Monday, January 12, 2009

The new sled is fun, but....

Tried to go up to NH the other night with the new Ski-Doo. That thing goes like a bandit! Its tall though, I'd stopped a couple weeks ago at a tree down across the trail. This time I said to hell with it I'm going through. It was just the windshield pushing against the trunk anyway. The windshield dismounted itself, the little plastic posts that hold it on came off, so there was no real damage. I got stuck again not much farther along at another tree down, then damn near got stuck trying another trail. I'm going to try to figure out who owns or has responsibility for the trail so I can see about getting the two trees removed. I'd also like to see about getting permission to clean up the trail a little too, there are some major whoops that could be smoothed out and some bad ruts put in by idiots driving 4x4s down the trail. I'd like to get that turned into a real snowmobile trail and at least groom it a little...

Anyway the bigger problem I had was the sled wanting to overheat. Last time I rode I thought the temp was higher than I liked but it was pretty stable, this time it was leaning waaaayy up toward the hot zone making me nervous. Part of the problem was that the snow was crusty so I wasn't getting the snow up on the coolers the way I'd like to. The other issue I *think* is that there was some schumutz (theres a technical term for you) on the radiator cap preventing it from sealing correctly. I think it wasn't building up as much pressure as it ought to. I really should drain the coolant and replace too, it doesn't hold that much and who knows how good the stuff in there now is...

Anyway Sunday we got some new snow and I rode it around the yard without the schmutz in the cap and it seemed to stay cooler. I even got Angie driving it. She's really scared of the size and at first she'd only ride behind me and only with her head down and eyes closed. I took her over a couple of snow piles that I guess scared the snot out of her. After a couple loops though she got confident and was going faster than I ever would...

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