End of the season

 Well, at least we had some season this year.

The other day Ben and I went down to put the machines to sleep for the summer.

We take the drags off so the machines take up less space and leave parking for dog walkers and other woodland adventure types.

It had been really cold the night before so I hoped that the ground would be pretty hard but as you can see on the ground it really wasn't. The Pisten Bully with its steel cleats really chews up the sod. Since its a shady area the grass isn't really all that thick. I'll go back with a rake in a day or two and clean it up a little more but compared to last year this is great. Last year I couldn't get the ASV drag into its spot for the life of me, I ended up chewing great ruts in the ground. Of course I took the drag off in May...

Riding 2021, Jag repair

 I think it's been 3 years since we went for a real trail ride. The registration on the '98 Jag ran out last year anyway...

So a couple weeks ago when the snow was still good Angie and I got the two Jags out for a rip.

We had groomed the night before so the trails were really good. The snow wasn't great but what snow was was flat. We did about 20 miles just around the park, I had updated the registrations but as it was kind of late in the season I didn't get trail passes. As a board member I'm allowed a free trail pass but I've only taken one once. That was the year we rebuilt the track on the Pisten Bully and Ben wouldn't take my money. The club still has to pay for the pass and we're not exactly flush with cash.

Angie rode the old '91 the whole time, it was smooth enough that the lack of suspension wasn't a problem. I think I'll look for a Z or ZL machine with a blown engine and swap the suspension into it. The machine is a little lighter than the '98 and the dual carbs make a little more power.

The '98 ran like crap, it would spit and pop and fart and just had a terrible time. I had an inkling that the problem was the throttle safety switch. There are two little bushings where the pin that holds the throttle lever on are so I replaced them. I really miss having a shop just down the street to get parts like that.

Arctic Cat calls these "seals" and you can see that they're kind of chewed up. The new ones didn't make any difference though so I pulled the connection. Arctic Cat is interesting, they used 2 different electrical systems. Some are "normally open" which means there is an open circuit and to shut the sled off you close the circuit and ground the coil. Then a bunch of them are "normally closed" so the circuit powers the coil and you open the circuit to shut the machine off.

My '91 Jag is "normally closed", when the throttle switch failed on that and the previous owner wanted to jump around that switch he had to add a little jumper. The '98 is "normally open" and so I could just unplug the kill switch plug which includes the throttle switch. 

With the kill switch unplugged the sled ran perfectly. For the first time since I've owned it I could bomb around the yard. Used to be the sled ran great on the trail but poorly in the yard, now its fine all the time.

I had hoped I could just pull the throttle assembly apart and just jumper out the throttle switch but in doing I managed to break the kill switch. The sled still runs but I don't like not having a kill switch. Fortunately replacements are available. Unfortunately they cost about 15% of what the sled is worth...

The snow is gone now anyway, so I don't need to worry about it right away. I'll probably fix it, I like riding the sled. I'd thought about getting a brand new machine to replace both Jag's but they did so well...