Dead Sled Wrenching again!

 Ahh dear readers you must think I've abandoned you. Well maybe I had but here's some dead sled wrenching content.

The first big snow of 2021 is here so Saturday and Sunday I took some time to get things going.

I started with the two Arctic Cat Jags. Last year I had the '98 going although we never had any snow so I figured I'd start with the '91 this year. It was wicked cold when I dropped them off the trailer and I was disappointed when the '91 wouldn't crank at all. I stuck an electric heater under the hood and shifted my attention to the '98. It was simple enough to pull the plugs, squirt some gas down the plug holes and I was shocked when it fired up and ran on the very first pull. I did have to reprime before it would stay running on fuel from the tank and then the track really didn't want to spin but we got 'er going with relatively little fuss.

With that little accomplishment I moved to the '91, the recoil still wouldn't make the engine turn so I grabbed the clutch and broke it free with little trouble. I've seen this before where a little condensation gets into the jug and since it was so cold that ice held it a little. With the engine free I yanked the rope and, it stayed out... Blarg, a little Kroil fixed that and I shot a little more into the engine to lube it up. A little gas down the plug holes and this one also fired right up. I gotta say I love how the wedge Jag's go, they're lighter and snappier than the newer machines. I suspect the dual carbs on this one help too.

Flushed with success I moved on to the '79 Polaris Cobra. I haven't run this machine for several years, in fact I see my last post was working on that machine and it was very nearly 2 years ago. At that time it had no spark and I failed to fix that.

Well here is one of the culprits, this is the rear set of points. I don't remember which cylinder they're for, it doesn't really matter, they were both dirty. It was hard to get a picture but you can see how they're kind of greasy, what you can't see is that they were also kind of green. I tried my usual trick, Deoxit and a business card. While I could get the business card to come out dirty it didn't seem like things were really improving so I resorted to a file. Harbor Freight sells a nifty little file set that isn't marketed toward filing points but they're the right size and shape. I scraped on 'em a little bit, then sprayed off the residue with cheap contact cleaner, then repeated with Deoxit. Then got frustrated and quit for the day. Actually I shouldn't have been frustrated, we went from absolutely no spark to a little blip. It might not seem like much but thats improvement.

So yesterday I went back out, filed more, cleaned more, etc. The frustrating thing is that the recoil and inner cup have to come off to get to the points so you have to put it all back together to test it. Anyway after two more cycles I put it back together and YOWSA we've got spark!

At some point Saturday I did have the forethought to take the airbox off and have a look inside.

Mr. and Mrs Mouse got evicted...

The nice thing about having the airbox off was to make it easy to shoot gas into the carbs. And thats where we got stuck again, it would pop on premix but wouldn't stay running. So I pulled each carb out of its boot, flipped it over, popped off the bowl and cleaned it and the jets. I also make sure the needles were moving. Surprisingly nothing looked too bad, a little schmoo in the bowl maybe but nothing to write home about. 

Put it all back together and it STILL wouldn't run, I mean it'd run for a second on premix but wouldn't stay running. I figured it needed more gas so I got a couple fresh gallons mixed up and, well blarg...

Finally in desperation I took the torch and heated each plug until it glowed red, stabbed 'em in, shot in gas one more time and sonofagun she took right off. This machine has always idled high and it still does. Maybe when we get some snow and I can run it some more I'll try to adjust it, I do have a carb synchronizer I've never used...

So everybody is running and moving, I really like riding the Polaris, its light and geared low so its quick off the line although it runs out of snort pretty quick. The brake isn't working but thats just the fluid leaking out after sitting a couple years. I'll top it up and it should come right back.

If you've always wanted a Polaris Cobra (or one of the Jags) let me know, you could have this one. Its been a fun sled but I'm ready to play with something else for awhile. I'm open to trades even...

Back to the Polaris

I got an email from longtime reader Vanessa a couple weeks ago. Her Panther 303W had no spark so I sent her my procedure for cleaning points.
In a nutshell: Get a can of Caig De-oxit, open the points, squirt in some de-oxit, let it sit for a minute, pull strips of paper through until they come out clean, repeat.
Vanessa replied that she got spark bag and now has a running machine, sweet, score one for the good guys!
So yesterday I decided I'd get a snowmobile running, we really don't have any snow and theres none in the forecast (50s tomorrow...) but what the heck, maybe the snow gods need a sacrifice.

This is my '79 Polaris Cobra 340. When I first bought it there was no spark, I cleaned the points and got it running, then a couple years later put in new crank seals. This one has always been a little finicky to start if its been sitting awhile and since I didn't run it at all last year I knew it was going to be a challenge.

Right off the bat no spark on the mag side so as you can see in the picture I proceeded to clean the points which resulted in? No spark at all...

Rats.

This sled has always been sensitive to plugs and it uses B8ES which I don't seem to have in stock. I'm going to order a box of them this time...

Wrenching in the cold

Still no snow going into January and of course the guy's on Facebook are losing their minds. Relax fools we haven't had ride-able snow in central MA before the last week of January very often.
Today its cold, like 3F at 7am and just cresting double digits by 11am which is good, with no ice on the lakes and the ground not frozen even if we got snow it wouldn't do us any good...

The other day I tried and failed to get the '79 Polaris Cobra going. That thing is wicked hard on plugs, it'll wet one and nothing I've tried will make it ever like that plug again. It had a set of BR8ES NGK plugs in it which is what it calls for, the BR8ES is one range hotter than the BR9ES you see in most newer sleds like my Jags. Since its a points ignition I theorized that a B8ES plug, not having a resistor, might help give a hotter spark. My local Advance Auto (formerly Car Quest) had B8ES plugs in stock cheaper than I can order them from Amazon. I bought a set as a test and so far things look good, the sled fired right up and idled nice. Would it have done that with resistor plugs? I don't know... I've also bought a carb rebuild kit, I have a suspicion that the mag side carb needle and seat are leaking a little and letting gas into the bottom end of the engine while the sled is shut off which is why the plug is sometimes wet. The next warm day I'll toss that in there, fortunately I've got a gas shut off on it to mitigate the problem for now.

Then I FINALLY got around to putting the airbox in. Last year I snagged a complete airbox off eBay, it was filthy so I cleaned it up and just never got around to installing it. It didn't come with any mounts so I took a pair of hose clamps and cut a notch in them to fit around the boss on the carb, slipped the box in place and tightened the clamps.

Theres really nothing holding it in place which is pretty normal for a vintage sled. There is a little metal bracket under it though so I think I'll measure the space to that bracket and get a piece of hose that just fits between the airbox and the bracket so the hose can be a buffer. Then maybe wrap a piece of wire around the hose and the airbox so it can't bounce around. My experience riding this machine is that it bounces a lot...

Next step for the Cobra was to try out the new cover I got for Christmas:

Cobra on the left, '98 Jag on the right, '95 Ski Doo in the background under a tarp.

Traditionally I've used tarps but the '91 Jag came with a pretty nice cover. Using the cover last winter I realized how much nicer it is getting a cover on than fighting with a tarp, we'll see how they last, they're about 4 times as expensive as tarps so I think I'll end up using the covers only for wintertime storage where I'm taking them off frequently, in the summer I'll continue to tarp everything.

You take the good you take the bad

I realize I have been remiss in updating since SNOWMAGEDDON.

You might know that the east coast got hit with the "storm of the century" early this week. We live on what ended up being the western edge of the storm so while we got a good foot of snow it wasn't anything all that exciting. I got outside Tuesday and rode around in it some with my '91 Arctic Cat Jag 440. That thing is a terrific powder sled, its got the power and it floats good. Later that day I wanted to get the '79 Polaris Cobra out, it started up well enough but only went about 10 feet and wouldn't run right, the PTO head was cold. I figured it had lost spark and messed around with it for entirely too long (I actually cleaned the points) before I got my inline spark tester out and found that spark was fine. I messed around with it awhile longer before I gave up in defeat.

Fast forward to today and I got the chance to mess with it again. I pulled the plugs and they were nasty, greasy. I sprayed 'em with carb cleaner and wiped the electrodes and they'd spark again but the sled still didn't run. When I pulled them they were wet again. I dug around in the garage and found a set of new plugs (BR8ES if you'd like to donate some) and stuck them in, same deal although it ran a little on one side. One side firing isn't strong enough to drag the other side along.

Finally I remembered when I first got the machine that it'd flood real easy if I wasn't careful and I used to start it with the gas turned off. So I cleaned the plugs again and heated them with my plumbers torch. Then I rested them on the engine tin and with the plugs hooked up I cranked it a bunch of times with the gas turned off to clear out any flooding. I think the sparking helps clean the plugs too. Put 'em back in, turned on the gas and it fired right up.

Don't it look all smug?

So I ran it around the yard some, it was having a hard time with the powder but not too bad. I took it down to the trails. Google says I did just over 3 miles round trip which matches what the Jag said when I made mostly the same run on Tuesday. The sled ran perfectly, I did take the first bump on the trail too hard which felt like it compressed my spine. Last year Allen dragged a pallet back and forth on that section so it was groomed nice. This year he moved so no pallet and no smooth trail. I think I gotta find a pallet.

By the time I got home I'd figured out my powder snow riding technique. I needed to sit farther back on the seat, I was standing up and putting too much weight on the skis. With me sitting back where the hand strap is the sled goes like stink even in the deep stuff. Of course it makes it hard to use my weight to balance. I need to figure out a combination method where I kneel back on the seat or something...

First repair of the year

Since the welding on the Ski-Doo was actually done last year (slow reporting I know) this becomes my first repair of 2015. I fired up the Polaris Cobra today to buzz around the yard. We really don't have enough snow to ride but enough to play. I got it going and for some reason looked under the hood and got gas in my eye. Turns out the fuel line to the left carb was leaking at the pump, spraying on the clutch and getting thrown up in the air. SO glad I found it before it sprayed onto the exhaust and caused a fire. I'd like to think I'd have smelled it but who knows?

I cut a piece of hose from my siphon kit and put it on with new zip ties. Its okay but even this one is stretched a little. I need to find a source for some really good gas line, clearly the stuff I used last year sucks.

An experiment gone right!

I'm still hampered by the fact that I haven't got any good inside storage for sleds, a plan is in the works for that but in the meantime I'm still limited to tarps in the yard. Sadly during the summer the stress of the tarp and the heat of the sun combine to bend the windshields on sleds where I can't easily remove the windshield. The big Ski-Doo and the Jag both have relatively easy to remove windshields but most vintage machines don't. Since the Cobra was about to get its first summer outside and it had a perfect windshield I wanted to do something to mitigate the damage.

In the end I cut a piece of foam insulation to roughly match the shape of the windshield and braced the other end against the handlebars. As you can see it worked out pretty well, I can detect no damage to the windshield at all.

I'm pleased by this, the wankel Panther and Pantera both have bent windshields that I've never bothered to try to bend back because I figured they'd just get bent again. With this technique I'm confident now that with some heat and time I can bend the other windshields back and have them not bend in again.

Puttin 'em up

Its that time of year again... The snow is gone, well mostly. We had an April surprise storm this week that gave us 2 more inches and its been cold enough to keep that snow around but its doomed.

Saturday I gave the Cobra and Jag their last of the year attention. Each got an added slug of Seafoam gas additive and moved to their summertime parking spot.

One of the problems with parking sleds outside under a tarp is that the tarp is hard on the windshield. It gets warm under the tarp and the tension pulls the windshield in. This is very prominent on my Pantera and the Wankel Panther. The Cobra has a big windshield and I didn't want that to happen. A longer term fix is a snowmobile shed that I'm planning on building later this year. For now though I cut a piece of foam insulation to fit the Cobra's windshield which I hope will help. Not helping is the too-small tarp I bought for it. I have no idea why I flaked out and thought a 6x8' tarp was big enough, its not, it needs an 8x10'.

The Jag's windshield is held on my a bunch of screws that have little plastic covers. I managed to remove all the screws only ruining 1 of them although another one will also need replacement since its rusty. I'll put the windshield in the garage along with the one from the big Ski-Doo.

Its always sad parking the machines but we had a pretty good winter and my plan right now is to register the Jag and the Ski-Doo to ride legally in MA next winter. Plans are always subject to change of course...

Well thats not going to work!

After the excitement of riding the Polaris Cobra around the yard I figured I'd go all out and take it out on the trail. A quick ride down the street (love living in a redneck town) and I was off onto the trail. I didn't do too much riding, just to the snowmobile shop to hang out and show off. On the way home the headlight quit working which is a common occurrence on this sled, I need to play with the wiring some and see whats up with that.

Anyway the biggest issue with the sled right now is that its really loud. Part of that is the exhaust which I think may have had baffles removed, theres a suspicious weld around the side of the can but mostly its because theres no airbox. Carb noise is a particular whoosh kind of sound combined with a noise similar to the exhaust.

When I got the sled it came with an airbox but the airbox boots were trashed so I built some new ones, the existing clamp inner diameter was about the same as a piece of foam hose insulation so I built new boots with RTV using the foam as a guide. Unfortunately that proved to not fit the carbs so I spent a minute today and actually you know MEASURED things... Turns out the carb mouths are just about 42mm and I happened to have some 42mm radiator hose so my plan was to use RTV to graft the hose onto the existing stubby boots.

Here you can see how the old boots didn't make the gap to the carbs, it was hard to tell at first that the boots wouldn't actually fit over the carbs at all...

Heres my pile of supplies, the airbox, a piece of radiator hose, my micrometer for measuring and other assorted tools and cutters and whatnot.

I cut two short pieces of hose, the one for the PTO carb I cut a little longer than the inner, my intention was to sit the airbox slightly cocked to get away from the clutch.

Okay, confession time, its not gonna work, here you can see the carbs with my new boots installed, I even notched them to fit close on the carb but now I can see that to miss the clutch I'd have to offset the airbox half an inch to the mag side of the engine.

This will require some thought. My immediate thought is to buy a couple pod filters and it looks like I can get them for about $4 each. That would help with the noise a little and would also filter the air going into the engine but I think the PTO side is still going to be a problem.

The other thought I have is to take some PVC pipe and make my own airbox. 42mm is 1.65 inches so I should be able to take 2 inch pipe and fit the rubber boots inside, then mate that to a 4 inch piece of pipe in which I could install some baffles to reduce noise.

My final idea, and the one I think I'll end up with is to stop in at the shop and see what is available for airboxes, maybe they'll have something I can modify to fit.

Cobra rides again!

Okay its been weeks since I replaced the crank seals on the '79 Polaris Cobra and while I'd started it and run it around a little bit I'll admit I was kind of afraid to run it much for fear of it breaking again. That is of course a really lame fear, if it breaks it breaks, I'll fix it again and learn something. So finally after one of our run of storms while Angie was finishing up cleaning the driveway I pulled the Cobra out of the garage. I did this with some trepidation, the last time I'd ridden it I'd had trouble getting up on top of the snow and this latest batch was all soft powder, would I be able to even move in this? I'd sunk the Pantera the other day after all.

Well my fears were totally baseless, the Cobra with its low gearing is very quick off the line and with the good base we had there was no problem plowing right through the powder. I looped around the yard for awhile and then gave Angie a shot. At that point it was tough to get her off the machine, she rode all over. I even convinced her to drive we me on the back. Typically for her we got stuck, she hasn't ridden enough yet to build confidence in the use of power to stay out of trouble. Shes tentative with the throttle driving more like a car so she gets hung up often. I put her on the back and showed her how it was done which got her squeaking as we bounced around the backyard.

Our snow is excellent, probably 3 feet when we took the ride.

What a rotten winter

But I'm still out there anyway. Yesterday we had a veritable heat wave, it got nearly up to 30...
I pulled the Polaris Cobra out of the garage for a little video, it started on the first pull which is very satisfying. I've always had a little trouble with this one flooding and I've gotten so gun shy on it that I start it with the gas turned off (I put an inline shutoff) and only turn the gas on after its running.

Then pulled the big Ski-Doo into the garage, got the alignment worked out finally. That took a lot more farting around than I'd expected. Step 1 was to lay at 2x4 along the track up past the ski and get the ski STRAIGHT. Then cant the tip out 1/4" which gives 1/2" total toe out as the Vintage Sleds guys said. There isn't enough snow to do any serious testing but a blast around the yard suggests it handles better.
While I was under the hood I noticed the battery hold down had broken, it was just a thin metal strap which hooked into a little slot, I welded an old computer slot cover onto the strap, had to cut it a little but it fit pretty well. Very ugly, but I shot some paint on, it should hold. Ideally I'd pull the gas tank and engine out and weld a nut onto the bulkhead for an automotive type hold down but that'd be a lot of work...
Farted around with the speedo a little, on the last ride it wasn't working. The cable is good and I can spin it with a drill to make the speedo go. I think it might have just come out of the drive a little, we'll see. I forgot to check as I rode around the yard.

Finally got the other carbide installed. That one I'd welded poorly and broke a weld. It took me 3 tries to get the stud welded on correctly, I just couldn't get it aligned straight. Sled steers very sharply now, this is something I'll want to keep up with in the future.

I'd bought new runners for the Polaris but it turns so well I didn't bother to install them. Still need to go back and put the other runner on the Pantera but I've had a cold and overdid it yesterday, need to take a day off.

It RUNS!

Finally got time and energy to get the engine back in the Polaris Cobra. I've had a cold and its just sapped my strength. When I hauled the engine to the sled I realized right away that I'd put the motor plate on backwards. I'd been paying more attention to which way the tabs went than to the cutout that allows for the steering shaft. I got that rotated around and went to drop the engine in again and realized that the plate was now upside down. DOH! So I'd put it on as wrong as you could, upside down and backwards...

Got that all sorted out and then got down to the million little things it takes to get the engine back in. Actually compared to a car this is a cinch but you still need to go slow and be careful. Got the motor aligned back where it was by matching the bolt markings. This is something I should have marked when I pulled it as clutch alignment is important. While I was right there I decided to put the belt back on, this was a bad idea as it made it much harder to put the fuel pump back. This sled is odd in that the fuel pump sits right on the block. With that finally in I could plug in the electrics, which gets zip tied together. I don't know why, it was like that when I got it. I assume because it came loose on a previous owner. Then get the carbs installed, the recoil starter and finally the exhaust.

Ready to start, kill switch on, key on, pull. Pull again, choke on, hmmm, choke feels weird, like its not all the way on. Well, lets worry about that later. Pull again, it starts! Recoil rope stays out, crap. Does that mean its stuck on and ripping itself apart? Better shut it down and check. Turns out the rope had come loose inside the starter, the rope I used was slightly smaller than original and my knot was too small.

Got that all fixed and found a couple small gas leaks which required some more zip ties. I think I might get some of the spring loaded gas line clamps like they use on lawnmowers, the zip ties really aren't cutting it, I'd used small ones and now most of those are doubled up.

Anyway gas leaks fixed fire it up again. It starts really easily now, good compression, no leaks, good gas, clean points, and new BR8ES sparkplugs make for a good package. Ran it for a couple minutes to be sure both sides of the engine were getting warm. I engaged the clutch a couple times but the brake is sticking again so we didn't go anywhere.

Shut it down and reinstalled the hood. Ran it again, the light still works which is nice.

So just a couple things left on the list, I need to loosen up the brake again. It'd be awesome if I could figure a way to fix that permanently. I think some riding some miles would help a lot. I also ordered new runners for the skis, hopefully these won't fight me like the Arctic Cat did. I think I'll run back out right now and put some penetrating oil on the nuts...

Exhaust manifold

One thing I noticed about the '79 Polaris Cobra is that the front of the engine was really greasy. This extended down into the belly pan. At first I thought the exhaust manifold gaskets were leaking but then I happened to look into the exhaust manifold while holding it up to a light:

See the light peeking through in the middle of the pic? The manifold was made in 2 halves pressed together and tacked. It would appear its separated in the middle. I ground out the joint and welded it back together until I couldn't see light anymore. Then painted with some high temp.

While I had the grinder and the paint out I figured I ought to clean up the exhaust pipe some. Thats when I found:

A line of welds where one had pulled through the metal. Again and easy fix but then I discovered what I think is a cleanout plate on the other side that had been booger welded all around. You can see in the pic above where it looks like the plate as been swaged or tacked to the rest of the pipe. Apparently the other side leaked so somebody ran weld all around it. It looks awful but weld is really hard and after 15 minutes of grinding I'd only cleaned up maybe 1 inch out of 24. I'll work on it again in the spring. In fact I'll probably keep the pipe out of the sled all summer and just nibble away at it.

Anyway I did finish putting the engine together last night, took longer than expected because the fan housing was really dirty both from the leaking exhaust and the leaking crank seal. Then I realized I'd put the motor plate on backwards. That was the last straw and I gave up for the night...

Engine out

Got some time to pull the engine out of the Polaris Cobra. Actually an easier job than I'd thought. The last engine I'd pulled was the Wankel Panther, a job made more difficult due to no sockets on the wiring. This one maybe took me 20 minutes start to finish.

With the engine out I made sure to mark the stator, I don't want to lose the timing settings, I don't have a timing tool to reset them with and don't really want to buy one. When I rebuilt the 300cc in the old Ski-Doo I used my multi-meter but thats a single cylinder engine with the simplest points system imaginable.

I hauled the engine down to the shop to pull the clutch. Randy and I messed with it a little but this is something I really want Chuck for, he pulls a lot of clutches and knows which tool to use just by looking at it. I left it there the day after Christmas but haven't had time to get back yet. I intend to go today, hopefully they're open, we're in the midst of the latest "storm of the century" which promises a good amount of snow. Once I get the engine home it should be no big whoop to get the oil seals in and get it all back together. Then let the Three Bond set overnight in the warm basement and have it installed and running tomorrow...

New snow and the taste of failure

This month's "Storm of the Century" is upon us, 10-12" of snow overnight into tomorrow. I'm glad I got the Pantera out already.

So I decided it was finally time to deal with the Cobra which if you remember seemed to have iffy spark last year. Tonight I pulled the exhaust and recoil and cleaned the points. Interestingly there seemed to be a coating of black crap on them. I cleaned and cleaned.

For cleaning I turn the flywheel until one set of points is open, then I shoot some Caig Deoxit into the gap, then spin to the other side and repeat. I bought some 100% Deoxit in the hope it would do an even better job than the already excellent regular Deoxit which is only like 20%. They sell lower strength formulations to be safe on sensitive electronics. Points really aren't all that sensitive so the 100% stuff seems the way to go here.

After they sit for a minute and the Deoxit softens whatever crud is in there I flip the flywheel until the points are closed, then open them with a screwdriver and stick in a piece of cardstock. In this case I'm using cut up strips of business card.

Yank on the strip and it pulls crud off the points. Flip it around, open the points and repeat. Snip off the dirty part and repeat, then throw it away, get a new strip and repeat. And repeat, and repeat.

Reassembled and tried to fire it up. It'll go and sometimes even fire on both sides but not reliably. The mag side is firing 100% while the PTO side is recalcitrant. I need to look up which set of points controls which plug as I can't remember. I'd guess the rear since it was dirtier.

Anyway I took it all apart again and this time even pulled the flywheel. Thats when I found a little oil below the stator plate. I think the reason the points are so dirty is that the crank seal on this side has been leaking and allowing the gas/oil mix from this side to get out a little. That might explain why the points are so dirty after a relatively short amount of running.

So it looks like I need to do crank seals. I've actually never done them before on anything other than the old single cylinder Rotax in the Ski-Doo 12/3. It'll be an adventure.

Tomorrow I'll give the old Wankel Panther a shot. I probably should have tried it today instead of the Polaris. Last time I tried to revive the Panther it had the same spark trouble but responded very positively to cleaning. Hopefully this year it'll just go, I hate working outside in the snow.

Still at little snow left

In theory I have 4 out of 5 snowmobiles in running condition so today I decided to get them all going and lined up. I started with the '71 Arctic Cat Panther (the Wankle Panther) and was delighted when it fired right up. In fact during a quick ride around the yard it went better than ever before. I'm kicking myself now for not taking this sled when I went riding a few weeks ago. Its relatively light and has a fairly long track, I think it would have handled the deep soft snow well.
Second was the '78 Arctic Cat Pantera, again an easy start and as usual I'm delighted with how the sled rides, this is definitely one of my all time favorite snowmobiles.
Next I tried the '79 Polaris Cobra. You might remember this one being a brat a few weeks ago, last night I pulled the plugs and had spark on both sides but something told me that just having spark was only part of the picture. Today that was proved out, while I have spark I don't think the PTO side is giving good fat spark like it should. After some farting around I got the machine to run but not well and it wouldn't pick up RPM. After running 30 seconds the MAG side cylinder is warm to the touch while the PTO side is cool. I predict some time with Deoxit in my future.

Finally I tried the '95 Ski Doo Grand Touring, I'd had this running back in October and then when we first got snow but it was sidelined from that first snow by holes in the exhaust. A long afternoon of welding fixed the exhaust but I temporarily lost interest in the sled being distracted by my vintage machines. Surprisingly this sled fired up with barely a touch of the key. One of my favorite things about Ski-Doos is the push/pull primer that makes getting them started a snap which is why I put one on the Wankle Panther.

I knew getting the sled started was only half the battle, as you can see in the picture it was still pretty well buried and after the fight with the Pantera I knew the Ski-Doo would be frozen to the ground. What I didn't realize is how BADLY it would be frozen to the ground. With the cooling and re-freezing cycles we've been having each of the skis is contained in a solid block of ice. I let the sled run and warm up while I grabbed a shovel and dug around some but finally gave up. I'll let nature do its work and thaw the skis out naturally.

I promised and I did it!

I've been promising to hit the snow for some time now and I finally did. Was it a perfect day? Nope, not even close but I enjoyed myself and thats what matters.

Anyway Saturday dawned and after running a few errands I loaded up and headed for the land of little trails since I didn't have any registered sleds and wasn't about to pay to register any at this late date.

I arrived around noon and as I was alone I unloaded just the Polaris Cobra and got to work. I'd ridden this area last about 2 years ago and buried the big Ski-Doo in soft springtime snow so I was cautious. Interestingly this year I made it to EXACTLY the same spot:

You can just see the house in the background so I clearly didn't get far...

It was around 50 degrees and the snow had the consistency of mashed potatoes, it was sticky and deep. At low speeds I couldn't get the sled up on top and of course if I opened it up I'd have no reaction time. I used to ride this area a lot but there have been many changes since I did so I wanted to go slow for awhile. I finally managed to hump the machine around in a circle and get it extracted only to get stuck again and again everywhere I went.

So not exactly the exciting conclusion I'd hoped for but not a terrible day if I'm honest.