More Ski-Doo welding!

Another day and more welding on the Ski-Doo. When I got it started there was exhaust pouring out all over the place. The pipe and can are really rusty and I'd done some real booger welding on it before so once more into the breach!

Heres some before:

The holes didn't look bad at first, you can see just a couple small holes in the first picture, the second is after I hit those same holes with the wire brush, the metal just evaporates.

Here's the U pipe from the main pipe to the can:

And after some welding effort:

This is actually some of the best welding I've ever done, I finally started to get a real feel for the puddle and how to make it move and get the "stack of nickels" look that is so desirable. You can see I've had to put multiple patches. When welding around a patch often I'll get some blow through. Normally I can rosette weld those spots but with metal this thin I end up welding a larger and larger area so for this work I started just adding more pieces of filler.

Heres a shot of the booger welds I did last time:

Thats also much heavier metal I welded in. The base was really rotted out that time and I had to be very careful to keep the pipe in shape as I built it back up. That metal is from a repair piece for a pickup bed and is I think 16ga steel, the stuff I'm working with now is from a computer case and is probably 18 or 20ga and much easier to form though I have to be a little more careful welding.

Straighten out!

Dug into the steering on my '79 Polaris Cobra today, the tie rod was bent badly:

It was a bugger to get out, had to shift the engine out of the way... I bent it back straight using an old brake disc as a mandrel and my 3# hammer to finish it, got it pretty good but apparently forgot to take a picture.

Installation was no big deal and I moved on to welding up the turn stop. It'd been welded, maybe several times before and I had to grind off a lot of old weld. Then I learned what the last welder knew, its a hard spot to weld in, the engine is really in the way, this is something that should be done with the engine completely out of the sled. Anyway I got it welded back on, its such an ugly job I won't post a pic, just know that its there!

So finally all ready I took it for a shake out ride before installing the seat and found its bogging badly on the low end, won't idle good once it warms up either and when it quits won't restart unless I hold the throttle wide open. I'm guessing I didn't get one or both of the carbs clean enough when I cleaned them. Interestingly this is similar symptoms to my Pantera. I'll have to pull the carbs and do a better job this time...
I also noticed that the sled doesn't seem to shift gears, which is to say it doesn't seem like the secondary clutch is opening. That said its really hard to tell what with the short space I've got to run it in my yard and the problems with the carbs. The secondary moves, I've had it open a couple times to remove and re-install the belt. I'll lube it good and see if that helps.

Oh well, one step forward, one step back. Fortunately we're closing in on the finish!

Well well well.

Hmm, a blog.
Well why not. The thing is that I don't get to update the website as often as I'd like and ideally I'll be able to update this from work so more stuff gets up here. I've been told that my sledding stories are reasonably entertaining so this should be a good forum for that.

So for my first post I'll tell the story of.... Seems like I ought to tell one of the really cool stories. The problem is the really cool stories are long and as a story teller I do tend to make for long stories anyway. Okay, it'll be a short one, in fact I'm just going to talk a little about my trailer and my welder...

My sled trailer is a '72 Cox, its quite small as trailers go but very low to the ground which is handy for loading and unloading sleds but not so handy for going over rough terrain. The problem with it is that its really too narrow for two newer old sleds. I can put the TX-L and Olympique on it fine but I can't put the TX-L and El Tigre. Thats a drag because the Olympique is the smallest/lightest sled and therefore the one I'd most like to have in the back of the truck.
In the past I've worked around this problem by hanging a ski out in space which is obviously a bad idea, or by putting a 2x4 under the ski hanging out in space which isn't alot better.

Recently I've gotten a MIG welder and even more recently a good welding helmet so I'm now working on out riggers to help get that extra space. I'm making 3"x15" rectanges from 1"x1"x1/8" angle iron. The rectangles will bolt to the outsides of the trailer near the front. So to load we'll pull one snowmobile onto the trailer and then slide it sideways 3" so one ski is actually off the trailer proper and supported by my rectangle. I'll put a cross beam in the rectangle so I can strap the ski down which should make strapping the sleds down alot easier.
So far I've got 1 rectangle 75% finished, I ran out of angle iron.... Once I finish it I'll bolt it up for a test. In actuality it'll probably stay on there until spring, then I'll pull it back off and slap some paint on.
I'll post some pictures once I get something installed.

-Curt