78 Liquifire rebuild!

[400brian]

So I am going to talk a bit more about this K&H master I just had rebuilt.

This is going on my 78 LF CC clone project, mainly because this component adds to the race sled "vibe".

Deere used these on the 340/S as standard equipment, but it is not uncommon to see them on other Deere sleds that were raced. Other manufacturers used them as well. K&H was advertising this hydraulic brake system for use on motorcycles, mini-bikes, go carts, and snowmobiles. I do not know the specific year it was introduced, but this design seems to appear on sleds in the early 70s. Early brochures for the new 76 Cyclones and Liqufires show the sleds with the K&H juice brake on the bars, but alas, they never came standard on those sleds. A update kit was offered through parts though.
This particular master was in good shape, but all the internal parts were missing. Many of these will be be found to be cracked where the pipe fitting has been over-tightened into what K&H describes as it's "High Impact" engineering plastic body. However, this one was not cracked.

Sam Polito of Webster, NY is the guy who has been rebuilding these for a number of years. He has all the internal parts; the plastic piston, O-ring, cup, and spring. He also presses the reinforcing ring onto the outlet end to repair or prevent the cracking.

I know the first question guys will have is how much did this cost? I do not have a dollar breakdown of everything he offers. I believe he offers the rebuild parts by themselves if you want to install them yourself. If you want the reinforcing ring installed, you have to send him your master, I do not know if he sells the ring by itself. Sam also sells the rubber sleeve that goes between the handle bar and the master. As it sits as pictured, I paid $196 with the rubber sleeve, including shipping to my door.

Obviously this is not for the faint of heart. You can buy a new Willwood master for around $120 from Wahl Racing, or pick up a used master off any number of more modern sleds that used juice brakes. While functional, the newer masters have a rectangular reservoir that just does not have the same "look" as the original K&H.

Sam Polito can be reached at; sampolito@rochester.rr.com

[SS440-80]

[400brian]

I am getting sick of this suspension, but I continue to tinker with it. At one point during test assembly I had noticed the the rails were not square to each other, which made the front arm sit pointed off to one side a bit.

I spent a couple of days pondering how to approach this, and after procrastinating as long as I could, I finally started checking things out with a tape measure and a couple different sized squares. I really never found anything that I could point to and say "here's the issue". I found a few small discrepancies, but being as this is a 45 year old mass produced part that has obviously been used and abused, I wasn't expecting really close tolerances.

With the rails disconnected with each other except for the rear axle, I found that as soon as I tightened up the front shaft at the very tip of the rails, it would pull the assembly out of square ( but for no discernable reason ). I took that shaft back off and tried a new approach. I had made two new steel shafts for the auxiliary idlers between the rails ahead of the towers, I now installed one into the forward brackets. As I tightened it up, once again the suspension pulled out of square. I took it back out, and just for the heck of it I installed it in the rearward set of brackets. For some reason, when I tightened that one up, the rails remained square! I then put the front shaft in with no deflection, and then put the forward aux shaft back in and all was still good! I cannot explain this at all, but I will take it.

I had looked at the towers closely. These are 80 style towers that were bolted on by someone before me, whereas the originals were riveted on. Putting a square on the rails, the towers were in perfect alignment to each other. Putting a straight edge on the towers, each side was showing the straight edge hitting very close to the same spot on the front shaft bracket.

I had earlier found that the hollow aluminum shaft that that bolts between the towers ( that the front arm pivots on ), was bent. I had acquired a new one, which I now shortened just a bit. Once it was squared up and cleaned a bit, I assembled the shaft and front arm assembly in between the towers and tightened things up tight.

At that point I stepped back and looked it over. The front arm appeared to be centered from side to side, and the tape confirmed that! So progress has been made. I flipped the suspension over, and measured the across of the rails. I had originally thought I needed to narrow the rails 5/16" total, but in the end did 1/4". After setting the suspension in the track, I felt I had narrowed it too much, so on reassembly this time I was shooting for 1/8". Original stock width is 9 1/4", the width is now showing 9 1/8" pretty consistently. A bit narrower at the very front, and at the very rear. I also rolled an axle up the hyfax from the rear to the front. I was looking to see if the hyfax were sitting flat, and I was happy with what I saw.

It needs to go back into the track now to see if I like it.

[400brian]

Another set of the SLP plastic skis getting assembled and readied for use.

These are the fourth set I have bought, and most likely I am not done yet. I like these skis because they reduce steering effort, they do not rust, and there are more options for carbides. I have a set of Bergstrom “Good and Ugly” carbides on order.

The loops have some molding flash that can bite a bare hand, so I take a few minutes to file it off and make the underside of the loop top smooth. With the loops installed, I now need the carbides so I can install the steel brackets. I need to find some leaf spring pins, and get the mono leafs cleaned up and painted so the complete ski assemblies will be ready to install sometime in the future.

[400brian]

Another little side project I have been working on is how I was going to install bar warmers into the 78 CC clone.

I put a set of Polly heaters into the Wife's Cyclone last summer, but they were the newer version that had the 3 wire hi / low cartridge. The set I have to work with now are the older two wire version, but I was sure there was a way of wiring these series / parallel to get hi / low.

Tom Rehberg came to the rescue with the Polly wiring diagram to do this. I am not an electrical engineer, but in thinking about this I came to the idea that you would have to be able to switch the ground, so something more than a 3 pole switch would be required. I was correct, it requires a 6 pole switch. I had to study the diagram for a while, but eventually it made sense why it worked.

A quick Google search showed that finding a 6 pole switch to be no problem, but finding one with a HI / OFF / LOW switch plate was. Once again Tom helped out and found one at a motorcycle supply company, so I have that on hand now. It came on a three pole switch, but I can use that somewhere someday.

[400brian]

The Bergstrom carbides are here, so the ski assembly can commence.

The ski mono springs are less than pristine. I didn't pay real close attention to them before painting them. It is now apparent that one is flatter than the other. I have never had much success with monos, they always seem to be sacked out and I wind up putting on multi-leaf springs. Still assessing my options on those.

[400brian]

The plastic skis are loosely assembled. The spring issue has not been resolved yet, but I will figure something out.

Before I do final assembly, I will probably shorten the bolts protruding through the nuts front and rear to prevent contact with the springs.

At least this much is done.

[nick80lf]

I typically re-arch my springs. My normal approach is to use the bench vise and very lightly heat them. Sort of hard to explain but I don't close the vise jaws on the spring, just sort of stick the spring in so it contacts the top of the jaw closest to me and the bottom of the jaw farther away. I start as close to the rivet as i can. Then lightly, and I mean lightly, heat the spring as I pull down. Then I reposition the spring about 1 inch or so further from where I started and repeat. I work down both sides of the spring, stick it in a ski to determine if I need to repeat the process. I usually shoot for the front of the spring being about 1/2" to 1" behind the pin hole.

So far this has seemed to work for me. I go slow and try to keep the spring as cool as possible while doing this.

[400brian]

Decided it was time to get the bar warmers installed. These are the “Polly” bar warmers, 10 - 15 years ago you could buy these from most aftermarket sources, and you could find them in bags with Deere part numbers NOS. They are fairly hard to find now.

This is the third set I have installed. The first set I put into a 340/S, and were probably the oldest, as you wrapped the cartridge with lead foil to make it fit tight in the bar. The next set was probably the newest, as it was a three wire cartridge with a hi / lo switch. They went into the Wife’s Cyclone last summer. This set was in-between I would say. As with the previous set, these had a tang spot welded onto the cartridge that you can bend to make them fit tight. The Deere bars are the smallest diameter these are made to fit, and no forming of the tang is required, in fact I file the square edges a bit to make them slide into the tube without having to pound them in. Being as these are obsolete, I take some care in their installation, so I spend a couple of evenings putting them in.

First I take a coarse rat tail file and remove the ridge from the inside of the bar end. I finish that up with a chainsaw file and emery cloth wrapped around a shaft. Then I test the fit of the cartridge. I find that these with the tang fit too tight to my liking, so I carefully file the square edges of the tang so that they more closely fit inside the round tube. Once I get a snug slip fit, I mark the cartridge left or right and set them aside.

Next you need to drill a hole in the bar on each side towards the steering post to allow the wires a way out. You obviously want all this to happen under the bar pad and out of sight, so you locate the ⅜” holes accordingly. I really do not like drilling weakening holes in the bars, but it is the price you pay. Once the holes are drilled, I deburr them inside and out so the rubber grommets will fit.

Now you are ready to go! You slide the wires into the bar, fishing the wires through the hole by any means you like. I have used a wire to pull them through, this time I just fished them through with a small hooked tool. You now place a small wad of the supplied insulation ahead of the cartridge and push it into the bar until the tang is flush. Once the cartridges are installed, you lubricate the grommets, slide them down the wires, and wrestle them into the holes in the bar.

You fill the bar behind the cartridge with insulation before you install the grip. For now I am done, the controls, grips and bar pad will be installed after the bar is in the chassis.

[SS440-80]

[400brian]

I intend to put the upper track idlers on the rear arm like the 80 LF suspension did. Because I am using a modified Trailfire rear arm because it closely matches the original CC arm Because the shock is mounted on top of the main suspension tube, the idlers need to be moved substantially higher than the 80 LF setup. The original CC suspension used a separate idler shaft 4" forward of the rear arm shaft and 2.28" above it.

I have been thinking about this for a while, and I have decided to locate the idlers on the rear arm with the axle center the 2.28" above the main shaft.
I have a bracket template made here to see how it all looks. The next planned step is to make a pair of the templates out of steel flashing so I can actually mount the idlers wheels to see how I like it.

After consulting with Brock Weber, he tells me to flip the rear arm upside down to gain more suspension travel. So I guess I am going to have think about this some more.

[400brian]

Scott Hewlet offers a square plug adapter that can be used to conveniently connect a round plug stator or if you need a new plug to put the the wires on one of his re-wound stators into.

[400brian]

So as I said previously, Brock Weber has told me that he flipped his rear arm upside down on his 78 CC, and claimed it was the best thing he every did to it. That statement covers a lot of ground, and I wasn't quite sure how to process that.

My first thought was that most likely the shock would bottom out, much like it had with the 80 LF rear arm, with the result that tubes were bent on each end of the shock. He assured me it would not...

So, I took a bunch of measurements, removed the rear arm, flipped it over, and re-assembled it. I am running a hydraulic shock connected between the front and rear arms as Deere originally did it. I am also using a shortened Trailfire arm as it very closely matches the original CC arm. With the front and rear arm sitting on their respective limiter stops, the shock does not bottom out with the rear arm installed either way.

With the arm upside down, the shock does go slightly over center just before it hits the bumper. At this point I do not see that as a big problem.

[400brian]

On this suspension, the shock is used to limit the upwards travel of the rear arm. With the arm mounted it its original position, the shock mount tabs are straight up, flipped, the tabs are now just a little below horizontal.

With rear springs installed and the skid sitting on the bench, the distance between the bench top and the arm axle center is 8 5/16". With the arm flipped the distance increases to 9 7/8". ( This was measured with the front arm sitting on the bumpers. If I raised it to its running position it would pull the rear arm down about a 1/4" ) .

So in theory I would be increasing the rear arm travel by around 1 1/2 ". Now, I noticed that when the springs are put into place with the arm in this higher position, they do not require as much force, they are unwound a bit. The tail ends of the springs are still sitting in the towers securely, but you can see the difference there. Flexing the suspension by putting weight on it, it moves easier at first, then stiffens up to where it was before.

Brock tells me he would lose an inch of travel bolting the skid into the tunnel, and he felt this was a way of getting some of that back. I am not sure how to proceed as I write this.

[400brian]

I had a phone conversation with Brock, and I am leaning towards trying his reverse arm installation.

There is a job I have been putting off, tonight I at least started it. That magic moment in the project when you start getting the pan cleaned out. It isn't so bad that that power washing was required, but there is a layer of grime and old sound deadening adhesive that needs to come off. Brake Kleen by the gallon and paper towel by the case!