How to make a snowmobile with a scooter engine

How to make a snowmobile from a scooter with your own hands

Dear visitors to the “ Samade Friend ” website, today we will look at one of the options for assembling a snowmobile from a scooter with your own hands. Mainly that no fundamental changes have been made to the design and the scooter can be easily converted from a snowmobile into an all-terrain vehicle) A moped or scooter is an excellent and moderately economical means of transportation, both in the city and in rural areas. This type of transport is especially popular among teenagers, because it is an intermediate link between a bicycle and a real motorcycle) With the onset of cold weather, motorcycles are placed in the garage and remain there until spring, but not in our case, because a scooter is made into an excellent snowmobile for fishing trips)

The ski is borrowed from a children's snow scooter; a metal guide is installed at the bottom so that the snowmobile feels stable on the road. The ski also has a floating position, that is, when tilted, it remains flat on the snow.

The track protection is made of fiberglass, the fork also has a decorative lining and a fairing in case of long trips with headwinds. The author made special supports for the legs.

And so, let's move directly to the assembly itself.

Materials

Tools

Step-by-step instructions for assembling a snowmobile from a scooter with your own hands.

A kart wheel is used as a leading star. The wheel is fitted with a metal band with teeth made from PVC pipes secured with furniture bolts. The driven star is from a Buran snowmobile, with wheels from a trolley added to the sides. Wheels from a children's scooter were used as support rollers.

Assembling the caterpillar and installing it on the scooter. The track protection is made of fiberglass.

Ski fastening and facing. Ski from a children's snowmobile. Testing a snowmobile on loose snow.

Source

Snowmobiles made from motoblocks

The design of snowmobiles made from walk-behind tractors is much simpler, regardless of the walk-behind tractor model.

In them, a gear drive ensures the rotation of two wheels. Therefore, to make a snowmobile, it is enough to install wide rollers with snow hooks instead of standard wheels.

Some craftsmen go further, installing tracked modules on the drive shafts, which are three rollers mounted on an axle on which a caterpillar is mounted. The leading roller is usually the middle one, so it is made geared, and the other two are guides.

I made a homemade snowmobile with a moped engine: showing the design

A simple homemade snowmobile made with your own hands from spare parts from a moped. Below is a photo and description of the snowmobile design.

To make the simplest homemade snowmobile you will need an old moped, welding and some scrap metal.

The frame is made of profile pipe, the frame is installed on support skis. It’s better to buy ready-made skis, after all, skis are the basis of a snowmobile, but if that doesn’t work out, you can make your own from duralumin.

The motor mount is also redesigned to fit a wider snowmobile base. Here you can get by with ordinary metal corners and arc welding. A drive wheel with lugs is also easy to make yourself. The transmission of rotation from the motor to the wheel is chain. Do not try to make huge lugs; if frozen soil gets under the lug of a homemade snowmobile at the moment of full throttle, there is a high probability that the chain will break.

You can make a muffler yourself.

The moped launcher is being converted to a manual start. All the same, in felt boots it is impossible to start it by pulling the crank with your foot.

A box welded under a seat on a homemade snowmobile is good for storing keys and spare parts.

As you can see, making a homemade snowmobile with your own hands in the garage is quite simple. This snowmobile develops quite good speed on packed snow and ice. Great homemade product for winter trips!

Source

The second option for creating a snowmobile

If you have a walk-behind tractor in your arsenal, then by the way, its engine with 6 horsepower will be very useful. To move the device you will need to have tracks.

You can purchase a special motorcycle installation kit on specialized websites that are dedicated to the topic of creating a snowmobile with your own hands. Thanks to this equipment, any motorcycle can easily be converted into a snowmobile.

Read also: Is it possible to brew cast iron with a semi-automatic machine?

This kit includes a crawler engine with two tracks and a replacement ski that is installed in place of the front wheel. With a track footprint of no more than 120 kg, they are an excellent option for a portable snowmobile.

At the next stage, the walk-behind engine, seat and collapsible front part are installed. To achieve greater stability of the snowmobile, it is necessary to use two skis in front.

In the manufacture of a collapsible frame, pipes measuring 25*25 and 50*50 mm are used. Seats for a snowmobile can be taken from a small scooter, and the handlebars can be taken from a bicycle. To ensure convenience while driving 20 km, it is advisable to install the engine with a clutch on a quick-release platform. Using pipes and wheel forks from old bicycles in the frame design of a homemade snowmobile will allow you to obtain rotating racks.

As you can see, it is not so difficult to create a snowmobile from a motorcycle with your own hands.

Making a snowmobile from a scooter with your own hands

In good weather, a motorcycle scooter with a small engine capacity has always been in demand not only among young people, but also among adults. Because it was distinguished by its ease of operation, lightness and good speed. But unfortunately, when cold weather sets in, due to the small diameter of the wheels, riding a scooter becomes very uncomfortable, and in snowy weather, even wearing winter tires is completely unrealistic.

Having studied various motorcycle magazines, it was noticed that there are caterpillar movers on sale; they can be installed instead of the rear wheel, which will lead to the transformation of the motorcycle into a snowmobile.

Video

The author demonstrates his invention in the form of a homemade all-terrain snowmobile. The equipment copes well with deep snow and water obstacles. This device is perfect for extreme walks.

For some reason my post was deleted in the Kulibin Club community. Maybe someone here will be interested:

This weekend we’ll throw on our skis and chain and head out! True, there is no plastic lining yet.

Some photos:

And this is the snowmobile that stands in the background in all issues:

Tools and materials

The required components will be:

supporting elements (wheels, runners or tracks of your choice);

gear and transmission links;

fuel tank;

steering controls;

the frame on which all other components rest.

Most often, snowmobiles are not mounted on tracks or skis, as is usually thought, but on wide pneumatic wheels.

Many craftsmen use bicycle or motorcycle rims.

But the most passionate people make them with their own hands. The following can be used to make tracks:

Additionally you will need:

a star transmitting and receiving impulse;

one or more seats;

fasteners (nuts, bolts, screws);

Local history. Abstracts. Tourism

On the Internet, including on the YouTube channel, there are a huge number of technical solutions (homemade products) for winter riding on motorcycles and mopeds.

The simplest option for moped stability on snow is three studded wheels.

The principle of a seasonal low-budget transformation of your favorite iron friend into a conqueror of snowdrifts, urban snow-ice mess and icy expanses comes down to solving just two problems of confident grip on non-uniform curved surfaces ( spikes )

You screw self-tapping screws into a completely dead scooter tire that was thrown away, or that you can buy for half a dollar. From the inside of course)))

and confident maneuvering of your vehicle ( ski on a spring fork ). Drawings with actual manufacturing details can be found online.

Craftsmen throughout the post-Soviet space solve these problems with approximately the same logic. And this logic is more effective than buying special snowmobiles. Still, in most of our open spaces, owning a snowmobile, much less one that costs tens of thousands of dollars, is a completely unnecessary thing. And the ability to work with your own motorcycle or moped is a vital thing. It's cooler than sex!

What does a branded BMW motorcycle snowmobile look like and what is most important about it??

The most important thing in a branded snowmobile is handling (front ski) and biting into the snow (rear drive track). And of course depreciation

The track design is roller, therefore, unlike the slip system of snowmobiles, it is possible to ride it even through swamps or quicksand. Although, wallowing in a swamp is much more disgusting than in pure snow, and you can drive on wheels on any sand. But it’s worth knowing about the Explorer’s versatility, if only for the sake of broadening your horizons.

I would like to say that among tuning kits that replace wheels with skis and tracks, Explorer is by no means exclusive. Other companies offer similar options. Dimensions that ensure controllability and safety:

Ski width	200 mm
Track width	292 mm
Adjusting the ski height	100 mm
Motorcycle tilt angle compensated by ski hinge	up to 6 degrees
Price	RUB 151,000

Now about the possibilities and achievements of our native nuggets to transform their non-native technology into our invincible and incomprehensible one.

Scooter Yamaha jog Drift. Sladeways ice Drifting on a Yamaha scooter on ice Scooter-Moto Life Published: September 28 2014 Scooter Yamaha jog drift. Sladeways ice Drifting on a Yamaha jog SA16 scooter on ice in winter on studded tires.

Spike Moto Tires - How To Spike Moto Tire Stuntexru Published: 14 Dec. 2014. The video shows the tedious process of studding tires from a sportbike with construction screws. Both wheels took 10,000 screws!

Drawing of a steering ski for a snowmobile.

One of the steering ski options for a motorized snowmobile, drawing, dimensions, materials

Steering ski: 1 – ski (aspen board 180×15); 2 — sole (aluminum, sheet s1); 3 — guide (duralumin corner 25×25); 4 — bracket (steel pipe with a diameter of 10); 5 — support bracket (StZ, sheet s3); 6 — strut fork (from the universal joint); 7 — stand (StZ, circle with a diameter of 32); 8 — steering knuckle body (StZ, pipe 032); 9 tie rod fork (from the universal joint); 10 — hinge (M8 bolt); 11 — steering knuckle lever with bushing; 12 — pin (M8 bolt); 13 — bushing (bronze, 2 pcs.); 14 — axle (M12 stud with two nuts); 15 — bushing (nylon, 2 pcs.); 16 — hinge body (1/2″ pipe)

Manufacturing

Making a snowmobile from a scooter with your own hands is not that difficult. No special adjustments to the original design are required. In this case, it will be possible to easily replace tracks with wheels and back when the weather changes. It is recommended to take tracks and driven sprockets from Buran snowmobiles. Additionally, a pair of wheels from a children's scooter and a pair of medium-sized wheels from any cart (with the addition of roller bearings) are used.

The drive wheel must be replaced with a propeller of a much smaller diameter. This is due to the need to adjust the gear ratio.

The fact is that scooters by default allow travel at a speed of 40 to 60 km/h, and on first-class roads. When driving in snowy areas, the load on the engine increases. Excessive speed is also a source of risk.

Next, focusing on the main wheel disk, cut out the brake drum and splines for the drive shaft. A small-diameter disk is secured by first punching a hole in the drum with a drill. Making homemade hooks helps prevent the caterpillar from slipping off the wheel and sliding during movement. They are obtained using PVC water pipes. Such hooks have to be inserted into the holes of the caterpillar.

Then they take flat roofing iron and prepare a bandage of a suitable diameter. Hooks are fixed on such a bandage using furniture bolts. Fasteners must be placed at a constant distance. The pitch is determined by the placement of the holes. A soft star is made on the basis of a simple wheel.

The frame is obtained using a metal angle and square pipes. The dimensions of the frame and its parts must be selected independently. At the same time, they take into account what kind of scooter the snowmobile is based on and what kind of caterpillar is used.

If there are no plastic skis from children's scooters, you can make an exact wooden analogue by hand. The ski is attached to the front fork using a special rack.

Usually there are 2 levels of freedom of movement. No matter where the scooter leans when moving, 100% of the ski plane remains exactly on the snow. It is worth taking care of installing a wide support platform for the feet and a small decorative shield under the front fork. Recommendation: For long trips in winter, you will definitely need a windshield. Typical scooter body kits will have to be redesigned because they do not tolerate extreme cold well and are susceptible to snow accumulation in the “pockets.”

Additionally, a casing is installed to protect the caterpillar. It is formed from polycarbonate, plexiglass or other synthetic materials. The side part of the casing is cut out carefully. The workpiece is transferred to a large sheet, which turns out to be the wall of the matrix. We fix the plastic corners with hot glue around the perimeter at equal intervals.

After cutting a strip of flexible plastic of small thickness that exactly matches the width of the casing, assembly of the matrix begins.

Then the fiberglass fabric is cut into the required fragments. All joints are coated with plasticine. You need to keep the matrix for about 24 hours.

Next, you should consider making a snowmobile from a Chinese scooter with a 50cc engine.

In this case:

the frame is made of steel profile 50x50;

the drive is taken from the expanded wheel;

the caterpillar cart is formed from a profile and corners taken from a school desk;

Silent blocks from Zhiguli are used as hinges;

slimes are made from a thick water pipe (plastic);

To obtain skis, extenders for snowmobiles are used.

There is no particular point in installing engines of 150 cc or larger. They are really needed only by people going on long tourist trips or engaged in hunting and fishing professionally. This is what a drawing of a homemade tracked snowmobile frame looks like. The width in the frontal plane is 0.7 m, and at the rear - 0.4 m. The height reaches 0.5 m, and the total length is 1.25 m.

We're starting to remodel

So what is the main goal? To use the scooter for its intended purpose in the summer and as a snowmobile in the winter, minimal changes will need to be made to the design. Namely? remove the wheels and install a ski in place of the front one, in place of the rear one? mover.

We fasten the ski with our own hands using a stand, in which the left and right sides work separately, independently of each other (or, in other words, a frame made of corners on top, and a rod on the bottom). This type of design is extremely safe because, firstly, it helps the ski stay on the snow surface. Secondly, the scooter-snowmobile will not spontaneously go sideways, will not become uncontrollable on ice, and the wear of the ski when moving on asphalt is minimal. Besides, a rod? According to its function, it must be a skate, not straight, but semicircular, so that the steering wheel can freely turn in different directions both on snow and ice.

We continue to make a vehicle with our own hands, and now it’s the turn of the caterpillar, which stands in place of the rear wheel.

So, you will need a driven sprocket from a snowmobile? Buran?, two wheels, small, with roller bearings, a wheel with a diameter like that of a moped. So, we cut out the splines with the brake drum from the moped wheel and, having drilled a hole in it, insert a smaller disc there. To prevent the mover from sliding off the resulting wheel, we make similar hooks with our own hands from the plastic water pipes that were used for the caterpillar.

We take roofing metal and make a bandage out of it with our own hands, for which we attach hooks to furniture screws at a distance, taking into account the location of the holes on the caterpillar. That is, by attaching the bandage to the moped wheel with hooks, we get a drive sprocket for the propeller.

Now you will need to connect the Buranov star with two roller wheels with M8 bolts, and a pin (M10 thread) will be used as an axis. A square pipe and metal corners are suitable as a frame for the caterpillar. It is difficult to name any specific dimensions, since in this matter it is necessary to proceed from the brand of the scooter itself and from the size of the track.

Recommendations

It is worth considering that ready-made foreign samples most often have to be modified and modified. The thing is that they are not designed for deep snow. One of the most affordable engine “donors” are the powerful Ural and Druzhba gasoline saws. You can also use a Stihl saw as a base, which is slightly more advanced than previous samples. In addition, it is easier to find spare parts for newer engines.

It is useful to remember that a snowmobile with a chainsaw engine cannot carry large loads. In most cases, such structures are designed for one seat. But they are great for children. For driving at night, it is recommended to use headlights. They will also help out in bad weather.

Particular attention should be paid to the gearbox. In many ways, the reliability of the vehicle as a whole depends on it. The sprockets are secured to the track shaft with a nut.

You just need to make a suitable thread. They work in a similar way with the shaft and its sprockets.

Inexperienced and inexperienced people should equip their snowmobile with any simple handlebar. Even a standard road bike handlebar will do. But the simplicity of the control scheme will result in the complexity of manually adjusting the speed. The use of handlebars removed from mopeds or scooters helps to make riding easier. To avoid mistakes, it is recommended to draw up sketches and diagrams in advance, indicating dimensions and profiles.

The tip for transmitting mechanical force on the right must be longer than the same tip on the left. It is necessary to carefully consider the connection of any motor to the steering wheel. It is errors at this stage of work that often cause unpredictable behavior of the snowmobile - and they are very difficult to detect. A braking system is practically unnecessary for homemade snowmobiles. The only exceptions are children's models and items designed for travel to hard-to-reach places.

To learn how to make a snowmobile from a scooter with your own hands, see below.

Source

Video: Homemade snowmobile from village craftsmen

In winter, using motorcycles with factory equipment is almost impossible.

The only ones that can somehow move on snow cover are motorcycles equipped with side trailers, and the drive wheel is re-shod with rubber with deep tread.

But even then, it is not possible to use such motorcycles on all surfaces.

On uncleared roads, it is sometimes possible to travel only on snowmobiles. But not everyone has the opportunity to purchase a snowmobile, and it is not always economically feasible.

In this case, “skillful hands” come to the rescue. After all, it is quite possible to convert an ordinary wheeled motorcycle into a full-fledged snowmobile, and even no special intervention in the design is required.

Therefore, in summer such a motorcycle can be used for its intended purpose, and in winter it can be converted into a snowmobile.

It’s clear that it’s unlikely that anyone would agree to remake expensive sports or touring bikes, but it’s quite possible to remake domestic “hard workers”.

Next, we’ll look at how you can make a snowmobile from the most common Soviet motorcycles - “Minsk”, IZH, Ural. We will also consider walk-behind tractors as a snowmobile, which have now become very popular in homestead farming.