Roland Cotnior of Colebrook, New Hampshire is the kind of guy we’d love to hang out and suck down a beer with. Why? He personifies the true spirit of old school New England, of Bangshifty-ness, and the fun of being a gearhead who enjoys holding problems. In this case, Roland’s problem was the fact that he lives in snowy New Hampshire and his driveway is three quarters of a mile long. Wanting an alternative to simply pushing the snow with a plow, he gathered an eclectic bunch of parts and pieces and built himself an awesome truck mounted snow blower.
Starting with a late 1960s GMC pickup truck, that already wore a plow frame, he built the frame and mounting apparatus for a large snowblower that was originally intended to be attached to a tractor. He utilized the existing snow plow rig by attaching the blower to the truck with a chain so it can be lowered and raised when he needs to. Because the snowblower was intended to be run off of a PTO on the tractor, he needed a way to get it to rotate. This is where the brilliance comes in.
Cotnoir mounted a Detroit Deisel 3-53 engine in the rear of the truck where it provides ballast and it also spins at a set 2,200 RPM to turn a hydraulic pump. Said hydraulic pump routes fluid through a large valve in the cab that Cotnoir uses to turn the blower on and off. In the on position the fluid flows to the front and into a hydraulic motor that spins the snowblower. How rad is this?!
The whole thing is basically recycled stuff from the hydraulic oil tank to the Detroit Diesel engine, and while it seems complicated we think he came up with the most effective and simple solution to the problem. Best part is it likely cost him next to nothing using all this old cast-off stuff. 100% BangShift Approved!
You have likely heard the term Yankee Ingenuity before and the reality is that it was born from guys like Roland, just a couple hundred years older. People living in relative isolation had to make the best of what they had and often times get creative to solve problems. As you can see, it has not been bred out of us quite yet!
I like it a lot.My kinda man.