Closing in on the finish

Headed out to the garage tonight all ready to pull one of the carbs and clean it within an inch of its life. I decided I'd start with the mag side and pulled the choke cable. Thats when I noticed how little slack there was in the choke cable which prompted me to remember how the choke lever had felt weird yesterday. I pulled the other cable and it seemed short too. I followed the cables back to the lever and found the back had popped off and pulled back on strangely so the choke was always half engaged. Got that re-arranged, got the cables back in place, fired the sled up and it still ran like crap. For some reason I kept it running and after maybe a minute it make a little noise and idled perfectly!

I think that yesterday in running with the choke on I'd loaded some gas into the bottom end of the engine and what I saw today was that burning off and once it did the sled running right. It was late when I started so I didn't want to run the sled too much, make a bunch of noise and piss off my neighbors but I'm pretty pleased.

Unfortunately I noticed the headlight is out, I put my trouble light on the line to the seat and it lit up so either the bulb is burnt out or disconnected. I wouldn't be surprised if its burnt out.

Anyway I decided that since the carbs don't have to come off (probably) I'd put the seat on. That was an exercise in frustration. Here's a free hint that I should have already learned from farting around with the Ski-Doo, test fit the plywood before attaching it to the seat. I didn't make the cutout at the front deep enough or wide enough. Now I need to take the seat apart again, recut the base and reattach. I'll definitely trial fit the base before I reattach the foam though!

Anyway, getting closer, nearly there!

Take a seat

The seat on my 1979 Polaris Cobra was basically trashed. The cover had pulled back from the base which is a pretty common problem, and the sled had been left outside. That had caused the foam and wooden base to get totally saturated with water. I let it sit near the woodstove for a few days which got it basically dried out but the wood base was totally ruined. So I got a sheet of 3/8" plywood (which will help me with the '70 Ski-Doo as well) and cut out a new piece. Its actually a fairly complicated shape, it needs to fit around the light assembly at the rear and then around the lip that holds it up front. Plus there need to be two holes to attach at the rear. I painted the whole thing in a thick coat of black Rustoleum which makes it look original and should protect the wood. If I get another 30 years out of it I'll be satisfied. :)

The original base was molded into the foam so getting them apart without destroying the base (which I needed for a pattern) took some doing. When done I'd cut the foam in a couple places. I glued those back together and then glued the base onto the foam to keep them from sliding apart. Finally I wrapped my new seat cover over the top and stapled it to the base.

I bought the seat cover on eBay and I'll warn you that there are 2 versions, 1 is black, one is blue. I didn't notice that until I'd bought and received the black one. The original cover was blue. At this point after I'd cut the cover to make a hole for the taillights I'm not going to spend the money to get the correct one, after all it gives me a story to tell.

Anyway, once I get the rest of the sled completely ready (which means fixing the ski that only makes right turns) I'll mount the seat, but at this point I'm so close to being done I can taste it! If we only had some snow...

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.