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Snowmobile Trip to Cadillac MI

Started by Striker1423, February 17, 2020, 09:55:28 PM

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Striker1423

What an adventure.


Well Saturday morning myself and my friend drug the snowmobile trailer up to Cadillac with no real clue how trail conditions would be. They had around 4 to 6 inches of snow that fell the previous Wednesday on top of ice pack. My sled was largely untested as the motor was a used 200 dollar gamble. We had trace amounts of snow back home and I couldn't really test ride my machine much. First thing I did was buy a new belt, but when I went to use the secondary clutch tool to open it up and swap the belt over, the threads stripped. So we lost an hour waiting for ace hardware to open so I could get a 6mm bolt to try and catch the last few threads. It worked and I got the belt on. Sheesh.

We towed the sleds to the trail head and rode off trail 5 to find trail 35 west. The conditions were great and the sled was running ok. We missed a poorly signed turn at the trail and ended up heading straight into Reed City still on trail 5. Well I started smelling something really crispy. So we stopped at a warming center and I opened the hood. The heat was pouring out of my machine, and the cherrybomb can turned purple at the
Front end of it.

The crispy smell was the tub of the sled melting where we ran the exhaust out of the side.
So we let it cool and spun around to head back. Stopped every 3 miles or so to douse the exhaust with a bit of snow. 

Turns out the thermostat was not opening. The heat exchangers and the hose to them were not warm at all. So, off to harbor freight. We bought some rtv, took the stat out completely and resealed the manifold with the rtv. Then popped a few 1"1/4 holes in the front of the hood to give the exhaust some better cooling (yes it looks bad to do that to an old sled but I kinda hate this old pos anyway). Took a break and let it warm up after re-bleeding the system for like 15 minutes this morning. No more overheating and surprise surprise. My temp gauge worked too. Turns out it needs coolant to actually register temps lol.

All in all we put 120 miles on the sleds and still managed to have fun.  :celebrate: My buddy said I should write a letter to BRP and tell them I rode their old 98 for 60 miles without coolant in it and it didn't kill it. Maybe they'll pity me and send me a new machine... har har. I always joked I'd like to set this sled on fire and just let it burn... well I almost did this time lol.

Keep the track down, scrape ass to ground, and make the skis bite!




mnein

Nice trip! Been on those trails myself. Looks like the snow wasn't that great there. 'Love' all the trailside repairs.

Striker1423

Yea there was only around 4 inches. Mostly blown off in the corners due to traffic by mo day afternoon But the groomer was out and the seasonal road connector to the trail was like a highway. Buttery smooth.