I was in the process of looking for something else when I tripped over this piece of writing. I apologize in advance for its length. So, if you don't have more than a minute or two I would advise skipping this post. For those who make it all the way through, bless you. I hope you enjoy the story...
My friend, Eric, is a great guy. I would say that even if he had never given me a free snowmobile. Then again, maybe I would say it a bit more enthusiastically if he had never given me a free snowmobile.
It all began about ten or more years ago now, Eric had bought a new to him sled for his wife, and consequently had to begin cleaning out his shed to be able to house the new equipment. One of the many motorized treasures in the way was a vintage Kawasaki – always garaged, even if many of the parts were no longer connected to each other. When he offered the sled to me, it was too good to resist, after all, Eric claimed all the parts were there, and I consider myself to be pretty handy with a wrench, screwdriver and hammer. As a result it was just natural that this should be a small project for the fall and we would be up and running by the time the first flakes fell. So we loaded it up, the tunnel with the track hanging off, the hood separate, the cylinders in an old spackle bucket, pistons and carb parts in what looked like what might have at one time been a good tackle box, and a few miscellaneous parts in his wife Kathleen’s wash tub (by the way I was given instructions to return the wash tub). We rounded out the load with a pair of mufflers and off we went.
By the time the sled and I arrived home, reality began to set in. The rebuild would require an engine-ectomy. The only problem was that the engine-ectomy required clutch removal – a job for which I didn’t have the correct wrench, screwdriver, or hammer. So down the street to the Artic Cat dealer for one clutch pull - $18, my first expense. It was Thanksgiving.
Next to take stock of whether all the parts were there or not. They seemed to be, or at least I think they were. I would need a manual. There was no way, at this stage of disassembly that I could be sure that I was putting everything back where it belonged. Various after market manuals are available for Kawasaki. I opted for the real thing and sent off a check to Kawasaki the official Kawasaki snowmobile shop manual – ka-ching - $29. Christmas was coming.
Maybe I would have been better off without the manual, because with it, I now found that there are a lot of parts, and some very sensitive tolerances. I quickly became aware of the fact that where my cylinders should have been standard bore, one was six thousandths and one was 9 thousandths over. A bit out of spec and new cylinders or sleeving would be the order of the day. I was able to buy a “cheap” pair of re-sleaved cylinders and new high performance pistons – ka-ching - $400. I placed the order for the pistons on Christmas Eve.
Right after the holiday, I managed to obtain a sister sled to my “freebie.” This sister sled was rough, so I contented myself that this would be my parts sled. However as the days passed and we examined everything, my mechanic buddy Chris – without whom I would have never been able to complete the project suggested that we had enough spare parts to re-build the second sled. And since the jugs for the first sled were tied up at the machine shop I said “let’s do it.” This second sled was entirely low budget – we re-loaded the best of the pistons that we had, added a gasket set - $27 and Chris’ labor $325 – ka ching, ka-ching and we were in business. It was late January and we had a sled.
Oh, and did I tell you that neither sled had a seat? So it was into the wood shop to build a frame for the seats, a trip to the local industrial fabric store for some seat foam and vinyl, a stint on the sewing machine and a staple gun produced some pretty fair snowmobile seats if you ask me – ka-ching - $85.
My wife, Kathy, made it quite clear that snowmobiles can be dangerous and as a result she would not allow my and my children to ride unless we had helmets – ka-ching $400. It would have been nice if that was all we needed to ride, but for some reason, even though we had the sled assembled, we couldn’t get the engine to run. Carbs out, carbs in, carbs out, carbs in. Finally after replacing the jets and the needle valve – ka-ching $100 we were getting closer but it still wouldn’t run. It was my other good friend Jon, who suggested that I check the muffler. It had been stored in a shed and there were mice in the shed. We had dumped out some corn that they had stored there and thought that we got it all. We checked again and found out that it was not just corn, they were running a bed and breakfast and had that muffler stuffed with corn, sunflower seeds, fiberglass insulation and just about anything else that they could find to cram in there. My son Tim took a couple hours with a coat hanger fishing out the bits and pieces. Now we were off and running with sled No. 2. Still waiting for sled No. 1.
The end of February was approaching and we had pretty much resigned ourselves to the fact that winter would pass away without getting sled No. 1 put back together. But believe it or not Chris gave us a call and said that he had the engine re-assembled – ka ching - $400. After a late night in the garage, we had the whole thing back together, and except for some coolant leaks around the head bolts that made us disassemble and re-assemble twice again we got it all back together and sled No. 1 was running.
There have been many other details and trials. All in all I shudder to think of how much we have actually spent on parts and labor. One sure thing that I can tell you – no matter what anybody else says – there is no such thing as a free sled.
Topic: Free Snowmobile - $2,000 (Read 3472 times)