Keeping Larry out of the XBOX

[Jd sled rider]

I think this project you are doing is great. This sled looks better then new I hope you get to enjoy it and enjoy the time spent working togather!!!! Later Lincoln

[sledhead16]

One of the best threads I've read, keep up the awesome and detailed work guys!

[nick80lf]

Since we've made some considerable progress I thought this would be a good point to provide an update.

One of the first thing we did since the last update was to clean up the clutches, installed a new spring in the primary and mount / align the clutches.


2016-01-10_06-39-27 by nick 80lf, on Flickr

Once we were done with the clutches we moved on to the controls. I honestly didn't involve Larry in this. The night I tackled this it was pretty late and I was scheduled to go on a business trip the following day. If you remember way back, when I posted the video of the motor running for the first time I made a comment about electrical gremlins. Well I think I might have found the issue. The PVC tubing that all the wiring from the brake control passes through was all cracked and split. I found some to replace it with. While doing this I was "ringing" out wires and came to the realization that the brake light switch was D.O.A. My first thought was "no problem I have a spare for the Liquifire". Then I quickly realized this was a totally different set up and by design the brake light switch is not removable. After pondering this for awhile, I decided to attempt to drill out the drive rivets that hold everything together. As I was drilling, my dull drill bit created enough heat to soften the plastic around the drive rivet. When I noticed it start to turn I stopped drilling and lifted the drill and the rivet came out with the bit. So I did the exact same thing to the second rivet. Once I was inside the belly of the beast I snapped a few photos as evidence of this adventure. The dimmer switch is quite the setup as you can see below. The plastic pin covered with metal is the actuator pin for the brake switch


2016-01-25_12-29-45 by nick 80lf, on Flickr

It turns out the contacts for the brake switch were bent out of position and the spring was partially jammed into the block. I straightened this out and the switch became operational. I tapped the drive rivet holes and used #8 button head screws to hold things together.


2016-01-25_12-30-17 by nick 80lf, on Flickr


2016-01-25_12-30-35 by nick 80lf, on Flickr

When I returned home Larry and I installed the controls and hooked up the wiring. We also mounted the hitch on the sled but I didn't get photos of that. Larry loves the pneumatic rivet gun as much as I do....LOL.


2016-01-25_12-32-01 by nick 80lf, on Flickr

Up next was installing the muffler but first there's the bracket........anyone see anything wrong here? I'm really surprised no one picked up on this earlier.


IMAG0941 by nick 80lf, on Flickr

Yes this bracket was one of the first things we mounted and we had it flipped around the wrong way. Once that was done we mounted the muffler and cleaned up a little. The wires you see sticking up are the hand warmers. I know it won't be authentic but we are going to make a wiring harness with Packard 56 connectors for the hand warmers. The hope is that it will look more like a factory installed item. I just need to pick up a few of the plastic housings.

IMAG0944 by nick 80lf, on Flickr

Since today was another balmy mid fifty January day we decided to tackle tunnel decals. I've never done this so we started with the "John Deere" that goes on the back of the sled.

IMAG0946 by nick 80lf, on Flickr

IMAG0949 by nick 80lf, on Flickr

It seemed to go well so we moved on to the real challenge......the tunnel stripes. We ended up with a few wrinkles on the top of the tunnel above the ribs but I guess it could have turned out worse. The second side went a little better but we still had a few wrinkles in the same area.

IMAG0950 by nick 80lf, on Flickr

IMAG0952 by nick 80lf, on Flickr

For the heck of it we bolted down the seat to see what it would look like.

IMAG0957 by nick 80lf, on Flickr

Cleaning the fuel tank is still giving us a fit. It is much cleaner than before we started but there's still quite a lot of varnish on the upper sides of the tank. So we're going to make another attempt at cleaning the tank. Hopefully we will be able to get the tank mounted soon.

[JDT]

Considerable progress indeed!

Looking fantastic.

[WinnipegStPaul9]

WOW!! What Brock said. Beautiful job guys.

DA

[sledhead16]

Looking 1st class!

[buckeyetrailfire]

Very nice guys I cant wait to see it in person

Mark

[AirborneX4Special]

LIKE

[nick80lf]

Well....it's been a long time since I've provided an update on the little Snowfire project. To be honest this was somewhat intentional. Larry and I decided we didn’t want to post a bunch of photos of the completed sled before it’s first show. Now that several jdsleds.com members have seen the sled at the Honda East show, we thought it was time to make the final update to this post.

When we left off we were basically waiting for the weather to warm up so we could do the bodywork to the hood and bumpers. Towards the end of April we had a few warmer days and we found an opportunity to start sanding on the hood.

IMAG1172 by nick 80lf, on Flickr

Here Larry's hitting the hood with 80 grit and the trusty Black and Decker mouse. I've had this silly thing in the toolbox for several years and this was it's maiden voyage. The woodworking thing just doesn't fuel the soul for me anymore. As you can see in the photo, this hood had a few issues. I believe that the sled may have been rolled at some point. One of the hinge points was completely broke and there were about three large cracks and two areas where parts of the hood were missing. Neither Larry or I have really worked with fiberglass or done an extensive amount of body work so this was somewhat new to us. The first thing that we tried to tackle were these two cracks on the left side of the hood.

IMAG1173 by nick 80lf, on Flickr

We mixed up some fiberglass resin, cut some mat, spread it around and thought we did good for the night. When we check on this in the morning I realized we had made a big mistake. As soon as I touched the repair I could tell that the resin never stuck to the original hood material. That's when I thought "maybe I should do a little research", so off to the forum I went. Sure enough there it was......the hoods are made of SMC (sheet molded composition) and your average fiberglass resin won't stick to SMC because of mold release agents in the material. While looking at materials to repair SMC online I ran across a product made by Valvoline called Pliogrip that looked interesting, but I decided I'd go to the local auto paint distributor and see what they had in stock for SMC repairs. To my surprise the guys says..."I have this stuff made by Valvoline".

IMAG1459 by nick 80lf, on Flickr

As you can see this is a two part epoxy. To apply it you need a special calk gun and automix nozzles. If you notice, the label mentions that the working time is one minute. That's no joke....it doesn't take very long before the stuff in the $2 automix nozzle is hard as a rock. Larry and I worked on this together, but I didn't get a single photo because there was no time to dilly dally using this stuff.


IMAG1460 by nick 80lf, on Flickr

For the areas such as this that were just plain missing we taped a piece of aluminum foil to a piece of cardboard and used it as a backer to rebuild the missing area. We also pushed fiberglass mat into these areas to give it a little strength. In the end I don't think it turned out to bad.

IMAG1182 by nick 80lf, on Flickr

IMAG1456 by nick 80lf, on Flickr

IMAG1457 by nick 80lf, on Flickr

Once the repairs were finished we hit it with the first coat of 2K urethane primer.

IMAG1471 by nick 80lf, on Flickr

Then the block sanding began. Here's a shot of Larry learning about cross sanding.

IMAG0004 by nick 80lf, on Flickr

I think we went through this three times before I was happy. Then we played the waiting game looking for a day were the temps and humidity were not too high. Then one Sunday morning we took the chance. I did the painting but Larry did help by wiping the hood down with a tack cloth. Here's a photo I snapped after finishing the third coat.

IMAG1551 by nick 80lf, on Flickr

The paint that we used was PPG's "shop line JAU series" single stage acrylic urethane. I was a little apprehensive to use this but I let the guy at the paint supplier talk me into it. It's my understanding that you shouldn't wet sand and buff a single stage metallic so we didn't. I don't know if it's my imagination or not but it seemed like the hood has gotten shinier as it cures. Here's a photo of Larry inspecting the job about 8 hours after painting. If you're interested the color code was 4262. I think it could have been a little darker and the flake a little smaller to be an exact match to the original.

IMAG1568 by nick 80lf, on Flickr

And here's one that I took a few days after painting.
IMAG1572 by nick 80lf, on Flickr

From there it was on to applying the decals. I think Larry enjoys doing the decal work. Here are a few photos

IMAG1590 by nick 80lf, on Flickr

IMAG1594 by nick 80lf, on Flickr

Once the decals were finished the windshield and hood were installed.

IMAG1600 by nick 80lf, on Flickr

Then it was time for a few prom photos

IMAG1604 by nick 80lf, on Flickr

DSC_25415 by nick 80lf, on Flickr

DSC_25416 by nick 80lf, on Flickr

DSC_25414 by nick 80lf, on Flickr

Here's a quick video and again Larry is sporting cowboy boots and shorts (what's with kids today...lol). If we can find the time we may pull the sled off the trailer and do a walk-around video.


By the way Bob yes I do make Larry load sleds at home. Here he is loading his sled on the trailer getting ready for the trip to Toledo.

DSC_25419 by nick 80lf, on Flickr

And here's a photo of our display at the Honda East show.

IMAG1618 by nick 80lf, on Flickr

We really need to thank the following people:

First of all big thanks to my wife for giving us the green light on this project. (It's very unlikely she will ever see this but you never know).

Then the following members:

Ed Jones - for selling us the sled.
Brock Weber - for the set of skis
Matt Spiece (New Breed Parts) - misc aftermarket parts
John's Upholstry - seat cover
Dustin Smit - track cleats
Matt Capple - technical support
Rob Haynes - technical support
If we forgot anyone else we apologize.

Finally thanks to everyone for the words of encouragement during this project. We are going to try to do one vintage ride together this winter. If I can figure out the logistics we may even do the “memory at the mile” lap at the Soo I500, but I think that will be a stretch.

[AirborneX4Special]

Wow. Pretty sure you can shave in the reflection off of that tunnel.

[sledhead16]

Better than new, I'm pretty sure you guys can say that you put more attention to it than the assembly line employees did!

[Matt]

Wow. Pretty sure you can shave in the reflection off of that tunnel.

That's for sure, and you can probably do the same in the reflection off the slide rails.

Very nice work Nick & Larry!

[nick80lf]

Well over the weekend Larry and I attempted to take the Snowfire out for it's first vintage ride. We made the 4 hour trip to the annual Ogemaw Hills Snowmobile Club's vintage show and ride, which is near West Branch, MI. The way winter has been this year we were expecting there wouldn't be much snow, we were quite surprised, but unfortunately it was about 40 degrees the day of the show and the trails were very slushy. I was a little worried about overheating the Snowfire so we didn't join the group ride but did take a short run around the enormous parking lot and then ventured down the trail to the first intersection, turned around and came back. They have a pretty impressive setup up here, nice club house, nice parking area with easy access to the trail system. Below are a few photos. Feel free to browse the album on my Flickr account.


DSCN1805 by nick 80lf, on Flickr


IMAG1864 by nick 80lf, on Flickr


DSCN1803 by nick 80lf, on Flickr

[Matt]

That was a good choice not to do the vintage ride, but I'm sure that was disappointing. I had done one with mine on a borderline temperature day and because it was a vintage ride there were a lot of stops to let people catch up, and I was having to throw snow on the engine to keep it cool. It probably would have been fine if we kept moving at a decent pace but that's just not how rides go.

[sledhead16]

The Snowfire looks great out on the snow!