Odds and ends

I feel sorry for how few posts I put on here, there really hasn't been much to talk about.

So lets go back, during the short couple weeks we actually had snow I did get in a couple rides. First was the abortive ride when the '91 Jag was leaking gas. On that one we took a ride through an area where the trail passes through a deep cut in rock. Its old railroad line and a really cool spot. I got a picture there back in 2015:

What you can't really see in the picture is that right in front of the sled is a pipe or knee wall of some sort. When theres lots of snow you can ride right over and not know its there, with only 14" when we rode over there was a looong drop on the back side. I got the '91 up onto the bump and gently slid it over. I rode ahead a little and looked back, I saw the skis as Angie came over and thought she had it under control. In reality what happened is she grabbed a handful of throttle and stood the '98 Jag right up. When she landed she went over the windshield. She wasn't seriously hurt but got banged up and of course was really upset with me for "riding off without me". In reality I was gone for maybe 4-5 minutes, I looped around and back back behind her but she'd already ridden off. *sigh* lesson learned, look back more often.

There was enough snow for those two weeks that we groomed 3 times. I got more seat time than ever before but I don't think I did particularly well. I'm starting to tap the drag on posts as I go through and need to go slower and be more careful. I also haven't been utilizing the drag enough, I hadn't realized what an art there is to that. There needs to be enough snow in the drag to fill the bumps in the trail but not so much snow that the machine can't pull it. Also if theres too much snow in the drag it'll spill over the sides leaving boulders in the trail. The last time we groomed I rode with Chris, he works crazy hours and let me drive when he got tired. He promptly fell asleep and I made it my goal to run smoothly enough that he'd stay asleep. A goal like that helps me to become a better operator...

The last ride I took the 98 and went out on my own:

The '98 is a much more comfortable machine than the '91 at the cost of some speed. On the long straights the '91 maxes out at about 70mph, the '98 will only make around 60. Same 440 engine but the '91 is a little smaller/lighter and has dual carbs.
I think this summer I want to find a Z skid and track to put under the '91, with better suspension it'd be a sweet machine.

Not again!

Went to move the snowmobile trailer so I could plow around it and realized it was frozen to the ground. Similar to when I had the sleds frozen down a couple weeks ago the rain had gotten under the foot on the tongue jack and frozen. Worse the trailer sat all summer with nothing under the jack and the foot on the jack and sunk about an inch into the soft ground. I dug all around it and heated the foot with a torch but my puny propane torch was no match for the cold of the ground.

Today I dug around in the garage and found an old Mercedes screw type jack. This is the kind of jack that fits into a hole in the body and has a big crank to lift the car. I put the jack under the tongue to put some pressure on the foot, then boiled up a gallon of water. I poured the hot hot water on the foot and it popped right out no worries.

As usual I forgot before pictures but here's the rig:

and a close up on the foot:

With that done I fired up the Jag and headed out for a ride. This was a "pirate" run, I hadn't put the registration stickers on yet and went out on trails of dubious provenance. It was a good ride and I did about 15 miles in total before Angie got home.

Once Angie was with me we loaded up the Jag and the Grand Touring and headed to Lake Dennison State Park. We also added our registration stickers and trail passes to make it all nice and legal.

Old junk in the park:

The Jag performed fantastically, on the pirate run it was everything I could have asked for, it busts deep powder with no problem although I might consider putting some studs in it, I did climb a couple hills really slowly slipping and sliding. On the groomed trails Angie kept right up and said it was fun to ride.

As always that stupid Ski-Doo did its job with no real issues. It wouldn't start when I first went out, the battery was flat so I put the charger on and it drank an full 6 amps for awhile. I should probably pull it in the summer and put it on a desulfator, sitting is hard on them. It roars and bucks and darts a little, clearly I need to work on the alignment some more but it goes like stink. There are only two faults, the speedo doesn't work which is probably the drive gear, I need to pull it and see which type so I can order a replacement, and the thumb warmer which I should also take a look at, apparently these are known for wires pulling out...

We did 20 odd miles in the park, rode up and around Birch Hill Dam which was pretty cool. Overall a good day.

The twin carb tour

This has turned out to be a pretty good winter, first week of March and we still have around two feet of snow on the ground.

I loaded up the '95 Ski-Doo Grand Touring, '91 Arctic Cat Jag and '79 Polaris Cobra, all three sleds having twin carbs I named this the "Twin Carb Tour".

We headed out to Leominster State Forest. This is a return to our roots, the scene of our earliest sledding adventures and still a favorite. Theres a good variety of terrain and all relatively low skill required riding.

My friend Ed lives on the edge of the forest, his house is where I kept sleds before I had a house of my own. Fortunately he was home and could join in the fun. He wanted to ride the Polaris and I put him in the lead worried that our more powerful, plush newer machines would let us take right of without him. Boy was I wrong about that! He set a blistering pace, other riders had already created a trail but with no grooming it was very bumpy and icy. Even with basically no rear suspension travel Ed got the little Polaris up to 30mph, riding the big Ski-Doo even I was sometimes having a hard time keeping up.

Actually the big Ski-Doo was the downer of the day. With no picks in the track when we rode on icy trails I wasn't getting enough snow onto the coolers to keep the engine happy and several times we had to stop and let it cool down. I'd experienced this before and I think its in part due to having too much coolant and not enough water in the system. I really need to drain the coolant and replace it with a proper 50/50 mix. I'd drained the overflow bottle once or twice which helped but not enough.

Anyway we rode about 14 miles which doesn't seem like much but considering these are ungroomed trails thats actually pretty good for a couple hours riding. Everybody got a chance on every sled and I was pleased to see that Angie was happy riding the new Jag.

The next day I went back alone and took the Jag out. My goal was to reach the coveted "KMart Hill" a feat I've only managed once back in 2003. I'd tried and failed another time so it'd be a big thing to make it now.
I found the start of the trail and somebody else had already been in to break trail for me but I lost the trail about halfway. Theres a lake crossing which I didn't particularly want to do, its pretty remote and I worried that if I broke through the ice I'd die before I could get back to help. I know theres a trail near the lake to avoid going on the ice but I couldn't find it and even managed to get the Jag stuck. After I got stuck I figured I was better off giving up now, with its extra rear suspension travel the Jag was tough to get unstuck and I was pretty blown from the effort.

I did manage 18 miles that day which again is pretty epic considering the terrain.

So the ride count for 2014 stands at 4 for a total of maybe 60 miles which again doesn't seem like much but considering the 2012-2013 count was 2 for a total of maybe 6 miles this is a big step up.

I'm off to California for work today, I might get another ride next week but I wouldn't count on it. We'll see.

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.

Might be the end of the Ski-Doo

Went on a huge 5 hour ride last Sunday. Met up with some friends and rode all over the place. 3 different lakes, even made an unplanned open water crossing.

The old Ski-Doo ran flawlessly, the only problem was failure to go into reverse when I screwed up a water crossing and fell off the trail. If I'd been alone I'd have been in trouble as it was I had help and got back on the trail quickly.

That said this sled has some serious issues. A few years ago I bent the trailing arms and replaced them with aftermarket. At the time I was told that the aftermarket arms weren't as good as OEM and thats proven to be true, without even knowing I'd done it I bent the right side arm again. I plan to weld on a piece of angle iron so it won't buckle completely but I spent some time making a complete inspection of the sled:

Bent trailing arm
Buckled frame - from the first time I bent the trailing arms
Broken speedo - probably the plastic drive
Broken gas gauge - no idea
Broken thumb heater - probably just a bad wire
Torn seat - like all of them
No studs - its rotten on ice

The one thats a real killer is the buckled frame. I don't remember exactly what I did but just under the driver's feet the sled is creased. I don't think theres any way to effectively fix this, best I could do would be to drill and bolt some big pieces of angle iron into place to stiffen the frame. This would of course add weight. Alternately I could ask my welder cousin to weld in some aluminum angle brackets but the issue is that we're talking about an old, fairly undesirable sled. Riding the little goat trails we were on I was getting a real workout keeping up with the others on much less powerful machines.

A couple of the others in my group were riding Jag 440 machines (Arctic Cat Jag 440cc engine for the uninitiated) from around 1998 and I was very impressed. They're light, float good on the snow (we've got at least 2' and went through some drifts of 3' or more) and have plenty of power. I decided on that ride that I wanted one. Yesterday I went down to the shop and Randy let me try one and I realized I was right.

So Saturday I'm going to look at a '91 Jag, its a little older than the ones I was so impressed with and has a little less suspension but the price is right and the guy is going to hold it for me. I'd been looking at 2 up machines a lot earlier this year but most of them had been sold by the time I could go look at the sled. This guy is a champ...

We'll see how it works out, I feel like this is kind of a win, although I'm going to another modern machine its older than that which it will replace. 23 years old isn't quite vintage yet but it won't be long.