Back from the HOF!

[400brian]

Once again, there are stories to be told.

The Vintage Challenge is a tale of burned down sleds, trails strewn with belts, ropes, misc parts, and tears.

I was a finisher on the X8, but barely. No JD race sled has finished the event yet!

Our fearless leader burned down the Liquifire triple shortly after the first fuel stop, making only a couple more miles than last year.

The party continues here, as Troy blew the transfer case on his truck right after I exited the Interstate, so he is here for a while.

More to come, this will take a while to print up.

[JDT]

Your recaps are priceless Brian....

[JD600]

indeed they are. Can't wait to read them!

DE

[Wildfire II]

OK guys My race ready 340/s is comming next year!!! Looks like we need some finishers. ED

[Matt]

Ed, they need your help BAD.

[JD600]

What about your 295/s matt?

DE

[Wildfire II]

Right now I know the 340/s will make it. It was race preped years ago and never raced. Eng rebuilt last year. 295/s still in progress. Matt!! We need to regroup and do some testing prior to the HOF. Hurley sounds good Ha. Hope they leave a John Deer test crew back in town!!!!!

[Matt]

295/S, maybe in the future, but I won't bring it without testing first

[WinnipegStPaul9]

Ed, I'm with you on the test trip to Hurley. What a rush that would be! I owe Brian Nelson a huge apology for my 340/S not making the total trip! One saving grace to me was that we put Rainville's "Spirit of Willmer" hood with the 269 numbers on it so it didn't look like #9. I'm really not sure what happened but I suspect the problem started in the chaincase. I have never seen a jackshaft/secondary that looks as bad as mine so something major happened. I'll let Bob talk about his Cyclone but I want to tell you that John Deere built a great sled there. Not many could have continued moving like Bob's did.

As we have for the past two years, Bob and I rode with Keith Warning's group and we had a ball. It was great to ride with my buddy Gene "Sticks" Ruder and let me tell you that man can still ride!! Bob was flat out across a lake when Gene blew by him and scared him to death.

I hate it that we had so much carnage but it was a great weekend. Another highlight of the trip for me was meeting Jan Carlson. What a great woman!! I've always heard "behind a great man is a great woman" and that's true in the Carlson's case. Two great folks!!

I'm going to post a thread about the charity sled on it's own site.

DA

[JDT]

Don maybe the failure was related to excessive chrome?

[buck43]

Don maybe you have to chrome the new one! Todd think that will balance out the rest of the chrome? Ha

[JoeRainville]

Ed,

I think we need your help!! Five 340/s' arrived at the Whitetail: mine, Watersboy, Don's, Linders, and Troy's. Two Dators showed up: mine and Todd Myers. The results were mixed, but mostly bad...

My 340/s was an incomplete resto that did not want to run with stock jetting. Kenny Hiens was a huge help with the carbs, but it wasn't running well enough to hand off to a guest rider. So we put my "Spirit of Wilmar" hood on Don's sled for Brian to ride.
Lindner's 340/s got a last minute crank replacement, but refused to run well with the hood on. That is two of the five that never left the hotel.
Watersboy's ran OK, but wouldn't go faster than 50 mph. Suspect the clutching is a bit off. He died before the first fuel stop with suspect fuel issues.
Troy Miley's beautifully restored 340/s was hungery from some Pretolite snacks and ate two of them. He lost spark again at Fishtails and completed the ride on a Cyclone.
Don's 340/s, temporarilly renumbed #269 for Brian, ran well but also topped out about 50 mph. The jackshaft broke a few miles north of St. Germain, the last of the 340/s' to drop out.

Onto the Dators:
Mine ran great after getting a set of NOS clutch weights the night before. Tach read flacky and the speedo wasn't working. Not long after the first fuel stop I began to loose RPM. I was fearing a burned motor, but it would recover occationally. But for the most part I was reduced to about 30 mph on the rest of the way up to Fishtails. I was able to swap it out for my "Full Mod" (well, OK, full stock) 83 Sprintfire.
Todd's Dator was running great all the way up to Fishtails. He stopped up by my trailer, and then lost spark too. Todd had already loaned out his two back up sleds so he hopped in one of the support trucks and hauled his Dator back to the Whitetail.

And all this is on top of Campbells beautiful 800 burning down and JRC's "TrippleFire" eating a piston too.

So what have I learned from all this? It's deffinately more of a Challenge to run one of these things 150 miles than it is to make one look pretty!

-Rainville

[Sprailfire340]

Holy moly - does the trail run straight through the bermuda triangle? That is one sorry tale...

[JDT]

Man oh man. I just read Joe's post on the misfourtune you guys had with your super nice looking rides.

I feel bad for you and your machines. Sorry to hear this.

Is the loss of spark looking like the high/low windings?
I have had several issues with these old coils myself.

[DeereKid9]

I only ran the short run, about 86 miles, but rode my cyclone onto the trailer at the end. But I required a red flag pitstop to throw two bolts back into the suspension to get me home (about 5-7 miles). I must admit, I love that sled. Just not sitting on the handle bars to reduce weight on the suspension for 10 miles.
The collection of Deere sleds there this year were incredible. We had: 00 series, X-series, Cyclones, Sprintfire, 295/S, 340/S, Dators, 80 Series Liquifires, and a 78 CC, and all ran and looked pretty good.
If it wouldn't have been for the silly two door snowmobile on our ride, the vintage sleds would have gotten more looks, but we had to cater to the handicapped world champion racer with a broken foot. Sorry Brad, had to call you out.
But none the less, another great time.