2025 was not our best year

 

You might remember my '78 Polaris Cobra, pictured here back in hapier times. Today the dang thing won't run because its got no spark on the MAG side. Generally I could get spark back if I cleaned the points some. Well this year that isn't working. So I figured it was finally time to throw some parts at the issue, so far I've replaced the external coils which didn't help at all. I bought, but have yet to install, new plug wires. Since this is a points machine the wires need to be copper core, not the new fangled graphite type. 

I think the real fix will be to replace the actual ignition power coil inside the mag. I got frustrated when snow was on the ground and just parked it up. I think I'm going to haul the machine to Maine and swap it with the old '70 Ski-Doo, that needs some welding on the frame and a gas tank clean but the repairs required are straight forward.

This is actually a more pressing concern. Adam and I took the ASV out to groom, this was back in mid February. We were just about as far south as we'd need to go when Adam commented that the machine felt down on power. Pretty soon we found that while the machine would go forward it wouldn't turn right.

We farted around with it on the side of the trail for a little bit but didn't find anything so we parked it up and walked out. It was nearly a mile out. Adam brings a backpack with nine thousand pounds of tools with him and as he was still recovering from surgery I got to lug that out.

The following weekend we went back with the Tucker and dragged it most of the way out to the road.

Turns out the machine can go straight ahead fine and turn left fine but can't turn right at all. This is good because the Tucker doesn't have enough power/traction to pull the whole combination up hill at all. So as we were hauling we'd start slowing down as Adam carefully adjusted the steering wheel to find the magic point where the machine would only go forward without trying to steer. The steering on this has always been sensitive and that didn't help. 

Overall I call this recovery a win, it worked way better than I'd expected.

Another weekend and we dragged the machine the rest of the way out and got it on the trailer. This was especially frightening because the trail looped around to the right so I ended up driving up on to the trailer and just hoping it was straight enough. Most of the trip onto the trailer I couldn't see anything but the plow and sky...

Now it sits in Ben's driveway where we've made a couple interesting discoveries. Mostly that it always turns left, forward or back. This means you can go anywhere you want but you need to do it as a series of left turns. Interestingly this tells me that both drive motors work correctly, to turn left going forward the right drive motor pushes forward. To turn left going backward the left drive motor pushes backward.

The left drive motor won't push forward and the right drive motor won't push backward.

Digging into it more we exposed the pump section of the system which, the manual says, has oil pickups for the pumps that feed the drive motors. The pickups are supposedly covered with screens so right now our best bet is to clean those screens. Unfortunately the screens are underneath 35 gallons of hydraulic oil...

Ruined!

Finally got the clutch back for the Wankel Panther, the guy did a good job, we needed to get a new stationary sheave of eBay, the one he had wasn't that great and we wanted it to be right but realistically it didn't take all that long. Which reminds me I should send him some more money.

So I headed out to the garage to put it all back together. Sadly when I got the correct size o-ring for the magneto side I'd crammed the crank seal on. This was a big mistake because:

• I hadn't cleaned the crankshaft on that side yet
• I hadn't lubricated the shaft although I had lubed the seal itself
• It was 10 degrees and the seal had shrunk

So what I accomplished was to tear the seal.

I went back and tried cleaning the shaft and lubing it but the damage is already done, the seal had rolled and torn. Its hard to get a picture of but if you look over by where the wires are you might be able to spot it.

That seal MIGHT work okay but I don't want to chance it. So I headed to Dennis Kirk and found they had one of the seals left. Since I ordered it they say "Part unavailable". So I better not screw this one up.

Okay so I'm stuck on that sled, better get the Pantera engine done. I've got 6 or 7 different pullers but none for the magneto on that sled. I'd bought a harmonic balancer puller for the Panther which worked great but the Pantera magneto uses 6mm bolts and the holes are very close together. I bought some 6mm bolts but they're grade 5 and I just managed to pull the threads off them.

This was a stupid kid mistake, I should have known better. The good thing about using grade 5 bolts is I didn't break anything important. It turns out theres a special puller just for this kind of flywheel. Runs almost $30. At least I was already ordering from Dennis Kirk so the shipping won't cost much extra...

*sigh*

Then yesterday with plenty of snow the '79 Polaris Cobra starts running on only the mag side. No power, spits and pops. I automatically figure its spark so I strip it down and clean the points which look clean anyway. Then I test it and it tests fine, spark on both side but now it won't run at all and theres no fuel in the filter.

I dunno on that one, I've got a couple crazy theories but I need time to look at it. Time I should have taken today but I got lazy.

Whoops!

After coming to grips with the grips I decided it was a good time to take the Cobra for a rip around the yard. I'd had a little difficulty getting it started but considering it'd never really run enough to warm the engine up properly I'm not really concerned. This would also be the first ride since freeing up the brake, on the maiden voyage the sled was dragging badly because of that brake.

So the good news is with the brake released everything feels pretty spritely. The bad news is this:

Turns out the stop which should keep the ski from getting into that position is broken. It looks as though it was broken and rewelded poorly at some time in the past. Further forcing the ski back into place has bent the tie rod so that the right side ski is perpetually turning right. I'll have to fix the stop and straighten or at least shorten that right side tie rod to fix it.

On another note the seat is nearly ready. In getting the seat foam dry I finally had to resort to ripping the plywood base off. It was soaked and badly degraded. I got another sheet of plywood (which will help me with the Olympique too), cut and painted the base. Now I'm just waiting for it to dry before I finish. I'm debating gluing the base to the seat. Not sure what to do about that.