Building a DIY Snowmobile from a Moped: A Budget-Friendly Project
3 min read
Dania Kraster and the BNB Lab team demonstrate how to transform an inexpensive used moped into a functional snow-runner. By replacing wheels with a custom track and ski system, they create a cost-effective vehicle for winter travel, proving that DIY engineering can provide a viable alternative to expensive commercial equipment.
Guest: Dania Kraster
Key takeaways
- Building a DIY snowmobile from a used moped is a cost-effective alternative to purchasing commercial winter vehicles.
- The project requires basic mechanical skills, including welding, cutting, and chain tensioning.
- Key components include a track system, a steering ski assembly, and a modified gear ratio to maintain torque.
- While the prototype performs well on packed snow, performance in deep powder is limited by the track width and engine power.
- Total build cost was approximately 45,000 rubles, significantly cheaper than entry-level commercial snowmobiles.
The Concept: DIY Winter Mobility
In regions where winter snow makes traditional road travel impossible, local residents often repurpose mopeds, motorcycles, and walk-behind tractors into makeshift snow vehicles. Motivated by the high cost of commercial snowmobiles, the team decided to build a DIY snow-runner using an inexpensive, used Chinese moped as the base. The goal was to create a functional, affordable vehicle using classic garage technology.
The selected base was a budget-friendly moped, chosen for its simplicity, ease of repair, and readily available parts. The project focused on replacing the rear wheel with a track system and the front wheel with a ski, transforming the moped into a light, agile, and cost-effective winter transport solution.
Mechanical Modifications and Assembly
The transformation began by stripping the moped down to its frame. The rear wheel was removed to accommodate a track kit, which serves as the primary drive. To ensure power transfer, the team installed a motorcycle chain and sprocket system, as a standard bicycle chain would not withstand the increased load. The frame was reinforced with steel tubing to support the track, and the suspension was made rigid to prevent the chain from stretching or slipping.
Steering was overhauled by removing the front wheel and replacing it with a ski assembly, similar to those found on commercial snow scooters. The steering mechanism was redesigned to mirror a go-kart system, using two rods and a swingarm to provide stable control. Finally, the gear ratios were adjusted by replacing the large driven sprocket to compensate for the smaller track radius and restore torque.
Testing the Snow-Runner
Initial field tests demonstrated that the prototype is highly capable on packed snow and light powder, offering a fun and functional way to traverse snowy terrain. The vehicle proved reliable for basic tasks, such as hauling a sled for ice fishing. However, testing also revealed limitations: the current track width and engine power struggle in deep, heavy powder.
Throughout the testing phase, the team identified areas for future refinement, such as using a wider track for better flotation and opting for a more powerful engine (like a 150cc maxi-scooter) to improve performance on inclines. Despite some mechanical challenges, such as a slipped chain, the project was deemed a success, providing a practical, low-cost winter machine.
Project Economics
One of the primary drivers for this DIY build was the cost. The total expenditure for the project was approximately 45,100 rubles, including the moped, the track system, bearings, chains, and various repair parts. By investing a week of labor, the team created a functional unit for a fraction of the price of a commercial snowmobile, which often starts at 300,000 rubles.
This experiment highlights the viability of DIY engineering for specialized vehicles. By utilizing readily available parts and straightforward mechanical modifications, builders can save substantial money while gaining a deeper understanding of vehicle mechanics and enjoying the satisfaction of a custom-built machine.
Timestamps
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00:04A small hole in the base, well, something like that, maybe a hundred. Come on, kid, you can do it! DIY is on top of the world, damn it! It doesn't go uphill, damn it! Now I'm going to the neighbor's for moonshine, then to the bathhouse.
00:30It's really crap at driving in the snow! Hello, Dania Kraster with you, today we're going to combine this and winter work. Well, you'll see for yourself.
00:43When winter comes to a place where there are no roads and a snowmobile sits like a used foreign car, people start to think a little and very often think alike. In villages, in the north, in the taiga, and simply in places where the snow is knee-deep, people spend years converting mopeds, old motorcycles, walk-behind tractors, snowmobile dogs, snowcats—well, basically, anything they can get their hands on. This time, we chose a moped because it's the cheapest. We'll try to turn it into a snowmobile using classic garage technology. You'll find out how much this experiment cost us a bit later, but it'll definitely be a lot cheaper than store-bought variators.
01:18Otherwise, what's the point of a DIY video? Anyway, if you've been thinking about building a homemade snowmobile for a while, this video is the sign you've been waiting for to get started. Your wife will probably try to keep it a secret, but I know you're smarter than that and will definitely watch it to the end. For now, we need to figure out what we're working with and how. Our base is a very ordinary Chinese moped for 16k on Avito. It's beat up, but damn, it works. It's simple, easy to repair, and parts are available at every store. What are the immediate advantages? Light weight, simple engine, cheap maintenance.
01:52In my opinion, it's the perfect variator for a makeover. Time is short and there's a ton to do, so let's get going. I don't know about you, but I loved taking apart all sorts of junk as a kid. Although, in principle, nothing much has changed since then. The point isn't even to disassemble, fix, and reassemble something. It's just pure fun to tinker with the hardware, see what's inside and how it works. I don't know about everyone, but for most guys, this is a basic setup. If you had a bike or scooter as a kid, or if your dad had a Lada, then you've definitely handled a wrench and screwdriver, and you know what I mean.
02:24Our team is no different. The scooter was disassembled in literally an hour. We took everything that was left, cut off the unnecessary parts, and then started bubbling away. How do you turn this mess of metal and wires into something that moves on the ground and in the snow? But before we start putting in a ton of time, effort, and energy, let's think about why we're inventing anything yet again. For that, it's worth looking at the market for all kinds of snow equipment. Well, the cheapest way to get around in the snow, and generally in winter— and even in summer, in fact—is our aerobaby. We made one a few years ago. It's pretty cool, by the way.
03:03And if we look at all the motorized vehicles with direct ground drive, for some reason we have these common snowmobiles in Russia, which, in my opinion, are absolute crap. I don't know, it's some kind of cultivator with tracks that doesn't steer at all, it's slow, it's weird. And anyway, what's the point of all this? Next, if you look at some store-bought options, there's a 100,000-something, motorized children's snow scooter, which is also kind of cool.
03:37And it's already a cool option, which you can ride around on. These are full-fledged snowmobiles starting at 300,000.
03:47When you're a grown man with money, you can, in principle, spare some cash . But honestly, it's a bit steep.
03:56Drive sprockets and bearings for it. There's not much to do with variators. You can either go crazy and make a completely homemade track, because there are plenty of examples online. Or you can budget and buy a track. You'll have time to fuck around while you're cramming it all into the scooter. As you can see, we went the second route, and the only crafting required is connecting everything together. The parts are simple enough to be cut with a grinder, but to speed up the process, we used plasma cutting. And there's not much to design here. Stick on stick, wide on wide, and you're done. Another question is how to attach this to a moped. But more on that later.
04:53During the initial tests, it turned out that it would be a good idea to think about a tensioner. The track must be tensioned just like a chain on a bike. Otherwise, we'll end up spinning our wheels. Basically, we should attach a radio control here. And even remove it from the handlebars. Even in this form, this thing is cool to ride through the forest. It looks like a crawler from Tatooine from Star Wars. It does have a few other parts besides the track, though. But we'll do that later.
05:38The first thing you pee yourself when you try to ride a scooter in the snow is the rear wheel, which is where the drive goes. So we brutally sawed it off. Well, I'm not going to throw it away. It might come in handy somewhere else. As a steering wheel, I don't know. And we replaced this thing with a track like this. It's the cheapest we could find. And the simplest overall. We bought a sprocket here, these rollers, these guides. And this whole thing will allow us to increase. Firstly. The contact patch. Secondly, look at this beautiful tread.
06:14We'll actually see how it works.
06:21For this thing to go anywhere, the track needs to be turned by something. A chain would be quite justified here. A bicycle chain was a bit of a stretch. The loads here are still higher, after all. So we had to splurge on a motorcycle one and a couple of sprockets for it. We've already shat one to the track. We mounted the second one on the spindle of the original moped wheel. It doesn't sound difficult. And it's actually easy to do. So even a novice DIYer can handle it. There wasn't much time to think about the frame. A couple of tubes to the original scooter frame and it's done. The main thing is that the track is level. Otherwise, we'll be driving sideways up the hill.
06:54And yes, about the suspension. Well, there won't be any. We replaced the original shock absorbers with our local steel profile. Otherwise, the chain will constantly stretch and fly off. Will I lose a point while riding? We'll find out during testing. In the meantime, this burp of the moped industry somehow runs. But it seems there are problems with the CVT. We'll have to tinker with it a bit. A minute of thinking about the steering mechanism ended with us simply stealing it from 200k snowmobiles. But we had to ditch the shock absorbers again. These poles with springs look flimsy. We're planning on plodding through snowdrifts here,
07:29not trudging along the sidewalk next to old ladies. So everything will be as rigid as possible.
08:04And, as usual, we took off the front wheel too, because what kind of wheels are you going to need in winter? It's completely unnecessary. It won't steer on hard snow, or on ice, and especially not on the powder we're planning on riding on. After all, what are we doing here, a snowmobile, for someone to roll into the woods on it? So we took a ski. Well, more precisely, what kind of ski? It's a ski cover on more mass-produced snow scooters. Snowmobiles, to be more precise. It's made... It doesn't say anything anywhere, but it tastes like it's made of low-density polyethylene. It's a very slippery thing, and it should be quite sticky in the cold.
08:48The only thing that bothers me here is the M5s we secured ourselves with, Because there's very little plastic here. I think I'll replace this whole thing with bigger fasteners.
09:03Listen, damn, it's so thick that I'm basically canceling my complaints. Yeah, maybe we should just put a washer underneath? Nothing needed at all, there's a ton of meat here. Although, you know what, I wanted to change this on the M8, but considering how thick the plastic was left here, I thought it was just showing off, since we were only catching on this spline. And there's so much meat here for it to catch on that, I don't know, half a bull could fit in there. We'll keep the M5, everything should work fine. I've been picking on things where it shouldn't, huh? We'll have two skis. Otherwise, I'll end up in a snowdrift on the first turn.
09:39We couldn't fit the skis into the stock fork, so we got rid of it. In the end, we welded together the most aesthetically pleasing steering system, like a go-kart. Two rods and a swingarm. Only the rotation axis is vertical. The only expenses are the skis themselves and a few bearings. It turned out quite affordable.
10:39And to make this balalaika ride properly from a mechanical standpoint, from a gear ratio standpoint, and from my perspective on all this crap, we actually made the wheel smaller. This radius, the bending radius of this little thing, is our very last radius, the one that touches the ground, where the torque starts to drop off. Therefore, to increase the rotation speed of this whole balalaika and bring it closer to the speed of the stock wheel, we need to increase the gear ratios from the small drive sprocket to the large driven sprocket. Accordingly, we need to make this large sprocket smaller and install one like this.
11:21And that's it, in theory, it should work. But we'll see about that. Yes, we removed the stock wheels, but damn, we had to install new ones to get this Frankenstein out of the way. He refused to get into the elevator with skis on. And checking the dimensions beforehand—yeah, why bother? Who does that? I hope I won't have to bring it back, now that it's in its natural habitat. Okay, first tests, let's see how this crap drives.
11:48Ha, look, you can sit there. Three supports.
11:56It's pulling! Look how it's pulling!
12:23Damn, this thing is a beast, damn it. About eight kilometers, it's going confidently. Next time we should have taken an ant like this, or the Carpathians. Ooooh, damn, that would have been... Eight and a half.
12:51Oh, bitch!
13:09Wait, wait. This is
13:18a tricky part. Simple. Quiet, quiet.
13:39No, well, on powder it's absolutely fantastic.
13:49No, well, it's driving. It's driving, it's steering, it's climbing. Well, it's driving. A small hole in the base, well, something like 30-100 horsepower.
14:03And finally, before the main tests, let's think and figure out how much this crap cost, and whether it was even worth doing. Track, sprockets, and rollers. Eighteen thousand five hundred rubles. This is the most expensive, the newest thing we bought here, specifically so it could drive in the snow. A used scooter is sixteen thousand. Bearings are three thousand two hundred twenty-one. Sprockets, chain, and steering shaft. Two thousand two hundred ninety-four and four hundred eighty- two thousand rubles. The scooter had a dead one, we had to replace it so we couldn't kick-start it, standing there in a field, but start it with the button.
14:38A kickstarter repair kit, light bulbs, and a hose from a marketplace are one thousand six hundred eighty-eight rubles. Chain tensioner is one hundred sixty-eight. You could have pulled something out of the crap, actually. The filter was four hundred and forty-eight rubles. The membrane was three hundred rubles, because, as I already said, it was dead in the carburetor and needed to be replaced for it to work properly. So, forty-five thousand one hundred and seven rubles, you've got a unit that might not go very fast, but will definitely haul a sled to ice fishing on a flat surface. It'll be much more comfortable than riding a snowmobile.
15:13Yes, it's bigger than a snowmobile, which you can throw in almost any car trunk, but it's more comfortable. And if you don't get a dead scooter, but something more powerful. Well, a maxi-scooter with a hundred and fifty cc, for example, And then you can slap on a tire, like this wider and longer track. You can keep the same skis. You can get one for about a hundred thousand rubles, and get a unit that's comparable in speed and comfort to a cheap snowmobile. And that's exactly how it works out. If your unit costs about a hundred thousand rubles to make, then it will retail for three hundred thousand rubles.
15:58Basically, the economics add up. And you can make this thing in a week in a garage with just one person. That means you save two hundred thousand rubles. That's why this project is quite interesting.
16:19Hello, my dear friend! Welcome to Russian Winter! And this is my DIY snow......runner, it turns out. Let's go for a ride!
17:00Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! It
17:20doesn't go uphill at all!
17:30DIY on top of the world, damn! Eh-eh-eh! Well, that's actually fun! It rides, damn. Of course, it doesn't ride on a big slope. It lacks power altogether. And the ski, like, this... The track needs to be bigger, wider. More tread. And this way you can have fun on gentle hills. Well, it's generally fine. Like, I say, I attached a sled to the back for fishing and went for it.
18:27Come on, kid, you can do it!
18:31Damn, it's so cool in powder. Totally awesome.
18:40The camera fell! Oh well, who cares! I know I'll be home by evening!
18:49No, well, to be honest, I wouldn't throw around GoPros like that, they're always useful.
18:57Are you alive, damn it? Let's go skiing some more.
19:05The Reel is fun. Of course, it's not great in powder, but on this kind of medium-packed snow, it's totally cool.
19:15Yeah, it gets a little buried in powder. Oh, it gets a lot buried.
19:25The contact area is small, but in powder it is small. Yeah, in powder it's a disaster. This track, in short, doesn't fit. And the powder here is, well, about this. What did you thresh there? Right down to the ground.
19:54He-he-he! He-he-he! He-he-he!
20:05Off we go, my dear! He-he-he! Now off to the neighbor's for some moonshine, then to the bathhouse. Good! Beautiful!
20:38No, after it's compacted it goes just fine.
20:43I'll go there again.
20:53A-a-ah! Go, damn it, come on!
20:58Get in, I'll give you a ride!
21:01Get in, I said.
21:05Absolutely!
21:18Not fast!
21:38Ah, rocking.
21:46That's it, the track is fucked. Something smells bad. That's me. I figured that out. Hooray, something's broken! The chain's come off. That's it, that's it. There's a service station nearby, we'll get there. Three kilometers on the way out.
22:05Master marker. Okay, yeah, done.
22:11Hey!
22:14Come on, damn it! He's rowing like crazy, both of them!
22:24Damn it!
22:27Yeah, they're probably already starting to grind the stones near the ground. Well, in short, it turned out to be a tractor. Basically. Hee-hee-hee-hee! Hee-hee-hee-hee! Hee-hee-hee-hee! No, at least not on foot! Ha-ha-ha-ha!
22:48Now you'll get a little manure thrown at your back. Hee-hee-hee-ha-ha!
22:56Hee-hee-hee-hee!
23:02The chain came off. Hey! What can I say? Awesome, in short, uh... The prank was a total success. This jalopy is a little more expensive, more powerful. And overall, it's awesome. And the gooseneck is wider. Otherwise, it's a totally workable topic, awesome. Thanks everyone! This was Dania Kraster and the BNB Lab. And I'm off to the bathhouse. The weather is too great. I'd really like to go ice fishing with a stream. But that'll be later. Okay, bye!
23:34Ha-ha-ha!
23:43You're a beast, damn it!
