Bustin out the busted up Ski-Doo

Last winter when I went on the full tank ride Allen pointed out I had a bent trailing arm. My '95 Ski-Doo Grand Touring uses trailing arms for the front suspension which is an old school method. Today everything uses A arms which are lighter and stronger. The original trailing arms on the sled got bent up after an unfortunate encounter with a big concrete block at a gate on our local trail system. I'd had them replaced with aftermarket models which everybody told me weren't as strong as the originals. I guess thats true since I'm really not sure how it got bent this time. These replacement trailing arms are two pieces of stamped metal welded together and when the bend it makes a kink:

I'd already pounded it straight before I took the picture but with the kink there was no way it was going to be strong enough to last, the first good bump I hit with it the kink would bend again and maybe break. I don't want to waste any more money on replacement trailing arms so I figured I'd splint the kink with some angle iron which should be stronger than the original.

Here I've welded on two pieces of 1"x1/8" angle iron. This is the backside of the kink which was worse than the front. I think I must have hit a stump or something and just glanced off of it.

The front side I plated, you can see the dent here where I've left the paint on.

And the finished product:

This should be much stronger than the original, the replacement trailing arms are maybe 1/16" thick, the replacement metal on the back, top and bottom is twice as thick, the plate on the front is the same as the original. It'll be interesting to see if this fix lasts or if I end up remaking the whole trailing arm. If it comes to that I'll get some square stock the same size as the thin end of the trailing arm, run that the whole length and then run a stiffening bar underneath.

After I reinstalled the trailing arm I checked the alignment, for proper steering the skis need to toe out just a bit, if they don't the sled will dart all over, this is a lesson I learned the hard way last winter.

No snow yet but the Ski-Doo is one step closer to being ready. Next up is to repair the exhaust. I've welded on it some before but never really put much time into it. Tomorrow I'll give it a good going over.