Ford Industrial 172 Power Unit

Hi I am new to this forum. I just acquired A Ford 172CI Industrial Power Unit. I have a few Ford tractors but want to know more about this unit. ( I know that it is interchangeable with many ford tractors but I haven't seen much on the power units them self). This one was mounted on the front of a late 50's aircraft tug and powered a snowblower to snowblow runways. The setup was called a Sno-Flyr and i couldn't find anything on those units. Anyway it runs great and i was just wondering if anyone had any good info on the unit, Thanks.
[video play=false:174012c921]https://forums.yesterdaystractors.com/videos/mvvideo47726.mov[/video:174012c921]













[video play=false:174012c921]https://forums.yesterdaystractors.com/videos/mvvideo47733.mov[/video:174012c921]

I have a somewhat similar looking 192 CI power unit but no information specific to such units.

Dean

When I was purchasing this I was hoping it was a 192 but it ended being a 172. But its a great running engine so i'm not to disappointing. I'm just more curious on the history of these power units. Thanks for your response.

They were the same basic engine design as the 172 ci engine used in the tractors. Ford sold them to third party manufacturers to be used in all sorts of things. I have a friend who owns a tree service and he has 4 or 5 wood chippers that use them, a couple are 172's and a couple are 192's. I have seen them on generators and irrigation pumps, but this is the first I've seen that was originally installed on a snow blower. Do you know what brand/model the airport tug was? I'm curious if that was Ford made also.

The casting code will tell you if it was specifically designed to be sold as an industrial unit. Tractor engines would all have NN as the third and fourth characters, like C3NN6015A, while engines designed specifically to be Industrial units would have JN, like C7JN6015AB. I think all of the 192's were JN's, while some of the earlier 172's sold as power units had NN casting numbers which means they are the same castings that were being used in the tractors at the time, and later 172's switched to JN numbers after they were no longer making the 4 cylinder 172 ci tractors, so new casting designs were specifically being made for the Industrial division.

(quoted from post at 21:08:26 01/12/20) Hi I am new to this forum. I just acquired A Ford 172CI Industrial Power Unit. I have a few Ford tractors but want to know more about this unit. ( I know that it is interchangeable with many ford tractors but I haven't seen much on the power units them self). This one was mounted on the front of a late 50's aircraft tug and powered a snowblower to snowblow runways. The setup was called a Sno-Flyr and i couldn't find anything on those units. Anyway it runs great and i was just wondering if anyone had any good info on the unit, Thanks.
[video play=false:c326f01f09]https://forums.yesterdaystractors.com/videos/mvvideo47726.mov[/video:c326f01f09]

[video play=false:c326f01f09]https://forums.yesterdaystractors.com/videos/mvvideo47733.mov[/video:c326f01f09]

Click to expand...

That's really cool. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks for the info! I appreciate it. And I have pictures of the tug it came off of but unfortunately I don't have any pictures of it with the snowblower mounted. I cannot find any online. My step father
purchased it from a local airport and took it off, put a snowplow on the tug and used it to plow for years. He also used the power unit for a generator until I bought it. The tug was called a Coleman MB-4.
It has a 6 cylinder industrial flathead Chrysler engine on it with a 5 speed transmission, rockwell axles, 4x4, and 4 wheel steering. I believe Chrysler had something to do with building the tug but there is
not much info on those either. It must have been a pretty rare unit. Even searching SNO-FLYR which is on the hood of the power unit I mostly just find small residential snow blowers. Here I have attached
some pictures of the markings and tags on the engine and some pics of the tug. Thanks

C0NN6015J is a 172 block cast between 1960 and 1964, and it looks like the ID tag for that tug says it was manufactured in 58, so the engine from the power unit is newer than the tug itself.