"Shaun Van Poecke" wrote in
:

They have some dinky other inventions there too, I
saw a setup on another boat (maybe a crab boat?) which had most of the
driveline of a car on it; engine, gearbox, driveshaft, rear axle (im
guessing the spider gears on the diff were welded) and a rim on each
axle. These were used to pull lines in.



When I was a kid, long ago I'm sorry to say, a neighbor of my grandfather
built a pontoon barge about 16' wide and 32' long. He tried an outboard
motor of-the-day, but it was too small to power it, especially into the
wind or current. In his yard sat a rusted out old late 40's Chevy pickup
truck with a good engine/transmission/rear end. He mounted the whole
drivetrain into the center of the deck of the big pontoon barge and added
two more pontoons for more bouyancy. (Made from 55 gallon oil drums for
free) The rear axle was bolted to the deck with motor mounts for
vibration control under it. Extending shafts were welded to both sides
to bring the power for the home made paddle wheels out over the edges and
paddle wheels inside splash pans were made, a total guess but pretty
correct in size. Twin rudders were added to the stern to provide
steering, but later brake bands over drums that were welded onto the
drive shafts were added, which provided really neat power control to the
paddle wheels. You could apply the port brake, lowering the port paddle
power while the differential added power to the stbd paddle. Lock a
brake and she'd turn around nearly in her own length!

We kids spent many a great weekend camping out on that barge powered by
Chevrolet. As upstate NY hardly ever gets "warm" for more than a week in
summer, the radiator heat was redirected into the little cabin to keep us
warm from the waste heat.

Fishing from it was a disaster underway. The slapping of the paddle
wheels entering the water scared away the fish for miles!....(c;



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