The last update

[400brian]

Progress continues slowly. Over the weekend the tunnel was pressure washed, and tonight I shot some fresh paint on the under side.

The chaincase is fully disassembled, and new bearings and an O-rings are on hand. Just have to get the grimy case cleaned up. The muffler and chaincase are the first things that are re-installed, so the chaincase is a high priority.

The seat that Brock had Matt Gabler bring out a year ago is back from John's Upholstery. Looks great! John had it back to me in 2 weeks.

[400brian]

The chaincase is cleaned up and painted, one more item off the list.

Decided to dig out the NOS hood that has been sitting in the corner of the shop for the better part of 10 years.

Here's the story on the hood; In the early 2000's, DK Trader started putting NOS Deere parts on e-bay, that had been liberated from a Polaris warehouse. Early on, the hoods were being offered for $200, plus another $200 to ship as I recall. We had no idea how many hoods they had, but $200 was more than I wanted to spend, so I watched and waited. As time went by, the hoods got cheaper and cheaper, actually, all the parts did, as they were pretty much saturating the market.

In May of '06, this JDX hood showed up on e-bay, with a starting bid of $25 listed. The auction was ending on a weekend, it may have even been Memorial Weekend, I'm not sure anymore. But long story short: no one bid on it! So, just before it ended, I shot a bid at it, and a few minutes later I had won the auction.

Now I wasn't much interested in paying $200 to ship a $25 hood, so I called this guy I had met in St Germain the February before named Joe Rainville. Back in those days, he was practically running a shuttle service between New York and Minnesota, and he often stopped at DK to see what he could buy up cheap.

So arraignments were made to transport the hood. I also asked him to pick me up a green hood and a bogie track if they had any left.

A few weeks later he showed up at my place about a day and a half later than he said he would, and he had the black hood, and a green one, and a Gates bogie track! When I inquired where he had gotten the stuff? He replied: "don't ask me no questions, and I won't tell you no lies!" ( some years later, I finally found out ).

So anyway, the black hood will now get a home. The foam has of course turned to dust, with the adhesive still fouling the inside of the hood. WD40 is the only non-toxic solvent I know of that will touch it, and it is a slow tedious process to clean up.

[400brian]

OH, and Rainville! As you can see, I have a nice box to ship a seat in if you want it.

[JoeRainville]

Nice progress on the JDX-8 Lindner. Also, I forgot to bill you $200 for shipping your hood 10 years ago, plus interest...

[sledhead16]

Laughing! That was a good read!

[400brian]

Here's all the bogies ready to go!

[sledhead16]

Now that's nice!!!!

[The S Man]

Beautiful Sled, and also the progress... This is the best part of the of the whole operation, getting to assemble good clean parts! You and Joe must have a competition going!!!!

[JoeRainville]

Ron, I can neither confirm or deny that Linder and I exchange daily encouraging / disparaging / sarcastic text messages and pictures, nor can the exchange of NOS parts be documented...

I mean, what kind of goofballs restore 73 JDX-8's at the same time?!?

[400brian]

I am looking forward to the final assembly. Right now making a living is really cutting into my free time!

[sledhead16]

I am looking forward to the final assembly. Right now making a living is really cutting into my free time!

I hear that!

[400brian]

One of the updates for the '73 JDX8 is swapping out the original WDA-34 Walbro for the WRA-31 that was used '74 up.

The WDA-34 was too rich in the mid-range, and they actually held classes showing how to peen the orifices closed to reduce the flow.

I had bought 3 WRA-31s off ebay in preparation of this project. Some time ago I pulled one apart to find the metering plate screws seized, and when you twist those off in the main body, you now have a junk carb.

Recently I pulled number 2 down, and was relieved to find it all came apart OK. It then occurred to me that I might as well rebuild two, have one on the shelf as a spare. Also, when we get to February, and JDJR still needs a carb, I can say neener neener.

However, number 3 turned out to be just as junk as number 1. Bummer.

OK, so the rebuild candidate was pretty clean, and everything moved. After removing it from the solvent and getting all the old gasket material off, I noticed there was a fair amount of corrosion under the gaskets on the carb plates.

[400brian]

The orange umbrella check valve that goes in the above pictured plate ( in the circle in the upper right ) used to come in the full Walbro kit. Being as that kit has not been available for years now, I generally don't remove that check valve. In this case, it appeared that there was corrosion under the valve, so I popped it out to clean the area.

[400brian]

I was thinking that the check valve used to be available somewhere, possibly Manufacturers Supply. But if they did, they don't now. Long story short: I found a thread on Vintage Sleds, where a poster noted that this is the same part used in Holley carbs ( Holley 26-41 ). Local Auto parts stores showed the valve at around $15 ea. I thought that a bit pricey, so I continued the search to ebay, where I found a bag of 10 for a total of $11 shipped.

[400brian]

With the new check valve in, the carb was ready for re-assembly. Hopefully, the carb is ready to go, and one more item is off the to-do list.