Mobilera Trailblazer

[kghills]

Matt O is my hero! This weekend he delivered the correct drive for my Trailblazer. Here is the Hagen all cleaned up.


The controlls from a Newt the Bold which the drive came from were much fancier than the trailblazers but the steering cylinders will fit in my control pod.


I hate to take time from my other projects but I think I can literally pull the drive that is in the Trailblazer now, add two upper brackets to the crossmember and bolt the correct trans and drive hydrolics in. Would be a days work tops. I am tempted.

Keith.

[jpswift1]

Ah yes, this looks familiar. I'll give you the entire history of this unit. It was in Newt the Bold, obviously. The Newt was purchased from the original owner by a gentleman that used it at his camp that was about half an hour west of Meadville, PA. He had it for about 20 years and then his grandson sold it to me after we worked out a deal for it when I came across it on Craigslist. This was last January. He told me they didn't use it that much after they had some minor problems because they weren't very mechanically inclined. After 6X6World member Amphibiousdrew and I started doing some work on it, we found that those problems were a couple rusted solid drive chains, a bad ignition switch, and the head of the Tecumseh HH120 engine had a stripped out/enlarged spark plug hole. We replaced the head, and the engine now runs. I then sold the machine to 6X6World member Hydromike without the engine or transmission for his next project machine (he does really great work, so I'm looking forward to seeing what he does with Newt). I then sold the transmission to Matt, which worked out perfectly since we were both going to Ashtabula last month. And the rest writes itself.......another cool rare vintage machine about to come together!

[kghills]

Thanks JP. Newt was obviously the Rolls Royce of amphibs. Wood grain dash, chrome handles, and of course the grill. The Trailblazer is a bit more pedestrian but I am still pretty excited to have the correct drive and glad to know its history.

Keith.

[kghills]

Here is a picture of an engine cover for the Trailblazer. It is not what I expected. It is solid rather than some form of mesh screen. It looks like a better latch was added to both sides.


Control pod is missing other than that a pretty complete machine. I am hoping to get a serial number from the new owner.


Keith.

[LarryW]

Nice find! Thanks for posting that as I can try to replicate the cover too.

[kghills]

No problem Larry. I have spoken with Jesse the new owner a couple times now and hope to get more pictures and info about his Trailblazer. He needs a driven clutch I understand and as you can see from the pictures he is missing the control levers and pod that mounted under the dash for them. I have pointed Jesse to this thread and made two offers. One to help with information and parts as I think I will at some point have the extra parts he needs to get his Trailblazer more correct and a second to purchase his Trailblazer. Either way I will be happy to see another Trailblazer come back to life.

Keith.

[kghills]

Jesse sent me a few great pictures of his red Trailblazer. He is doing an awesome job of cleaning it up.


Here you can see a little of the drive stick modifications. I hope to get more detailed pictures later to see how his drive is actually modified to work.


Great job Jesse!

[jpswift1]

Wow, that looks great!

[kghills]

Well I broke down and pulled the belt drive system out of the Trailblazer. It was very simple as the entire system came out as a unit. Four bolts on the bottom of each leg bolted through the frame so removing them allowed me to simply lift it out as a unit.


The auxiliary drive shaft hangs from a bridge that is welded to the frame. It originally just hung from two spherical rod ends with 4 tensioning bolts pressing against it. It appears a plate with slots was added so the auxiliary drive shaft assembly would be locked in place after adjusting. Moving this one assembly up or down is all the adjustment the entire system has. This is probably a very poor design. With all the slop in the chains I can see why the plate was added to tie the assembly to the frame bridge so it did not get ripped off when trying to turn.


The lower mounts for the Hagen had never been removed so I was able to place it back in its original lower mount. The secondary clutch is mounted backwards to be aligned correctly with the primary clutch. It will need a clamp style spacer to hold it about 1.5" off the tranny for proper alignment. I am hoping Larry can get me an exact spacing from his transmission then I just need to make the two upper bracket and weld them on. I also have a couple belt numbers from Jesse when he got his red Trailblazer and Larry is working on getting a number from Stephen with the white Trailblazer. I am hoping one of the numbers will make sense.


Keith.

[jpswift1]

Looks great, Keith! Did you come across any pics of some other Trailblazer's drivetrains for reference? If you give Buffalo Bearing a call with some part numbers from old drive belts, they'll be able to cross reference them and come up with one for you. Their number is (716) 874-1720.