More putting away

Two weeks ago I managed to get the rest of the sleds put away. The '98 Jag fired up easy, its got a weird bog at part throttle that seems almost like ignition cutting out. It seems to go away as it warms up but as I've only ridden it around the house twice on the grass I'm not sure what to think of it yet. The Grand Touring fired right up too. I was surprised, after sitting for a couple months I expected the battery to be dead.

Sadly the Polaris Cobra fired right up but played its game of running only on one cylinder. I think thats got a leaking needle in the mag side carb. I'd forgotten and left the gas on and the bottom end on that side had a bunch of gas in it. Interestingly when that sled fouls a plug it FOULS a plug. I'm 1 for 4 cleaning them. My final effort involved carb cleaner, a torch and sandpaper. I did finally get it running right on both sides so I could get Seafoam gas additive into both carbs.

The Jag and Cobra got washed and waxed. I used some "Wet and Black" on the plastic on the Jag which seemed to darken it up some. Like the '91 I managed to get the windshield off the '98. It uses the same kind of screws as the older sled although it also uses some o-rings. I broke a couple of the o-rings so I'll need to replace those in the fall.

I took pictures of the Ski-Doo but I doubt I'll get to sell it this summer. Probably I'll hold onto it and sell it once the snow flies again this winter.

The track on the '98 Jag isn't fantastic so I asked the guys over at Vintage Sleds if I should get the same again or go bigger. The sled came with a .75" lug track but for about the same money I can go 1", 1.25" or 1.5". The consensus seemed to be 1.25" so I'll save my pennies and pick one up later this summer. Hopefully it'll make for a nice ride in powder snow which will be real handy if we go to camp this winter which is something I really want to try to do.

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...