No much happening but, the end of an era

So winter 2015-2016 is looking to be a washout. Probably to be expected really, we had 2 years of excellent snow, you can't count on greatness every year.

Obviously I haven't been doing much riding and having 7 sleds around doing nothing seems pretty absurd so last Saturday I finally said goodbye to an old friend, the 1995 Ski-Doo Grand Touring left the yard for the final time.

I accepted less money than I'd planned to but I still got better than 2/3 what I paid for the sled 7 years ago so I suppose I didn't come out too badly.

Friday I took the '91 Jag out for a spin, we'd gotten maybe 4" of snow and I just couldn't resist. The trails were rotten, the water holes had a skim of slush on them and were slippery as heck in the bottom, I had to keep hard on the gas to get through. The odo says I went 2.5 miles but I bet it was closer to 2 miles with half a mile of track slip. Still even a bad ride is better than no ride at all.

Finally I got the Wankel Panther going again. I'd gotten kind of disgusted with wrenching last winter and it was a challenge to get going again but I managed it. The change is nothing short of remarkable, the entire time I've owned it that sled was a challenge to run, I could never get it tuned well and it was just never happy. Once I got it back together and dealt with the fact that the gas line in the tank had melted it fired right up and ran pretty much perfectly. I think I could open the low needle just a little more but otherwise she's all set. I was so pleased I made a video:

Eventually I want to make a bunch of these where I show off the machine and take it for a ride, sort of like Jay Leno's garage but for snowmobiles.

Anyway, theres an update, we got another inch or two of snow last night so I reckon I'll get the '98 Jag out today and see what it can do. I've been fighting the carb on that one, it spits and dies. I think I had water in the gas so I finally bought an electric fuel siphon and drained the tank. With fresh gas it runs better but I think I need to go through the carb one more time. This summer I'll put a rubber glove on the gas cap in case its leaking...

Wrenching in the cold

Still no snow going into January and of course the guy's on Facebook are losing their minds. Relax fools we haven't had ride-able snow in central MA before the last week of January very often.
Today its cold, like 3F at 7am and just cresting double digits by 11am which is good, with no ice on the lakes and the ground not frozen even if we got snow it wouldn't do us any good...

The other day I tried and failed to get the '79 Polaris Cobra going. That thing is wicked hard on plugs, it'll wet one and nothing I've tried will make it ever like that plug again. It had a set of BR8ES NGK plugs in it which is what it calls for, the BR8ES is one range hotter than the BR9ES you see in most newer sleds like my Jags. Since its a points ignition I theorized that a B8ES plug, not having a resistor, might help give a hotter spark. My local Advance Auto (formerly Car Quest) had B8ES plugs in stock cheaper than I can order them from Amazon. I bought a set as a test and so far things look good, the sled fired right up and idled nice. Would it have done that with resistor plugs? I don't know... I've also bought a carb rebuild kit, I have a suspicion that the mag side carb needle and seat are leaking a little and letting gas into the bottom end of the engine while the sled is shut off which is why the plug is sometimes wet. The next warm day I'll toss that in there, fortunately I've got a gas shut off on it to mitigate the problem for now.

Then I FINALLY got around to putting the airbox in. Last year I snagged a complete airbox off eBay, it was filthy so I cleaned it up and just never got around to installing it. It didn't come with any mounts so I took a pair of hose clamps and cut a notch in them to fit around the boss on the carb, slipped the box in place and tightened the clamps.

Theres really nothing holding it in place which is pretty normal for a vintage sled. There is a little metal bracket under it though so I think I'll measure the space to that bracket and get a piece of hose that just fits between the airbox and the bracket so the hose can be a buffer. Then maybe wrap a piece of wire around the hose and the airbox so it can't bounce around. My experience riding this machine is that it bounces a lot...

Next step for the Cobra was to try out the new cover I got for Christmas:

Cobra on the left, '98 Jag on the right, '95 Ski Doo in the background under a tarp.

Traditionally I've used tarps but the '91 Jag came with a pretty nice cover. Using the cover last winter I realized how much nicer it is getting a cover on than fighting with a tarp, we'll see how they last, they're about 4 times as expensive as tarps so I think I'll end up using the covers only for wintertime storage where I'm taking them off frequently, in the summer I'll continue to tarp everything.

Thats more like it

December when ones mind turns to snow. Sadly its not cold and theres no snow yet but whaddya gonna do?

Last weekend I tried firing up the '98 Jag but she was a no go. I farted around troubleshooting for awhile and finally found that the fuel pump was failing to chooch. This was a big setback, I'd intended to spend the day replacing the track but ended up troubleshooting the day away...
I guess this finally makes the '98 fit in around here, getting its chance to be a dead sled.

I was ordering Christmas presents on Amazon anyway so I added a Mikuni square, single output pump kit to the order. Tonight I finally had time to get the kit in place. Turns out the square single output pump is REALLY simple. There are 4 screws to take it apart, 2 gaskets and a diaphragm and that is it. I replaced a couple fuel lines while I was there, its amazing how long the original lines last. I put some tygon (yellow) lines on, we'll see how they last. The clear hose is usually the worst, it gets hard and doesn't seal. Blue is second best and yellow is supposed to be the best, we'll see. I need to get some clamps, they didn't come with them stock but you might remember a couple years ago on the trail with my El Tigre when the fuel line came off one carb. If I'd kept pressing on when that happened there could have been a nasty fire...

Anyway I got it all buttoned up and on the 15th crank just as I was about to lose hope it fired up. Ran rough for a little while but finally smoothed out. I think there might have been a hint of this problem last spring when I bought the sled, it would run but would occasionally stumble and the sled would about pitch me over the handlebars, now its much smoother. Next step is to put it on the trailer and get it over to buddy Chuck for a track replacement. I dunno what the previous owner did but the track is missing a bunch of lugs, looks like somebody got after it with a hot knife.

Earlier in the day I'd gotten the '91 Jag running, that one also needed about 15 pulls but no other real work. I think it needs some clutch work, it was awful hard on gas last winter. I'll ask Chuck to take a look at it too. Last Monday I got a SAM pass for it so that sled is ready and legal to ride. The '98 still needs to be registered, I'm hoping this Friday I'll get a chance to run down to Worcester...

Working on sleds in August?

So unlike me, I usually wait until it gets cold, then I have to rust to get stuff done...

Anyway last winter I tore the engine on the Pantera all apart and then lost interest since it snowed so much. Now I'm back to working on the tin.

Initially I tried to cheat this and paint it a bunch of times with high build primer and that did take out some of the rust pits but it would have taken a year of painting and sanding so I finally mixed up a bunch of bondo and filled the pits giving the whole surface a thin coat. I knocked that back and it it with the high build to fill the scratches from the 100 grit sandpaper I was using. Bondo clogs sandpaper bad but 100 grit works better. I need to knock back the primer with some 320 grit in a block and then I think I can prime it one more time and paint. I'm not looking for perfection here but something way better than what I had.

Need to do the pipe while I'm at it but I've found that high temp paint needs a good clean surface to stick to. I did my '70 Ski-Doo pipe back years ago and it just flaked back off quick...

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.

Stuff is still going on

Yeah the season is over, the snow is gone, the rains have come, well the rains SHOULD have come but haven't. That doesn't mean the sleds get neglected, or it SHOULDN'T mean the sleds get neglected...

Saturday I got some time to start putting the machines into storage, step one was to pull the windshield off the '91 Jag, the windshield comes off that sled easily so I pull it, otherwise the tarp will pull on it all summer and fold it in effectively ruining it. Then I added a couple ounces of Seafoam gas additive to the tank. I've been adding Seafoam at every fill up so this dose wasn't all that important, I also managed to run the tank down pretty far the last time I rode the sled so I didn't use very much.

Then I scrubbed the sled:

I used normal carwash soap and my normal car scrubbing sponge. This is a chance to give the sled a good check over, look for anything broken or needing attention. I found some cracks in the fiberglass of the hood but nothing too bad. The I fired it up and ran it around the yard to its summertime spot. I was very pleased in that it started right up no problem. That got the engine warm and helped dry out the hook and engine compartment. Then I waxed the hood and put two yogurt cups with mothballs in the footwells to keep the mice away.

There are a couple more steps, I need to stop and get a tarp for it, the canvas cover I have will get killed by staying outside all summer. Then I'll start it one more time and turn off the gas so the carb bowls empty out some. I'll shut it off before they run out, 2 stroke engines really don't like running out of gas. The bowls will still have some gas in them, theres nothing I can do about that but having them half empty will help to keep varnish from building up on the jets and causing trouble.

Finally I'll hose down the whole engine compartment with WD40. This gets rid of any remaining water and puts a water resistant coating on the metal parts. I did this last year on this sled and I was very pleased with the results. Its especially important since I don't have covered storage for the sleds although even if I did I think I'd still go ahead with it. I wish I'd been doing this on the Pantera, if I had I wouldn't need to repaint the tinwork...

Its not a dead sled but...

Picked up a new-to-me sled yesterday,

Its a 1998 Jag 440 with just over 3100 miles.

Its in good shape although the hood is broken a little at the hinge:

The guy claims the wind caught the hood while it was open but he's repaired it with some tin on the inside and fiberglass on the outside. It looks like a decent repair although I'll keep my eyes open for a replacement hood. It'll also need a track in a year or two, I priced the sled with that in mind...

I bought this sled because my '91 Jag beat the snot out of me last winter. When the trails were nice and flat it was a nice sled to ride but when they were bumpy it wasn't. This '98 has at least twice as much suspension, this is the last generation of the Jag, they stopped making them in '99, its got the FastRack long travel rear suspension and should be a much more comfortable ride. Its got aftermarket plastic skis with good carbides so it turns great. Starts real easy, and with a single carb its easy on the thumb and should be pretty easy on gas.

Overall I'm excited, this sled should have all the good my '91 has plus be more comfortable to ride a win overall.