Chevy Nova station wagon snowmobile - photos

**Clockguy** · Dec 25, 2018, 01:33 PM

Trying to remember back, I seem to remember that those early Novas were powered by 6's and small block V-8 engines. I have piloted a number of Arctic Cat snowmobiles in my younger years and one thing I don't buy into is the front skids on that rig. My Cats were mostly wide belt drive machines, adding to their ability to travel through deep snow and fresh powder without bogging down. In comparison, those skids on the front of that Nova body aren't nearly wide enough to do what this guy claims on his eBay ad, 45 mph in 10 FEET of snow?? Plus, please correct me if I'm wrong but isn't that small block 400 in the REAR of the vehicle?? Pointing out toward the BACK bumper??

I may buy this story if he said he did this in Northern Alaska or over in Greenland or anywhere else where there is an ice pack that will support the weight of that vehicle. Sure, they drive large "Deuce and a half" sized snow machines where the ice pack is sufficient to bear the weight but Utah?? I have skied in Colorado, Northern Arizona, New England, and I spent 3 years in Southern Germany skiing in Innsbruck, Austria and Bavaria in Germany and Northern Switzerland and I know about COLD and I have seen and skied on up to 3' of fresh powder in some of these places and I KNOW that it is difficult to maintain your weight control and balance to a point where you cannot simply "go swish" and head down a deep snow fall with no problems or just skimming on top of the snow.

OK, I clicked on the link above where suther51 found this "gem" and here is a copy of a partial post on the Reserve Auction on eBay for this abortion:

"Earlier in the month I came across an eBay.com auction for a 1970 Nova that was converted into a giant monster snowmobile! A truly one-of-a-kind machine that was interesting to look at. The seller/builder was from Cedar City, Utah and said it had over 1000 hours of fabrication into the Nova, modifying everything from the frame up. It had a rebuilt 400 small block and 3 one-ton rear axles.

The seller claimed it ran and drove great, handled very well and that he had taken it through 10 feet of snow going up to 45 miles an hour. The auction got to $2,225.00 but didn't sell because the reserve was not met. Again, while I would never do this to a Nova, I admire the engineering involved in building such a unique Nova. I would love to see it run in the snow."

All in all, I call BS on the entire claim, I would bet that, after he spent the 1000 hrs. on stretching the body, upgrading the framework, adding a 400 small block chevy engine, and fabricating both the entire rear end and new drivetrain connections, [how does one connect an engine flywheel area to the differential of at least one of the rear axles? facing backwards??], he found out that there was more to it than he thought so he decided to dump it on eBay and suck some poor schmuck into paying a fortune for it and then getting out of Dodge with the loot!! I could be wrong and I don't pretend to be any kind of auto mechanic, I was a very competent body man when I had my body shop in operation but I hired employees to do what I didn't know how to do. I see absolutely NO wear on anything that powers the machine. I see a little bit of rust on the shallow cleats on the rear belts but those cleats don't look strong enough or deep enough to say that this machine is able to push through 10 FEET snow of any kind at up to 45 mph.

Even if this guy hooked the drive train up to the front axle in the rear of the vehicle, [the other two behind that are blocked by the engine], he would have to drive it somehow in reverse and I doubt seriously that even a 400 small block or a Chevy big block would push that contraption through a 10 ' snow drift at any speed let alone 45 MPH. I doubt that a small block 400 could reach 45 MPH on dry pavement on a hot dry summer day under perfect road conditions in reverse, on a regular Nova automobile [with wheels!], let alone push through "10 feet of snow". Anybody who has skied in fresh powder or in week old snow in the mountains of Colorado, and probably similar conditions in those same mountains in Utah, can tell you that you have to have some good speed up to get through one foot of powder under the right conditions. This guy is claiming he is pushing a couple thousand pounds riding on skis up front which don't appear to be any wider than 9" or 10" and have almost flat contours on them?? ..... But what do I know about Utah snow??

**Frank S** · Dec 25, 2018, 03:07 PM

Clockguy , some interesting observations. 100% agreement with the front skies. the geometry is all wrong. For one thing the height to length from the steering spindle would allow for the skis to knuckle under the rig once the ski digs in the slightest amount it would become a plow or shovel.
your comment about the 1 ton rear ends though is an easy enough fix Not all rear ends but some of them you can pull the pumpkin out and flip it over installing the ring gear on the opposite side of the pinion. Many rear engine RV's are set up this way, this will make the rear end turn in the opposite direction. connecting 3 of them together is not so easily done. since with the exception of some of the older military stuff and larger heavy duty rear ends there is no output flange on the back side.
some ways around that is to machine the shaft out of the pinion gear and make a new through shaft for it this will only work if the pinion gear is mounted far enough below the centerline that a shaft would not interfere with the spider gear assembly. or you could drive a second pinion gear off of the ring gear this would create another problem in efficiency driving a pinion would eat up a lot of horse power. and having to do it twice would mean even more power loss.
another way would be to make a silent chain gear box to mount on the dif nearest the transmission and the center dif then run the drive shafts over the top this is the most widely accepted way that ^X^ conversions are done
One more way to do this would be to make the a fore mentioned gear box but by using 1 more gear in the first gear box doing this would reverse the outputs to the input
As far as the cleats go a lot of the big snowcats hardly have cleats at all more like short ribs But he doesn't have to worry because I don't think that thing will ever climb on top of fresh powder, mostly not because of the tracks but his skis, wet, crusted or packed is different altogether.

**suther51** · Dec 25, 2018, 03:16 PM

My guess is that there is a married transfercase driving the rear most axle with the rear out put of the t case. That may explain why only 45 mph if it is in low gear in the t case. There would have to be a chain case down to the pinion in put, but not unheard of.
Eric

**suther51** · Dec 26, 2018, 08:07 PM

Originally Posted by suther51

My guess is that there is a married transfercase driving the rear most axle with the rear out put of the t case. That may explain why only 45 mph if it is in low gear in the t case. There would have to be a chain case down to the pinion in put, but not unheard of.
Eric

Late here too.
Just noticed the skis up front in motor pic.
Had it backwards.
To use t case front output with the drive axle facing forwards might work, but that would mean that the front axle of the 3 is driving, not a good situation I would think. Pulling track over the top. Yet the rear axle looks to have had the diff removed? Seems to have been overly complicated putting the motor backwards, like trying to reinvent the wheel with squares.
Some how I just don't want this to be a total clunker. Wouldn't be the first.
Eric

**suther51** · Dec 25, 2018, 03:57 PM

Had the same thought about the skis knuckeling under. Compared to mattracks for example the proportions of the skis may only be a bit taller, the problem is adderses by using torsion bars on the track carriages. How that would work on a ski that only sees drag and no pull I could only guess at.
Eric

**KustomsbyKent** · Jan 3, 2019, 08:47 AM

Yeah, I've seen this pop up in a few other areas as well. At first glance, it looks good, but upon closer inspection, there's issues.
As many others have mentioned, the front skiis are the first major problem. Any bit of friction, and those things are going rotate around and flip over. Doesn't look like any torsion bars to prevent this from happening either.

Inspecting the track drivetrain, the front axle is just an idler tube, I'm assuming the middle axle is also and idler, and the pumpkin is in the rear. Others have already commented about how the pumpkin might be arranged for this to work. Engine is claimed to be a 400 V8, which would be plenty of power... if the power train holds together.
Maybe the speedometer indicated 45 mph, and it was actually going 10? Even 10mph seems like it would be fast. Additionally, tracks kick up a lot of debris from the back, and any bodywork near that area gets blasted. Even at slow speeds its a lot, at 45mph it would be tremendous! Anyone who's driven a snowmobile can attest to that.

Based on my experience with tracked vehicles, (All Terrain Track Chair & my snow dozer & my Oliver HG crawler) I highly doubt this vehicle has ever gone through 10 feet of snow at 45mph.

I think it is an attention grabber that someone is trying offload after it didn't work. They did do a nice job on the body from a distance. Cameras tend to make stuff look better when taken at a distance, so who knows what it actually looks like up close. Fabrication looks fairly good... engineering not so much.

Has anyone seen this vehicle up close recently? Maybe we could get some updated pictures with more details. A video of it actually driving would be great!