Snowcat Operator Buys Own 'Cat! 1994 Bombardier BR 400. Best 'Cat Ever Built?

it's a great deal but it's not unheard of let's put it that way so somewhere in there i have some grounding issues oh geez yeah [Applause] well you seem to know what you're doing probably the most reliable option for a cat that is out there yeah you definitely could put a camper on this this stupid sneak pick wow [Music] someone asks what kind of snow cat i have i'll say a vr 400 and i'll say oh is that the center sticks center sticks yeah because the sticks are in between your legs instead of on the armrest then that's everyone knows this cat like any anyone that's been running snow cats for i would say 10 plus years maybe 15 at this point this is like usually what they learned on or yeah cool it's like their favorite cat you know is it is it gonna start this door things the door doesn't stay open over here yeah see what finney thinks of it good boy has been written in the snow cat yet this is the first i think this will be just a very brief introductory cruise here i think finn likes it he's got great visibility yes he does like it main thing is i'm really not trying to use this unless i'm making money with it it's yeah an investment you know it's a fun investment oh there was one mechanical last year it's got these torsion enough springs oh yeah i'm good thank you cool oh she's on she's tied to a lead no kidding well she's a bad dog today ultra wanderer massive question stop wondering like eight hour quests all over sweet good doggy well what's this so you bought a snow cat i haven't officially checked it out yet i've only seen it covered in a tarp but here it is it's a 1994 is that correct yeah 94 br 400 so it's uh yeah it's an old resort cat it's like uh pretty much the same thing as we still use just kind of older tech but yeah functioning cats so pretty stoked gonna use to like maintain some snowmobile trails up here and haul water and just do snow cat things cool damn right really sick very hard i mean a little worn out here and there there used to be teeth on the blade there there oh okay yeah we'll still see him a little bit there cool what are you hauling water for again oh these cabins uh some of these cabins only have a water tank oh yeah try to get through the winter with it but so someone throws you a couple bucks to move their water around yep perfect perfect for loads so it's pretty easy it's like easy on the cat because i'm just cruising a nice little sasquatch on there i like it russell development my homie jake cool shout out to russell development heber oh yeah oh that guy's the man coolest guy ever look at this thing so is is it's it's smaller than a piston bullet 400 right it's it's only slightly shorter length okay width is the exact same though it's the same size and weight class just built lighter it's uh just like kind of got less to it okay cool yeah so it's got like really good deep snow capability so it floats on snow really well yeah it's like a really good soft snow cat you know they do well in deep deep power do you know how much it weighs i think it's only 11 000 pounds compared to like 14 on a on a piston belly so like about 3000 pounds less maybe even less yeah it looks it looks lighter yeah it feels like when you're driving it too like um totally just handles it's got a so that's the tank on the back right water tank yep obviously yeah and then this is where the pillar will mount cool cool bolts they were rusted so i sprayed them with some stuff but yeah no this thing's good it's got like pretty much like five-year-old sprockets and track belts which is relatively new so very low hours so it is called a sprocket that's cool yeah cool that's what i figured yep so yeah i'm gonna be learning how to work on these things a little bit more how come you can see through the grousers and see the sprocket but you can yeah so these are steel grazers this is like the other kind they're better for like uh they're better better for like soft fresh unconsolidated snow generally whereas the aluminum ones kind of blight better on hard pack interesting so a lot of places that guts soft snow like snowbird uses steel tracks like this alta i don't know about alta but snowbird definitely does cool and um they also ride a little differently a little rougher on the hard pack for some reason does aluminum like flex or something no it doesn't flex more but i don't know what it is about them they just ride a little weird on hard but in soft snow they're good they kind of have this different shaped scoop to them and yeah and they're also a little more durable like you they bend instead of break so if you bend one you can if it's really bent you know you have a problem but you can also just like cut it and weld it back together whereas the aluminum ones you have to buy new ones break pretty regularly you know they'll break and then they're jagged and you know have to be replaced yeah but yeah the belts are in pretty good shape and cool is that the fuel tank up there yep fuel tank yeah pretty good probably just check out this cab left we can check out the engine here so yeah we got fuel tank here there's a little hatch there we can check out some of the engines things oh yeah we got to tilt the cab too it's pretty pretty cool cool engine access yeah yeah but yeah no i'm just like figuring out all like the little stuff i mean i fixed the rear lights they weren't working the rear wiper wasn't working all electrical gremlins unfortunately it's got a few more too but just tracked them down and fixed them yep all just loose or bad wires so far so far the last two things i haven't figured out are the radio unfortunately so i got no sound system at the moment well you can bring your little speaker and stuff that's what i'm gonna do for now and also the spotlight i have no power to the spotlight oh that's hard now you can see the wire hang and see it yep so what i'm gonna do is just i decided i've searched for like two days now with a circuit tester so i'm just going to run a new wire from my dome light to the spotlight that works and then just put a switch and a fuse in so just bring new power for it pretty cool yeah the spotlight is the most important part yeah i got a new baja designs in there for it i'm hyped cool yeah we got a little bit of action here there's some some batteries and whatnot but mainly we got this thing sweet so you're cranking her up i'm just turning the master power on so i can the cab is electric okay oh no you have to turn the key on which is the stupid thing that comes along got to make sure nothing's going to fall actually yeah one of the big things you have to watch with snug cats when you tilt the cab if you have stuff on the dash it'll like fall forward and break your windshield what a cool feature that's awesome that is insanely cool wow so did the modern ones do this just the same yeah cool because i've seen them with the cab flipped up but i didn't know it was so easy yeah and the prenots it's the exact same and the piston boys it's just hydraulics so you have to have the engine running but this is awesome and you can also there's a manual pump yeah where if the electronics fail you can put a handle on it and pump it up manually cool it's like an electric hydraulic system that's great back up yeah so you can't see a whole lot of the engine that's you can see half of it all over the place so it's coming coming through under here yeah mechanical injection pump is this so this is very similar to the old uh the old five nine from back then it's just a bigger bigger one or something pretty sure it's like the big brother yeah yeah that's what i figure engine series so so basically the most reliable uh workhorse ever so yeah and it starts really well in the cold this thing also has a feature that is wonderful oh yeah now sorry what's the future well one of the best features this thing has probably the best is it's got a webasto coolant heater added so you can basically turn on this timer you can program it or uh just turn it on i'll turn it on right now and it it's basically there's an electric pump and it uses diesel and like preheats your coolant to operating temperature so wow like an hour it'll get the engine to about 140 degrees if you let it go for two hours it'll be at like 180. no credit so you don't need to plug your stuff in yeah you just you just program it for the morning or just like come out turn the thing on it blasts and then you just come out and your cat's warmed up and you just go sounds like a jet engine it's really cool yeah wow back in 94 they had a lot of features oh yeah reaching in there while it's flipped up that's cool it's cool too it's the only thing that's not wired into the master power switch so you can have the master power off preserving your battery but still run the cooling you know very nice you're going to hear it click on there's like an electric step pump here so just you hear it clicking click click click as it's just pumping diesel but yeah that thing will fire up in a few seconds here cool do you know the output on this particular 83 it says on it i'm pretty sure it said 275 of course of course yeah that's pretty good it makes sense yeah lots of torque yeah lots of torque it does well it's cool with the mechanical uh mechanically controlled engine there's also a throw so you set the throttle and that's just holding rpm but when you load it up a hill or pushing you uh you have to like throttle into it yeah with your foot oh cool maintain rpm that's fun and if you're down it'll just blow black smoke so you hear that thing yep i like it yeah so that clicking is the pump and then it's just got a little electric motor and then a heater cool it's actually circulating the coolant very nice fresh batteries did you buy them yeah so it's got a battery tender on it too built in like rigged up it's cool so yeah i think it's probably probably the most reliable option for a cat that is out there most reliable huh yeah so there's another reason too is it has two hydraulic reservoirs and systems one for the hydraulics and the other for the drive whereas like all the new cats just have one reservoir so if you blow a line it's good in the water whereas in this theoretically if you blew like a blade hydraulic line or tiller you could still drive the cat oh cool sweet yeah oh yeah yeah that thing's making a lot of noise sounds sounds cool yeah big old mechanical fan there in the front big radiator yeah really nice view of the mechanical injection pump over here oh yeah i'll get off this side here i come i get over there cool blasting oh wow yeah look at that injection pump cool yeah all mechanical so simple and then the hydraulic drives are awesome mechanic on this catch so when i push the sticks forward it's just cables opening a valve oh cool like the cats at the resort the newer cats are electronically controlled drive accomplishment that makes this awesome another thing that makes sense this thing will be around forever i think so robbie's had it for 19 years cool yeah hopefully i'll have it for another 20 minutes yeah they're not going to make a more reliable one as time goes on that's why i like i don't think i'll ever replace it all yet i'll only be able to add yeah yeah definitely yeah keep this thing she's a gem super stoked honestly it's like it's all there like i'm driving around just like pushing like i could in the resort like i could go groom park city with this and it would be over the j yeah yeah it'd be amazing just lacking a couple creature comforts yeah that's a couple creature comforts but yeah no you could just need a tiller on the back and then do your thing yeah that's what yeah i realized that just buy a tiller do you need to buy a new blade in the front are you going to keep using it is it fine cool oh but luckily this this snow here is always a lot softer than the man-made stuff at the resort oh true it's no problem you can get up out of the door it just got eroded over the years or clipping little ice or whatever you have plowing like roads with it oh yeah scraping on stuff scraping yeah that's just how it [Music] deep snow cat that's out like cool in the storm just you know putting in the trail you know it's lightweight it floats yeah and then have a second cat that's a little more burly heavy like maybe a piston bullet or just a newer one of these definitely has more creature comforts and i can maintain trails with the one i'd rather take out there in the deep cool yeah this is a great great cat to have you you bought the right one uh so so uh could this one uh take a camper on the back or no or no yeah you definitely could put a camper on this you would have to just do this thing's a little like loose this has to be able to lift up to access the uh there's like hydraulic tank and fill down there and then just like to be able to maintain it oh okay the hydraulic pumps are under this portion and the camper would cover the engine cover right yeah it would you'd have to figure out how to you just couldn't service anything whatsoever while it's on the camper yeah or have it like the one at park city they rigged it so they've built they fabricated so they have the same cat at park city with it's like a passenger cab it sticks out to about here back of it yeah and it also goes over this part here all the way to the cab it's it's insanely dope and they made a manual hydraulic system so there's a pump and you just pump the whole thing up cool because this lifts up backwards it is so sick oh that's so cool i didn't know i didn't know they had all these sophisticated uh pumping hinge systems to flip everything out of the way that's ridiculous yeah let's start it up [Music] i forgot to put the safety safety rod oh there we go cool just like a car the hood prop wow [Applause] that's too cool how it does that i did not know they could do do it so easily yeah this thing is this was was the first cat that was the most similar to the new cats i would say it was the first one with like this cab design and the track drive system they had others prior to this that looked a little more like a tractor with like a long front hood yeah yeah yeah i've seen that that did have hydraulic drive and stuff and we're like this size but this was pretty much the first era of this like cab forward style the modern technology that they've stuck with essentially yeah exactly so it's a 94 but it's not just modern enough and it's kind of an innovator for its time i would say yeah it was it was uh would you say it's a an iconic model snow cat i would yeah or the way like if i ask if someone asks what kind of snow cat i have i'll say a vr 400 and i'll say oh is that the center sticks center sticks because the sticks are in between your legs instead of on the armrest then that's everyone knows this cat like any anyone that's been running snow cats for i would say 10 plus years maybe 15 at this point this is like usually what they learned on or yeah cool like their favorite cat you know cool that's what i thought yeah we still have one in park city that one's the cab on it for the ski patrol it's amazing it's so clear i'd love to buy that thing someday wow what a great vehicle it's white too it's a raft yeah it's got a park city wrap on it cool but it's white i love it all right so this oh for is reason it won't let you like leave the key on accessory yeah without the beeping damn brutal what do you think you don't like the beeping either do you oh yeah sorry youtube sorry about the beeping it kind of petered out there i turned that off i just turned the heater off too you'll hear it winding down [Music] here's the new spotlight oh tiny wow yeah impressive leds baja designs is it meant for a dirt bike or something yeah it is i'm just gonna screw it on top like that cool that works yeah it looks badass too yeah and the higher it is off the roof you know like the more level piled up on the roof oh yeah better true sometimes you have to like climb on your roof and push the snow off and i guess the more range of movement you get somehow because it's taller yeah it'll make it easier to shine behind me too which is all good handy good so i just have to run some wiring for that that'll be like one of the final pieces of the puzzle crucial component yep yeah i learned that while we were out there the spotlight is everything so yeah they're the center sticks as you say they're shiny looking yeah they're good so that's they're just mechanical unfortunately this one has about that much play oh yeah so it is a little weird to drive it because you if i want to go forward i have to move this one farther forward but if i want to go back straight i have to go farther back with it what apparently it's a little weird that's why the that's why the newer stuff with the electronics is so nice because it's just yeah right there can you adjust the cables i could buy new cables and then like a bushing kit or something it's mostly in this this mechanism right here put a short throw shifter on it yeah exactly yeah it's right it's all pretty much right there wow that is really bad oh well you got some work to do on that nope or just deal with it whatever yeah probably used to it all right i'll fire it up here all right a little pump shut off down down there wow it's not beeping at me what the heck oh is it is it gonna start no it's sick sounds great do you know how many hours are on it i think about nine thousand oh no not high miles not higher sounds great wow love it yeah i should be able to just hook the tiller right up and just plug it in and open it it worked three seasons ago the last time i had a pillar it worked perfectly you just smashed the pillar itself oh yeah seems like tillers get damaged a lot with snow cat operating yeah you have to really take them into account you know and that's that's one of the main reasons you can't just run the snow cat like if you had no chiller like this they're pretty simple but yeah as soon as you add that thing back there it swings wide you know you gotta move you know steers back and forth oh yeah you know like if i'm driving around and trying to get around some tight spot in the air i can shift it side to side oh yeah yeah that does look a little bad to me yeah does that look correct i mean it does but i don't know if it's supposed to be like that or if it's that looks like it's at a different angle yes i mean he literally ran that tiller into a snow bank several times you might have to have uh your guy do some welding on it or something i know i'm hoping it just works i'm gonna try dropping this i haven't even tried it this year here stand by let's see if it drops here slowly it should do well with like 2 000 pounds on it's supposed to drop in a controlled manner you know instead of just dropped oh yeah i think with the weight of the tiller it'll just cool that's a good time what's the tiller cost you're getting a good deal right yeah it's gonna be 2600 delivered not bad no it's not bad it's used it's the pillar off of one of these cats so it's the same era cool simple probably you know i'm sure it's not a beauty queen but they said it's in good shape the guy at the shop checked the bearings and said it all feels smooth so cool um yeah and it just has gearbox oil in there so i'm just gonna change the gear oil and call it good sweet yeah uh did they make did they make a ton of these these cats yeah yeah i don't know how many i would guess probably like a decent amount maybe definitely a bunch of thousands and obviously they've held up well so most of them are surviving i mean they're all over the place you watch like i was just watching the sled next from 2007 when chris brown was doing like backflips and they had one of these building to jump oh cool love it and you did you get about the standard deal on it 10k is that about what they usually go for yeah it varies so much that that is like it's a great deal but it's not unheard of let's put it that way cool i could probably sell it for a little more maybe but at the same time like i think with like the the modifications and the maintenance like new tracks and the diesel heater i think it is worth a bit more than i paid but at the same time it's needed a bit of work i think about hours into like getting it together so far yeah yeah perfect couple maintenance issues electronic stuff i had no working lights when i got it so i got those fixed that was a big one just a bad ground yeah so you you did a fair couple things to it yeah a couple things nothing major yeah got a few little hydraulic leaks but they're all fittings so they're just like slow leaks that will get worse and eventually i'll just have to change the hose properly yeah there we go i'm convinced that never even gets to operating temperature for some reason oh yeah it's in south it's really cold-blooded yeah but as soon as you start running it like that radiator breeze breathe this right there cool yeah big fan cool should i hop in yeah hop in check out my seat patches just a t-shirt some spray oh looks nice nice bolsters on the seat just like the modern ones like a sports car all right this door things the door doesn't stay open over here yeah see what finney thinks of it good boy i figured he could sit all right lifting it up yeah so it's like the same thing as a resource now yeah a little older yeah it feels about the same yeah a little smaller a little lighter the seats have nice bolsters do you know what this would msrp for in 94 like 150 or something i'll be a total guess but probably i don't know something like that yes but if it's similar to the other cats with inflation oh good boy oh there you go all right so nice little command center over here yeah old school it's got a mechanical throttle so pull up on the lever oh cool oh wow and i can see the shadow of smoke yeah that's always too small this doesn't like the bog you got to keep it in the oh yeah rolling a little coal cool well this thing's awesome the 90s were a great time it's like a car from the 90s just feels the same yeah well shall we go for a little cruise yeah let's cruise it it's a little chilly but i'll just take it real easy at first i think if you don't load it much it's fine yeah a light warm-up cruise yep all right electric parking brakes that's funny very advanced yeah has been ridden in the snow cat yet this is the first i think oh good boy he's down he's down with whatever [Music] here we go yes still a little louder in here but not too loud well i mean uh horrible i do do ear plugs and if you're hot and you have to open the window the exhaust is right there oh yeah pretty loud i always wonder why that'll put the exhaust on the passenger side oh yeah true and it's funny actually if you run it all night it makes you really hot because the heat through the window wow huh yeah we'll just check out the feel it feels good you know cruise is full on yeah okay wow we'll bleed the trail out a little bit what fun you're the small percentage of people who have their own uh snow cat to play with and uh an area to do it with that's that's great this will be just a very brief internet theory cruise here yep unfortunately there's been virtually no snow this year this is a ridiculously dry snow year so uh not a lot of snow out here but we're still getting after it yeah it feels feels pretty much like the resort cats oh yeah these have like an older style it's a torsion spring suspension oh cool pretty much uh the prenups are still like that but oh yeah the new ones are just a bit smoother riding you can kind of feel once you guys once you get this thing in like the deep snows where it's really fun because it's truly a deep snow machine yeah like when this was advertised i've seen some cool brochures that you know they're like boosting about it being the latest snow can on the market and the you know the that this and they're you know the ads for the snow cat are like very nice he's like the steepest and the deepest yeah like wow it looked like extreme you know 90s apparel and stuff but uh yeah it's cool whereas like the new cats now are like designed to deal with hardback now and build hard you know flat ski rods more so i think this will do that too but yeah it just loves the saw yeah cool so yeah we're gonna go down this trail and you'll be able to see on our way back just what bleeding and tracking it does okay once you get the tiller though and you can set this up with corduroy then it's like actually a trail you know that'll be cool will people see corduroy and they'll be like how did that get there yeah i'm actually never gonna go all the way to my house with it yeah yeah don't lead them to it that looks like and i don't know what the heck it looked like maggie on a summit 850 and i don't know how that would be possible but yeah maybe she got a slap for christmas you know maybe maggie was talking about getting a slip oh boy damn yeah there's no snow it's very strange well not much snow how recently were you driving cars out here uh it's been a month okay yeah it just hasn't really snowed but it snowed just enough cool hey what's the top speed of this about 12 like the other ones maybe 10. yeah 9 10. i think finn likes it he's got great visibility yes he doesn't like it good boy so anyway this is the first joyride i've taken my main thing is i'm really not trying to use this unless i'm making money with it it's yeah an investment you know it's a fun investment but i'd like to be able to use it sparingly until i can build up a little bit of a fund in case it breaks down definitely the least yeah you know yeah you'll get rich but yeah you'll get there i'm sure they could pay for itself just pay for its existence yep that's the ball right now yep does it go about nine in reverse or a little slower same exact speed good i know you do a lot of reversing in this line of work oh man yeah we would check out some rear wiper action this rear wiper hasn't worked in five years oh there goes that's a good feeling oh yeah there's pyramid peak back there where i was filming last year but there's no snow on it oh well so yeah we left some nice tracks here and plowed it did some track packing or whatever right little track packing a track pack hopefully sometime next week should be putting down some quarter i guess that's cool getting that tiller very soon yes so you're working your controls over there just yep there's sticks between the legs yeah that's so the big downside of these is really just the ergonomics because when you're like that it's just a lot nicer oh yeah something like that it's kind of weird on the shoulder true so i would eventually like to have a second cat like this will be just like the deep snow back up reliable reliable you know and then just like this oh yeah it's just really comfortable and nice to run with the sound system in it you know yep damn right cool so yeah hopefully the start of some many good years of cadding in this thing yeah you can do on that hardback trail against that vibration kind of yeah that's part of the trousers the grousers on the ground i think the cab bushings it's got like body mounts basically for the cab i think those are probably kind of worn out yeah just like a pickup truck yeah yeah time to replace those maybe uh i was gonna say yeah it's so cool how it wraps around almost like a bmw or something uh a nice little cockpit style interior and yeah these these seats are have great bolsters like a 90s sports car it's great even the head rest is nice i have some cat work on the list of stuff park it down here and leave my tools in another couple days and hopes that i can get to it yeah cool what are you going to be working on on with it really just trying to get the spotlight working the radio will be a bonus uh spotless definitely cool and i just i'm going to run a wire from here probably around around the edge of the headliner oh nice just tie into that wire so i can still use the spot light in the switch perfect that's right the only reason i haven't done it is i forgot to go to the hardware store and buy a fuse inline fuse holder cool it has a mirror up there too yeah yeah it works well and the side mirrors work well do the modern ones have a mirror uh yeah they do okay but they're relatively useless for like actually backing up carefully i know you always have to turn your whole body around for when you're backing up anyway so you can really see and not hit stuff yeah we had a couple backing two two backing incidents at the resort and one night the other night unfortunately luckily it wasn't on my shift so it was cool yeah that's good awesome yeah this thing sounds great feels feels wonderful it feels like a tiny bit smaller than the modern ones just like the time it is yeah it is i think it's about two feet shorter track length same width yeah and yeah just interior is just a tiny bit smaller maybe but but still very comfortable and cozy yeah it seems like the perfect snow cat for someone to buy on a reasonable budget right and all i mean this thing's still here you gotta see this this is where i've been doing all my electrical exploring can you see that you should wait you should probably try to see it from like this side fins kind of in the way but oh wow wow a lot of wires yeah can you see under here like the hundreds of players oh my god it's like an airplane yeah so somewhere in there i have some grounding issues oh geez yeah well you seem to know what you're doing cool it's cool however everything flips up to reveal more components it's so cool all right well that was a fun ride let's try to get out of this thing ow hit my hood on that thing careful all right out we go cool thanks for the ride and thanks for the tour i'm sure everyone will be interested to hear about this thing yeah i can imagine there are going to be some mechanical projects in the future yep oh there was one mechanical last year it uh it's got these torsion springs the absolute rubber they're not the steel oh wow it's a rubber bonded to a steel shaft that flexes them oh wow and uh one of those broke last year and it was pretty pretty involved cool well it's a great looking little machine i'm glad glad you like it right finn

Channel: SamLovesCars34

Views: 59,382

Keywords: vail, park city, snowcat, ski, skiing, snowboard, fun, utah, snowbird, alta, best, snow, cummins, pisten bully, pistenbully 400, park pro, prinoth beast, cat, diesel, tour, awesome, stuart, winter, 2019, 8.3 cummins, 5.9, 12v, 24v

Id: DHOm3K13FxE

Length: 36min 24sec (2184 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 27 2020