2017 RWTC

[400brian]

The theme for this year's event was the weather. A couple of weeks out it was looking good, with temps forecast to be in the mid-20s. But as the date neared, the high temp kept creeping higher until they were forecasting high 40s. This was a huge disappointment, but there was nothing to do but make the best of it.

Rainville arrived at the Whitetail on Sunday, and a bunch arrived on Tuesday. Wednesday was the probably the best day of the week to ride, as temps were in the 20s that day

Katy and I pulled into the Whitetail around 7:30 pm Thursday evening, and the word was that a bunch were heading over to Fibbers for supper at 8:00. Our timing was good as we had the gear in the room and the trailer unhitched in good time to head over. The attraction of Fibbers was the "all you can eat" chicken that certain members had enjoyed the year before. However, they had apparently killed that golden goose, as they no longer offered that! I continued my research into which bar serves the best burger in the Northwoods.

After we ate, it was back to the Whitetail for me, and out to the garage to get Rainville's '72 400 running for the next days "Bogie Bash". I had brought along a rebuilt Walbro for this effort. Joe was willing to concede to my superior Walbro experience, and I in turn was denying any warranty expressed or implied! Much to my surprise, after the carb was bolted on, it fired up and ran and idled perfectly! WOW, got lucky!

However, when we went to put a belt on it to do a few hot laps around the parking lot, we found the Salsbury clutch had stuck in the fully engaged position. Gentle persuasion did not get it to move, so we took the cover off the clutch to see what was going on in there. What we found was that the clutch had closed too far and the rollers had dropped over the edge of the ramps, effectively locking the clutch closed. lacking the proper tools, we pried the rollers back with screw drivers, and wriggled the ramp off the shaft, only to see it violently fly off, miss a window by a small margin, bounce off the wall, and land on a shelf by my head! We cleaned it up as best we could and reassembled it. It needs a roller kit, as they were pretty rusty, but the kits were back in TX.

With the clutch back on the engine, and a new belt installed, John Deere Joe took the sled around the parking lot, fulfilling a lifelong dream!
With no lights and pretty cool temps, one lap was sufficient, and the sled was back in the garage for the installation of the plastic and a windshield. I headed into the room around 12:30, feeling pretty good about the prospects of the sled running the next day.

[400brian]

On Friday morning we didn't get up real early, the poker run bunch had all left the motel by the time we got out to the lobby. We unloaded the sleds and fueled them up, then I ran them both around the parking lot, and both seemed to be running good. I met Rainville in the ditch in front of the motel, and as I did, he hit a bump, the headlight came on, and it worked the rest of the weekend!

I had been invited to trailer north with the bunch heading up for another day of riding near Superior, but being as we had said we would do the Bogie Bash, and there was no way to tell anyone any different, we felt obligated to stay. The Bogie Bash group that formed up this year consisted of the Wife and myself, Rainville, Jason Peterson, David Clark and his nephew Andrew.

As we got ready to leave, the Wife's 400 refused to restart, so she was put on Joe's Sprintfire. Jason would be riding his beautiful 800, Joe the '72 400, Dave was on a restored Cyclone that he had just taken delivery from Matt Cappel, and Andrew would be on an 800 as well, and I would be on the X8.

Halfway to Sayner, Joe's '72 started running poorly, and finally died. I had put a new fuel pickup fitting and line in the tank the night before, and after some discussion, I had said: if it wont run tomorrow, then I have the fuel lines on the tank fitting backward. Looking at it on the side of the trail, it appeared that the fuel was going around the system backward, so after some double checking, we swapped the lines around confident we had solved the problem. We installed a fuel filter that had been forgotten the night before, and attempted a restart. Many many pulls and not a pop out of it, Joe was messing around by the carb and pulled out the pulse line, which after inspection in the light of day was split! I said do you mean to tell me that you put new fuel lines on this sled and didn't replace the pulse line? his reply was SCREW YOU, and pushed me backwards off the seat of the X8 out into the snow. Jason came to the rescue at that point, as he did throughout the rest of the day, pulling a roll of fuel line out of his backpack. Once the pulse line was replaced, the pulling our guts out continued.

I had a bottle of premix, so we shot some gas down the plug holes, and it did not help a bit, not a pop! One plug was dry, one was wet. I suggested swapping them around after squirting more gas down the plug holes. I was holding the throttle open while Joe was pulling his guts out when I thought the sound changed. I said a few more and it is going the fire, and a few pulls later it fired up and ran, and it ran for the rest of the day! It is always very gratifying when you can fix something on the trail, but Jason was the hero by being prepared.

We continued on to Sayner, the trails were deteriorating by the minute. We had planned to ride to Boulder Junction, but at this point I suggested that we just run north across the two lakes and have lunch at Stillwater's Resort. Joe was in favor of that, so we headed north out of town on Plum Lake. I was concerned that the lakes might be slushy, but at this point all was good. We ran across Star Lake and pulled into Stillwater's, at around 12:30 happy to be there.

[400brian]

There was some re-capping the ride up as we headed into the bar, and we all got to know each other a bit better. I have rode by Stillwaters many times over the years riding the Vintage Challenge, but have never been inside. Back in 2009 on the first Vintage Challenge, it was here at Stillwaters that I found the guide and 5 others stopped, and informed them that they had missed a turn, and were not where they were supposed to be.

The bar was doing pretty good business all things considered, but we found a table big enough for our group, and sat down and continued our conversation. The title of best burger has a contender here, and the fries were darn good too! I thought I took a photo of our group there at the table, but apparently it was a good intention not carried out.

Once outside, I looked at Rainville's plugs, they looked very lean so I opened the needle a bit. Andrew's plugs looked a bit improved from an earlier leaning I had done, so I left them alone. You really can't tune on 50 degree days, just try to make them run. Andrew's 800 didn't have any of the firewall or fuel line insulation that I and Jason had, and that could have been contributing to his problems. His sled had good low end in the woods, but it didn't want to idle, or run faster that 30 mph. We had changed a plug early on because it was noticeably cooler than the other. That maybe helped a bit, but it did not cure his problems. He may have a CDI issue. Joe later reported that 45 mph on the '72 was the scariest 45 mph he had ever done!

Everywhere we stopped on Friday we drew onlookers and folks that wanted to talk about the sleds. We got everyone started and departed Stillwaters heading back south towards Sayner. I'll add some photos as soon as I get them downloaded.

We shortly arrived in Sayner, and I stopped at the Mobile station to re-group. We seemed to have lost Dave! Joe took the Sprint back to look for him, and shortly returned to report that the Cyclone had run out of gas! He had filled the tank before we left the motel, and we had rode maybe 20 miles at that point. There would seem to be a problem there! A local gave Dave a ride up to the gas station in is pickup, and after buying a $18 2 gallon gas can and filling it, Dave was ready to head back to the sled. I got volunteered to do this, as Rainville opined that riding two up on a Sprintfire is too gay. I drove over and said get on Dave! He volunteered to run along side till we got off the bare pavement, as he had been pushing the Cyclone across a lot of it. I said no. it will go! So he climbed on and we took off. There are some things the mid-mounts will do better! We got to his sled, he mixed in a bit of oil, dumped it into the tank, and the e-start Cyclone fired right up. We ran back up to the station where he filled up again, and we headed south once more.

We were headed for the SHOF at this point and the brat burn. So I took the route south across Lake Big St Germain, and in short order we were pulling into the Museum parking lot. At the last road crossing before getting there, Joe pulled up alongside, I punched the X8 to give him second thoughts about that, and the X8 fell flat on its face! The only hiccup for the day. Vaporlock conditions were lurking right there it would seem.

I had a brat and a soda, and we visited with a pretty good crowd enjoying the spring type weather. I took Jayson and Andrew in to see Brian Nelson's Liquidator, and then it was getting time to get ready for the Amber Meet and Greet, so I led everyone except Joe back to the motel.

The Meet and Greet was well attended, the beer was cold and the food was good. At one point Jon Carlson came in and gave me a bear hug, which is always great. The main entertainment for the evening was some film footage Joe Wanie had brought. Shot in '73 and '74, the two films showed Deere's involvement in those years I-500 races. Jon Carlson narrated and gave some background as the film was shown. He claimed he had never saw the '73 film before, although I think he remembered it had been shot.

After the festivities had wound down, Wade and I ran into town to get gas as if we were going to run on Saturday, knowing full well it was not a high probability.

[jep_800]

Thanks Brian for leading the Bogie Bash, with a few bogie sleds this year! For the first time, it would seem unlikely that 2 JD 800's would make the lineup, but Dave has quite the stable of sleds sitting in LeSeur MN, and he purposely threw 2 bogie machines in the trailer. Andrew has been busy preparing for the weekend. One would make the ride, the other (77' 300) had a bearing out of the main drive. I've been trying to prepare my 800 for a couple of years now, and there is still work to do on it before next year. But it did run well despite the weather, other than the rich conditions around startup and idle speed. I could get it to move well on the lakes as I hit about 45 mph with only half throttle. Kept telling Dave that there's a lot left, just concerned as I have burned down a piston before. Didn't want to chance it. Oh, it was great that I could help JDJR with breakdowns on the trail. I put together a "magic bag" before I left Grand Forks. This was basically developed over reading many posts from past years. Probably more in there than needs to be, so there will be some refining. But good to see it was put to use, and Joe was running the rest of the day!

This is mine and Dave's first year at RWTC, and like Brian, I was getting quite bummed about the riding temps as the date approached. I decided that there isn't anything a guy can do except make the best of the conditions. I was very excited to get some riding in on my 2 sleds! I also want to thank Maynard (Gumbofarmer), and his crew for letting me tag along on Thursday after noon, as we hit the trails to Sayner and back that day.

I'll post my pics as well, when I get them downloaded and resized. My biggest satisfaction was my 75' JDX8, which I just finished this past fall, was completely untested when I got to St. Germain. JDJR lobbied Dave and I pretty hard to join the ride up north on Saturday, but we thought better of that with untested sleds. We decided to stay local and spend the day working things out on Little St. Germain. This ended up a good decision, as we figured out what should happen with Dave's 78' Cyclone. I'm happy to say that my JDX8 ran flawlessly even in 53 degree temps. It never bogged down, had tons of power, did not foul, and idled like it was 15 degrees. The only thing I saw that I should work on is adjusting the brake. I did get a brand new brake band from John Deere, but it isn't adjusted properly. I found that I could squeeze the brake to the handle, and I didn't have any braking power. Good thing we were just on a lake with no one around us. That's an easy fix. The rebuilt clutch that I put on it shifted smooth just like it should, and the backshift was fine as well. Dave's 84' Liquifire ran excellent too, ridden by Andrew.

Brian was interested which sled I think rides better, as he's sure there isn't much difference between my 800 and his 74' X8. I will say that the travel is about the same, but there is more darting at speed with the bogies and the rubber track. I think the 2/3 cleat track kept it a little straighter. Other than that, not much difference. Pics will be posted.

Jason

[Ajc]

The Bogie Bash was fun. Other then the rpm issue with my 800 all went well. David's cyclone will need a little more looking in to back home. 400brian Summed up the day pretty well, So here are the pictures I took.

Andrew

[Matt]

Good to see some bogies made it on the bogie bash this year!

[jep_800]

Here's a couple of good shots of the repair attempts on the trail prior to arriving at Sayner. At this time, several groups made it past us, and looked on with interest... most probably thought they were glad they were on modern machines since wrenching on vintage sleds appears to be fairly common. Roger Jordan on his beautiful Polaris TX (think I got that right) also stopped along his way back from the poker run. He said that he needed to get some more air across his motor as the poker run was too slow during those warm temps. The last photo is of our group as we stopped at Stillwater's for lunch.

[jep_800]

As I said earlier, David, Andrew and I decided to test sleds and make adjustments on Little St. Germain lake on Saturday morning/afternoon. The lake had quite a bit of slush in areas that got high traffic. I believe this is the lake that they used to do the Bikini runs earlier... missed that. Anyway, as we got farther down the lake and less traffic, the snow was still pretty good, so got some nice riding to test. You can see that we were attempting to get David's Cyclone to operate with consistency as it tended to load up after some running time. These are not the conditions you want to make adjustments, so maybe our efforts were futile. Still, it was nice to get them out for exercise.

[jep_800]

Couple shots of the JDX8 for its maiden voyage. It ran great all day, with no issues other than my brake adjustments I stated earlier.

[sledhead16]

Very well narrated story as usual. Our group was across lake superior in tofte, mn. It was 48° there, my recoil on my mxzx pulled out, I managed a full recoil trailside fix near a fresh wolf kill, another member blew a track on his Polaris and a cat fuel line cracked and a Ford blew a tranny line. So don't feel bad hahaha. Sounds like everyone out and about made due though hahaha. Great pics thanks for sharing your experiences guys.

[sledz]

Hey wait a minute, I was sledding in Tofte too. Were you staying at the AmericInn there?

[400brian]

Here is a shot of a few list members at Friday nights Meet and Greet. The Bennetts in front, Don Amber in the red shirt talking with Brock , Lincoln and Kyle on the right, and my Wife Katy in the center.

[400brian]

I got up Saturday morning without any of the usual excitement, more like apprehension. Where on Thursday night the temps had dropped into the teens, stiffening things up pretty good, on Friday night it only got down to around 30, and it was forecast to rise into the low 50s once again. At the guides meeting late Friday afternoon, it had been decided that we would trailer north of Eagle River, up into Michigan to the town of Watersmeet, about a 40 min. drive. That is what Rainville reported to us at the Meet and Greet Friday night, and I didn't sense much enthusiasm for that around the table.

I loaded the X8 on Rainville's trailer, and we drove over to the restaurant for breakfast. The prototype of the Arctic Cat raffle sled had to be unloaded and moved inside, then we signed in and bellied up to the buffet. After enjoying the usual good meal they serve, I wandered over to the ride sign-up sheet and noted that Joe and I were the only 2 vintage sleds signed up. I suggested to Joe that we stay local, but I guess Bob Anderson indicated to him that we needed to go north. As we were heading out the door to leave, Wade Bennett asked us to stop at the motel and he would load a sled up and join us.

At the motel, Wade loaded up his 340/S, and Joe did whatever he does for hours on end. Eventually we got going, stopping at the SHOF to pick up Mick, who would be driving the truck, and then headed up to Watersmeet. When we got there, the sign at a gas station was already indicating 52 degrees!

We parked the truck at a Polaris dealership, unloaded the sleds and suited up. The late model guys took off ahead of us, and we followed. We were running down a railroad grade heading west, and conditions weren't too bad at first. If there were trees on the south side of the trail, then the base was pretty good, but if there weren't, then you had slush, or mud, or gravel.

We ran in a tight formation, and never stopped in the 40 miles up to Fishtails. Joe paused at a couple of intersections to commit them to memory, one of which was the intersection of trail 13 coming up from Cisco. I recognized that one instantly, and we would now be running on familiar trails.
The great thing about running these RR grades are that they are low effort riding, just cruise, no twists and turns, no on and off the throttle. We soon made the turn onto trail 13 heading north, and all that changed. Now we are working our butts off, and I am WAY too hot! I should have left the bibs in the truck, I have been riding bare handed from the time we started, and now I am unzipping the jacket trying to get some air. The X8 was feeling it too, as I started getting indications of fuel starvation (vaporlock). I took the spark plug access cover off and stuck it between the seat and the tool box, which helped, but now my hands were being cooked by the heat coming off the engine.

I believe Joe was seeing some fuel delivery issues with the Sprintfire as well, and on one occasion when he slowed, I pulled up alongside to the left, and then somehow got sucked off the trail. Judging by the tracks, others had been doing a little boondocking out here as well. I found a spot to climb back up onto the trail ( the guys thought I did all this on purpose ) and continued on. But a few miles later, I got sucked off the trail to the right, running through finger sized trees! The mid-mount powered its way back up onto the trail, but it occurred to me that this ride was kicking my butt, as I had never been off trail in all the years we have been doing this. I was just way too hot, and had needed to pee since we left Watersmeet. I didn't want to stop for fear that the sled would die and not restart. Bob had told me that if anyone went down, to just leave the sled, and they would pick it up on the way back. The problem with that plan was: what to do with the driver? We could barely pull ourselves, riding two up didn't seem like a do-able idea.

So we just kept hammering it out. We passed the intersection at the south end of the lake where the trail splits to go up each side, you would think we were getting close, but the the ride from there to the Root Cellar seemed interminable. Finally, we reached the Root cellar and dropped down to the lake. Everything was good there on the east side, I took a bead on the opposite shore and took off. You can't pick out Fishtales until you are around half way across, but it eventually came into view and I adjusted course just slightly. We were just a few hundred yards from the west shore when the sled started bobbling around and the power requirements increased. I looked over at Joe's spray to confirm what I suspected, we were running in slush! About a hundred yards out, the X8 lost power, I feared I had cooked the engine as it spooled down to idle, but it never quit, and after a few seconds of pumping the throttle, it spooled back up and I continued on in to where everyone was parked.

I shut the sled down, shucked off the jacket and got the helmet off my head. There, that was better! I announced that I was done, I was putting it on the trailer after we ate, I was not going to ride back! The other two concurred, so the Vintage Challenge for 2017 ended right there at 40 miles.

[Jd sled rider]

Brian did a great job recapping the weekend. I thought I would add my experiences from the week. Brock Kial Mark Mark Brent Wade and Mindy Matt and I arrived Tuesday night and wed morning. We decided to go for a spin to boulder junction for a short run. The trails were ok however there were many miles of snirt and just plain gravel. There was an exciting moment on the way , Matt Gabler did a 360 mid trail right in front of me on a true dator. I was close enough to see his eyes were the size of softballs inside his goggles. We all laughed about it at a stop and we decided the trails were just not good enough around there so we hatched a plan to trailer to the up. The next morning we ate at goegbic lodge and then unloaded at timberline sports the took a quick picture and took off for lake of the clouds. I have to say this was some of the most fun riding I have been a part of. The trails were wide and long and very fast! We made great time and had no break downs. We stopped on Lake Superior and at the lookout at porcupine mountains and took several pictures. From there we headed back down what I would say was the best part of the ride. 11 miles of groomed 2 lane paved highway. We got gas at the bar/bowling ally/ convenience store/hotel and had a couple refreshments. From there we went back to the trailer. And headed for fibbers for dinner. It was decided we would return to the up again the next day.

Matt did such a good job guiding us we asked if he would do it again. Friday we hit the trails early and had a great ride the trails were rough to start but smoothed out the farther north we went. The temp was climbing and everyone was shucking clothes. It was another great ride. We did have one minor set back when Kial's cyclone broke the fan belt and burned down. About 15 miles from the trailer. We towed it to the gas station and hatched a plan for the return rescue. Dustin elder decided he would stay back with Kial and the rest of us took off for the trailer. We got back loaded up and mark and Brock went back to pick up the the others. The rest of us went to hoop and holler and waited for there arrival. We had a couple drinks and a few laughs while waiting. The arrived discussed the day and then headed for Ambers fish fry.

on Saturday at the buffet the trails were said to be in phenomenal condition. We later found that to be a stretch. The swamp challenge was leaving from Minoquwa so we headed there to see them leaving whe we arrived. We joined the Yamaha 100 and rode for many miles. Kial's other ride failed an ignition and I decided I had had enough riding in the mud. So we waited for our support truck and loaded into the trailer. While waiting the others called and they had been left behind and no one knew where to go. We picked them up at a great little bar and had a few drinks. From there we drove to the marchbanks for lunch. They have one of the nicest places I have seen for memorabilia and ski doo sleds. I want to thank them for their hospitality. Any other year I feel that this would have been a great ride but this year not so much. The banquet was great and I got to see a lot of people I have met with this great event. As always this was a great event and I have already booked the room for next year. Next year I will ride the Yamaha 100 just for the fun. I plan on saving the 83 liquifire just for this ride. Can't wait to see everyone agai next year

Later lincoln

[400brian]

After grabbing a bite to eat, we headed back out to load the sleds into the trailer. In the photo I posted, you can see the late model riders lined up for a photo and getting ready to depart. Wade and I loaded our sleds while Joe fueled up his late model Cat. I feared the sleds might be hard to start as hot as they were when we shut them down, but all three fired right up! Before Joe finished fueling, the late model group departed. This is when the whining started about how Bob had said they would wait for him! Joe had to get the Sprintfire up to the trailer before he could leave, so he was going to have a good excuse to ride all out to catch the group.

Wade and I were enjoying a relaxing ride back in the truck, when Mick said, hey, there is a place where we can watch them go through. I have never noticed us close to the highway while on the ride, so I was curious where this was. Mick stopped on a bridge that had a RR grade running under it, and I instantly recognized where we were! When we turn off the RR grade going west to go north towards Gogebic, you can see what looks like a tunnel up ahead on the RR grade, well, we are sitting on top of it, and we are looking at that intersection aways to the east of us. We sat there 15-20 minutes, and we heard sleds at one point, but nothing ever came through. Finally, we heard alot of sleds, and they came into view and turned and headed out of sight heading east. It appeared that Rainville was the last sled in the line. Bob later told me that they had re-grouped above that intersection, and that he had saw us sitting there as they departed.

We continued the trip to Watersmeet, and as soon as were were parked at the Polaris dealership, we got out and dropped the ramp. I don't think we were there a minute when sleds started arriving! They must have been hauling it! Rainville drove into the trailer with slush dripping off his back. When asked what had happened to his snowflap, he replied that one of the gang had apparently gotten a bit close and tore it off.

The ride back to St Germain was uneventful, and I think we were unloading our sleds in the motel parking lot at around 2:30. I was going to get my sleds loaded up, but Joe wanted me to go along to the museum to load up his Cat prototype that had once been on display, but was now sitting in Keith Warning's storage shed. I went along, figuring a peek in the shed was worth it. Once that job was complete, we headed back to the motel, to get ready for the Banquet.