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Groomer Perfect For Narrow Trails
Peter Mysko built a snowmobile trail groomer to maintain trails for the local snowmobile club’s annual vintage snowmobile derby. The machine turned out to be a great machine to just cruise around on near his Roblin, Man., farm. With a heated cab and other bells and whistles, he can comfortably operate it without a jacket at 40 degrees below zero temperatures.
  As a member of the Roblin Snowmobile Association that hosts the vintage derby, Mysko had a need for a compact grooming machine for some of the narrower, winding trails the club uses. “I couldn’t find a proper small groomer on the market, so I decided I’d whip up something myself,” Mysko laughs.
  After drawing an idea on a napkin, 3,000 hrs. of work and a wide variety of parts later, Mysko groomed his first trail.
  “I lost track of all my donor machines,” says the former Polaris snowmobile dealer, who runs a small engine repair business, and buys and sells parts on eBay. “I’ve used parts from all sorts of things in this groomer – even Chevy, Nissan, Oldsmobile and Deere components.”
  The twin tracks and rear suspensions are from mid-90’s Polaris SKS snowmobiles, and the front suspension uses some pieces from an Arctic Cat Thundercat snowmobile. The groomer is powered by a 440 Polaris liquid-cooled engine that Mysko plumbed to direct heat into the cab. A transmission from a Sportsman 700 ATV is used in conjunction with Polaris clutches to provide high, low and reverse gear ranges.
  “It’s very maneuverable in the tighter trails and is amazing in deep snow. Weighing in at nearly 1,600 lbs., it has no business going through the deep snow that it seems to handle with ease,” Mysko says. “It also steers very well, though it’s a twin track design with no differential.” He mounted the skis further ahead of the tracks than on a conventional snowmobile in order for the skis to attain more steering leverage to counteract the formidable traction of the two tracks.
  Mysko sits on a comfortable SP swather seat, which he purchased at a discount store, listens to his stereo and watches the snow drag on one monitor, while also being able to see what’s happening in the engine bay on another monitor. He formed the dashboard from plastic puckboard and molded in some heat vents, which he rescued from a buddy’s demolition car. The air intake stack is from a Deere 4030 tractor. For durability and scratch resistance, he chose aluminum diamond plate for the body panels.
  Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Peter Mysko, Box 1401, Roblin, Man. R0L 1P0 Canada (ph 204 937-7685; triumph@mts.net).



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2011 - Volume #35, Issue #5