The idea itself was read from motorcycle magazines. In them, I saw that it was possible to buy a tracked engine and convert an ordinary motorcycle into a kind of homemade snowmobile. And since there is an opportunity to convert a motorcycle into a snowmobile with your own hands, then why not try to do this with a scooter.
At the very beginning, I had an idea to use a part of a conventional "Buranovskaya" caterpillar as a caterpillar engine (photo 1). But I could not find the old track from the Buran snowmobile, I didn’t buy a new one - it’s expensive to buy a whole track for the sake of one quarter of the track.
I had to contact a specialized company and buy a rubber track from them, and even a plastic ski.
In a pre-thought out and verified design of a scooter and at the same time a snowmobile, the main thing was that a scooter in a warm season should remain a scooter and only become an additional snowmobile in winter. That is, the very process of converting a scooter into a snowmobile and back should be very simple - remove the ski and tracks and put the wheels back.
I do not have a milling or a lathe, so I used all the components and parts either ready-made, store-bought, or those that you can do with your own hands and with ordinary tools and.
In a shop selling snowmobiles I bought a leading sprocket again from Buran. I also had to buy wheels from a children's scooter, and two wheels with bearings from a garden cart.
Now the power of the scooter is a snowmobile.
In the transmission of a scooter, the gear ratio provides for driving on asphalt at a speed of 40 to 60 kilometers per hour.
It is quite clear that when driving on a snowy road, the load on the engine immediately increases, and it may well be that its power will not be enough. In addition, it is dangerous to “fly” on snow and ice at such a speed. Therefore, the gear ratio had to be changed by replacing drive wheel scooter wheel with a smaller size, from the map.
To make such changes to the design, I cut a drum (with splines) for the drive shaft from the unusable moped wheel rim. And I drilled holes in it that will help fix a smaller disc in it. The result is shown in photo # 2.
I solved the problem with the sliding of the caterpillar from the wheel and its possible slippage as follows: I made it with my own hands from ordinary plastic pipes for the hook. In the subsequent assembly, they will go into the tracks of the scooter-snowmobile. They can be seen in photo # 3.
Since it is very difficult to find a tire with a circumference suitable for the number of steps on the track, I had to do the following.
I made a kind of bandage of the required length from a metal strip. Then he marked on it equal distances corresponding to the step on the caterpillar and fixed on them the hooks previously made from plastic pipes. To attach the hooks to the metal, I took M6 bolts. (Photo # 4). Then he fixed the tire on the wheel with the same M6 bolts. The result can be seen in photo # 5.
Thus, with my own hands I made a kind of soft sprocket, which will be the leading sprocket for a homemade snowmobile scooter.
As a driven sprocket, the following design was made - the drive sprocket from Buran was fastened with M8 bolts to the wheels equipped with bearings from the garden cart, which I mentioned above. I used an M10 threaded pin as an axle / The structure can be seen in photo # 10.
Snowmobile scooter frame.
Ramu made them metal pipes and corners (Photo # 7)
The frame is made with arbitrary dimensions - it all depends on the length and width of the caterpillar you choose and what size your scooter is.
As I mentioned above, I had to buy a plastic ski for a winter scooter - making it with my own hands would take too much time and effort, and it is not expensive. In principle, if you wish, you can, of course, do without buying it, but simply make a wooden one with your own hands, and it is imperative to equip it with a metal skate so that the scooter, moving through the snow, is better controlled.
I attached the ski to the fork of the moped using homemade rack(photo 17-18), for greater safety, the left and right sides of the forks work independently (i.e. they have two degrees of freedom of movement). With this design, our homemade snowmobile can turn in any direction and the ski will not rise, but will remain the entire plane on the snow surface.
The body of a scooter made of plastic in the cold becomes very fragile, in addition, its design is equipped with pockets into which snow is stuffed, which contributes to an increase in the weight of a snowmobile scooter, and therefore a drop in power when driving.
For winter, the casing was made minimal. It will be located only above the track, but a large area is needed in order to have where to put your feet in overall winter shoes, well, for decoration I wanted to make a shield for installing it on the snowmobile fork, which is easily equipped with a windshield for movement over a long distance or in the wind and snow.
In principle, making a casing for installation on a track with your own hands is not so difficult, the main thing is to make a template for fiberglass (matrix).
For this, polycarbonate, which is increasingly used for, or plexiglass or the like. materials (if only they were comparable in size), first cut out the sidewall (Photo # 19)
We turn it over and put it on a large sheet - it will be the wall of the template. Then we fix the plastic corners with hot glue along the perimeter of the side wall.
Next we need a strip of flexible plastic. Its dimensions must correspond to the dimensions of the casing to be produced.
Now we start assembling the template (matrix), for which we fix the panel, the bottom and the prepared sidewall with glue. We close the joints with plasticine. The template for making the casing is ready.
Now cut the fiberglass, and coat the pieces of fiberglass with epoxy over the template.
After 24 hours, disassemble the template, cut off the excess fiberglass, paint it and the casing for the homemade snowmobile scooter is ready.
The platform for the feet was made in the same way, with one exception - silver was added to the epoxy for decorative purposes.
The main work has been done - it remains only to put everything together and a homemade self-made scooter-snowmobile is ready.
DIY snowmobile scooter - photo to article
Of course, our self-made snowmobile scooter is unsuitable for driving in very deep snow, the power and track width in it is still not the same - it will "bury itself" - keep this in mind if you assemble your own version of the snowmobile-scooter with your own hands.
But on the road or in the snow with a depth of 15 centimeters, such a homemade "winter" scooter goes very confidently and can even tow a small load behind it.
In the spring, it is easy to make an all-terrain vehicle from a snowmobile converted from a scooter, for which you remove the ski and put the wheel on.
Homemade snowmobile from a scooter - photo
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Transport, which can be used in both winter and summer without any problems, but not a car. What is it? Well? This scooter is familiar to us, but with minimal additional cash and resource investments, it turns into a snowmobile, but what about in summer? back to the scooter. Hard? Not at all, especially considering that the idea of such a transformation has been hovering for a long time.
In principle, you can turn anything into necessary, the main thing? a wish. And since there is enough desire, then turning a scooter into a snowmobile should not be a problem, especially since the rework process? it is just removing the wheels and putting skis with a caterpillar in their place. Now you are convinced that you can do everything with your own hands?
You will need the following:
In general, a caterpillar (or mover)? this is essential element future snowmobile, as the ride quality depends on it. Alternatively, you can make it yourself from a car tire. And since it is a vicious circle, the possibility of rupture is minimal.
So the process is as follows:
- cut with a boot knife from the bead cover;
- cut along the plastic pipe (in the ratio of diameter? thickness? 40 by 5 mm)? these are lugs. They must match the width of the tire. Attach them to the drive blade every 5 x 7cm using M6 bolts.
In a similar way, a propulsion device is made from conveyor belt? with the only difference that the ends of the tape must be superimposed on each other about 3 × 5 cm, fixing with the same bolts.
If there is neither one nor the other, the craftsmen suggest using V-belts, and they need to be fastened in width with lugs, because on inside there are already cavities for the gears. Or you can even buy a ready-made copy, for example, a caterpillar from "Buran", but in monetary terms it is a very expensive pleasure.
Regardless of the option chosen, the track width directly affects the cross-country ability of the future snowmobile, but worse? controllability. For example, the factory width of the canvases? 15, 20 and 24 inches in standard, wide and extra wide ratios.
We start rework
So what's the main goal? to use the scooter for its intended purpose in the summer and as a snowmobile in the winter, minimal changes will be required to the design. Namely? remove the wheels and put the ski in place of the front one, in place of the rear one? mover.
We fasten the ski with our own hands using a rack, in which the left and right sides work separately, independently of each other (or, otherwise, a frame from the corners on top, and a rod from below). This type of construction is extremely safe, because, firstly, it helps the ski stay on the snow surface. Secondly, the scooter-snowmobile will not spontaneously go to the side, it will not become uncontrollable on the ice, and the wear of the ski when moving on the asphalt is minimal. Besides a rod? he, in terms of function, the ridge must be not straight, but semicircular, so that the steering wheel freely turns in different directions both on snow and on ice.
We continue to make a vehicle with our own hands, and it's the turn of the caterpillar, which stands in place 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 a moped. So, we cut out the splines with the brake drum from the wheel of the moped 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 those plastic water pipes that were used for the caterpillar.
We take the roofing metal and make a bandage from it with our own hands, for which we fasten the hooks at a distance to the wood grouse bolts, taking into account the location of the holes on the caterpillar. That is, by fixing the bandage on a moped wheel with hooks, we get a leading sprocket for the propeller.
Now you need to connect the Buranov star with two roller wheels with M8 bolts, and a hairpin (M10 thread) will be used as the axis. A pipe is suitable as a frame for the caterpillar square and metal corners. 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 dimensions of the caterpillar.
Practical information
DIY a snowmobile from any scooter? it's a simple matter, there would be a desire. The approximate speed of the latter? 40-60 km / h. Considering the weight of the finished converted unit and the weight of the passenger? the speed of the snowmobile will be in the range of 20 - 45 km / h. And this is taking into account the use of the native engine. Its advantages include the fact that it is quiet, has a variable speed gearbox, forced cooling, light weight, electric ignition, consumes little fuel, does not vibrate. In general, a real find for homemade products.
The only thing that can significantly reduce the power of the unit and increase the weight of the entire structure? these are the snow-clogged pockets that are in the scooter's design. To prevent this from happening, you can make a casing with your own hands, which will close the upper part of the caterpillar:
- we take polycarbonate, organic glass, any other plastic;
- from the taken sheet we cut out the sidewalls of the future casing;
- we fasten them using hot glue and plastic corners;
- we take flexible and thin, if possible, plastic and cut out a strip, the width of which is equal to the width of the casing;
- we collect everything in the corners and coat the joints of the parts with plasticine;
- now we cut out the pieces corresponding to the casing from the fiberglass, coat them with resin, and then put them tightly on the structure;
- after a day everything will dry up, and you can cut the resulting protective casing as needed.
With your own hands, as you could see, it turned out to turn an ordinary scooter into a snowmobile. Minimum investment of time, effort, money? this is what distinguishes such a design from others. And by the way, this power unit it is quite capable of dragging along a sled with children, as well as a loaded cart.
The idea of making a snowmobile from a scooter is not new in itself. She can often be seen in various motorcycle magazines. If you purchase a tracked engine, a traditional motorcycle can easily be converted into a snowmobile. Well, if you can convert a motorcycle into a snowmobile, why not try doing the same with a scooter?
A part from the "Buranovskaya" caterpillar is quite suitable as a caterpillar engine. If the old caterpillar cannot be found, then it is quite possible to purchase a new one. However, the cost of the device will increase significantly. You can also contact special companies that supply tracks and skis for snowmobiles.
In a verified and well-thought-out design, everything can be foreseen in such a way that in the warm season the scooter remains a scooter, and in winter it turns into a snowmobile. Moreover, the process of converting a scooter into a snowmobile and back should not take much time and effort. You just need to remove the tracks and skis and replace the wheels.
You can use ready-made parts and components from a scooter, or you can make them yourself using a welding machine and a lathe.
Let's talk about the power of the future snowmobile. The gear ratio in the transmission of the scooter provides for movement on asphalt at a speed of 40-60 km / h. Obviously, when driving on snow, the load on the engine will increase. It is quite possible that the planned capacity of the scooter will not be enough. And driving on ice and snow at high speed is quite dangerous. Therefore, you will have to change the gear ratio by replacing the drive wheel with a smaller wheel. For this purpose, a kart wheel is quite suitable.
To make some changes to the design, we will cut out a drum for the drive shaft from an unnecessary rim from a moped. You will need to drill holes in it, with which you can fix a smaller disc.
There is a simple solution to the track wheel slip problem. You can make hooks from ordinary plastic pipes. They will go into the tracks of the snowmobile. Since it is rather difficult to choose a tire whose circumference will fit the number of steps of the caterpillar, you can do the following. A kind of bandage is made from a strip of metal. It is necessary to mark on it equal distances that will correspond to the step of the caterpillar. After that, hooks made of plastic pipes are attached to the bandage. Bolts are suitable for securing the hooks. The resulting bandage can be attached to the wheels using the same bolts. 
The following type of construction can be used as a driven sprocket. With the help of M8 bolts, the Buran sprocket is attached to the wheels of garden equipment equipped with bearings. An M10 hairpin was used as the axis.
The frame of the future snowmobile is made of corners and pipes. Frame sizes can be arbitrary, everything will depend on the size of your scooter, as well as the length and width of the track.
I had to buy a plastic scooter ski. It would take too much time and effort to make it. If desired, of course, you can make this structural element with your own hands. The ski is attached to the fork of the moped using a rack. The right and left sides of the fork work independently for safety reasons. This design of the snowmobile makes it possible to turn in any direction. In this case, the ski will not rise, but will always remain on the surface of the snow.
The plastic body of the scooter can become fragile in extreme cold. In addition, the design of the scooter is equipped with pockets in which snow can be stuffed. This leads to an increase in the mass of the structure and a decrease in the power of the device while driving. In order to prevent a decrease in power in winter, a special casing can be made. It will be located above the caterpillar. It is imperative to take care of the presence of a spacious area where you can put your feet. 
For long-distance travel, the scooter can be additionally equipped with a windshield. It is not at all difficult to make a casing for installation on a caterpillar, it is enough just to make a template from fiberglass. A sidewall should be cut out of polycarbonate or plexiglass. Then it must be turned over and laid on a large sheet, which will act as the wall of the template. After that, plastic corners are fixed along the perimeter of the side wall with hot glue. Next, we use a strip of flexible plastic.
Its dimensions must correspond to the dimensions of the casing. We proceed directly to the assembly of the matrix. To do this, we fix the bottom, sidewall and panel with glue. Joints can be repaired with plasticine. Now you need to cut the fiberglass and, smearing it with epoxy, apply it to the template. A day later, the template can be disassembled, cut off excess pieces of fiberglass and painted. The casing is ready. The main work is completed, it remains only to collect all the elements together.
The modern pace of life has contributed to the fact that moto scooters have gained wide popularity. Thanks to the 49 cm3 engine, lightness of design and ease of control, they are used by both young people, moving around the city, and adults, going on business, to a store or to a summer cottage. The downside is that with the arrival of winter, it becomes inconvenient and dangerous to ride a scooter, since the small diameter of the wheels, even on winter tires, does not allow you to confidently drive such a vehicle on icy and snow-covered roads.
To solve this problem, replace the rear wheel on the motorcycle with a track unit. This will transform the vehicle into a snowmobile that can ride in shallow snow.
DIY snowmobile tracks
As a propeller, you can use parts of the caterpillar from the snowmobile "Buran" (photo 1), but if you can't find one, you can purchase a new one. From one such caterpillar, you will make 4 blanks. If you have like-minded friends, team up with them and jointly buy the necessary part. In this case, the cost of the caterpillar for each participant will be noticeably lower.I contacted a company that supplies propulsion kits and got them as spare parts a plastic ski without attachment to the fork and a narrow rubber track.
DIY children's snowmobile from a scooter
The scooter design does not need to be changed significantly. This will allow you to return to the place with minimal effort and time. standard equipment vehicle with the end of winter and use it again in the warm season.If you do not have lathes and milling machines for the manufacture of the necessary parts, you can buy ready-made ones, or use those that can be found in your garage and at car dismantling. Also, some elements can be made independently with the help of simple tools and a welding machine.
In a shop selling spare parts for snowmobiles, I bought a driven sprocket for a Buran snowmobile caterpillar. I got two more wheels from a standard Chinese scooter for kids and two small rubber wheels with roller bearings from a trolley. The gear ratio in the transmission of the scooter is designed for the operation of this transport on good roads at speeds up to 40-60 km / h. When driving on snowy roads, the load on the engine will increase, and its power may not be enough, and the speed of 40-60 km / h on snowy and slippery roads is generally dangerous. Therefore, I changed the gear ratio by replacing the drive wheel of the scooter with a wheel of a smaller diameter from a sports car-kart. To do this, I had to cut out from the old crumpled disk of the moped drive wheel brake drum with slots for the drive shaft and drill holes in it for fastening wheel rim smaller diameter (photo 2).
To prevent the caterpillar from slipping or sliding off the wheel while driving, I made special hooks (photo 3) from plastic water pipes that fit into the holes in the track. Pick up rubber tire it is almost impossible for the length of its circumference to be a multiple of the number of pitches of the holes on the caterpillar. I made a bandage of the required diameter from a strip of roofing metal, on which, using furniture bolts-wood grouses MB with a large head, at an equal distance from each other, with a step corresponding to the location of the holes on the caterpillar, I fixed the hooks (photo 4)... The bandage was put on the wheel and attached to the tire using the same bolts (photo 5).
I made an improvised soft sprocket for a caterpillar from a regular wheel.
I made the driven sprocket by connecting the finished plastic drive sprocket of the Buran snowmobile with two rubber wheels from a bogie with roller bearings with M8 bolts. For the axle, a stud with M10 thread came up (photo 6).
The frame of the caterpillar propeller was made using metal corners and square pipes (photo 7)... I do not give the dimensions of the frame and its various parts, since those who want to repeat the design will be guided by the brand of their scooter and the size of the caterpillar they have chosen.
For my moped, I purchased a special ski from a motorcycle kit, but an ordinary wide home-made wooden ski or a plastic one from the children's Argamak snow scooter is quite suitable, only a metal skate (undercut) must be attached to it from below so that the scooter does not lose on a slippery road control. The ski is attached to the front fork of the scooter through a special rack and has two degrees of freedom of movement, so that when the scooter is tilted to the left or right, the ski remains flat on the snow.
The plastic body kit of the scooter is very fragile in the cold and also has pockets. Snow falling into them melts in the garage, and then freezes, thereby increasing the weight of the scooter. I decided to make a minimal cover over the track, a wide footrest and a decorative shield for the front fork, and for long trips in cold and windy weather I install a windshield.
It is not difficult to make a casing for a caterpillar from fiberglass on your own, but before you glue the casing, you need to make a matrix. From a piece of plexiglass, polycarbonate or any other plastic of a suitable size, we cut out the side of the future casing (photo 19).
We put it on a larger sheet, which will serve as another wall of the matrix, and with the help of hot melt glue along the perimeter of the sidewall we fix the plastic corners.
Now we cut off a strip of thin and flexible plastic, equal in width to the future casing. We assemble the matrix, with glue attaching the previously cut sidewall, bottom and a large panel at the corners. We coat the joints of the parts with plasticine. Thus, we got a matrix for pasting the casing of the caterpillar.
Then we cut the fiberglass into pieces of the desired size and, coating with epoxy resin, tightly place them in the matrix. After a day, we disassemble the matrix and remove the resulting casing. It remains to cut off the excess fiberglass along the contour and paint the product.
The platform for the feet was made using a similar technology, only I added silver powder to the epoxy resin to give it viscosity and color.
This summer 2016, it's time to refit your chinese scooter() something more suitable for my long-distance fishing trips to the Chusovaya River area. The trip in early June () spoiled my nerves a little and prompted me to accelerate the development of a more suitable vehicle for driving on any roads and even in places where there are none at all ...
Within a month I assembled my all-terrain vehicle, although so far it cannot be called in the full sense an all-terrain vehicle due to the drive only to the rear wheel.
But there is still a lot of time ahead and perhaps the drive to front wheel will appear too. Initially, such a possibility was included in the design.
The scooter frame is taken as a basis, the engine is moved forward. Added a homemade rear swingarm, half-redesigned front fork for a wide and large wheel. The rubber was used from the UAZ car, the disks were also converted from the UAZ ones. Homemade hubs with 203 bearings. Wheels without rubber look like this:
Sprockets and a chain from the IZH motorcycle.
Further design improvements are in progress. Variants of lightening the mass of the resulting ATV are being worked out and, for a start, made a regruver (). I cut the tread on the tires, which at the same time lightened the ATV by more than 3 kilograms. Now we need to cut the rubber on the sidewalls of the tire.
The real first test for MOMM-7215 was a fishing trip to the Chusovaya River, which was successful, apart from a couple of small overlays. More details about this trip can be found on the page -
The trip revealed the following:
Pros:
1. The use of large wheels at low pressure increased the permeability by an order of magnitude, and also significantly smooth out the unevenness of the road.
Minuses:
1. Again, the wheels have reduced ATV handling, which seems to be affected by a lever-type front fork and reduced tire pressure. This is especially evident on hard large irregularities such as broken ruts, large stones (along flat road there are no control problems). In the future, it may be necessary to try to replace it with a telescopic fork. Refusal of shock absorbers (as is used on many two-wheeled ATVs) is strongly discouraged.
2. The significant weight of the wheel assembly requires at least balancing, because at a speed of about 50 km / h, an unbalanced wheel begins to be reflected on the ATV. You also need to continue looking for ways to lighten the weight of the wheel assembly. There are options ...
January 5, 2018. The winter turned out to be little snow and I decided to check again the capabilities of my ATV on a knurled track. What came of this can be seen in the following video:
To be continued…
