The World According to Dave
Well, quite a bit of time has come and gone since I updated this.

A word of advice if you ride an older Indy and you trailer a lot...... check your trailing arms! Look underneath them to see if road salt and rust are just waiting to bite you in the @ss.
Weakened trailing arms and a good jolt to the side of your plastic skis does something like this:

[size=5]D'OH!!!![/size=5] I was hardly moving at the time it happened. Good thing too, because I got out the words "What the.." while I was wrestling with the bars, and "hell????" just as I hit the ground. If this would have happened at normal trail speed, I'd have been bummin'.
Every suspension and steering piece on that side had been bent in one way or another.



--------------------------------------------- Well, I figured that while I had it apart, I'd widen the front and add more travel to it. I'd purchased most of an Xtra-12 front suspension, and went at it.
Infortunately, a 12 won't work on this sled because of the 12's longer trailing arms. I used direct replacement t-arms, and after I had everything pieced together, it turns out that the shocks are way too long.

By this time, I just wanted the thing back together, so I headed out to Howie's for stock replacement shocks, and put it all back together pretty much the way it came from the factory.
Holding it all together are stainless steel nuts, bolts, and washers.
When it was all back together...... it SNOWED! Not a lot, but just enough to buzz around the yard a couple times to make sure everything was on right ..... no, actually it was just an excuse to ride around the back yard.

---------------------------------- I kept busy over the summer, saving money and buying parts. I bought a set of gas shocks (still waiting to be installed) and a seat with a 10 gallon tank. I had this paranoia about running out of gas.
Well, not anymore.

It was an interesting project. Brackets had to be moved, and the seat botton itself isn't flat, so I had to "engineer" a little bit.


Wooden spacers. I doubled up the bolts, too. Probably overkill, but what the hell.
Those bolts are too long, so I can't put much back there that won't get chewed up by 'em.
I plan on putting shorter ones in this comming summer.
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When summer is over, and all the little kiddies are in school, one's mind starts to focus on ..........
SAFTEY EQUIPMENT!
Me and my other half have been using Bieffe B-9 snowmobile helmets for a long time, and they are a good bucket. But its really hard to find a two pane shield for one.
She was also having a hard time getting her glasses on through the openning of the B-9, so we went to the Snowmobile Show in Grayslake and bought new modular helmets by Zeus.



I also picked up a Saf-Jac protective vest. Between my little wake up call with the front suspension, and another member of this site suffering a bad accident, I figured it would be a good idea to start wearing one.

And in summer, I can look like one of those road distruction slackers.
But the most important thing I bought was ........

[size=4]Snowmobile Fanatic Stickers!!!!!![/size=4]
... more later ......

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