New Custom Sled Project......

[Maize]

OK. Here is what I have so far...

Here is the rest of the stuff ready for powder coating.



Here are the tower braces I made. I used .080" instead of the .040" factory uses. I also flared the holes to give it even more strength.

I flattened out one of the old ones that was torn, and used that for a template:



Here you can see the flared holes:



You can see the difference in material:



Here is a pile of stuff that needs to be welded to be finished up:



I circled all the holes that need to be filled, and then sanded down. When I am done, you even know there were holes there. There are LOTS of them to fill on both sides. He had the factory fish skeleton reinforcements, then knubbed plastice riveted to the tunnel. That equals lots 'o holes to fill. LOL



This is the piece I am welding in place to make the boards wider all the way back. Once it is welded into place, it will be ground down and smoothed out, then cut to fit the Snow Eliminators I had made up. I used the same dimensions as on my mountain sled project.



Here is the way it will be once the Snow Eliminators are in place.



Here are some shots after spending $5 at the car wash on nothing but the chassis.





Today, I ordered up the lower control arms, Boyesen reeds, tank supports and I am looking for some nicer spindles.

The engine seals and gaskets should be here Wednesday next week, along with all the bushing for the rear suspension.

I should also have the first round of powde coating back this weekend. So next week things should start hoping....


Stay tuned in.....same bat time....same bat channel.....

[Maize]

Today was kind of like going through Hades then having X-Mas....I guess.

Worked 7a - 7p at Toyota. Came home, loaded up the truck with the recycled aluminum again, dumped that off. Picked up the first round of powder coating from Cool Concepts and dropped off the second round of coatings to be done.

Here are some shots of the stuff I got back. My computer for some reaso makes them look blaze orange, but they are actually Neon Pink. They almost glow in low light.











Here is another goody that came in the mail today. I got the Boyesen's. So those will be ready to go.



I should be getting all the engine gaskets this week so I can get the motor and carbs done up.

[Maize]

Got the skid put together..well...mostly.

I have some parts I forgot to send along to get powder coated. So I will have to wait until I get those back to finish it. I still have plenty to do. I got all the stuff to start tearing down the motor, so that is coming apart this week.

I also got the Boyesen reeds put in. I took a picture so you could see the difference in the styles.

I have to revalve the center and rear shocks yet. I think the fronts will be fine as the Custom Axis shocks are extremely adjustable. But the back ones are a little too stiff, even on the softest settings.

Here is the rear skid, I am still waiting for the Hyfax yet, those will be here Tues.





Here are the Boyesens. Stock on the Left, Boyesen's on the Right:

[Maize]

Wow! What a busy last couple of weeks.

Lots o' shocks comming in. Hopefully, we will all get to use them up with good trails.

Well....let's start with the stupid thing that I did.

I was welding Sheila's tunnel the other day and the battery went dead in my auto-darkening welding helmet. I had all the line stuff done, and just needed to do all the 3/16's holes you can see in the tunnel, there are about 70 of them.

So instead of doing the smart thing and going to the store for a new battery. I figured I would line it and just look away...BAD IDEA. I sunburned the white part of my eyes. MAN!!! Does that sting for a LOOOOONG time.

I had never done that before. I didn't know what the heck. I thought I might have gotten a piece of slag or somthing in them. The doctor said it would take about a week for the pain to go away, and my eyes to clear. I could light up the night sky for how red they are. LOL

So, anyway. I got the chassis all welded up, but I haven't had time to do anything else to it. In between customer's shocks, I have the engine torn down, the crank checked (all was fine - THAT's unusual for this project), I trued it to 0.000" runout, hot tanked all the parts and found that one of pickup leads was not put in properly and rubbing on the magneto, it had to be shorting out. I will fix that, put all new seals in it and reassemble it.

Here is the tunnel done up and the flares added to the back of the tunnel. I decided to use a spool gun for this to keep heat soak to a minimum. Since it was all going to be ground down, I didn't really care about the looks.













Here is the reinforcement plate I made to go across the bottom. This significally strengthens the upward force exherted on the NUN.





Here is the fix I made for the engine mount. It is plate I welded across the bottom to reinforce the break. I will drill new holes and grind the top down.

[Maize]

I just got back from Cool Concepts to pick up another load of powder coating. I also got the new ball joints today.

Here is the latest load:











Here is another goody that came in the mail today. I got the Boyesen's. So those will be ready to go.



I should be getting all the engine gaskets this week so I can get the motor and carbs done up. I need to get the Holtzman ATACC on the way so I can get that installed.

[Maize]

Got the skid put together..well...mostly.

I have some parts I forgot to send along to get powder coated. So I will have to wait until I get those back to finish it. I still have plenty to do. I got all the stuff to start tearing down the motor, so that is coming apart this week.

I also got the Boyesen reeds put in. I took a picture so you could see the difference in the styles.

I have to revalve the center and rear shocks yet. I think the fronts will be fine as the Custom Axis shocks are extremely adjustable. But the back ones are a little too stiff, even on the softest settings.

Here is the rear skid, I am still waiting for the Hyfax yet, those will be here Tues.





Here are the Boyesens. Stock on the Left, Boyesen's on the Right:

[Maize]

Wow! Has it been two weeks since I last worked on this? Man......time flys....

I have been extremely busy with customer's so not much time to work on this project. Customer's are ALWAYS first.

I got caught up on shocks, and had a few hours to work on this project today.

I got the welds all ground down and smoothed out. Here is the rough-in with grinder:



Here is the finish with the finer grit wheel:



Here is the reason I made the running board wider. Well, that and I wanted them wider. They fit the over-sized Snow Eliminators perfectly. I had Terry cut tem this way, they are the same as my previous mountain sled project:



Here is the same treatment to all the holes welded up in the side of the tunnel:



After soooo much stuff being torn up and all the welding that was done, I wanted to make sure that everything still fit properly. It does...SWEET!!!

This is the footwell/front axle support in place, along with the footwell brace and 440 brace. They all line up perfectly:



They don't make the center piece for the 550X any longer (I have no idea why) so I had to order one from a different model and modify it to work.

I sheared off about 3", then put it on the break and put a butt overlay bend in it. I then trimmed off the edges and it fits perfectly. Piece o' cake...



I then laid out the VanAmburg edge rails and fit those in place. I need to mark up the rear mounting plates and then weld those.



I decided to mount these a little differently. This way will give them even more strength.

I marked them out from the top, then drilled the corners. Then flipped the tunnel over and used a larger drill to allow for the jigsay. Then I cut each hole out, instead of one big hole for the whole board. I thought it would take a long time, but it only took about an hour to both sides.

This week, it will go back over them and clean them all up.



Here you can see how it all fits together.



Here both sides are done up ready for the finish work. Now that everythin fits, it is just the clean up sharp edges an rivet the center support, footwell supports and drop brackets then off to sandblasting and powder coating.

[Maize]

WOW! What a shock season so far. Thanks to everyone who has sent there stuff in already.

I haven't had much time to work on the wife's sled with the shock business being in full swing.

I got a little lul today, and took today of work from Toyota to work on the wife's sled.

I got the tunnel back from powder coating. It got a polyurethane micro-tech flat black finish. It is kind of a mini-wrinkle finish.

Here is the tunnel with a couple of the pink things on it to show how it will look.





So this weekend I can start to reassemble the sled. Once I get the running board on and the drop brackets bolted on, I can mock up the VanAmburg edge rails and get the final load to powdercoating.

[Maize]

I also got the motor back together and ready to drop back in the chassis.

I have the cases split apart and cleaned the crank and deburred the cases and rounded any sharp edges to avoid stress cracking. I do this on all my motors when they are apart.



Then I take a rag with carb cleaner and give the crank a once over.



Once the crank is all cleaned up, I loaded it up with ISO grease, put some grease on the seals and installed both crankcase seals.



Once the bearings were packed and the seals installed, I then laid down a small bead of 3-Bond sealer to the case halves and put the case together.

I almost forgot, on the 550F motors, you have to put the ignition pick-ups and stator lead in when you put the case halves together. Unless, you want to pull the connectors apart, the connectors will not fit through the opening when the two halves are together.

I just put them in place to avoid pulling all that stuff apart, marking where the wires go and then putting it all back together.


Once the case halves were together, a light tap with the rubber mallet and then spin the crank to make sure it is still spinning free, and then put the case bolts in and torque them down. I ran a 3/4 of the final torque specs on the first, starting the middle and work your way out in a spiral.

Then go back and do final setting and go back again to make sure they are all set.



Next was time to install the pistons on the connecting rods. Once the wrist pin was in place, I reinstalled the circlips and dropped on the 3 hole gasket. This is the same thickness that came off the sled. Once it is all back together, I will still recheck the quench gap.



Next came compressing the rings and dropping the cylinder in place.



After both sides were on, it was time to put the upper O-ring gasket in and drop the heads on both cylinders.

[Maize]

Now came the fan housing, fan support, stator and ignition pickups.



Next was to install the fan pulley and starter pawl.



Then comes the fan belt, fan pulley and fan.



next comes the adapter ring for the recoil and oil pump.



The next step is to add the recoil. You have to make sure the oil pump drive gear is seated into the end of the crankshaft.



Now I put the oil pump on, you have to spin the crank a littl to line up the gears, then connect the oil lines to the case ports, put the rubber plug in the case for the electrical leads and bolt the leads to the fan shroud.



I dropped the Boyesen reeds in for kicks:



Next came all the all the fan shrouds for the motor.



and the final assembly done, and ready to drop in the chassis:



I am hoping to get a lot done this weekend on the chassis, but we will have to wait and see what the business does this weekend.