25 XTX LE 146

[Snowbound98]

Let me take a minute to give a shout out to my local dealership where I bought the sled. More specifically, Misty who I dealt with when I bought the sled.
After the incident where I lost my upper arm I posted about it on a FB group for sidewinders and someone who has a popular snowmobiling page reached out to Misty to tell her about what had happened. I was going to buy the parts that I needed and not even deal with the warranty because my sled is up north and I wasn’t going to drag it home for an aluminum nut and the bolt.
I was sitting at home eating dinner and I received a call from her asking if I was alright and she was genuinely concerned. She wanted to make it right for me and ordered the parts that I needed. I wasn’t expecting that call. A lot of comments on my post were saying it’s the dealers fault it happened and I should be going in there screaming. I never gave the dealers name because I knew they didn’t put the arms on and I seen the sled in the crate before it was prepped. I didn’t have any hostility against them and defended the dealership on my post. I thought it was a stand up thing to do by reaching out to me after hearing what happened.
Sled in crate.

 

[Snowbound98]

The same trip that we were in Wisconsin, I had another issue with he sled. The trail came to a road, turns to the right along the road, crosses over a small creek and then turns left off the road back onto the trail. I didn’t make the right turn and I went off into a ditch and was going to cut across a creek before hitting the trail until I seen the creek and thought, that’s probably not the greatest of ideas so I stopped at the bottom of the ditch and about 30’ from the creeks edge.
I have a video that shows what happened next.

So I was stuck down in the ditch and my brother and Nick never even seen me go down in there. I was able to pull the reverse motor off and attempt to manually push the shift collar into the inside top gear to get forward but with no luck. It did not want to mesh back together. Once that shift collar spun against them teeth, it was over. The shift fork pad had broken and that’s what caused the issue.
So now this is my dilemma.

It took a good 45 minutes for them to realize I wasn’t behind them and come back looking for me. I told them thank goodness I wasn’t bleeding out, the wolves and birds would have already cleaned up any evidence before they showed up. My brother said I seen Nick so I assumed you were right behind him, and Nick said I swore I seen you when I went around a turn I glanced back and must have seen something all black. I told Nick, I’m usually on your a$$, you should have known I wasn’t there. And I tore into my brother because he knows just as well as I do, when you’re the leader you take any and all responsibility for the group. Any road crossings or intersections as the leader you make sure your entire group is with you before proceeding. That’s common sense. He said well yeah when we’re riding with dad, wives and kids but when it’s just us three we all know where we’re going. I told him but when it’s just us three we are riding at 80mph thru the trails and anything can happen. More of a reason to check on your group. This wasn’t the first time they left me behind and won’t be the last.

I sent my brother back to the house to get the truck and trailer. We weren’t too far but I told him to fill his sled, put it on the trailer and bring a fuel can back with him so Nick could top off and they could continue on their way while I headed back to the house to finish putting the new tunnel on my Viper because my other sidewinder is back at home in Illinois.
While he was gone, two guys in a Polaris Ranger came driving down the road and offered to help. They used their winch and surprised me that they were able to pull my sled right up and out of that ditch with it. I hooked up my SkiDoo pulling straps to the front spindles and she came right out.

We still had to pick it up onto the trailer but at least we didn’t have to drag it up out of the ditch with the truck.
Sent them on their way and I headed back to the house with my broken POS. I was half tempted to set it on fire in that ditch and “do the jingle”. See if Jake from State Farm would appear and hand me a check.

 

[sideshowBob]

Definitely a pain! Keep the faith and fix it, do some chain case updates and enjoy that sled next year.
I ride tail end Charlie all the time in our group and they always just take for granted that I am OK....

 

[Snowbound98]

That situation made me thankful that I still have the 2 place trailers. There’s no way we would be able to load onto the sled deck, which made me realize that we need to put a winch on the deck.
I got back to the house, left the sled on the trailer and started working on finishing the Viper.

It was about an hour later they showed up back at the house. Not enough time to finish the Viper and we wanted to continue to ride so I just grabbed the Apex to go back out.

We headed northwest towards Tomahawk and then back south to Merrill to get fuel and come back around for a loop.
The Apex runs great but it is not as nice of a ride as the Winder or Viper, that’s for sure. I’m so used to that rider forward stance now that riding a conventional style sled beats the crap out of me the way I ride. We were all under a half tank of fuel when we got to the trail that heads into Merrill for fuel and came across this.

Heading farther west would put us out of our way for any fuel stop and we couldn’t chance it. Our only other option was to head back the way we came and take a right at 51 to cut across and take about 15 miles off our trip but it was going to be cutting it close on fuel.

We made it back but my fuel light was flickering the last 5 miles back to the house.

 

[Snowbound98]

The next morning I made an executive decision to drop the sled off at Yamaha of Antigo. I really hate having anyone put a wrench to my stuff but if I wanted to ride it on the next trip up I had to bite the bullet because I wouldn’t be able to get it done in time unless I dragged it home.
So I talked to the dealer and asked if I brought in the sled if they would put on my parts and do the oil change for me and they said no problem. We dropped off the sled with a box of parts and headed for home.

Parts included all my Amsoil for the engine and chaincase, oil filter, brass shift fork pads, PEFI tensioner and skate along with the Hurricane upper gear.

 

[Snowbound98]

A few weeks later, I still haven’t heard anything from the dealer so I called them and told them I was coming up on Friday and wanted to grab the sled to head back up to the UP and asked if it was done. They said it was but they had to wait for approval from Yamaha before they could release the sled. I guess everything would have been done and released but because an exhaust bolt broke while removing the muffler they had to put in for that and Yamaha was taking their time getting back to them. Said they should know something by Friday morning but I was on my way regardless.
Friday afternoon I left work at 2:30pm and they said they still haven’t heard anything and couldn’t release the sled. I told them, the sled has 1000 miles on it, why wouldn’t Yamaha authorize the repair, they have my number and they are also making money on the parts that I didn’t need them to replace. I said if I have to pay for it and they reimburse me, so be it. I need my sled. They called me back 20 minutes later and said they would go ahead and release it for me. I asked what I owed them for the oil change, $215!!!!! I said what? $215. Is your labor rate $198/hr? They had to remove the oil tank to get to the chaincase and I supplied them with the oil and the filter, even gave them the chaincase oil. It was $6 in parts with the copper washer for the engine bolt and 2 hrs of labor. Holy sheet! Another reminder why I don’t have anyone work on my stuff. So I paid it and had them set the sled outside because I wasn’t going to make it to them by 8pm when they closed. Had them put the key in the goggle bag and they set all the old parts in my box and left it on the seat which fell off and parts were scattered all over the place when we got there.
The next morning on March 29th this was what was left for snow in Wisconsin. Sad! We loaded up my Winder, Nick’s Ace 900R, Randy’s Viper, Vector for my nephew and even put my Nytro on the deck as a backup for Shawn because we haven’t had any testing on the Vector and we headed towards Mass City MI.

The snow seemed to be non existent until about Watersmeet MI. The forecast predicted 8-10 near Kenton where we stayed at Two Rivers on our first trip up before Xmas so we decided to end our season there as well. We stopped in to check in, get changed and drop our bags off and headed up towards the Keweenaw Peninsula.
We rode all day up there from Mass City to Houghton where the bridge had closed a week or two prior.

The beginning of the trip didn’t start well for the new sled. The dealer must have thought they were doing me a favor by adjusting the track but they had it all screwed up. I smelt rubber burning and quickly realized it was my track rubbing the tunnel. The side of my track is a little melted and has strands sticking out of it. I did the best I could trail side to get it true, took a few tries bug I didn’t know what the tension was. I was really getting pissed with this new sled. Never had as many issues with anything I’ve ever bought used. Mainly because I go over my stuff with a fine tooth comb but I didn’t think I’d have to with a brand new sled or after getting serviced from dealer. Lesson learned.
I had to make a pit stop at Krupp’s to use their garage to put the rear of the sled up and set the track like I had it pre Antigo Yamaha.
We also stopped in at the Mosquito for dinner. Not too bad.

 

[Snowbound98]

That night it snowed like mad heading back to Two Rivers Motel and Cabins but by morning we woke up to maybe 4” at the motel. What a bust. We thought we would be riding from the motel that morning. So we decided to drive back to Houghton but park in Hancock on the other side of the bridge and ride up to Copper Harbor.

Trails were great, plenty of snow and it snowed on us all day when we got up by the Brockway mountains.

We rode down into Copper and then hooked the east side of the peninsula and stopped at the Gay bar. Don’t knock it until you’ve had your stool pushed in for you at the Gay bar.

Ended up back in Calumet and then back south to Hancock where we loaded up to head back to Kenton.

 

[Snowbound98]

If you ever find yourself up near Trout Creek/Kenton area just east of Bruce Crossing, Two Rivers Motel and Cabins is a great place to stay. They are right on the trail 8 and that ride from there up to Big Bay is a good one. Good people there.

While we were getting all that snow in the Keweenaw, Michigan and northern Wisconsin was getting killed with all that ice. Seen a lot of trees down and the ice in the trees is dangerous. If they were to get any strong winds before a melt, more trees would be coming down and so many places were already out of power. Wasn’t good.

That wrapped up my 24-25 season and I got about 1600 miles in total. Not too bad but still just over 1000 miles shy of what my norm is. This year was better than last and hope next year is better than this. Until then, have a safe and enjoyable off season and I’ll be on here with updates on the mods and upgrades I do this summer. Take care and thanks for checking this out.

 

[Turboflash]

The same trip that we were in Wisconsin, I had another issue with he sled. The trail came to a road, turns to the right along the road, crosses over a small creek and then turns left off the road back onto the trail. I didn’t make the right turn and I went off into a ditch and was going to cut across a creek before hitting the trail until I seen the creek and thought, that’s probably not the greatest of ideas so I stopped at the bottom of the ditch and about 30’ from the creeks edge.
I have a video that shows what happened next.

So I was stuck down in the ditch and my brother and Nick never even seen me go down in there. I was able to pull the reverse motor off and attempt to manually push the shift collar into the inside top gear to get forward but with no luck. It did not want to mesh back together. Once that shift collar spun against them teeth, it was over. The shift fork pad had broken and that’s what caused the issue.
So now this is my dilemma.
View attachment 178704

It took a good 45 minutes for them to realize I wasn’t behind them and come back looking for me. I told them thank goodness I wasn’t bleeding out, the wolves and birds would have already cleaned up any evidence before they showed up. My brother said I seen Nick so I assumed you were right behind him, and Nick said I swore I seen you when I went around a turn I glanced back and must have seen something all black. I told Nick, I’m usually on your a$$, you should have known I wasn’t there. And I tore into my brother because he knows just as well as I do, when you’re the leader you take any and all responsibility for the group. Any road crossings or intersections as the leader you make sure your entire group is with you before proceeding. That’s common sense. He said well yeah when we’re riding with dad, wives and kids but when it’s just us three we all know where we’re going. I told him but when it’s just us three we are riding at 80mph thru the trails and anything can happen. More of a reason to check on your group. This wasn’t the first time they left me behind and won’t be the last.
View attachment 178705

I sent my brother back to the house to get the truck and trailer. We weren’t too far but I told him to fill his sled, put it on the trailer and bring a fuel can back with him so Nick could top off and they could continue on their way while I headed back to the house to finish putting the new tunnel on my Viper because my other sidewinder is back at home in Illinois.
While he was gone, two guys in a Polaris Ranger came driving down the road and offered to help. They used their winch and surprised me that they were able to pull my sled right up and out of that ditch with it. I hooked up my SkiDoo pulling straps to the front spindles and she came right out.
View attachment 178706

We still had to pick it up onto the trailer but at least we didn’t have to drag it up out of the ditch with the truck.
Sent them on their way and I headed back to the house with my broken POS. I was half tempted to set it on fire in that ditch and “do the jingle”. See if Jake from State Farm would appear and hand me a check.

Did you try and shift it while the shafts were still turning? Or, did you by chance shift it to reverse then instantaneously attempt to back up? I always wait a couple full seconds before trying to back up to give the gear a chance to engage correctly before applying power. Other possible issue was chain was so tight that the sliding reverse gear couldn't move enough to mesh with it.

 

[Snowbound98]

Did you try and shift it while the shafts were still turning? Or, did you by chance shift it to reverse then instantaneously attempt to back up? I always wait a couple full seconds before trying to back up to give the gear a chance to engage correctly before applying power. Other possible issue was chain was so tight that the sliding reverse gear couldn't move enough to mesh with it.

I was completely stopped and engine was at an idle before I shifted it or attempted to move forward. I don’t know how the chain could have been too tight, the adjuster bolt is only a back stop for the tensioner, the spring on the arm is the tension on the chain. I never actually checked the bolt to tensioner clearance though.
The new tensioner does use the bolt to keep tension on the plunger that is spring loaded. Much better of a design because the spring tension is the same no matter where the arm is. The factory one, the tension is weaker as the chain stretches because as the tensioner moves closer to the center of the chaincase, the spring is under less tension.
From what they said, it appears the broken shift fork pad was the culprit. I’ll go with that as it was all done under warranty.

Edit: for what it’s worth, I’ve never stripped the teeth on either of the two turbo Vipers or the other sidewinder I have. I can see someone who is new to this chassis getting impatient and rounding the teeth like that.