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.

A great ride!

Last week we got 10" of powder snow but I was in California so no riding for me. Then yesterday and last night we got another 10", this time its heavier stuff and there was some rain in between snows which makes for just perfect snow.

After lunch I dug out the big Ski-Doo and headed over to the local snowmobile shop, he's got a good trail in but had packed snow against the trail into a huge pile. I'm not usually the trailbreaker and didn't judge how the pile was built, ended up on a pile with one ski hanging out into space. If the pile hand't been built so strong I'd have rolled right over.

Its hard to tell in the pic but the top of the seat is 6' off the ground...

Managed to get the sled off the pile by tugging on the ski and turning the machine down hill instead of rolling it. Then it wouldn't start until I realized I'd hit the kill switch when I thought it was rolling over. Heading back out I did an X-Games style jump back over the pile and fell ass over teakettle as the sled landed funny. Fortunately it didn't take off without me.

The rest of the ride was pretty uneventful until on the return trip I lost the trail on a frozen pond where the wind had drifted the snow. Out in the 20" unpacked snow the sled tried to bog. I got way back on the seat and piled on the power. The sled has a 670cc liquid cooled 2 stroke which makes something like 90HP which is plenty for a 700# machine. With the weight shifted back and the power piled on the skis lifted and we made it across the pond no problem.

So anyway, my 4th good ride in 3 years, planning on another ride tomorrow.

What a rotten winter

But I'm still out there anyway. Yesterday we had a veritable heat wave, it got nearly up to 30...
I pulled the Polaris Cobra out of the garage for a little video, it started on the first pull which is very satisfying. I've always had a little trouble with this one flooding and I've gotten so gun shy on it that I start it with the gas turned off (I put an inline shutoff) and only turn the gas on after its running.

Then pulled the big Ski-Doo into the garage, got the alignment worked out finally. That took a lot more farting around than I'd expected. Step 1 was to lay at 2x4 along the track up past the ski and get the ski STRAIGHT. Then cant the tip out 1/4" which gives 1/2" total toe out as the Vintage Sleds guys said. There isn't enough snow to do any serious testing but a blast around the yard suggests it handles better.
While I was under the hood I noticed the battery hold down had broken, it was just a thin metal strap which hooked into a little slot, I welded an old computer slot cover onto the strap, had to cut it a little but it fit pretty well. Very ugly, but I shot some paint on, it should hold. Ideally I'd pull the gas tank and engine out and weld a nut onto the bulkhead for an automotive type hold down but that'd be a lot of work...
Farted around with the speedo a little, on the last ride it wasn't working. The cable is good and I can spin it with a drill to make the speedo go. I think it might have just come out of the drive a little, we'll see. I forgot to check as I rode around the yard.

Finally got the other carbide installed. That one I'd welded poorly and broke a weld. It took me 3 tries to get the stud welded on correctly, I just couldn't get it aligned straight. Sled steers very sharply now, this is something I'll want to keep up with in the future.

I'd bought new runners for the Polaris but it turns so well I didn't bother to install them. Still need to go back and put the other runner on the Pantera but I've had a cold and overdid it yesterday, need to take a day off.

It RUNS!

Finally got time and energy to get the engine back in the Polaris Cobra. I've had a cold and its just sapped my strength. When I hauled the engine to the sled I realized right away that I'd put the motor plate on backwards. I'd been paying more attention to which way the tabs went than to the cutout that allows for the steering shaft. I got that rotated around and went to drop the engine in again and realized that the plate was now upside down. DOH! So I'd put it on as wrong as you could, upside down and backwards...

Got that all sorted out and then got down to the million little things it takes to get the engine back in. Actually compared to a car this is a cinch but you still need to go slow and be careful. Got the motor aligned back where it was by matching the bolt markings. This is something I should have marked when I pulled it as clutch alignment is important. While I was right there I decided to put the belt back on, this was a bad idea as it made it much harder to put the fuel pump back. This sled is odd in that the fuel pump sits right on the block. With that finally in I could plug in the electrics, which gets zip tied together. I don't know why, it was like that when I got it. I assume because it came loose on a previous owner. Then get the carbs installed, the recoil starter and finally the exhaust.

Ready to start, kill switch on, key on, pull. Pull again, choke on, hmmm, choke feels weird, like its not all the way on. Well, lets worry about that later. Pull again, it starts! Recoil rope stays out, crap. Does that mean its stuck on and ripping itself apart? Better shut it down and check. Turns out the rope had come loose inside the starter, the rope I used was slightly smaller than original and my knot was too small.

Got that all fixed and found a couple small gas leaks which required some more zip ties. I think I might get some of the spring loaded gas line clamps like they use on lawnmowers, the zip ties really aren't cutting it, I'd used small ones and now most of those are doubled up.

Anyway gas leaks fixed fire it up again. It starts really easily now, good compression, no leaks, good gas, clean points, and new BR8ES sparkplugs make for a good package. Ran it for a couple minutes to be sure both sides of the engine were getting warm. I engaged the clutch a couple times but the brake is sticking again so we didn't go anywhere.

Shut it down and reinstalled the hood. Ran it again, the light still works which is nice.

So just a couple things left on the list, I need to loosen up the brake again. It'd be awesome if I could figure a way to fix that permanently. I think some riding some miles would help a lot. I also ordered new runners for the skis, hopefully these won't fight me like the Arctic Cat did. I think I'll run back out right now and put some penetrating oil on the nuts...

Exhaust manifold

One thing I noticed about the '79 Polaris Cobra is that the front of the engine was really greasy. This extended down into the belly pan. At first I thought the exhaust manifold gaskets were leaking but then I happened to look into the exhaust manifold while holding it up to a light:

See the light peeking through in the middle of the pic? The manifold was made in 2 halves pressed together and tacked. It would appear its separated in the middle. I ground out the joint and welded it back together until I couldn't see light anymore. Then painted with some high temp.

While I had the grinder and the paint out I figured I ought to clean up the exhaust pipe some. Thats when I found:

A line of welds where one had pulled through the metal. Again and easy fix but then I discovered what I think is a cleanout plate on the other side that had been booger welded all around. You can see in the pic above where it looks like the plate as been swaged or tacked to the rest of the pipe. Apparently the other side leaked so somebody ran weld all around it. It looks awful but weld is really hard and after 15 minutes of grinding I'd only cleaned up maybe 1 inch out of 24. I'll work on it again in the spring. In fact I'll probably keep the pipe out of the sled all summer and just nibble away at it.

Anyway I did finish putting the engine together last night, took longer than expected because the fan housing was really dirty both from the leaking exhaust and the leaking crank seal. Then I realized I'd put the motor plate on backwards. That was the last straw and I gave up for the night...

Couple little updates

Got to spend some time with the big Ski-Doo. It turns out the right side ski was trying to make a left turn which was causing my weird handling. I adjusted it out but in retrospect gave myself way too much toe out, about 2 inches instead of the recommended 1/4", the sled looks very odd. Next time we get a day without rain I'll bring it back in.

While I was at it I decided to replace the carbides. I'd bought new runners a couple years ago but never installed them. So I pulled the right ski and then pulled the runner, that was actually easier than I'd expected and surprisingly I didn't break any of the attachments, but...

So top to bottom we've got the original runner, one I'd modified to fit and what arrived in the package. Fortunately these aren't hard to modify, cut the incorrect stud off and weld it into the right place. Unfortunately while I was welding the first studs into place I didn't notice that my welder was on low power (it only has 4 settings) and when I went to attach that runner to the ski one of the welds broke. No big worries, I only had one ski off anyway so I just attached the stronger runner, I'll fix the other one later.

So now I'll have better steering and hopefully better handling.

New belt, fixes problems?

Stopped at Troy Arctic Cat the other day and picked up a new belt for the '78 Pantera. I was pleasantly surprised that they had one right in stock.

Its got some signs of having been on the shelf for a long time but I don't see anything wrong with it. I did get an email back from Carlisle saying they were surprised their belt didn't work and wanting to confirm both what I had on the sled previous and what the original spec was.

I spent some time with the 2 belts and realized that the Carlisle belt is about one inch smaller internal circumference than the Cat belt, interestingly the outside circumference is the same.

Today I got a note from Carlisle saying the MAX1107M3 is the correct belt, its apparently a half inch larger than the 1078, they're going to send one out. I'll give it a shot and let you know when I get it.