Cat DNA Strikes again! -CHAINCASE TENSIONER ROLLER WHEEL FAIL

[Chris Rose]

Sorry to hear of your misfortune ,I have had my share of issues with my sled. This prompted me to open my chaincase and get the roller spot welded as I have a trip at the end of the month.

 

[ROCKERDAN]

Sorry to hear of your misfortune ,I have had my share of issues with my sled. This prompted me to open my chaincase and get the roller spot welded as I have a trip at the end of the month.

Great job.....I wish I had done mine before this mess!

Cat should be tack welding them all going forward IMO.

Dan

 

[ROCKERDAN]

I forgot to mention...

That Permatex Optimum black works so well, I could not get the damn oil case off chain cover! LOL. I actually had to use a pry bar to start to separate the two cases!

I will certainly use it again for oil tank going back together.

Dan

 

[sideshowBob]

It amazes me the Arctic Cat has not been able to make a reliable chaincase since the 70s...pretty sad

 

[SumpBuster]

That absolutely sucks!!! Makes an apex donut ,bushing, and ride issue irrelevant!
But aren't all their recent procross chain cases the same design? What causes some to not fail??

 

[stevewithOCD]

Sorry Dan
I'm leaving in 2 days for a 10 day trip. I do not have enough time to pull mine apart.
I seem to do more worrying about if my sled will last then i do picturing all the fun i'm supposed to be having.
I have scoured the internet looking for a "Chaincase" god to pray to, but only came up with PAX the Roman Goddess of peace.

Actually i'm praying my dealer who last had this apart looked at these screws.
Maybe Arctic Cat should take a page from Hotel 6 and put a Bible in the tool compartment...

 

[Mototown]

Sorry Dan
Actually i'm praying my dealer who last had this apart looked at these screws.
Maybe Arctic Cat should take a page from Hotel 6 and put a Bible in the tool compartment...

A bible would fit perfectly in the under sized tunnel bag ...

 

[journeyman]

Sorry Dan!!

Man what the heck did I get myself into??.........

 

[XP123]

Sorry Dan
I'm leaving in 2 days for a 10 day trip. I do not have enough time to pull mine apart.
I seem to do more worrying about if my sled will last then i do picturing all the fun i'm supposed to be having.
I have scoured the internet looking for a "Chaincase" god to pray to, but only came up with PAX the Roman Goddess of peace.

Actually i'm praying my dealer who last had this apart looked at these screws.
Maybe Arctic Cat should take a page from Hotel 6 and put a Bible in the tool compartment...

This happened to me last year on our saddlebag trip Steve. Talking to other Winder / Tcat owners had me paranoid. Rather than enjoying the trip all I thought about was if we would get to our next destination without a major failure. The most relaxed I felt was when the sleds were back on the trailer and we were heading home. That was the trip where I decided to get back on a Doo.

 

[XP123]

5 yr warranty....had I known it would take removing zillion items to get that case out, id likely have let dealer do it. I had hoped to get parts and sled back together by weekend, so doing it myself was needed for this.

Have to go home actually to my dealer to get parts, YAM in Canada will not warranty my US sled...there is a possibility of reimbursement but I decided to drive home(only 3.5hrs) and go to my dealer which got my parts on order. I sure hope its all covered. Heck im doing all the labor.

Dan

Dan I'm genuinely sorry to hear about your misfortune. You deserve better than this. You work so hard to make sure everything is perfect with your sleds and then you still have to deal with bull crap like this.

I'm sure Don will take good care of you. He is an awesome dealer who really cares about his customers.

We are heading up to Temiscaming / Abitibi next week and I feel much more relaxed about my sleds this year. Our trip last year had one break down and it wasn't my Winder but it really was a fluke that I have never seen or heard of before. They can all break but the truth is anything Cat designed I wouldn't trust. You would think after all these years Cat would hire engineers who actually have a brain in their head.

 

[Winderallday!]

I heard the same thing about warranty claims from my dealer as well. He said lots and lots. More claims than hes ever seen.

Spoke with my dealer yesterday, and Yamaha Canada hooped him for some shop hours on the claim, seems there is some "opinioneering" going on with the claims rep, only saw fit to pay him for 2.5 hours, he was out of pocket for 2 hours justifiable shop labor. This crap took place a week after I got the sled back since dealer didn't want me to miss out on a planned trip.
Dealers do not make a pile money off warranty I hear, and when Yam sticks it to them after the work is done, that's plain wrong imo. Happy to have a stand up dealer who looks after his customers!

PS, they don't pay for any inconvenience or cost you incur from being stranded, needing a tow or cab fare etc, which also sucks.

 

[marc001]

Dan I'm genuinely sorry to hear about your misfortune. You deserve better than this. You work so hard to make sure everything is perfect with your sleds and then you still have to deal with bull crap like this.

I'm sure Don will take good care of you. He is an awesome dealer who really cares about his customers.

We are heading up to Temiscaming / Abitibi next week and I feel much more relaxed about my sleds this year. Our trip last year had one break down and it wasn't my Winder but it really was a fluke that I have never seen or heard of before. They can all break but the truth is anything Cat designed I wouldn't trust. You would think after all these years Cat would hire engineers who actually have a brain in their head.

My brother in law and his son went to the U.P. with their new ski doo's and ended up renting arctic cat sleds because both of their ski doo's went down. So its not just a cat engineering thing.

 

[Fast]

I checked my chain adjuster this fall when changing out my driven shaft and brake side bearing and it looked good, notice I said looked good. Upon inspection I could rotate the screws and axel in the adjuster rather easily. So I took it apart and also found green loctite in the middle of the two screws. I cleaned it up real good and tightened everything down real good using Red Loctite and my Makita cordless impact as hard as it could go, and I know thats darn tight!

I wished now I had welded and even really thought about welding it, but figured I had 5 years of warranty. Next time I have it apart I will be tack welding the screws. I don't think the factory loctited them good enough or gets the screws tight enough. That or the loctite just deteriorates enough where it doesn't hold good enough either.

Its a poor design and should have a simple shoe on the tensioner like Doo does instead of a rattling roller on the tensioner. The roller has too much vibration as it rolls across the links of the chain and is not smooth enough causing it too loosen up. Maybe we should check into what it would take to install Ski-Doos tensioner shoe on Cats arm.

Mike do you think chain tension has anything to do with it?Do you run your chain at 1 turn or 1.5 turns like the manual says

 

[lovesledding]

just went on a five day trip with 8 cats (6 turbos with 2 boosted) and guess what we all make it back no problem without any issues. I am still not sure why sidewinder have soooooo many issues when cat guys just gas and go. I have 5500 miles on my 270hp powertrail cat without a single issue.

Thinking Yamaha should have gone with a total arctic cat design and maybe you would have better luck.

 

[journeyman]

Is the tensioner a recall item? Or is a wait until it fails thing?

As for why Sidewinders failing and Cat’s don’t? Seems there are lots more SW’a out there than T-Cat/ZR9’s. But then again I always wonder about the state of mind at the Cat factory? Well this batch is Yamaha, maybe I’ll look the other way...

It sure seems there is a bitter feeling up there about the Cat/Yamaha relationship. Every person I know that has an A/C tie gives me that vibe. Makes ya wonder...