First try 80 Liquifire

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Geez it seems like time can really fly sometimes!!

I have all the usual excuses in life for not posting anything sooner on this one but I’ll have to play catch up hopefully with more free time going into winter.

Pickup up my first liquid cooled machine almost a year ago. 80 Liquifire bought on auction, shows under 100 miles on odometer! Was skeptical of this but as I’ve been going thru it for the last 10 months I believe it is accurate. Now the bad news……… upon its arrival to its new home I eagerly started to start dig into the engine compartment to see what it might take to see if it would possibly fire. I’d pulled it over before bidding and knew it was free and appeared to have good compression. I grabbed hold of the intake hose going to the air box and it fell off…… hmm……. I grab the flashlight and look inside….. eyeballs appear to be looking back at me….. I promptly pull the little trailer outside the shed and instruct the wife to hold cardboard over the hole. Minor disassembly and then Armageddon begins as I throw the rat filled airbox into the grass yard. The cats were of no help with the extermination so I was left to stomp and run around the yard on my own. There was undoubtedly an easier way to rid them of their home but at this point I was mad enough that my current plan was burning off my excess energy. Mission accomplished……. Time to see what they damaged.
Carbs appeared to be trashed beyond repair….. really bad corrosion and stuck stuck stuck!!!!!!! Pulled everything out and got the power washer hooked up…..

[Cdnturboz]

Mice can be a pain, been throwing my sleds/future projects into a seacan trying to keep mice out of them. Can’t wait to see more updates!

[nick80lf]

Wow....fluffy sure did a number on those carbs. Interested to see what the crank looks like.

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After thoroughly washing off everything I stuffed the major pieces back in the shed and tucked them away to deal with when the weather warmed back up in the spring. The engine was on the table and yes I was wondering myself what the inside looked like….. upon disassembly I was surprised to see that while there was some corrosion, most all crank bearings looked really good and the one that was bad from corrosion was on the pto side and easily replaceable. The pto side connecting rod needle bearing was full of nasty but upon repeated cleanings and lube with klotz it freed up nicely. I began to make the list for engine parts and started hunting for carbs.

[SS440-80]

I have been on sled forums for at least 15 years (both Swedish and US forums) and I must say that you have a lot more snowmobile loving rodents on your side of the Atlantic...
It seems like it would be smart to plug exhaust and air box with steel wool when parking the sled after winter.

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I have been on sled forums for at least 15 years (both Swedish and US forums) and I must say that you have a lot more snowmobile loving rodents on your side of the Atlantic...
It seems like it would be smart to plug exhaust and air box with steel wool when parking the sled after winter.

I am fairly new to the snowmobile world myself and I won’t speak for everyone else but all my machines have had evidence of rodents in them somewhere at one time. I am fairly particular with keeping mice out of my shed but where they all spent their previous lives I’d guess they were in a welcome environment. I agree though that one should try to be proactive on preventing them from causing more damage and a while back I found some rubber pipe caps at the local hardware store that I now put over the intake hose anytime they are not being used.

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I dug around the forum for a while researching options on what to do about the carbs. I considered getting new VM 38s and seeing if they would work. I wasn’t totally sure how they would fit with the air box though and also if I would have other fit or function issues by going that route. I do feel like it would be possible to use the 38s but I had an air box and also the original long carb flanges so I felt like I needed to try and find the original VM 36-85 carbs. The carb flanges seem like they are good enough to use still despite what the mice did to the carbs so that is a plus.
I searched around eBay and a few other places online and was finally able to buy a pair of used VM 36-85 carbs. Disassembled and cleaned. Everything is looking good now. I reassembled with the jetting per the service bulletin and what the later tech manual for liquifires shows except for the needle jet and jet needle. What I had on hand from my carb parts collection was 159-Q0 needle jets and 6DH8 jet needles. I studied the fine tune manual for a while and finally decided that although they were not the recommended jetting, I’d at least try them and see if it would run once the time for that came.

Fast forward to preset day and I can say that yes with this jetting it starts and runs I’d say really pretty well at idle. No snow to run on yet and so just running with track off the ground. I’m able to accelerate throttle and get it to higher rpm’s and then essentially “on the pipe” for short bursts. One of the days I had it running was a bit warmer and it didn’t seem to like that but I believe any of my machines are this way also…….. seems like they just want cold weather to run better!

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I’m not doing a full restoration on this thing yet but I decided I need to pull the suspension out and go thru it, replace bearings in all idler wheels and make sure everything is free. It seemed very stiff before putting the machine up on the repair stand so I knew it needed attention. One thing I noticed was that the front idlers had a bushing between them and the frame. This bushing had been pushed into the bearing on the idler and taken out the seal. The rear spring seems to be able to push this bushing into the bearing if it is in the lower position. I don’t quite understand what the point of this bushing is as the bearing seats against the bevel of the shaft anyways. I decided to leave them off upon reassembly but kept them in case they are needed. Do these need to be on for some reason?

[nick80lf]

I could be wrong but I seem to remember they added a washer to the later models to prevent this

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Thanks Nick, I haven’t noticed that on parts page.

Since all my other machines run premix I decided to convert this thing to run the same but still leave oil injection on and functional lubing the center crank bearings. To do this I found some 1/4 by 1/8 plastic T fittings at an aircraft parts store online. I had seen this T fitting on the primer kit of the JDX4 I now have and it appeared to be just the right size for the limited space of the oil injection lines under the carbs. Installed the T’s and then routed the intake oil lines back to T’s. Plugged off the lines on intake.

I also added a 90 degree fuel shutoff by the RH footrest that I could access without lifting the hood. Found the right size washer and a piece of flat iron from the junk pile and stuck it together with welder.

The intake screen for the airbox was rendered useless from the years of mouse habitat so I scratched my head for most of the summer on what I could do to make a new one of those……. Maybe I should have searched for a used one but figured I’d try to make one if I could. I found some screen on McMaster Carr that I thought would work but it was somewhere around $60 for a 2 foot by 2 foot piece if I remember correctly. I kept searching and stumbled upon some material that looked like it would work really well and it was very reasonably priced. This is radiator screen that is used on the newer Deere windrowers. Part number FH354572. I cut out a piece of the screen and the used a piece of 2 inch PVC pipe as a form. Bent the screen into a roll and stuffed it in the pipe. Then used a friends spot welder and stuck it together as I pulled it back out of the pipe. Next took I piece of 2 inch thin wall metal pipe and cut off a 3/8 inch wide piece, found a washer that fit the 2 inch diameter pipe and welded everything together. Lastly a bolt and locknut thru the washer. Turned out well I thought and didn’t cost much at all.

[nick80lf]

Nice job on the air box tube. I know at one time reproductions of these screens were avaliable through Busco Busco Bullet / New Breed Parts. They are being made by a member on here. I purchased one for my 82 a few years ago but I don't see them on the New Breed parts website.

The 6DH22 needle is getting hard to find. I have run 6DH4 without any issues. Earlier you mentioned long carb flanges. I have mixed feelings about those. Typically I find the long flanges are not in the best shape since they are 45 years old now. Rumor has it the long flange was developed to change the resonate frequency to prevent fuel aeration in the carb bowls. The long flanges also make it very difficult to remove / install the air box. The reality is, new long flanges are pretty much non-existent. I have always swapped them to the more avaliable genuine mikuni shorter flanges. One thing I found strange, with the short flanges the threaded insert in the air box will line up with the hole in the tunnel tab. I then utilize that and bolt the air box in place. I've heard mikuni has made changes to there flanges in recent years, but I don't know the details. The time I bought flanges was about four years ago.

[nick80lf]

Deleted duplicate post.

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That was my reasoning for trying to still use the old long flanges was because I’d searched old posts and found that info about the resonating and vaporizing the fuel. I may get new short ones at some point but feel like these are ok for the moment. You are right on it being a tight fit……. Not just the carbs but everything in the engine area is a fairly tight fit. Fingers crossed we get some fresh pow down here in the land of oz at some point so I can see how it runs on snow. So far just the typical mild and boring snowless Kansas winter but it’s been nice to get other projects done also.

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So this has been brought up several different times on other posts……. The rear arm shock mount that hits the center track lugs. The lugs don’t really look like they are hitting the mount but it does seem to be rubbing the little tab welded to the arm. Compressing the suspension with weight on the seat seems to get the pressure off of it but kinda still rubs. I would imagine having snow in the track it would probably be sliding over that tab with little friction but maybe not??? I have a parts trailfire that I could take the rear arm and swap in and convert to a deep snow kit but I’m not sure I want to do that. I know some guys have done that but didn’t feel like it gained them much as far as ride quality and switched it back. What are the thoughts on deep snow vs the original rear arm? I’m thinking I’ll probably just leave it with the original but wondered about possibly making brackets to get the upper idlers on rear arm up just a bit higher to lift the track up off that tab so it doesn’t wear a grove over time. Maybe I’m overthink it and just need to grip it and rip it but I do want to try and preserve this track as it appears to be in good shape still.

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So only one lone snow event this winter in February but was able to put this thing on about 4-6 inches of snow. Cold for Kansas standards…… somewhere around 10 degrees if I remember correctly. So I bundled up and brought out the sport, both trails and the liquifire. Sport and trails rumbled to life with little effort. Parked them by the house for the wife to peel around on when she got her gear on. I was anticipating about 10-20 pulls of the rope to get it fired up as that was the norm after getting it going for the first time. Well about 200 pulls later I was scratching my head on what was causing my trouble. Messed with ignition stuff and finally got it to hit. Still don’t know exactly what was the issue but I think I was lacking spark. It Had never done this before but it was also never anywhere close to this cold when I had started it. Finally got it running and then on the snow. It runs very well and I don’t seem to have much of the low end bog that I know can be an issue with these machines. I wasn’t sure how my jetting was going to work but I think it’s good and will hopefully have more time next winter to do a better evaluation. So far so good and has been a blast to ride!