While we are talking cars I'm not sure how widely known this is but when I was a Hockey Executive a few years ago a Zamboni was a Ford drive line and an Olympia was a GMC 4.3 litre drive line, This had significant effects on sponsorship contracts at the arenas. GM would always write in sponsorship deals no Zamboni's to be used in rinks where they had sponsor deals, only Olympia. I understand that recent Zambonis have started to use GM power, but in the old days it was always Ford.
When I was a kid, I could have sworn the Zambonis sounded like they VW (flat 4) engines in them - was that true? I never had any actual experience with them other than watching the guy cleaning the ice before my games.
While we are talking cars I'm not sure how widely known this is but when I was a Hockey Executive a few years ago a Zamboni was a Ford drive line and an Olympia was a GMC 4.3 litre drive line, This had significant effects on sponsorship contracts at the arenas. GM would always write in sponsorship deals no Zamboni's to be used in rinks where they had sponsor deals, only Olympia. I understand that recent Zambonis have started to use GM power, but in the old days it was always Ford.
When I was a kid, I could have sworn the Zambonis sounded like they VW (flat 4) engines in them - was that true? I never had any actual experience with them other than watching the guy cleaning the ice before my games.
Yes, when I worked for the City of Kingston I serviced the ice equipment. The spare was a 1969 Zamboni with a VW 1500 industrial engine. The Zambonis were all hydraulically driven, the engine driving hydraulic pumps. The Olympias all used GM drivetrains with the automatic transmission locked in first gear. The Zambonis always worked the best because you could rev the engine up to set the speed for the conditioner and still creep slowly to get a nice finish on the rink. The Olympia being driven by a transmission didnt give the same flexibility when doing ice maintenance, but still worked very well when properly set up. In reference to Olympia selling truck bodies at one time you could get the statement of origin and register the truck with MTO. This created problems for GM and I was told thats why Olympia started buying components instead of complete vehicles. I remember that the vin of the donor truck was on a sticker inside the seat mount on the Olympia so you could order parts from GM.
The last Zambonis purchased when I was still working did have GM four cylinder engines similar to marine engines without the marine water equipment.
If the link works this is the engine in the last series of Zambonis I worked on. And we did have a Zamboni with a 2.3 Ford gas engine that was a 2003 year machine if I recall.
