Next week the Deere crew will begin migrating north towards St Germain for the Ride with the Champs week.

The original eyebolts on the front arm were very rusty and I decided to replace them. After looking around on-line, I bought these 5/16" x 4" welded stainless steel bolts from Walmart. They a half inch longer than the originals, but the threads begin in the same place, so I can cut them of...

Three weeks out! I have the wife's Cyclone in the garage. I have the 2 year old gas drained out, have the battery charger on the battery, and have installed a 78 era rubber bumper on the bumper brace. I am sick of listening to the pipe banging on it, and there is a very worn spot in the brace as well.

The date is getting closer! Reports are that the trails that have opened in Vilas county are rideable if not great. North up into the UP, the snow depth gets deeper the closer you get to the lake. Around Bergland ( on the north end of Gogebic ) the trails look quite nice. Here in south central WI, w...

We are one month away from the Ride with the Champs event in St Germain.

No trails open up there yet. You have to go up to Lake Gogebic in the UP, before anyone is riding. Hoping for a weather pattern change later this month.

The first sled is in the garage for some TLC, just keeping the faith.

I am continuing to play around with my aux idler wheel spacing. I set the narrowed wheel set into the track, and still wasn't satisfied. I want the side of the wheels to come against the center row of drive lugs before it can contact the clips on the opposite side. I re-shaped my jig blocks to more ...

Anytime you deviate from assembling stock parts, you run into problems to solve. Now in this case, it seems this was also an issue with the stock CC suspension. The wheel second from the top is one of the original auxiliary wheels that came off the suspension. As you can see, it has been sliced and ...

Today I made new spacers for the rear idler shaft. The originals had grooves worn most of the way through them. I made these out of 3/4" OD x 5/8" ID chrome moly steel tube. This fits the 5/8" shaft I am using much better than the original spacers. These spacers stay out of the bearin...

Small progress. The rear arm has had some welding done, and is now sporting fresh paint. The spacers on the idler shaft have some deep grooves worn into them, so they need to be replaced. I have a piece of new tube sitting in the vice, ready for new spacers to be cut from it. Bit by bit the suspensi...

Assembled the secondary clutch tonight. The entire process was: Disassemble and clean Soda blast the moveable aluminum hub Sand and paint the sheaves Install new plastic buttons Sand and polish exterior and ramps on the helix Reassemble hub to sheave with new stainless nyloc nuts Install new spring ...

The secondary sheaves were quite dull after the grime was cleaned off, so they got a coat of Argent Silver, which is Case/IH wheel color ( what I have on hand ). I use this on Kioritz engine tin as well. As soon as the paint dries, final assembly can begin.

Small bits of progress. The plastic buttons have been installed in the secondary hub, and the last of the auxiliary idlers have been cleaned and the new bearings installed. As a side note; these aluminum center idlers were only used on the 78 Cross Country and Dator suspensions. As such, they are un...

Jack Durand tells us he runs into Tasky at various shows in northern MN, so I guess he is still around. I haven't seen him since the Round Up in 2013. Much of the daily traffic has migrated to a couple of JD facebook pages. I assume because everyone has their phone permanently attached to their hand...

Greg, good to see you are still kicking! Had to go look, my profile says I joined in July 2005, so I guess it will be 20 years next summer if I live that long. However, Matt changed providers, and I wonder if that date is actually when we began this version of the page. I kinda think I have been inv...

It turned out there was enough soda left in the gun to clean the secondary hub up! So I am a step closer to reassembling the secondary. I had two new bearings on hand, so they have been installed into the auxiliary idler wheels. The second set of wheels have been cleaned up and are waiting for anoth...