It's video time

[John8x8hdi]

[QUOTE=Coast2Coast;220058]Not my video but what do you guys make of this. He's got adair tracks but can't seem to get her to go anywhere in the water and has trouble getting on shore just like I did when I tried my plastic tracks, although he clearly can get it to move much more than I could. They look a little wider than the 14.5" tracks adair has on their website, are they a different extended version? This video goes against what I've seen of other videos of the 14.5" tracks, which seem to show the machine going just as well as mine does with the original

We have discovered that it helps to swim in low gear as opposed to high gear. It seems to swim a lot better. Here is a video of us swimming with addairs in the spring.


https://youtu.be/VXmcn7qdCms

[Noel Woods]

In the water swimming there appears to be an issue with driver's experience. In the latter part of the video the machine and driver have no problems negotiating some pretty rugged terrain.

[Coast2Coast]

Not my video but what do you guys make of this. He's got adair tracks but can't seem to get her to go anywhere in the water and has trouble getting on shore just like I did when I tried my plastic tracks, although he clearly can get it to move much more than I could. They look a little wider than the 14.5" tracks adair has on their website, are they a different extended version? This video goes against what I've seen of other videos of the 14.5" tracks, which seem to show the machine going just as well as mine does with the original tires.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYqnKvdN3jo

[allwheeldrive]

Another awesome video, wish I had a place nearby like that to ride in. That was some true brush busting. Let someone in their Honda Fourtrax or Polaris Sportsman try that. The Coot is a perfect machine for that kind of ride, the laminated steel body, low gearing, and your front brush guard and bear cage really serves you well. That little diesel just chugs along. My Coot has an 18hp B&S, and it takes no time to get the front seat hot as all get out. I bet the diesel doesn't have that problem because they run fairly cool.
Post up some pics of your engine bay along with some pics of how you have the brake rigged up. I actually have a spare 10hp diesel myself so may have to do the conversion like you did. The 18hp is just overkill on a machine like a Coot anyway.

Usually I am not a proponent that AATVs can really go places a powerful quod cannot. However on that day I really don’t see it possible to have ridden out there without becoming skewered and filleted without proper production. A SxS might be able to charge up some of these hills better than the Coot (3 times where I needed traction boards to keep moving a machine with momentum and wheel speed could have made it.) Yet that really isn’t how I’d want to ride on these roads. For all the saplings and brush I drove through I may have broken no more than 3-4 small trees and ran over countless hundreds of others doing no lasting damage to them whatsoever. The trail itself only showed the signs of travel if you got right on the rustled leaves from a foot away. For how immensely powerful the Coot feels when driving, it treads paradoxically light. The tires do not slip or tear up the ground unless you completely become stuck and even than it does less damage than a typical ATV throwing rooster tails trying to build momentum for each climb. The high ground clearance and smooth underside leaves small trees intact and ready to spring back up once passed. It is rather amusing to look back while driving and watch everything pop back into place. The coot’s lack of exposed running gear, tie rods, struts, steering components, break lines, calipers, as well as it’s all steel construction gives it a practically limitless structural endurance for this kind of work as well with no fear of a rogue branch piercing, tearing, or bending some critical undercarriage component. I’m sure one of the muskeg running nitro boosted super ATVs such as featured on Ostacruiser’s channel could out climb and mud the Coot but I sure as heck wouldn’t want to try one of those top heavy machines out here with all the back of your neck hair raising side hilling I do. AATVs just have unbeatable center of gravity and work great where other machines get far too unstable to handle not to mention having to compound the element of speed to overcome obstacles just wouldn’t work here.

As for as swapping from the B&S 18 to the Diesel 10. Personally I wouldn’t. Since both engines are governed to the same RPM yet one has almost twice as much power as the other you’ll lose approximately half your torque. In turn you’d need to be geared twice as low than you currently are to maintain the same level of grunt. I can get away with my dismally low top speed of 9.8mph because the majority of my riding is so technical and severe. Long stretches of flat ground are seldom encountered and when they are it’s a bore. I often fantasies about being able to go a little faster, not to mention it be nice to spin the tires more than once every 3 seconds when driving in deep mud. I believe you are actually running lower gearing than I am. Something like a 10 or 11 tooth sprocket. If anything I’d like to see what your coot would drive like with twice the gearing of my machine. With twice the gearing it should put the same amount of torque to the ground (which is essentially unlimited I have never bogged the engine) while maintaining twice the top speed. In the end it is all preference based I guess. Since the Coot is the fastest machine I own, I image speed being nice, but if I had something faster I might not mind it being so slow. The Diesel does get hot enough to make the seat feel like it’s going to combust if run for more than 15min at a time. But this was likely due to the very long snaking exhaust system to clear the steering arm. Once I heat wrapped the exhaust and installed the 80 watt radiator fan the coot has never gotten hot again, even after 2 hours of hill climbing at 90 degree ambient temperature. I would suggest trying the same mod. (I have pictures somewhere, I can try and find and post again). I believe the hand brake setup is completely original. It works rather well and I have never had a problem with it. I use it quite a lot for shifting on steep hills which… is predominantly everywhere I ride.
The Diesel is also loud. Very loud. Hearing protection a must loud. I have twin mufflers with switch back baffling and my sound gun says 78 Db at the tip. However this is circumvented by the incredible din that emanates from the engine itself. 90 Db in the cockpit. It’s a beautiful sound granted, one that oozes masculinity and confidence.

[Noel Woods]

Another awesome video, wish I had a place nearby like that to ride in. That was some true brush busting. Let someone in their Honda Fourtrax or Polaris Sportsman try that. The Coot is a perfect machine for that kind of ride, the laminated steel body, low gearing, and your front brush guard and bear cage really serves you well. That little diesel just chugs along. My Coot has an 18hp B&S, and it takes no time to get the front seat hot as all get out. I bet the diesel doesn't have that problem because they run fairly cool.
Post up some pics of your engine bay along with some pics of how you have the brake rigged up. I actually have a spare 10hp diesel myself so may have to do the conversion like you did. The 18hp is just overkill on a machine like a Coot anyway.

[allwheeldrive]

As promised https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxTCxlvb8l8

[allwheeldrive]

Thanks for the kind words Noel! I appreciate the positive feedback. I really enjoy putting these odd ball machines through their paces. As anyone who has driven an AATV knows, video simply cannot replicate the feel of real off road. All the same it’s nice to document the experience for comparison sake. Video often captures things we don’t notice the first time around and we can learn from mistakes and modify our driving techniques. They also allow us to compare machines in a manner that may not be possible else wise. IE rare machines in different terrain around America. I was out in the Coot for 4 hours on Sunday exploring overgrown mountain pass roads. I’ll be sure to link the video when I upload it later.

[Noel Woods]

This is some awesome footage of Allwheeldrive's Coot diesel:

https://youtu.be/UmZIgbyQs-8

That low geared 10hp diesel is really impressive. I also like the tons of compression braking for down hill descents. One of the best modified Coots I've ever seen. Keep up the good work. Awesome terrain you have there in Vermont.

That Quadractor is really cool too. I commented earlier about seeing one at the Devil's Den State Park in Arkansas many years ago. The park rangers had one that they used to skid logs back to the camp areas for folks to use in their campfires. I was hiking a steep trail one day and watched one skidding a huge log below the undercarriage. The Ranger showed me how the machine worked and let me ride in the passenger seat as he took the machine down a mountain. It was a very cool machine and I wanted one from that point on. That was a great find. Very rare machines with only a few hundred being built as a type of low impact forestry services machine.

[scimanstev]

That is a cool machine. I never saw anything like it before.

Steve

[allwheeldrive]

Yep that’s me and my machine. The pucker factor was in full effect I assure you lol. You are right with some down force so to speak underneath it would be a lot less tippy. Their kind of like a pyramid though with the riders in the center and the tires well spread at the base. They’d flex more with a load as well, however I am going to use this strictly for off road excursions and image the lack of load should really make this thing mechanically robust. I think the biggest challenge of this machine is 2 fold. You essentially can’t turn the wheel (not enough leverage, steer with the skid steer only) would be 10x better with a 2:1 reduction gear box on the wheel and a wider wheel for more leverage. 2. You have no speed control which can be unnerving. Since there is no CVT and the power band really only exist between 2,900-3,400RPM its wide open throttle all the time or abrupt stop and once stopped you can’t make any turning adjustments without committing to full speed once more.

That said I haven’t had any problems with the drive train, it really does seem to work even if a bit… convoluted. A hydraulic version of this would be wicked. Though if I have no problems with the current set up I shouldn’t complain (-:

[Noel Woods]

Is this your Quadractor? They are tough little machines. They were designed to traverse rough forest trails and such, and would have been stable on the rocks actually skidding a 20' 1500lb tree underneath.
I bet there was some pucker factor when it went up on three wheels. Without a load being slung underneath they seem top heavy. The way the drivetrain is set up with belts and pulleys seems pretty complex as well, and a modern makeover would be better served with hydraulic power for both the drivetrain and steering.

[allwheeldrive]

This isn't amphibious or a 6x6! GOSH what a rebel I am ;-p Figured it fit in better here than anywhere else.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFQ1BMVYwTw

[allwheeldrive]

lol well I sure can't out run them!

[john swenson]

i like the cage for keeping the bears out !! j.b.

[allwheeldrive]

Short video of the weekend, lots of leaves lol, is that a kind of off road terrain? lol https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMgGheK8mYs