Snow Choked Out My Truck
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Joined: Aug 2006
Posts: 78
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From: Southwest Alaska
Snow Choked Out My Truck
So my wife wanted to run down to her village last week. I called my BIL and he told me the trail had been plowed since the village council was hosting some fiddle dance at the school; good-to-go.
Napakiak, Alaska is 17 miles downriver from Bethel and once the Kuskokwim River freezes, the river becomes a highway for as much as 200 miles upriver and 75 miles dowriver. Until snowfall gets too deep, we just drive wherever our heart desires, when the snow gets too deep, village owned road-graders or front end loaders go out and make a "trail".
We head on down and everything is good, snow was falling, really light snow with the -10*F temps, with just enough breeze to get the drifting going into the trail. By the time we were at 13 miles, it was bad enough I was gassing it and hoping for the best, no place to turn around, and eight miles to reverse; I just kept the hammer down. We made it and I decided to drop her off and turn around immediately.
On the way back I noticed I had to have my foot in the gas more so than usual, temp was fine so I thought I had ingested some snow. Some. I took the cover off to get my filter out and it had a solid block of snow/ice frozen into the pleats for better than 3/4 the length of the filter! No wonder I had to have the gas down. But here's the trick: the truck seemed to run fine with no problems, other than a gas-gauge dropping like the value of our dollar.
Anyone make an intake set-up that can keep snow dust out?
Thanks.
Napakiak, Alaska is 17 miles downriver from Bethel and once the Kuskokwim River freezes, the river becomes a highway for as much as 200 miles upriver and 75 miles dowriver. Until snowfall gets too deep, we just drive wherever our heart desires, when the snow gets too deep, village owned road-graders or front end loaders go out and make a "trail".
We head on down and everything is good, snow was falling, really light snow with the -10*F temps, with just enough breeze to get the drifting going into the trail. By the time we were at 13 miles, it was bad enough I was gassing it and hoping for the best, no place to turn around, and eight miles to reverse; I just kept the hammer down. We made it and I decided to drop her off and turn around immediately.
On the way back I noticed I had to have my foot in the gas more so than usual, temp was fine so I thought I had ingested some snow. Some. I took the cover off to get my filter out and it had a solid block of snow/ice frozen into the pleats for better than 3/4 the length of the filter! No wonder I had to have the gas down. But here's the trick: the truck seemed to run fine with no problems, other than a gas-gauge dropping like the value of our dollar.
Anyone make an intake set-up that can keep snow dust out?
Thanks.
Thread Starter
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Rookie
Joined: Aug 2006
Posts: 78
Likes: 0
From: Southwest Alaska
Yup, she's all stock. I am typing this as I am drying out my filter in front of the Toyo stove. I have a couple spares in my storage, but need to dry this one out before driving over there. 
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Joined: Apr 2010
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From: Clayton MI
I think removing the snorkel is a good idea. Not sure a screen would be really necessary.... as it would just give the snow a place to collect... though, I suppose a pre-filter would be better than the air filter collecting it....