looks a little wider than my rhino !!! lol

What? They didn't have Polarises back then??

Isnt that new 2010 popo? they were trying to make them lighter,but were unsuccesfull,lol

must be lol

i would bet it's actually lighter then a Sportsman lol

You guys don't want to know what it weighed. When we were planning it, we hoped we could keep it under 2000 pounds, but we did not count on some re-inforcing we had to do to synchronize the legs. The legs actually move in an arc moving from a position allowing the base of the vehicle to rest on the ground for use in muskegs, lakes and rivers to a position where the wheels are under the hulls. The front legs move independently of the rear legs and each set can be stopped in any position. We proved its cability by climbing over a beaver damn from the low side up and over and back again. Going down was certainly much easier than going up.

Now why would you climb over a beaver dam, is that not disturbing the poor bugger and its family's natural habitat. Driving that through lakes and rivers sounds awfully damaging to the enviroment. Your greenpeace friend probably doesn't know about this does he?

LOL,well said offroad,well said!! I think someone owe's an appoligy (sp)

That was back in my youth before I understood that one should not disturb the wetland engineers - now I just shoot them and dig up their damns so I can make my way through without the need of a boat. If the damn trappers would do their job I wouldn't have to do it for them.....

Unbelievable hypocryte! Definately know to not take anything you say seriously.

So olegeezer did it have any suspension? And I assume it floated? What is the hull made of? What kind of engine & drivetrain? Looks like you started out with a Versatile tractor! lol

Oh, and is the cab air conditioned??

Looks like an interesting job of homemade engineering.

[quote=olegeezer]That was back in my youth before I understood that one should not disturb the wetland engineers - now I just shoot them and dig up their damns so I can make my way through without the need of a boat. If the damn trappers would do their job I wouldn't have to do it for them.....[/quote]


WOW BUDDY!!! You go from chewing us up for driving in water to saying how much of a responsible person you are to shooting beavers,what is the name of the green peace freind you had join this site,they maybe interested to now you are just like the rest of us,except we tell the truth and dont try to hide behind things and make ourselves look like we are the best thing going.

Gee shoot a beaver, I thought you where supposed to eat them lol.

thats the shaved beaver your supposed to eat not the one on the nickel. just a rumour if you eat 5 nickels you'll shit a quarter!

Like most do gooders. It's do as I say not as I do. Kind of like Al Gore. Quick to think that if everyone does what they should, it won't be so necessary for them!

Air conditioning - yes - suspension - no, floats and propels itself across lakes, sloughs and rivers - hulls for prototype were sheet steel covered with sheet plastic, similar to cutting boards. Powered by a 80 hp Honda 4 cylinder truck engine, auto transmission to front and back locked differentials - chain drive to the wheels, either 2 wheel or 4 wheel drive. We shot a lot of video while putting it through a number of tests; however, over the years, it has been misplaced; otherwise, I would put it up on YouTube. We couldn't find the funding to commercialize it even though we certainly got a lot of interest in showing it to folks in the petroleum industry. The actual model we would have commercialized would have had a light weight diesel with hydraulic motors on each set of wheels, the hulls would have been molded composite plastic etc....

All joking aside the beaver damn was on our property, the beavers had long since been done away with and the intention was to have it blown up to stop flooding of some of the pasture. It was actually designed to create very little in the way of ecological footprints as when we were travelling over muskeg, we would lower the legs to a point where most of the weight was on the bottom of hulls, which slide across the top of the muskeg and the tires did not sink in like they would if we were driving a quad. Part of the video we shot compared a quad to this machine. You would not even know that we had crossed the muskeg with this unit while there were fairly deep tracks from the quad tires.

We still have the machine even though the rubber seals around the windows and doors have perished over time. It still runs and moves around.

[quote=olegeezer]Air conditioning - yes - suspension - no, floats and propels itself across lakes, sloughs and rivers - hulls for prototype were sheet steel covered with sheet plastic, similar to cutting boards. Powered by a 80 hp Honda 4 cylinder truck engine, auto transmission to front and back locked differentials - chain drive to the wheels, either 2 wheel or 4 wheel drive. We shot a lot of video while putting it through a number of tests; however, over the years, it has been misplaced; otherwise, I would put it up on YouTube. We couldn't find the funding to commercialize it even though we certainly got a lot of interest in showing it to folks in the petroleum industry. The actual model we would have commercialized would have had a light weight diesel with hydraulic motors on each set of wheels, the hulls would have been molded composite plastic etc....

All joking aside the beaver damn was on our property, the beavers had long since been done away with and the intention was to have it blown up to stop flooding of some of the pasture. It was actually designed to create very little in the way of ecological footprints as when we were travelling over muskeg, we would lower the legs to a point where most of the weight was on the bottom of hulls, which slide across the top of the muskeg and the tires did not sink in like they would if we were driving a quad. Part of the video we shot compared a quad to this machine. You would not even know that we had crossed the muskeg with this unit while there were fairly deep tracks from the quad tires.

We still have the machine even though the rubber seals around the windows and doors have perished over time. It still runs and moves around. [/quote]

Geez, here I was thinkin all along you just built it for fun! lol

[quote=offroad1]Unbelievable hypocryte! Definately know to not take anything you say seriously. [/quote]

He must if stuttered when he said he changed his way.

How much did that cost to build?

It cost us about $40K in 1989 dollars for the parts and custom machining that we couldn't do ourselves. When you factored in the cost of our sweat equity - likely the total would have been closer to $120K As you are likely aware, when you build a prototype you end up with a lot of "do-overs" thought it would work with initial design but found issues that one had to rectify. Between the number of changes we would make if we were able to find the capital, we thought if we could build about 20 to 50 units a year that our total cost of manufacturing would likely drop down to about $50K and $60K per unit with an estimated selling price in the area of about $95K.

and to wreck the beaverdam priceless ?

Actually to my disappointment the beaverdam did not even leak after we went over it and back. Was kind of hoping that we would make a big enough hole to drain it. The hulls being covered in the plastic sheeting were very slippery and it just kind of slid up and over then back again.

I find that hard to believe...that it didnt even leak,what is the weight of that thing? I have stood on a beaver damn and it started to leak,im a big guy,but I can assure you i do not weigh anything close to that,(keep the comments to yourself people lol)

it ended up weigging about 3,200 pounds when it was finished. We had hoped it to be less than 2,000. This picture was shot in early August and it had been a relatively dry summer and the water behind the dam was about a foot down from the top. All the machine did as it slid over the top was to pack it down. Remember all the weight is shared across the bottom of two hulls, the only thing the legs/wheels did was to push in the case of the back legs and pull in the case of the front ones.