Kevin's Liquifire

[jep_800]

Paint can be very frustrating. I think you got great results with some patience. Good job!!

[nick80lf]

Thanks for the compliments guys. Last night I managed to get the decals installed. It's not shown in the photo but the grill and headlight are also installed. Way back when Rainville did the first buy of the sport windshields I bought a few. The windshield is just sitting on the hood to check the fit. I'm hoping I can get the hood completed and installed tonight.

[JDGuy]

You do great work!!!

[nick80lf]

Thanks Guy. This one has been a real struggle (started in the middle of the great COVID part shortage). Since I'm finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel I have started to look back on this one and can not believe I have been messing with it for 4 years now. With that said......the hood is installed. The list is starting to get pretty short. Basically waiting for a seat cover from John's, need to fix the rotted battery box, install the e-start system, make a decision on the side vent (replace or use the one I have that has 4 broke mounting stems).

[nick80lf]

Some of you might have noticed that this sled had e-start. Three sides of the battery box were missing the lower 1/2" or so.

This one pains me. Initially I had planned on remaking the entire box and salvaging the lower portions and bracket where the breaker, diode, and solenoid mount. The issue I was struggling with was tools. At work we no longer have a hand fired brake and a few years ago someone who didn't work in our fab department lost the tip of their finger. Since then use of things like the shear and press brake is heavily discouraged if you do not work in our fab department. For years I was sort of given a pass because I grew up in the era where we did this ourselves. The more I thought about this the more I felt like the "farmer fix" seemed like my best option. I'm basically cutting out the rotted portion, and scabbing in new metal. I plan to hit it with filler to hide my sins.

[High Top]

That stinks that you have the tools so close but can’t put them to use. I don’t think anyone will get too worked up about the patch job. They will be too busy looking at that sweet hood. Nice job!

[bradski12]

@nick80lf

Reading through your posts, I just grabbed a 08/79 (1980) date code Trailfire 440 parts sled with a pretty cherry battery box and complete/intact e-start. Let me know if I can help you with a battery box and factory mounting bracket and/or any of the OE wiring/relays etc. I know they pull a pretty penny and are expensive/hard to come by so let me know if I can help you out if interested via PM. (Mods, not a "Classifieds" post but just looking to help a brother out). A little rust scales starting but definitely not rotting or pitted through.

Sled looks phenomenal!

Brad

[nick80lf]

Thanks for the offer Brad but I think I will pass. This weekend I finished patching and painting the battery box and it turned out better than I anticipated.

On two of the sides I cut 1/2" out and the front edge 3/4". Bent some patch pieces out of 22 gauge using the vise and rubber mallet. Turned the wire welder down as low as it could go and with a series of tacks was able to make it looks somewhat respectable. Here's a photo of the raw metalwork before slinging down a liberal amount of kitty hair to hide the sins.

Didn't get any photos of the filler work but here are a few photos after primer and paint. It's not 100% perfect. There are a few rust pits that I didn't fill but it turned out way better than I expected. How long it stays that way is yet to be determined.

[snowmoer]

That came out nice!

[bradski12]

Turned out phenomenal! Great work and awesome fabrication skills! Always happy to help out the JDSled community! .

[nick80lf]

So.....earlier this week I was working on getting all of the battery box components rounded up. Surprisingly the breaker and solenoid appear to work but as crusty as they look I've swapped them out. I had a NOS solenoid and had to order the breaker from Deere. I'm certain this is a 25 AMP breaker made by Bussman but they only seem to list the two hole mount style in their catalog.

I'm one of those types that gets all geeked out on the details. I always hate to make changes that aren't correct but I decided having a positive battery cable that is black is not going to cut it for me. This morning I picked up the last piece, a red battery terminal cover for the group U1 battery. Just need to take this stuff to work Monday to use the big cable lug crimper. I should have photos to share later this week.

Yesterday John sent me a text saying he shipped my seat cover so I though I should start working on the seat. You may have noticed in the barn find photos that Kevin had this sled setup with a backrest and the trail seat. At first I was excited it was setup this way. Before the sled was disassembled I sat on it and quickly realized this wasn't for me. Kevin was very tall, me not so much. When I was comfortably seated I found myself about a foot away from the backrest. I then had my son jump on the back to see what two riders was like. At the time he was about 15 and weighed in at about 100lbs. With two people I found my knees were in the bars. So for me I don't see the point of the back rest, I would prefer the sport style seat.

I happened to luck out, one of the guys that I worked at the Deere dealership with (who is now retired) decided to get out sleds entirely. He recently had an online auction and all of his sled stash was sold. I managed to pickup this sport style seat.

He told me that this seat had been warrantied by Deere and mentioned that back in the day they replaced a lot of these because of cracking. My assumption was that this was from one of his sleds and instead of it going into the dumpster at the dealership he took it home with him. This is the forth seat I've recovered (third sport style seat), this one seamed much more difficult than I remembered. In the past it seemed like the seats I've done were glued around the hump, taillight, and down by the gas tank. Typically the glue was dried out, boards rotten, foam hard as a rock in places. This one seemed to be glued everywhere and the foam was still very soft. The wood strips were so nice i don't see a need to replace them. Basically just started in one spot and started working it with a sharp putty knife scraping the foam from the vinyl. After 4 hours this is what I have, not to mention a sore back.

[bradski12]

Looking great! Definitely lucked out with the seat foam. Any trick to removing the old cover from the foam or did it just come right off carefully peeling away?

[Cdnturboz]

Where are you typically getting your seat covers from? Adding a sport seat to my trailfire as well and need a source for a nice correct seat cover

[nick80lf]

Looking great! Definitely lucked out with the seat foam. Any trick to removing the old cover from the foam or did it just come right off carefully peeling away?

I have a sharpened putty knife that I used. I basically started in one area and slowly scraped the vinyl away from the foam.

Buy sharpened putty kinife, I mean I took a flat file to it and knocked the square edge at an angle. I did this about 20 years ago to make it easier to get the putty knife under things to peel them up. It's maybe slightly sharper than a butter knife.

[nick80lf]

Where are you typically getting your seat covers from? Adding a sport seat to my trailfire as well and need a source for a nice correct seat cover

First, you mention "correct" seat cover. The original covers were 1 piece formed covers. At the moment no one is making an exact replacement. Several years ago Rainville was working on that project. I recall some protype covers were made and a few guys checked them out. I think everyone thought they could have been better. Haven't heard much about that project in a long time. With that said, I have always bought my seat covers from John's Upholstery in Sanborn, MN. He was a sponsor of this website. His covers are sewn with 6 pieces. If you send him the seat he will install the cover. I have never checked but I'm sure the cost of shipping a seat both ways is not cheap, so I have always installed my own covers. Here's a picture of one John's covers on one of my 80s.

I don't have photos of the taillight area. His covers are one piece across the taillight area, so you need to glue, heat gun, stretch. The two areas I struggle with are the butt area of the seat hump and the taillight area. My first seat i used supper 77 adheasive. That held till the first time I sat the sled in the sun on a warm summer day. My next cover i used brush on contact cement for formica countertops (weldwood if i remember correctly). This has held up better but is starting to come loose after about 10 years. When I talked with John last week he recommended 3M 38808 headliner adheasive. Just picked up a can tonight and will give it a try.