Mid-Mount Madness: "Katy's Bogie Bash" Sleds...

[400brian]

Insulation is then applied to the other two halves of the shield.

The insulation is cut about an inch larger than the aluminum shield, to seal against the plastic engine cover. I did this on the X8 years ago, and it has worked well. On the reed inducted engines, the carb sits farther away from the engine, and the insulation is simply formed around the carb flange to seal things up. On the piston port engines, the shield is well behind the carb flange, so they made the small plate to kinda fill the hole. I added strips of insulation to the back side of the shield to further fill in the gap. In '75 they went to a much more air tight and elaborate shield.

As soon as I get everything finished up, I still have to attach the lines and cables to the carb, and wrap the lines with insulation where they pass under the engine, I'll be all set to try the machine out. If all this doesn't fix the problems, I'll be a bit at a loss to know what to do next.

[JoeRainville]

Well, I totally passed the HOF deadline...but so did Lindner.

I am still working on the X-8 for next year, when I can sneak out to the shop. The NOS skis, shock brackets, and used hinge and motor cover brackets were all sandblasted and powder coated. We brought an NOS ski to the coaters to get the best match we could to the original version of black.

Also had some good luck, with lots of help from Brock, Jamie, and Matt from NY with tracking down a full set of NOS bogies. 4 more NOS steel bogies showed up last week, giving me a complete set for the sled.

[JoeRainville]

With time running short before the RWC, I am trying to make some progress on the JDX-8 project. The NOS chase case was pretty scuffed up so I blasted the outside of it and hit it with VHT Epoxy rattle can. She is ready to have the upper bearings and shaft assembled now.

[JoeRainville]

My next parts order arrived from Deere last week. When I went into the local Fort Worth dealership the new guy behind the parts counter asked me if I was the "snowmobile guy". I asked him if I beat the pre-season rush! Turns out he was from Colorado and knew a little about Deere sleds.

Most of the parts there things I ordered previously, like bogie bolts and washers. But I was also able to purchase all new bearing flanges for the drive axle and upper chaincase. I will of course compare them to the originals to verify the fit.

Brockster also helped me out with a few NOS parts I was lacking, including upper spindle bushings, one motor mount and some hardware. Thanks Brock!

[JoeRainville]

The drive and rear axles are already assembled, and now all 6 sets of bogies are now complete. Each wheel had the dust caps removed and a shot of fresh grease squirted behind the seals. The cross tubes are NOS also, but were blasted and powered coated flat black. The cross shafts were used except for one, but all 6 were replated. Luckily I found I had a few sets of NOS bushings, but they were the update black nylon style vs. the original red rubber units. I am pretty happy with the end result at any rate.

[sledhead16]

Yup those wheels look great

[JoeRainville]

The holidays were pretty crazy in Fort Worth with lots of family coming to visit, but I did manage to sneak in a little QGT here and there.

First up was doing a little cleaning and sand blasting on some of the engine pieces and smaller chassis parts that needed it. Once the aluminum castings were degreased, they still looked pretty cruddy, so I blasted them as shown. But, based on prior experience with bead blasting, without sealing the surface, they go back to looking old and corroded all too soon. Note that I used low pressure and recycled abrasive as not to be to hard on the aluminum, and I kept the cases bolted together to protect the flat sealing surfaces.

So I tried some clear engine paint on the intake manifold, figuring if it looked bad it would be easy enough to blast off and paint with aluminum cast colored rattle can if needed. Turns out I liked the effect of the clear, and engine paint should stand up to gas and oil reasonably well. To show the effect, the pic is the set of cases I sand blasted and cleared vs. a set I degreased and cleaned with brake parts cleaner.

[JoeRainville]

Now that I have an approach I like to recondition the aluminum motor parts, I started laying out and organizing all the used, refurbished, rebuilt and NOS parts so the JDX-8 can have her 40 hp case reed heart back. The fan tower will be blasted and cleared before the new bearings are installed, but the crank is rebuilt and ready to install. I dug out NOS jugs, pistons, gaskets, motor tin, studs, fan pulleys, flywheel, ignition parts, coils, complete recoil parts, etc.

Assembly is next...

[sledhead16]

Wow huge difference on those cases, carbs would look nice like that!

[JoeRainville]

Lindner and I were lamenting over the weekend on how long we have been dragging out our 73 JDX-8 projects. I think we were both surprised to see it's been about 2 years or more for each of us. That is even funnier in light my 72 400 was rebuilt in 3 weeks and 3 days, and ridden on the 2017 Bogie Bash with only one small trailside repair to replace the impulse line. (See "Bogie Bash Sled Slam" thread for that story)

So we are both back to nudging progress on our X-8's. As for my story, it was this fall I figured out that my chassis just wasn't nice enough to justify powder coating. The belly pan patches looked "ok" for a rider, but it was not going to looks as nice as the rest of the parts that were going to be bolted to it.

A text message out to the guys yielded a response from Wade Bennett. He had a tunnel with a better pan than mine and could bring it up to the HoF for me. Turns out it was pretty much a rolling chassis, that despite years outside, still rolled. Once back to TX, the tear down commenced! (And a big thanks to Wade!)

[JoeRainville]

Once the chassis was stripped clean of parts and hardware, the blaster was fired up. I used recycled media and low pressure with good results. Once she is all cleaned up, next step is a visit to a welder to have a few spots touched up before coating.

[JoeRainville]

The fan tower is one more part that is completed. It was blasted and then clear coated with engine paint while the chassis work was going on. This was the same process that was used on the cases, with the same results.

As Allen noted above, it's quite an improvement in appearance for only painting it with VHT engine clear. Thanks for the compliment also Allen.

The housing is now ready to have the fan bearings and fan re-installed.

[JoeRainville]

Last weekend, April 15th - 16th I was able to finish up blasting the doner chassis and spent some time smoothing the bottom of the pan and reforming the ribs and chaincase well from some rock hits. I picked up a set of body hammers and dollies to try to do a better job than last time, and the preliminary results look OK. There are about half a dozen spot welds that need re-doing, and a crack on one side were the running board meets the pan, but overall the chassis looks much better that the one I started with.

She is currently at the welding shop getting all that looked after. Once returned, the chassis will get cleaned up and sent out for power coating...

[sledhead16]

Did the hammers and dollies seem useful?

[JDT]

Where would man be without dollies?