Ice in Tunnel

Second ride on my new FX- 15 degrees, about 4" of snow on the lake. Testing things out, getting in some break-in time. Very responsive, feels pretty lite - so far so good. I'm watching for snow/ice build-up on the running boards - as others have reported - but not much at all there. However, after about 20 miles, I stopped for a break & was looking things over and found the tunnel full of ice. Check out the pictures - after melting in my garage for 3 days, I hammered out 36lbs worth! Not including another huge chunk that fell off the front heat exchanger the next day. This doesn't look good at all!
Is anyone else experiencing this?

DAMN! mine hasn't been that bad.. but i did find an area where it looked like ice or something was forced up from the track and dented the top of the tunnel. i imagine over a couple of years a lot of stuff is gonna bend and dent the tunnel opening

After years of building sleds, it's amazing that a manufacturer would incorporate a pinhead idea like keeping a tunnel open especially where the snow would have access to melting and refreezing. The Firecat had the issue with snow getting up under the seat and then the liquid would weep from under the seat and refreeze on the running boards. That was also unacceptable and many knocked their heads on fixes for that problem.

Tunnel panels are fine for keeping snow off your legs and running boards; especially since there's no way to melt it due to the lack of heat exchangers on the running boards. But that hole will have to be covered to alleviate the mess from the pictures above. A real failure in engineering if you ask me.

Jon

I'm hoping that hitting some bumps on the trail will knock some of this off before it has a chance to freeze solid. I was just lake riding when it happened this time. But, I agree this seems like bad engineering to me.
I see where Polaris added tunnel heat exchangers to their mountain sleds this year to prevent what happened to my sled.

wow... thats unbelievable

maybe turning the exhaust down into the tunnel is a possible solution... maybe some more heat can get trapped down there to warm up incoming ice and snow..

I would look into installing a rear heat exchanger and running board heaters as well. This has all been done to bring down the weight of the sled including the hole. That amount of ice is going to cause problems and will effect gas mileage as well. Not to mention what it looks like.

My MCX Turbo kit closes off the tunnel , heat doesn't seem to be an issue , it has a muffler with the turbo under the seat that dumps thru a hole towards the track without any problems. Try closing your tunnels also , shouldn't be a problem either !

GypsyRoots said:

Phazed-Coug said:

The poblem is water below freezing, if it was just snow...it would not be a problem, but the snow hits the hot steel and falls onto the cold aluminium.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Yep exactly what I think the problem is. My Apex GT get that bad when the temperature get below -30C. At times they are so much ice build up that I have NO MORE suspension.

Anybody have ideas to reduce the ice build up?

how about PAM or teflon "no stick" coating? ok ok just an idea.

gsxr said:

My MCX Turbo kit closes off the tunnel , heat doesn't seem to be an issue , it has a muffler with the turbo under the seat that dumps thru a hole towards the track without any problems. Try closing your tunnels also , shouldn't be a problem either !

Click to expand...

I thinking of doing just that. I asked marklund at mc-x if there were any problems to close the hole in tunnel thinking of heat and he say they have tested this out and no problems with exhaust running to hot. He also sayd he had asked yamaha why they placed the hole in tunnel and that yamaha didnt com up with a answer.

When the heat isnt a problem with a turbo under your #*$&@ and hole in tunnel closed I really cant see why is should be it with stock exhaust/closed hole.

The hole is a design flause from yamaha and I'm beginning to be certain that they cant have tested this sled so much before sending it on the marked due to the ice build up, water spreading all over tunnel and running board.

Think you should complain to your dealer about this thing. I have don that with mine but yamaha scandinavia told him there was no problem at all and it almost sounded like I was finding up things to complain about regarding this issue.

Reason was that they had sold a lot of this slads in usa and canada and since there was no probleme there they couldnt figure out how it could be a problem here in scandinavia.

Complain to your dealers!!! and maybe then yamaha will do something about it.

yamy07, when I'm done for the day of sledding, I've gotten in the habit up picking up the rear of the sled and slamming it back down a few times to knock out the buildup of snow. Then I put the sled on a track stand and run the track in reverse to clear all the loose junk out.

This way, I don't give the snow a chance to freeze and cause binding/rubbing problems the next time I'm out.

I don't know if this will help all that much as it seems that the building is freezing solid before the end of your ride. Maybe each time you stop you should do this?

I hope Yamaha comes up with an official solution for the Ice buildup and Radiator problems, I too have seen 30lbs of ice in my tunnel.

-Steve

Exhaust on my wr450f get so hot that it glow in the dark and nothing but air is cooling it down. And this 2cyl aprillia dirt bike have 2 exhaust pipes under seat and no need for snow cooling on exhaust. Some of this bikes are used in the paris - dakar race going through hot desert. Have headace trying figuring out why this sled need snow cooling on exhaust...