454 V8 custom snowblower - Fuel Economy, Hypermiling, EcoModding News and Forum

MetroMPG · 12-19-2009, 02:55 PM

Tis the season for silly threads.

(I'd be surprised if most people haven't seen this type of thing already; it's been around the net a few times, but I don't think anyone's posted here...)

Saw it in the newspaper today. This guy (a metal fabricator) lives in a part of Ontario that got a freak snowstorm (~ 1m / 3 ft) last week.

I love the quote in the paper:

Quote:

As a bit of added poetry, Mr. Grundt shot the snow two properties away, burying a truck owned by a neighbour who had declared he would never succeed. “All you could see was a bit of the antenna,” Mr. Grundt recalls.

A little searching found the related PopSci article and the YouTube video (of the 4 wheeled, pre-track version):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhL7GhHmADs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRvbd7urf4k

mcrews · 12-19-2009, 04:27 PM

this is what happens when someone has WAY too much time on their hands!!!

ChrstphrR · 12-19-2009, 06:28 PM

My dad built something similar, but a bit more practical for our needs, then found out it was overbuilt.

10 foot auger, 3" box framing to hold a 4-cylinder Ford Mustang-II engine and tranny, with mounting pads and pins to fit his full sized backhoe. Drop the front bucket, mount on the snowblower, mount the throttle cable extension all the way up the arm to the backhoe. One, maybe 1-1/2 passes and the driveway was done, excepting the Tee by the shop.

He stoppped using it because it could chuck snow 150 feet easily (from the driveway to the fenceline on the property, and was worried that any ice chunk / large rocks that could get picked up from the gravel driveway would put a sizable hole in whatever person, house, or vehicle were in the way.

Wish I could saw I saw it running myself, but I was living out of town when he rigged that up, and then quickly retired it once working.

MetroMPG · 12-19-2009, 06:36 PM

Good story! While I was looking for a video of his creation, I found someone's description (maybe of another franken blower) that said something like "the noise you hear is the blower ingesting one of the driveway bricks and firing it out the discharge".

Cd · 12-19-2009, 08:13 PM

It doesn't have the hot rod loping sound that I expected.
Sounds more like a sewing machine in the video.

jamesqf · 12-20-2009, 12:16 AM

Sheesh. Like there's something wrong with a snow shovel?

Now I admit we don't get as much snow hereabouts as some places, but we did get about a foot last weekend. After I finished shovelling my driveway, I went and gave my neighbor a hand finishing up his. He's a bit slow these days, but then he IS 95.