Hydraulic snowmobile

[J_J]

YouTube - Racoon 2 Wheel Drive Hydrostatic Motorcycle

 

[brokenot]

The guys at Hydraulic Innovations have built some neat toys, but nothing they've done translates that well to what the OP wants to do here. Neither their Raccoon mini-bike nor their diesel hydrostatic motorcycle are doing any *real* work. Back when gas was upwards of $4 a gallon, they had a hydrostatic car on the drawing board, and were touting the "efficiency" of hydrostatic propulsion. I mentioned the various inefficiencies once, and one of them replied that CVTs were the wave of the future and were the most efficient transmission types available. While that's true, trying to build an efficient vehicle CVT using a hydrostat is shooting yourself in the foot. You're starting out with hydraulic components that all have their individual built-in inefficiencies, and then trying to re-invent the wheel by making an efficient transmission out of them.

I think looking at real-world, existing examples like the post about the Power Trac is the best way to go here. Another example would be these:

We have several of these in the rental fleet....gas and diesel. 25 hp or so in all of them. They have plenty of pushing or pulling power at walking speeds, but are not going to approach anything near the kinds of speeds the OP wants to achieve....even under the no pushing/pulling load conditions. If those desired speeds are achieved, then torque will be gone, and those speeds will only be obtainable on totally flat, hard, level ground.

There's really no way around it.

 

[AKKAMAAN]

The guys at Hydraulic Innovations have built some neat toys, but nothing they've done translates that well to what the OP wants to do here. Neither their Raccoon mini-bike nor their diesel hydrostatic motorcycle are doing any *real* work. Back when gas was upwards of $4 a gallon, they had a hydrostatic car on the drawing board, and were touting the "efficiency" of hydrostatic propulsion. I mentioned the various inefficiencies once, and one of them replied that CVTs were the wave of the future and were the most efficient transmission types available. While that's true, trying to build an efficient vehicle CVT using a hydrostat is shooting yourself in the foot. You're starting out with hydraulic components that all have their individual built-in inefficiencies, and then trying to re-invent the wheel by making an efficient transmission out of them.

I think looking at real-world, existing examples like the post about the Power Trac is the best way to go here. Another example would be these:

We have several of these in the rental fleet....gas and diesel. 25 hp or so in all of them. They have plenty of pushing or pulling power at walking speeds, but are not going to approach anything near the kinds of speeds the OP wants to achieve....even under the no pushing/pulling load conditions. If those desired speeds are achieved, then torque will be gone, and those speeds will only be obtainable on totally flat, hard, level ground.

There's really no way around it.

+1 (again)
:thumbsup:
:thumbsup:

 

[Jstpssng]

I've considered building a twin track sled from two junkers for grooming my personal trails. Hydrostatic would be good in that application for turning individual tracks under load & not needing more than about 15 mph. Could also power a hydraulic winch or grooming drag. Doubt it would be very practical for a general riding sled.
If you build anything please post, pass or fail. Sometimes more ultimately comes from failure than success. MikeD74t

I once saw an old Volkswagen Beetle with skis on front and tracks and tunnels from 2 old Bombardier Olympics on the rear. It was at an antique sled show so I'm not sure how well it worked; but it sure looked different.:thumbsup:

 

[jake98]

How about making a front loader attachment out of it for clearing the snow off your roof? You could run it off the tractor's hydraulics then..

 

[jjeff]

Thanks guys for your insight and responses, I might try to find a different older steel chassis that is lighter so I would hopefully be able to use a smaller motor and arrange things how I wanted to, This would also allow me to drop my top speed significantly as this new Idea would be the equivalent of a "garden tractor for snow" Basically used to haul things around on packed trails and run hydraulic implements off such as my log splitter. In any case thanks for all the replies and my new search continues I will keep you guys posted when progress is made......
Jeff