could count on your left hand.
I have been looking into tracks and suspensions, Yes the tucker had a good suspension for keeping the tracks flat on the snow. And a very good track system. You could put three ST4s on the end of a rope, and a 300 series tucker on the other end, And the tucker would not even work up a sweat as it polled the ST4s up the hill. But that is all the tucker had to offer. I think with my 323 They put the six in it to over come the problem of trying to turn the thing. Even with the six you still have a hard time turning. In first gear it will turn on a dime 2 gear you are lucky to get it to turn 3 gear forget it just hope the road is straight ahead of you. The cat is built to light and is to under powered for the heavy open medal track system. All other two track cats are built a lot stronger and have a rubber track.
But there is one cat that is very unique. This will make the line of ST4s owners very happy. Your cat over came the problem of lack of power in a very unique way. So that this cat could even handle a wide track and still turn
First it stuck to a light rubber Track
Second it had a very unique torque transfer system from one axle to the other for steering . With very little HP loss.
And the third reason is ......................
This made it all work so nicely together And made this cat a big seller
A BIG BOX OF GIRL GUIDE COOKIES TO THE FIRST ONE TO GET IT
hint ........ Not yet
 
Not sure this is the answer you are looking for but the ST4 is idiot proof (and I am living proof of that). The whole point about it being as easy to drive as a car is very true.
 
Very loud inside? High maint? air cooled engine? short roof to hit your head on? does not turn well or at all in close quarters? some detrack in low no snow conditions? Sorry just helping Al out
 
Ok it does have a couple small little faults maybe three or four, But that did not prevent it from becoming a good cat. It was made for short and deft people, who liked to get out in the snow and put the track back on, every now and then.
Look at the engineering of the........ it's so simple. I even over looked it.
What is a eases way to turn a track sideways. Beside using brut force. That is the hint of the day. The cookies are getting old
 
Im going to stick up for the st they do stay in their tracks quite well and i have run mine at angles that it should have walked out of the tracks and it hasn't (can't vouch for thr 3 band system). Allen parsons is right about the st and their steering system however i think he also left out price by the mid 70's st dealers were able to make almost 200% profit and still sell their product for less than a bombie.the st is quite noisy but all cats from that time frame were the suspension is quite good and excelent when compaired to a bombie operators how ever have to understand the thing is no tank that is why it's so light so when running in hard un even terrain you need to slow down. finaly i think the reliabiloity problems come from driving around 30 too 40 year old machines that have been rode hard and put away wet i put a load of hours on mine this year and about every break down came back to an old part that should have been replaced or an improper application of a part like my 6 volt fly wheel on a 12 volt engine. the short roof is a lagitament beef old mr larsen must have been one of those short sweeds like my grand mother because i could use about 8 more inches and mabe 12 inches in cabin length. and the final complaint the steering it works good for me steers plenty tight really steers good in deep snow and when pulling a sled the one thing i like is it will run so streight on a hard road on a long trip i pull out the hand throttle and walk to the back door to drai the lizzard cand do that with a thiokol because you always have to make steering corrections. i will submit it wont turn on a dime like hydrostatic drive but in deep snow or soft mud you'r not going too steer a thiokol or bombie that way too they just don't have the traction to steer that way in bottomless snow unless yoou are talking about something super wide and heavy like a 3700. the reason the st sold so good was it was reliable when used and maintained properly,it was afordable and it was sized right and light enough that you didn't need special equipment to move it around. the reason i like them so much is they are cheep to operate 1.5 gallons per hour makes it affordable to operate when gas is 4.50 per gallon.
 
ALLEN PARSONS said:
Ok it does have a couple small little faults maybe three or four, But that did not prevent it from becoming a good cat. It was made for short and deft people, who liked to get out in the snow and put the track back on, every now and then.
Look at the engineering of the........ it's so simple. I even over looked it.
What is a eases way to turn a track sideways. Beside using brut force. That is the hint of the day. The cookies are getting old
Click to expand...
don't understand the question are you for the word to fill in the ........
 
ALLEN PARSONS said:
Why did some cats make it, and some did not?
Well, lets start with the 300 series tucker. It was the about the same size as the ST4 and the same weight same length same width, and when it first came out it had a small VW motor the same as the ST4. So what went wrong. The ST4 was a big seller and the tucker, Well you could say the total number of tuckers sold you could count on your left hand.
I have been looking into tracks and suspensions, Yes the tucker had a good suspension for keeping the tracks flat on the snow. And a very good track system. You could put three ST4s on the end of a rope, and a 300 series tucker on the other end, And the tucker would not even work up a sweat as it polled the ST4s up the hill. But that is all the tucker had to offer. I think with my 323 They put the six in it to over come the problem of trying to turn the thing. Even with the six you still have a hard time turning. In first gear it will turn on a dime 2 gear you are lucky to get it to turn 3 gear forget it just hope the road is straight ahead of you. The cat is built to light and is to under powered for the heavy open medal track system. All other two track cats are built a lot stronger and have a rubber track.
But there is one cat that is very unique. This will make the line of ST4s owners very happy. Your cat over came the problem of lack of power in a very unique way. So that this cat could even handle a wide track and still turn
First it stuck to a light rubber Track
Second it had a very unique torque transfer system from one axle to the other for steering . With very little HP loss.
And the third reason is ......................
This made it all work so nicely together And made this cat a big seller
A BIG BOX OF GIRL GUIDE COOKIES TO THE FIRST ONE TO GET IT
hint ........ Not yet
Click to expand...
the third reason was it was affordable and worked cheep
 
It develops a lot of torque through the drive chains/sprockets with minimal power loss. It's also a large toboggan that paddles it's way across the snow on it's belly.....:yum:
 
Mtn-Track said:
It develops a lot of torque through the drive chains/sprockets with minimal power loss. It's also a large toboggan that paddles it's way across the snow on it's belly.....:yum:
Click to expand...
I've not been able to stick my st yetbut one upgrade i do want to make is to line the whole bottom with hdpe to get the best taboggin effect
 
ST4 engineering trials, the early days,.................
 

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folks around here thik they are mighty yummy i tryed some barbique seal ribs once the barbique sause just didn't go good with the fishy taste of the meat jmo.
 
dds said:
folks around here thik they are mighty yummy i tryed some barbique seal ribs once the barbique sause just didn't go good with the fishy taste of the meat jmo.
Click to expand...

You guys eat KRISTI snowcats, no wonder those things are so scarce :whistling:
 
Melensdad said:
That looks a lot more like a KRISTI to me.
Click to expand...


No, actually this is a shot of the secret prototype testing of the Kristi's. They didn't make many changes after this, except most I've seen have two shower heads.....one on each side if the windshield....:yum:
 

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that's funny Al hasn't even gone horse back riding and already the bath tub jokes are flying. they did change the color of the proototype krustys to orange i think that was so they could hide when around tuckers.
 
That might explain a few things...

I'll have to check, but I may have a Krusty hanging off each axle of my Tucker. All this time I thought Tucker made their own pontoons....:ermm:
 
Well a Krusty has a nice feature to I do believe. Can they not tilt the body of the cat into the curve when they are going really fast so they will not tip over. BUT HOW FAST IS FAST FOR THE CAT?????????
What I am looking for in the ST4s is something that will help make it turn really easy.
now take a elastic put one end around something horizontal, and that will be the front of the cat. Now take a pencil and put it into the elastic and pull it back a little, so you have two lines the bottom will be the bottom of the track,That pencil will be that back wheel. Now take the tip of a third pencil and put it into the elastic about two-thirds of the way down towards the back wheel. Now push down on that pencil just a little. What does the bottom of the track look like. That is the next clue. It all has something to do with the weight and where it is put onto the ground . Now why is that
 
Your talking about the floating rear wheel that makes perfect sence i never thaught that was why they did that i did realize it alowed the track to follow thw conture of the ground for improved traction but you are right it alaso helps to keep the rig in the tracks and ease the stersses on the rig when turning on harder material
 
Although my sidewalk plow is not considered a true snowcat because of it's weight and track width, it has all the other good parts of a snow cat. I've followed the Kristi bashing conversations on this forum and laughed at most of them. Big All seems to be the only one calling the STs snot tracks and "what not". As you can tell, I'm kinda partial to Bombardier and unfortunately, this great company that started in the small village of Valcourt Quebec has sold off it's snow cat (industrial) division to Prinoth, a German company. Mr. Bombardier tried and tested many different ways to travel on snow and came up with many innovations that are still being used today by other snow cat builders. If you really want a Snow Track, just make sure you don't become a fanatic...like this dude (Don, I hope that's not you...hahaha)
 

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Nice looking rack of rifles, Don't you think? I wonder what he is hunting in that "camo" suite he is wearing:yum::yum:

Errrr:ermm: I don't think it is dds, he doesn't ware glasses:whistling: and his ST isn't a tall cab (although he wants one)

Regards,Kirk
 
benz9 said:
Although my sidewalk plow is not considered a true snowcat because of it's weight and track width, it has all the other good parts of a snow cat. I've followed the Kristi bashing conversations on this forum and laughed at most of them. Big All seems to be the only one calling the STs snot tracks and "what not". As you can tell, I'm kinda partial to Bombardier and unfortunately, this great company that started in the small village of Valcourt Quebec has sold off it's snow cat (industrial) division to Prinoth, a German company. Mr. Bombardier tried and tested many different ways to travel on snow and came up with many innovations that are still being used today by other snow cat builders. If you really want a Snow Track, just make sure you don't become a fanatic...like this dude (Don, I hope that's not you...hahaha)
Click to expand...
you don't think they paint your bombies yellow for a reason do you?
 
Sorry for the eye sore...my sister found that and asked me if that would be me in 3 years....NOT.

DDS, you put a bug in my ear with that question about the yellow. I've looked at websites for the last 4 hours trying to get the real reason why Bombardier's were mostly yellow and didn't come up with anything. Does anyone have the answer (sorrry for being off topic...:neutral:)?
 
,OUCH, Frostbite in all the wrong places.
Don you are right. Do not eat all the cookies all at once and pass them around.
It's the floating rear wheel that is the trick in this cat. It takes the weight off the back of the track,and some off the front. Putting most of the weight on the back four
wheels Behind the leaf spring. In doing so the cat will want to pivot on that point making it very easy to turn. Those three reasons are the trick in allowing this cat to turn with only a 50 HP motor. There was not HP to use the brut force method in turning. Tucker tried and it failed. Is there any other cat that uses the floating rear wheel that you know of.
 
benz9 said:
. . . I've looked at websites for the last 4 hours trying to get the real reason why Bombardier's were mostly yellow and didn't come up with anything. Does anyone have the answer (sorrry for being off topic...:neutral:)?
Click to expand...

I suspect that is mostly a company identity issue. Just like "Yellow Taxi Cabs" are yellow and "Checker Cabs (in Chicago) are Green & White with black & white checkers on them.

Yellow snowcats = Bombardier

Reddish Orange = Snow Trac

Medium Orange = Tucker

Dark Orange = Kristi

Some of the reason ALL of the brands are 'high visibility' colors are because they are easier to see if there is a breakdown in snowy remote areas, so I suspect that is a reason most snowcats are in that color range. All of that is pure speculation but it makes sense.
 
Well I wish I had never seen "The Picture":doh: But(no not butt), I don't recall seeing the Snow Trac with a short body style like that one. It would be much easier to get in and out of if you don't need the extra cargo space especially with the taller cab. Does anyone out there have one of these shortened bodies our is it a possible mod?
 
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