Yet another Dator saved from a barn

[80spitfire]

Ok yeah I'll take some more pictures of some of the things that I think he might have modified on it when he raced it. I live in Mankato and you guys are more then welcome to come over and see it. I'd love to meet you guys. If you wanna come over just give me a call at 507 351 0232.

[80spitfire]

Ok I took some more pictures of some things that I think may help your dad identify the sled. The first picture shows that it has the original U bars that the Dators came with, so those for sure haven't been changed out like some were.



In the second one you can see that there was a primer added to the sled at some point, however this isn't the original dash since the letters aren't painted silver. I'm guessing that they changed out the dash after your dads crash, or when the next owner crashed it. So basicaly I don't know if it was added then, or when your dad raced it, it's kinda hard to say.



In this picture you can see the modified rear bumper. The handles on it were added. I personaly have been guessing that someone added the handles so it would be easier to hold on to when warming up the track, that's just my educated guess.



And this last one is just another picture of the Dator-lite suspension that was added at some point as part of the Up-Dator kit. Also the wheel kit was added to it which adds 6 more idler wheels to it. However the side that I took this picture from is missing a wheel.

[80spitfire]

Sorry for the terrible picture quality by the way lol

[JDT]

This is a mighty cool find.
Document as much as you can.
Take some pics if the original racer stops in for a visit.

[Dator76]

those extra boogies are the optional wheel kits for the lite susp. kinda hard to find. i cant see enough of it to tell if its a lite susp and both 78 cross country and dator used the wheel kit. the mount point of the rear arm being pushed back about 1" says it could be a dator lite as thats what they did on the dator tunnels. but then its a cyclone tunnel so i cant say... i do have a dator lite suspension sitting on a shelf ill try to get pics tomorrow.

[fast823]

I talked to Dad today and he looked at pics and thee are a few things he noticed from the pictures. First he said he never had the belt holder on the clutch cover. He said he remembers storing the spare belts under the pipes so they would stay warm. Also he said he had hand warmers and the wires were run through the handle bars so there should be a small hole on the bottom. One moe thing he said he never had the alum suspension.

[80spitfire]

Hmm that's interesting to know. The belt cover I'm not sure if it's actualy even a Dator cover or not so that might have been changed out or somebody else could have added it after 78, so that one I don't know on. I checked and the handle bars don't have a hole drilled for the wires. I did confirm that the suspension is in fact a Dator-lite suspension by comparing it to a Dator PC. So yeah, I don't know what to think. It's hard to tell when so much has been changed out. Let me know if you guys are still interested in seeing it or not.

Thanks,
Brian

[Dator76]

the clutch cover appears to have been notched to clear the clutch ducting they would have installed had it been updated in 77 however it looks like it never had the rubber flap that was used in the update. not terribly important as this clutch cover is a generic piece but it may be telling you the sled was updated and for whatever reason at some time the clutch cover was swapped out and renotched while the original tunnel and clutch ducting was still on it. btw I sold several dator tunnels last summer so maybe one of those or another will come available in the future

[80spitfire]

Thanks for the info on that I had no idea they did anything to the clutch guard during the update. I've come to the conclusion that it definitely has had the Up-Dater kit. The reasons why I say this is is it has all of these things, 1-Dator-lite suspension 2- Dator-lite hood 3- modified belt guard and it also has the wheel kit. So I guess the question is, is this Myron's sled that was updated after he sold it? Or is it a completely diferent sled? Personaly I still think it could be his just do to how well the story goes with it but I guess only time will tell.

[80spitfire]

We have an update guys. So it turns out that this is not Myron's sled,I talked to the owner who had it in the barn for 25 years and the storys a little different than we thought. He was only able to help me track it down to 1985 so far but what I know so far is, the sled was traded in to the Implement in Martin County where he worked. The sled was almost perfect at the time the original tunnel was even still there and apparently the only thing wrong with it was the motor needed to be rebuilt. So he bought it and rebuilt the motor. After he rebuilt it he took it on a trip to Bemidji and his friend, I believe is what he said, crashed it straight into a tree wrecking the tunnel and cracking up the hood to like it looks now. So, since he worked for Deere he bought a bunch of parts and rebuilt her. All the parts that I had questions about he added apparently. He put on the 77 Cyclone tunnel, a 78 Cyclone seat, and the 78 LF bulkhead cooler. Oh yeah and he also made the bumper I thought could have been added for racing. Apparently, he aslo put on a Cyclone hood and rode it like that for a while. So basicaly it was a stealth Dator lol Shortly after the rebuild, ring stuck on the mag side and that was the end of her riding days. He couldn't find pistons for years until Mark S sold him the .10 overs a couple years ago. I don't remember what part of the story this happened in, but apparently he ran the Dator motor in a little 250 tx for racing lol He said that he didn't think it had ever been raced but when I mentioned the #87 he said he didn't even remember that it had numbers on it because he hadn't seen the hood since Bemidji. I guess the buddy that crashed it kept it all those years until he sold the sled. Now the question is, what was this little Dator up to from 76 to 85? What races did he race and more imporantly, who owned him I guess only time will tell but hopefully I'll be able to figure it all out someday. He's going to talk to some guys from the implement to see if they remember anything else. Stay tuned guys

[davedude]

That's great love that you found the story out now for the good part 76-85 cant wait . Look like you have been doing some csi investigation keep chugging away at it makes me wont to no more...

[JDXspec]

Well I think we need to find the records from that implement dealer, Maybe then we could have a serial # then the race history may be found.