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

[JoeRainville]

Allan, the dollies were very useful and worth the price of the kit. The hammers were too light to be of much use on aluminum this thick.

As for the JDX-8, after 3 weeks the chassis was finally done at the welders shop and could be picked up. They did a good job taking care of the cracks and a few spot weld pull outs on her.

Once I got her home I stacked her up to the first chassis I prep'ed and while they looked very similar, the pan the 'new' chassis is in much better shape. It was time to start drilling, grinding and blasting...

[JoeRainville]

In preparation for powder coating the frame, I first wanted to replace all the old rusty pop-rivets. Started the process by beating down the center mandrels on all the rivets with a center punch and 3 lbs hammer. Then, you can drill the 3/16" rivets out without the drill bit wandering around and making the holes any larger.

[JoeRainville]

Why would you bother replacing all the rivets on a chassis you may ask? In some cases the rivets may be loose, damaged, or in cases like this, be hiding rust under them. I didn't want the new rivets to start rusting from underneath, so every last one was drilled out.

After all that fun was over, the chassis was moved outside to clean up the welds with a flapwheel on a hand held grinder, and the chassis was sand blasted again to remove the rust around the rivet holes and to add a uniform texture where welds and such were cleaned up.

[JoeRainville]

Next up was replacing two dozen rivet that were drilled out with new or NOS ones. Turns out Fastenal sells "Aircraft" grade rivets they are very close in appearance to NOS Deere rivits, so I used a mixture of both. The NOS Deere steel rivets were used in the visible locations and the Fastenal's were used where you can't see them.

After a final sand blast touch up, the chassis was finally ready to be shipped off to the powder coaters. It should be ready in a week or so, in a flat black matt that is a dead ringer for "Blitz Black"...

[sledhead16]

Nothing fun about riveting imo, but it's gotta be done sometimes! Great attention to detail on this build! I'm excited to see the powder coat

[jep_800]

Joe, I gotta ask you about the front corners of the aluminum body.... I noticed that there are two cutouts on either corner where it begins to wrap around the side. My X8 had the exact same thing, but looked like they were cutout with a hacksaw; very poor job. I figure they were cut to allow more airflow to help cool the exhaust side, and the clutch. Don't know how effective that is, but maybe at the time guys were seeing similar cuts made on race sleds (like the Liquidator) to help clutch cooling. Probably where they got the idea.

Mine looked so bad, I had a welder fill those back in while he was fixing broken welds and small punch holes on my tunnel. Your cutouts look much more uniform. Are you gonna keep those as-is? Probably doesn't hurt anything.

Also, why not use actual Blitz Black from JD?? I see it in every JD shop I've walked into around here.

Nice work, and progress updates!!

Jason

[JoeRainville]

Thanks Allan, I will post pics of the coated tunnel.

Jason, on the 72-74 mid-mounts, those slots are where the bumper mounts pass through the pan to attach to the front frame. I didn't think the 75-77's had them due to the extruded front bumper and why they would have been added to your sled unless it has been retrofit with the older chrome steel bumper at one time?

I am getting this one powder coated as it's very durable as proven on my I-500 racer and I don't lay down paint very well. Blitz black is used in my garage a lot, but it does not have hardener in it.

Thanks,
-Joe

[jep_800]

Ah, good explanations. Yeah, it never had the older style bumper, so those cuts were hand made for some reason. I also thought it weakened the structural integrity of the pan, as I could move the edges by hand fairly easily. That's another reason I wanted them filled in, as any aggressive trail riding will cause twisting and stress. I wanted that reinforced in front to prevent anything bad from happening. Plus, it just didn't look good.

Jason

[JoeRainville]

Jason, totally agree on filling the cutouts, especially as they looked to have been hacked in and less flexing is always a good thing. You 75 came out great, no doubt!

I got the call to pick up my 73 tunnel and a handful of small brackets from the powder coaters. I was please with both the final result and the $150 price tag for the work. After the HoF show the assembly work will begin...

[JDT]

That looks so sweet!

[jep_800]

Superb Job! Looks Great!!

[nick80lf]

The powder coat looks good Joe.

Sent from my HTC One A9 using Tapatalk

[JoeRainville]

Thanks for the nice words and thoughts guys. Looking forward to diving into this after we get back from the Hall of Fame show this weekend.

In the mean time, I was able to purchase an NOS carb for sled, and I added a shot of the parts rack full of NOS, power coated, painted, re-plated and re-chromed parts ready to meet up with the chassis...

[JoeRainville]

While at the St. Germain CSR last weekend, I was able to score some last minute NOS parts for the JDX-8, including a pair of NOS chrome handle bars and a much needed brake grip. I am going polish up the bars to see how they shine up, as I am still on the fence about getting them re-chromed so they are perfect, but even with some shelf wear they look better than the set I had re-chromed due to less rust pits and such. Rich really helped me out on the brake grip, as I didn't even have a good enough used one for this sled, and this NOS one will match the NOS throttle side perfectly.

The assembly work starts this weekend

[JoeRainville]

On Sunday, June 4th, I was able to get some QGT on the X-8. After wiping down the chassis and front chassis power unit with a soft cloth towel I finally began to assemble the JDX-8. The "power unit" dropped right into place with no fuss. After two years since the start of the project, it felt good to be putting her back together.

I then broke out an old table cloth to protect the tunnel and laid out all the re-plated hardware by size. I also dug out some of the NOS nuts, bolts and washers I've collected along the way. Good thing, as some of the re-plated hardware needs to be sent back to be redone.

The parts manual was pressed into service to make sure the right bolt sizes and directions were used to hold the frame into the tunnel, and than any inaccessible carriage head bolts were installed before the power unit was set into place. This is also why its a good idea to take a lot of picture before and during tear down since a lot of bolts on the 100/JDX sleds due double duty.