I-500 Liquidator #303 Ten Months to Race Ready

[JoeRainville]

A year after the fact thought should I finally tell the story of the I-500 Liquidator build:

It started during a conversation with Adam Leubner in March of 2017, after my 80 Liquifire wouldn’t re-start after a small get off a few miles outside of the I-500 gas stop. Turns out the original 37 year old CDI box had just gone erratic and needed replacing, despite having bright spark. That said, I was wondering if it was time to build a new sled as that Liquifire had let me down far more than not over several I-500 attempts.

I was talking to Adam about doing a “big body” 76-78 sled, something like a 76-78 Liquifire, or a 78 Cross Country with a 440 top end on it. Maybe even a 340/s for the fun of it. But it seemed that a 78 CC would fit the bill as a good starting point.

Adam said flatly: “You need to do a Dator.” “No way, too valuable, to rare” I retorted. He asked how many did I have, and how many were project sleds. Well, at the time I had 3 complete, and 2 basket cases. Over the course of several more conversations we further discussed the merits of a CC vs. the craziness of doing an actual Dator. A CC would be much lighter and cheaper, but a Liquidator would be pretty cool. And there are a ton of reproduction parts available now, some of which I already had in stock.

After much deliberation and some arguing, he talked me into it. But he wanted to build the sled…

One rather amusing risk accepted from day one was that some folks might not appreciate us building a real Liquidator into a race sled. But, it was a machine that was born to race cross country and we wanted to honor that the best we could.

[JoeRainville]

The deal we came up with was that Adam was to build the motor and chassis and do all the finishing work and final assembly. You see, Adam used to build pro class SnoCross sleds for Team Industries and brings a professional level of perfection and skill to this adventure.

I would take care of sourcing and spec’ing most of the parts. I would also do as much prep work on the chassis before boxing up the kit and shipping it north to the HoF show in May for Adam to pick it up.

I was going to handle the entire rear suspension, as it took me a while to get a set up I liked for the 80, and wanted to do the next one also. I was going to handle clutching, as I had some experience with switching sleds over from 102-C’s to newer set ups.
Adam was definitely going to handle every aspect of the motor, aside from me providing the raw parts.

So in April of 2017 I sent him a pic of Dator chassis #303 on top of the pallet racking in the storage barn. It was ROUGH. I wouldn’t have bothered to restore it, she was THAT bad…But make a race sled out of it…well OK.

[JoeRainville]

Once #303 was pulled down and moved in to the shop for tear down, I was immediately reminded of why I didn’t think I would ever restore it. The chassis was boarder line junk. It had tons of extra holes and brackets everywhere, a 78 bulkhead heat exchanger had been so badly hacked into it that she needed a new closeout panel for the front of the tunnel. If this thing wasn’t a Dator, it would have gone to scrap instead of being hauled 1,500 miles down to Texas. But it was a Dator. Liquidator SN55303...

One other reason I went ahead with this chassis was that while it would have been MUCH easier to start with a complete and solid Liquidator, I also didn’t want to get too much lip for modifying a nice sled. This way I was starting from a nearly unrestorable junker and not risking harming a nice machine.

[JoeRainville]

The strip down went as expected, but yielded a few surprises, both good and bad. The expected part was that most of pieces removed from the chassis were unusable scrap, bad news was this thing was going to require a ton of welding to repair all the chassis and ‘modification’ damage, and the pan was pretty beat up. The only good news was that despite all the abuse, extra holes and trashed close off panel, the chassis was still pretty straight and wasn’t all twisted up. Even better was the that some of the removed parts were going to useable, such as the dash, front bumper, front frame, etc.

At this point I may have been wondering what we got ourselves into...

[JoeRainville]

Sandblasting the salvageable parts followed the strip down after I removed all the un-necessary added brackets and about a hundred-extra rivets. All the factory rivets were also drilled out, as where to be replaced with new ‘aircraft grade’ pop rivets after blasting.

It was about this time I put the call out to the Brockster that I needed the front close off panel from a 76 Cyclone…”for no particular reason”… This was the first of several calls to Brock. Without his help, things would have gone much differently.

By then I had also ordered a new seat from John’s Upholstery, one that was about an inch thicker than stock so I would sit up higher. I had also began to round up all the parts I would need to "kit" the sled for the HoF trip at the end of May. It was already the end of April by now.

[JoeRainville]

Next up was trying to repair some of damage on the chassis now that 40 years of crud, neglect and bad modifications were removed. Luckily there is a race car fab shop right near my old test lab, and the owner is an excellent welder.

Erik first re-welded and adding welds to the front frame per my super-secret ETD mechanical consultant, who will only be known by his code name of “Teve Stabor”. Once the chassis was ready, Erik welded up over 24 holes on EACH SIDE of the tunnel, plus several cracks toward the rear. Being the nice guy that I am, I was leaving the R&R of the close off panel to Adam…

[JoeRainville]

With the front frame welded, I continued blasting and cleaning the smaller parts like grills and brackets before painting everything I could with flat black epoxy. Adam was going to handle painting the chassis and repop hood, and as it turns out, he also had more welding done of the front frame so that was also touched up in NY later on...

[JoeRainville]

One of the more "fun" parts of this was sorting through tubs of Liquidator parts to find parts good enough to build a race motor. Years of hoarding has been offset by years of helping out buddies with their projects, but we at least had a selection of parts to go through. I had sent Jerome a crank by now, and ordered another set of pistons from Larry Hogie. I also ordered a Polarfire CDI and rewound stator as some point during the project.

[JoeRainville]

After 2 brisk months of sand blasting, welding, painting and sorting parts, I had a rapidly approaching deadline: the 2017 HoF Classic Sled Roundup over Memorial Day weekend at the end of May. I got as much done as was possible, and proceeded to kit up the sled to bring to the show. I think the original hood was actually for Nick, for Adam needed a guide for decal installation once the sled gets painted.

Cari Deerest, little Richard and a ton of parts were loaded for the 1,250 mile drive up to St. Germain to hand off the sled...

[JoeRainville]

Adam wasn't able to attend the show, but Sidekick Nick was planning to be there. Aside from our usual horse trading, Nick was also enlisted to transfer the kitted Dator to Adam for me. But my job was far from done, as I wasn't able to dig out and prep nearly all the parts for the sled. Turns out I would be sending Adam something like 20+ boxes over the next few months...

[JoeRainville]

Back in NY Sidekick Nick made arrangements to deliver the Dator Kit to Adam.

Back in Texas my job was far from done, while Adam's was just starting. I was ordering parts left and right, including bearings and flanges from Deere. I was still refurbishing parts, like an 80's Liquifire chaincase so we can use the roller tensioner. Adam did tell me I forgot to run a tap to chase the threads, as one hole was a bit chewed up.

During the summer I was preparing for the second load of large parts to bring Adam at Hay Days, in addition to ordering a bunch of reproduction parts. I mentioned this earlier, but turning a trashed tunnel into a nice looking racer couldn't have happened if a lot of repop parts were not available. While some results varied, I was thankful for everything I could get to help bring this beast back to life.

A lot of late model parts were also purchased to support the build, like a late model Cat drive clutch at the HoF show, a 91 Cat Panther track from Tom Rowland, a Wilwood spot caliper from Wahl Bros, and a bunch of small parts at Hay Days.

[JoeRainville]

Copying my earlier post on the main page, all these guys directly or indirectly contributed to the final product with reproduction parts. Appologies if I forgot anyone:

Kenny "Gumpy" Hiens: CC handlebars, 78 rear grab bar, 340/s style snowflap, airbox kit, etc.
Brock Weber: Wiring harness, suspension pieces, head nuts, paint codes, chaincase flange gaskets, advice, etc
Larry Houge: Wiseco Pistons
Matt Spiece: Plastic Ski Kit, crank seal kits, tons of other misc parts
Joe Wanie: Recoil handle, ski spring slides, ski kit
Don Amber: Ski spindle hardware kits, repop radiator support
John's Upholstery: All new extra thick seat
Aaen: Reproduction exhaust system
Chuck Moser: Decals
Cometic: Engine Gaskets
Hewtech: Rewound Stator and CDI
Matt Gabler: Motor plate and exhaust brackets - (new for this year 2019)

New parts were purchased from the following:
Thomas' SnoSports: Cat rubber track, clutch weights
Wahl Bros: Grips, carb rebuild parts, Willwood hydraulic spot caliper, drive and driven clutch springs, etc
John Deere: Chassis bearings, flanges, chassis washers, hardware and bushings

Of course I used one of my repop Dator hoods, windshields and windshield hardware kits. Brian Lindner rebuilt a set of idlers for me a few years ago that were also pressed into service. The NOS parts stash was raided as required...

[JoeRainville]

As summer flew by and Hay Days got closer, parts started to trickle in. The NOS rubber tracks from Tom Rowland were early arrival, with one coming to me in DFW. These are the updated version of the early Panther tracks that Chuck figured out fit the 78 CC with a little nudging and adjusting. They are 121" long, but 16" wide. Early versions were 3.29" pitch while later ones including this 91 AFS Panther style has a 2.52" pitch. The unique part is that unlike most other modern tracks, this one still has 3 rows of drive lugs that pretty closely match the Deere spacing. I had already included 3 NOS 78 440 Liquifire 2.52" hex drive sprockets in the kitted sled, and Adam would have a track to match the spacing up with.

Having another track in DFW gave me one to verify slide rail spacing with my rear suspension build.

Also during this time dropped shipped parts started showing up at Adam's shop, along with the sled of course...

[340sracer]

Way to go Joe, I think that’s a good idea getting the liquidator off the shelf and blowing the dust of,restoring it and getting some snow on it,after all that’s what snowmobiles were made for.
Looking forward to see it being restored and into the races. Good luck!
Glen

[JoeRainville]

Thanks Glen! Nice to hear from our favorite Enduro Team Canada racer.

It was great to build and to attempt to race a real Liquidator in the I-500 last year. Too bad it died after only 10 miles in the race, but at least the Liquidator completed the entire 150 miles vintage challenge a week later. Hoping for a full run this year, thanks for the encouragement!

-Joe

...and now back to our story, already in progress:

Adam and I agreed to meet up at Hay Day in September, both to transfer more parts, and make some needed purchases for the Liquidator. I loaded up a place holder suspension, one of the Cat tracks, one of Matt's plastic ski kits, some NOS leave springs and a few tubs of other misc. parts that were not ready to deliver to St. Germain.

With the Dually loaded, I headed north to North Branch MN for another zany weekend with Adam...