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Help for a rookie

T

tater

Member
I live in southern TN and there aren't many airboats around. Me and a friend are wanting to build a small low budget boat for running up and down the shallow creeks around here to get to the good fishin holes. We have a 14' aluminum flat bottom and were plannin on gettin an old VW motor to start with. We really have never had any dealing with any of this and would like some help. If anyone can give us some advice on how to go about building this ride, or about how well the boat will push two men with a VW motor, any help would be greatly appreciated. Also if anyone has a used prop that would work for our app. we would be interested in it. or any other parts.
 
welcome to the forum tater!! click on forum on the top, then airboat talk , then mini airboats there is a thread going on now about this topic ,also try the search feature on the forum theres alot of talk about this subject good luck
Croc
 
found this on airboattrader.com in the parts for sale area

Asking_Price: 1,000 Firm
Owner: Robin Blankenship
Address: 1841 Schoolhouse Rd.
City: BLAKELY
State: GA
Zip_Code: 39823
Phone: 1-229-723-2071
Cell_Phone: 1-229-359-5519
Email: rndprops@yahoo.com
Date: December 07, 2005
Airdrive with 35 HP Suzuki Engine rebuilt. Slide out riggers to fit most any Jon Boat or similar. Has 2 seats (pull start
 
hey tater there is a company in south missouri that makes what i think you want you can reach them by going to culverprops .com
 
THanks for the welcome! Wondering i anyone had any good pics of a VW engine setup with a belt reduction drive that i could build off of?
 
Tater the company i was looking for is valley engineering there parent company is culver props but valley has a web site with a video of a vw air boat this company builds the belt reuction for vw's
 
http://www.culverprops.com/

http://www.culverprops.com/recom1.htm

http://www.culverprops.com/galleryvalleycompany.htm

http://www.culverprops.com/galleryvalleycustomer.htm


pic04.jpg


pic03.jpg
 
If your building, I have seen multiple v belts that would be cheap to build, but I like the polychain stuff. We have 60 HP stuff running plastic belt sprockets! Also less tension so you dont have to worry as much about bearings handling the tension between engine and prop, forces would be oposite power pulses. I haven't checked prices yet but if you want it easy you pay someone to go through the trials to figure out what works and if you can figure it out yourself, Build it!
 
I agree Faron isn't it interesting that it seems every new idea has already been done before somewhere you just gotta find it. LOL of course airboats are not a new idea huh.
 
Looks like Culver just have a big bolt going through the bearing and bracket with a nylock on the end. Spacer between engine bracket and inner bearing race, pully and prop hub mounted to outer race. pretty easy!
 
You can go to http://www.valleyengineering.com and click on there projects and it will take you to there airboat. there system uses three small belts instead of one for safety reasons but there is a single belt with the same deminsion. you should give them a call they are very nice to deal with and have been doing vw's for quite awhile
 
I phoned up Takenterprise and he sent me a DVD of his boats in action. Looks like they work pretty good. He mentioned that with the higher HP engine (he was talking about a 140 Hp engine I think) that he was planning to add another 2 feet to make it 18 feet. He was going over mud and reed banks with 3 adults and a yellow lab and some more shots on ice with 5 adults on board and transitioning to water and back. Showed some shots with 3 adults on board doing research in the high Arctic. Fairly narrow boat but looks like it scoots along pretty good!
 
Cold - EH

Narrow hulls run fairly well through vegetation. In fact the displacement of a really long boat is similar to short wide boat. Sort of acts as a cutting edge going through vegetation.

The issue is the motor increases the center of gravity and increases the likelyhood of flipping. That combined with the narrow hull even increases the likelyhood even more.

Sort of like paddling a canoe while standing up. Or down here it would be a piroque.
 
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