building a small groomer puller

Liquifire 4/6 · Post by **Liquifire 4/6** » Fri Aug 15, 2008 1:39 am

JDT wrote:Be carefull not to pull to much heat out of the coolant. I have no idea what the min coolant/operating temp of this engine is but 29Kbtu is a lot of exchange.

Good point, Todd. I hope to maintain an engine operating temp of around 160 F, but I don't know how much this heater will draw out of it. I suppose if it's sucking too much heat out of the coolant, I can run the fan on low or medium and, like you say, run some sort of circulating fan besides. The coolant will flow direct from the engine into the heater, and then over to a radiator (from a Polaris Magnum 500) with a thermostatically controlled fan (kicks in at 208 F). I doubt the rad fan will need to run very much of the time.

It's around midnight and I'm still in the shop. Spent all evening building a gear selector indicator. The Sportsman that the transmission came out of had a gear position indicator inside the speedometer, but since I'm not using the ATV speedo, I had to come up with some way of displaying the gear position. I had ordered some LED pilot lights awhile ago for this purpose. The LED's are in five different colors. I'll be installing the LED's in the holes I bored in this chunk of aluminum. I cut up one of my acrylic slat wall shelves to go over the aluminum block and used a label maker with clear tape. The P,R,N,L,H are printed in mirror image and installed on the underside of the acrylic. I'm hoping the colored lights will highlight the letters reasonably well. I'll test it out tomorrow.

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Liquifire 4/6 · Post by **Liquifire 4/6** » Fri Aug 15, 2008 11:15 am

I finished the gear indicator this morn and it seems to work fine. Hope those LED's work well in the cold of winter.

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Post by **ICCSF 108** » Sun Aug 17, 2008 12:20 am

Pete, The work you have done on this machine is truly amazing...

Looking great

Kenny

Mr. Deere · Post by **Mr. Deere** » Sun Aug 17, 2008 4:49 pm

WOW. That is Amazing. Hey you need a radio for that. I have one you can have.

Liquifire 4/6 · Post by **Liquifire 4/6** » Sun Aug 17, 2008 8:04 pm

Thanks Kenny and Bob. I gotta admit, I'm fairly pleased with the way most of it is turning out. Just hope it's gonna run reliably and perform well.

Bob, thanks so much for the offer of a radio. What kind is it? Can you email me a pic or two of it to ziggy_snowdust2000@yahoo.ca A radio was definately in my plan. I still have the Sirius satellite radio from my old truck and intend to install it in this contraption. It's just one of those FM modulated units, so I'll still need a decent AM/FM radio to play it through. If yours has FM, I'm sure it'll work just fine.

I spent all day (a Sunday even) trying to construct a chain tensioner. I've got it mostly done, but still need to mount it to the frame.....maybe if it cools off some in my shop later tonight, I might get back at it, but it's like an oven in there right now. This pics not much to look at....it's just a shot of the tensioner bracket jigged up in my vise ready to weld. Just had to show you guys I ain't been sittin on my butt all day.

I need some opinions on what to build the body panels out of. My intentions were to use diamond plate aluminum. However, a good buddy of mine who keeps stopping by my shop every day to check on the progress showed up this morning. He insists that I should not use the diamond plate because he figures that will give it a distinctly homemade look. He went further to say that since I've been fairly thorough with everything else, it wouldn't be proper to finish it with the aluminum. My plan had been to use stainless steel screws and nutserts to attach the panels. He suggests that I use some type of smooth body panels and paint them. This is doable, but vastly more complex, given my limited amount of knowledge with body work. I do have access to some 1/8" as well as 1/4" thick plastic sheeting. The problem would be how to attach it to the frame without having a bunch of exposed screw heads or rivets. I could countersink them if I used the 1/4" stuff and then fill over them....but man, that's alot of work (and the 1/4" stuff is pretty darn heavy too). I've been scratching my head all day wondering if there's some product that would properly bond the 1/8" plastic panels to the steel framework. Perhaps the Fusor I used on the gauge pod might do the job.....but it's pretty expensive to use to attach the entire body work. Anyways, what do you guys think? Diamond plate aluminum? Plastic panels? smooth painted aluminum? fibreglass?......other suggestions?

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Liquifire 4/6 · Post by **Liquifire 4/6** » Sun Aug 17, 2008 10:36 pm

I towed it outside this evening and took a couple pics. It was getting fairly dark out so the pics aren't the best.

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427cobra · Post by **427cobra** » Mon Aug 18, 2008 8:43 am

Im thinking that diamond plate around the bottom and metal paneling for the rest. Similar to what you see on some enclosed trailers. I think that would look pretty sharp....

Looking forward to seeing it run. How much weight do you think it will be able to pull?

Mr. Deere · Post by **Mr. Deere** » Mon Aug 18, 2008 4:08 pm

Nice. Are you Plexing the Windows or using real glass. I will send you some pics.

_FIII · Post by **_FIII** » Tue Aug 19, 2008 12:37 am

From my experience alum diamond plate hides scratches and dents very well as opposed to flat sheet. The down side is that it oxidises and loses its luster. Just make sure there are no raw edges. Either make a 90 degree bend or at least a hem, so that any edges stay nice and straight, unless you are welding all the corners?

Mr. Deere · Post by **Mr. Deere** » Tue Aug 19, 2008 10:11 am

Heck just go with Stainless Panels. No worry and it will never dull.

JDT · Post by **JDT** » Tue Aug 19, 2008 10:13 am

Bob may be right. Give it that DeLoreon look.

_FIII · Post by **_FIII** » Tue Aug 19, 2008 12:11 pm

Mr. Deere wrote:Heck just go with Stainless Panels. No worry and it will never dull.

you had better supply the stainless BOB. At $12 a square foot for 16ga it adds up in a hurry. Plus if you look at it the wrong way it scratches.

I say just use hot rolled steel and paint or powder coat it. Cheapest and still agood product in the end.

Liquifire 4/6 · Post by **Liquifire 4/6** » Tue Aug 19, 2008 1:08 pm

_FIII wrote:I say just use hot rolled steel and paint or powder coat it. Cheapest and still agood product in the end.

Thanks for the suggestions, fellows. Actually, I really have alot of people to thank for all their help. One of the members in here has donated a few really sharp looking brand new halogen lights for this rig. Bob had volunteered a radio (but a local guy gave me a free Pioneer yesterday). There are two welding shops here in town. The owners of both have provided lots of assistence. One has given me lots of free metal as well as some free machining work on the shafts. The other has been more than kind in lending me a metal bending brake......and this moring, after reading FIII's suggestion of using hot rolled steel, I went to Kenco's welding shop to look at some samples. I decided to go with 20 gauge for the body work. Then, I asked the owner of the shop for ideas on how to attach it to the frame. He quickly pulls a large spot welder out of the corner of his shop and says, "here, just use this thing and I don't care if you need to keep it for 4 or 5 months". That was pretty darn decent of him. I think it'll work great and I shouldn't need to do much filling over the spot welds prior to painting it. I'd also like to thank all of you members who have offered ideas and suggestions...as well as those of many of my buddies and relatives that frequently stop by my shop. I likely won't be posting much here for a 4-6 weeks as I'll be busy with harvest for awhile.....so I'll only be toying with it on rainy days.

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Liquifire 4/6 · Post by **Liquifire 4/6** » Tue Aug 19, 2008 1:12 pm

427cobra wrote:Looking forward to seeing it run. How much weight do you think it will be able to pull?

I'm really not sure, Eric. My groomer doesn't weigh a whole bunch by itself, but when you adjust it low to get a good cut on the trail, it's a pretty heavy pull. My Widetrack handled it fairly well and I sure hope this thing will perform as well or better.

Liquifire 4/6 · Post by **Liquifire 4/6** » Tue Aug 19, 2008 1:17 pm

Mr. Deere wrote:Nice. Are you Plexing the Windows or using real glass. I will send you some pics.

I'll be using auto safety glass on the front windshield because I may decide to install a windshield wiper on it and the wiper would scratch any material other than real glass. The rear and side windows will be about 1/8" lexan. I'm hoping to build the door out of 1/4" lexan......I need the added thickness there because I am hoping to construct a frameless door. The door will likely be one of the toughest things to build because I'll need to bend it in one area to follow the body line. I think that if I use just the right amount of heat, it'll bend ok. Guess I'll see when the time comes. Thanks again for the offer on the radio.