The World According to Dave
During the off-season, I put some time and money into our two machines.
I had a lot of over-heating issues last year and quite honestly, I had no idea what was going on in my cooling system.
So for starters, I added one of these.


A temperature gauge from SLP.
By the way, if you have an older Wedge style Indy, the overheat light comes on at 207 degrees f.The old "idiot" light is there just to take up space right now.

I also figured I was shooting too much snow out the back, and not
enough was staying in the tunnel to hit the front cooler, so I added a longer flap. Its one from an Edge chassis and had a wierd bend to it that pushed the bottom end into the track. Eventually I settled on putting the long one on backward and putting my old flap over it. It looks a little goofy but it works.

With a little snow on it, you don't notice that its two flaps.

I'd already flushed the cooling system and burped out all the air a couple months before I noticed THIS.


Yeah....... that's gonna have to be fixed.
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My skis were shot. The place where they bolt to the ski spindle had actually elongated. This was due to my being too lazy to take them apart and grease the bushing. The bushing had seized and the ski mount itself was doing all the work. Most of the time they were fine, but in some conditions they'd flap and flail every-which direction.
Well, if I'm replacing the skis, why not go all out?

Simmons Flex Skis.I also needed to replace the spindles. The new ones have a grease fitting, whereas my original ones did not.

10,000 plus miles is an awful lot to ask of a drive chain.
I changed that in both machines. The ol' Trail Indy has 7771 miles on it, so I figured I should put a new one on there too.

The old one was noticibly longer than the new one, but still seemed to be in good shape. Then again, so are a lot of things in my collection of metal that needs to be taken to the recycler someday.

I spent some time on the spare sled (girlfriend's machine). For its shortcommings compared to my 400, its still not a bad sled.


Its kind of a dog at the bottom end though. I did a little research and found that the gears from my 400 were what they used to run in the Trail a few years before this one was built.
Well, I was working on them anyway, so why not? SLP was clearing out gear sets so I picked up a new set for the 400 to go along with the new chain. This set has an 8 tooth top gear opposed to the 9 tooth original one. The gear set from the 400 went into the Trail, with a new chain.


What a difference! It won't win any drag races, but it sure is more fun to drive now.
Also, for an old machine, it sure cleans up nice.

--------------------------------------------------------------- Between Christmas and New Year's, I had a chance to shakedown both sleds.
I spent more time on the '86 Trail than on my main ride.


January 6th, we got just enough snow to open the local trails. On the 7th, I took mine out to check over our club's trails.
I noticed right away that the one tooth difference made a difference in getting up to speed. It didn't take much to get up to 70mph.
Here's some snow shots of that ride.
Wade House

Heading into the Kettle Moraine National Forest just out of Greenbush.

Mechanically, all went well. Ride-wise was a different story. The plowed fields were terrible. They definately had an influence on where I was gonna ride.


I'd planned on taking a left at this intersection, but I knew there were a lot of cornfields that way. I took the easy way out and went straight here and got back onto the multi-use rec trail.

I made it back without anything outstanding happening.

When I got back, I saw that every parking spot was full. I hope everyone had a good ride. This snow wasn't gonna stick around for long.
Thanks for visiting.

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We got out again on NFL Championship Weekend. By the time we got to the trail head, every spot was taken. We parked and unloaded down the road a little ways.

The lady in the brown house in the background of this picture didn't want me parking where I did because she felt that people in the house might back into my truck/trailer. I moved it. I figure if someone's driving skills are THAT BAD, I better give them all the room in the world. She must have a real b!tch of a time in crowded parking lots.

It was a major undertaking to meet up with Mike this time. Somehow we missed each other on the trail. We finally met up in a little town called St. Nazianz.
He brought his youngest boy with. He seemed to enjoy riding more than his older brother.
Here he is with a root beer.


Oh, a little "heads up" .... root beer and bumpy trails don't mix well. Poor guy's tummy got shaken up and the soda had to make it's way out.

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Along the way home, my pipe got loud.... really loud. Not like a cool "loud pipes save lives" loud, but a nasty metallic annoying "Wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh" loud. I thought something seriously went wrong, but the noise didn't affect anything. Turns out that the welds holding the back of the pipe to the main body had broken.


In the dark, it wasn't as easy to see as it is in this picture. I seperated it a little more for the photo.
I "outhouse engineered" it back together with muffler tape and baling wire. I'll get it fixed for real one of these days.

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Here's a couple pix of us parked out by the "Love Shack" on the Marsh.


My red and white in the background, and my friend's spare sled in the foreground. Its a '97 MXZ 583 with plastic SLP skis, some AD Boivan package, and 144 studs. He also has that thing that connects the two RAVE valves together.
Its a good machine but can be a real b!tch to start sometimes.

Mike's main ride is this:


This sucker has ride quality AND power.
We switched rides for a little bit. I went up the marsh and through some fields on the 700, and he rode my 400. Its nice to compare rides for outside opinions on the machines. I really like the way the SKS' front end works, and he said that my sled is still a lot of fun to ride, but I might want to look into more studs. I have a 72 "aggressive trail" pattern with only 48 picks. I didn't put any in the outside band because all they do is tear out.
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