by "Pickup_man" (zekeh)
Published 11/28/2017 at 11:41
by "Pickup_man" (zekeh)
Published 11/28/2017 at 11:41
No Tags
STARS: 16
Just wrapped up this little project, just in time for near record highs and no snow forecast for nearly a month. Still, I’m pretty excited to get this done.
I’ve been wanting to mount a ski on the front of my 3 wheeler ever since the first winter I had it. With a set of snow oriented paddle tires on the back it goes through an impressive amount of snow, but eventually the front tire sinks in, loads up, and forward progress comes to a halt. I’ve always thought it could do better.
I’m not the first person to mount a ski on the front of a 3 wheeler, but I was never super impressed with the home built ones that I’ve seen. I’ve always wanted to build my own, and make it better than what I’ve seen before. The biggest hold up was finding the right ski. The skis I found were either smaller than I wanted, or very expensive. That was until I happened to be in my old college town during what we affectionately call junk days where, conveniently, four brand new skis were laying by the curb. I grabbed my two favorites, roped them to my Sportster in the sketchiest manner possible, and made my way back to a friend’s place in town instead of riding the 60 miles home with two skis loosely tied to my saddle bags.
From there is was as easy as coming up with a design, and having the parts cut, which being an engineer with access to CAD and a laser cutter was pretty easy, and free.
With the design complete and the parts cut I mocked everything up, stuck it all together with my crappy flux core welder (wish I would have just tacked it and had a professional finish weld), and mounted it on the trike. I think it looks fricken awesome. (It has since been taken back off and painted white, and is ready to go back on)
Being an engineer there’s already changes I want to make to the design, but I’ll see how it performs and go from there.
All that’s left is to wait for the temps to drop, the rivers and lakes to freeze, and the snow to fall. I can hardly wait.
"HFV has no HFV. But somehow has 2 motorcycles" (hondasfordsvolvo)
11/28/2017 at 11:46, STARS: 4
That looks like a terrible idea. All the understeer of a snowmobile, and the regular silliness that is a theee wheeler. I love it.
"benjrblant" (benjblant)
11/28/2017 at 11:55, STARS: 3
I really hope you have a gopro.
"Pickup_man" (zekeh)
11/28/2017 at 11:58, STARS: 3
Honestly I’m not sure it can be any worse than just the tire, with the wide axle I have on it, and those paddle tires getting this thing to turn in the snow is quite the ordeal. I have to basically lay on top of the bars to get traction on the front, and steer with the throttle, it’s very fun.
This ski has an incredibly tall rib on the bottom so hopefully it’ll steer pretty well, and with a good carbide runner on the bottom it should handle pretty well on ice. I guess we’ll see once we actually get snow.
"Pickup_man" (zekeh)
11/28/2017 at 11:59, STARS: 3
Dad has one somewhere, I’ll try to get some video this winter. I also have a friend with a good drone that shoots in HD, I’ll bring him along as well.
"Wacko" (wacko--)
11/28/2017 at 12:07, STARS: 1
now you can go homemade tracks like this
or find a used yeti system
"Pickup_man" (zekeh)
11/28/2017 at 12:21, STARS: 2
Thought about that, these paddle tires go through an impressive amount of snow and I’m pretty happy with them. Who knows though I might build one someday.
"MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s" (mastermario)
11/28/2017 at 13:00, STARS: 0
Shouldn’t you have some sort of limiting strap/bracket? I don’t have much experience with snowmobiles, but I don’t think the skis are free to rotate a ton. I’d be worried about the front tip of the ski jamming itself into the side of ditch or something. Maybe I’m way off here though and the odds of that happening are slim.
"Pickup_man" (zekeh)
11/28/2017 at 14:16, STARS: 1
That’s one thing that I’m hoping to learn. As it sits it is somewhat limited due to the mounting brackets. The front of the ski can go down far enough that the ski is a few degrees away from being parallel with the forks. I’ve also placed the brackets so that the ski is slightly back heavy. In the event that I get the front end in the air the ski should hopefully go tip up, instead of tip down. If it doesn’t work the way I hope I’ll add a better limiting bracket/strap and spring to ensure that it always goes tip up.
"BobintheMtns" (bobinthemtns)
11/28/2017 at 18:08, STARS: 1
Sick!
"pip bip - choose Corrour" (hhgttg69)
11/29/2017 at 05:27, STARS: 1
snow?
summer here
8)
"Spanfeller is a twat" (theaspiringengineer)
12/04/2017 at 10:59, STARS: 0
Maybe it’d be great if you could put a double ski up front, just for balance I guess.... Camber them so that its hard for it to sink on powder snow and banks!
Sort of like this Yamaha, dual wheels for stability....
I’m not an engineer (yet!) so I may be talking nonsense
"Pickup_man" (zekeh)
12/04/2017 at 11:06, STARS: 0
I’m not worried about balance, the key with a 3 wheeler is knowing how to ride it, plus this one is modified and 9" wider, and 4" longer than stock, it’s more stable than most 4 wheelers I’ve ridden.
I considered two ski’s, but decided to go with one for a couple of reasons. First, this is a pretty big ski, and the 3 wheeler is pretty light so I think it’ll float pretty well. Sounds like we should have some snow within the next week so we’ll find out soon. Secondly a setup like this;
I think would be too difficult to turn, especially with large skis. You could come up with some linkages so that they pivot independently instead of rotating the entire assembly around the steering neck, but that gets complicated and heavy. Plus at that point you pretty much have a four wheeler, and where’s the fun in that?
"Spanfeller is a twat" (theaspiringengineer)
12/04/2017 at 11:15, STARS: 1
I like independent linkages, but I also see your interest in keeping it simple and light!