President Hudson Valley Old Time Power Assn. 434 Millbrook Road,
Hudson, New York 12534
The 1928 Snow-Go Snowblower was built by the Klauer
Manufacturing Company of Dubuque, Iowa.
In the fall of 1996-1997 the club received this Sno-Go. The
chassis had been sitting outside for at least 15-18 years and the
cab was pretty well rotted and most paint gone from all the metal
parts. All wood pieces were removed from the chassis and saved for
later measurements. The local sandblast man came in and sandblasted
the complete chassis, fuel tank, metal parts, motor, transmission,
and differential. Tom Birch of Birch’s Sandstorm did the job.
Tom then cleaned the complete chassis of all dirt and sanded and
primed everything.
The cab fortunately was built on its own frame, thus we were
able to remove that cab frame and put it into a heated garage and
the rest of the chassis was pushed into an unheated garage.
Fortunately that fall was pretty mild, so we were able to do some
work on the chassis.
The engine is a 1200 cubic inch Climax R6U, 6 cylinder, 6 inch x
7 inch stroke, a magneto and a distributor, dual ignition. We put
in two new batteries and some gas and we decided to start it. It
turned over several times, made one explosion and then backfired.
We pulled some of the spark plugs and noticed that some of the
valves were sticking open. We removed the valve lifter covers from
the side of the block and sprayed the valve guides with penetrating
oil from the side and through the spark plug holes.
With the help of a hammer and a real small stick we tapped the
valves down, turned the motor over, tapped the valves down again
until finally we had them all freed up. We then put the spark plugs
back in and turned the motor over with the starter, and lo and
behold, it started and was running. It had good oil pressure. An
unbelievable amount of old oil, penetrating oil, birds’ nests
and soot came out of the exhaust pipe and went all over us. We
decided that the valves had to be pulled out, the seats refaced,
and the engine generally cleaned up inside. This was done; now the
engine runs real good.
All pieces of the wood cab have been replaced with all new wood,
mostly oak. Some of the old wood was measured, but most new wood
pieces were made from old pictures and a picture from Klauer
Manufacturing Company.
When we first got the blower, I made a call to Klauer
Manufacturing Company in Dubuque, Iowa. I told them Hudson Valley
Old Time Power was restoring machine number 30 and would like all
information we could get. They presented me with the original line
setting ticket.
By March of 1997 we had built a new cab using all safety glass
in windows, new roof covering, painted in harvest gold paint. A
club member, John Daniels, used his backhoe to help us remove the
cab from the shop, lift the cab and sit it on the chassis.
The clutch for the snowblower had rusted fast. We completely
took the unit apart, sandblasted it, used penetrating oil and
persuasion and finally got it apart.
The Sno-Go has a 175 gallon fuel tank which kind of shows us the
fuel consumption. A former operator said they refueled it every two
to two and a half hours when working.
The Sno-Go was purchased new in December of 1928 by the Columbia
County New York Highway Department and was used until the early
1970s. It was sold at an auction in 1976. Mr. Robert Hunter
purchased it then and in 1997 decided to give it to the Hudson
Valley Old Time Power Association.
We were fortunate in that the radiator had only one small leak.
One small can of K&W radiator seal took care of that and we now
have permanent antifreeze in it. This could have been a $2000
repair job, had this radiator been totally gone.
The augers on the front of the snowblower are 7 feet 10 inches
wide and stand about 41/2 feet high. We have the mechanisms for the
top of the blower which can be used for loading trucks. The blower
could actually go out and work today.
The machine is known as the ‘AlaskanHusky.’
