‘76 Liquifire Custom

[Hix]

After seeing a couple of the custom builds here and on vintagesleds (mainly Horicon Joe’s Liquifire II and Polcat’s build), I’ve started to embark on my own custom project.

I picked up a basketcase Liquifire 340 that had been sitting outside for a number of years. My son and I have already begun to tear it down, salvaging what we need (or can use) on the build. The ol’ Kioritz is locked tight. I haven’t tried to tear it down to see what’s going on with it. The belly pan and tunnel are fairly straight, which is what I was looking for.

The other machine is a ‘99 XC SP 700.

What I’m envisioning is something that incorporates the look of a Liquidator along with the front and rear suspension and powerplant from the Polaris… classic looks with more modern power and ride.

[Hix]

[snowmoer]

That will be a fun project! Keep us updated.

[Hix]

Everything is off of the liquifire donor chassis. I originally wanted to use the tunnel in the build, but swapping tunnels with the XC bulkhead might prove to be a bigger task than what I’m ready to do.

If you’ve ever taken the pan off of one of these, you know that there are a good number of spot welds that hold the pan on. It will take a bit of time getting those filled in when that time comes.

When I picked up the LF, I could tell that the pan had a few small dents, but I wasn’t able to flip it on its side. (The extra 100 pounds of dirt and gravel stuck in the track and skid from sitting outside for ??? years definitely didn’t help.) Once I got it home and lightened things up a bit and could finally get it on its side, it’s beat up a bit more that what I had originally thought. The tabs for the bumper are still intact, and the bumper itself is straight, although it does have some rash in a couple of places.

[Hix]

[Hix]

I salvaged everything that I could off of the donor Liquifire for this build. Tear down of the XC is underway. I stopped and took a few minutes to think about how things might be placed. I would like to use the LF tank, but there may be some clearance issues that have to be tackled.

[Hix]

Using the LF tank is looking more of a wish than a reality. The neck for the cooler is going to interfere with the hump on the back side of the tank.

[Hix]

Going to relocate the tunnel cooler so that the front neck fits in the space where the factory LF cooling lines ran under the tank. Will have to fab a custom steering shaft, too. A couple of pictures as I’m mocking things up. Right now, the Deere pan is screwed to the tunnel and I have 2.5 inches getting TIG’ed to the top of the pan to accommodate the height of the Deere dash on the tunnel.

[Hix]

Progress on the project has slowed a bit. I had the pan at a local fab shop to have an extension TIG’ed to the top of the pan and just picked it up yesterday after it was there for a few weeks. This had to be done to make the hood match up with the height of the dash on the XC tunnel. Speaking of the hood, there’s a bit of work ahead on it, but these pictures should help give an idea of what I’m envisioning.

[Mark633CSi]

Looks great!! That’s a lot of work! We’ll done! Who’s making those decals for you?

[Hix]

Graphics are a custom run from The Sled Printer.
www.sledprinter.com