Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Almost went riding

So the plan on Sunday was to go for a ride. Then things got ugly...

The '78 Arctic Cat Pantera would start but it wouldn't idle and it was frozen to the ground, frozen HARD. The normal trick when you're only frozen down a little is to stand on the sled and tip it back and forth until it breaks free. That didn't work so I got out one of my ramp boards, thats an 8 foot 2x8" board, I braced the board under the grab handle on the rear of the sled and HEAVED, nothing...

So I gave up and went to the '79 Polaris Cobra, that started up pretty easy but quit. I'm pretty gun-shy with that sled since the pump leaked into the bottom end. After much farting around I got it going again. I think I've become too stingy with the choke, that sled needs to warm up for a minute with choke (which is actually a fuel enrichener) before its ready to go. With the Cobra running I was determined to get that Cat loose. I roped the Polaris to the Cat and PULLED.

The Cobra is a trooper and with its long track was really designed for work like this, its geared low and has great traction. Finally I managed to shift the Pantera forward about 3 feet, I thought it was free but what was actually happening was the rear of the track would free from the ground, the front was stuck way worse than the rear. With most of the track finally free I managed to use my ramp board to break the rest free. Unfortunately then the sled was stuck on the ice in its hole. Finally after much mucking about the Polaris was able to pull the Cat forward another couple feet to get it onto good snow and out.

After all that I had no energy to pull the carb off the Pantera one more time to get it right. Hopefully I'll be out of work Friday early enough to do the job, I didn't rod out each of the jets when I cleaned it last and I'd guess the pilot jet is plugged, should be no big deal to fix.

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