Started my Edge skid today...DONE!

[kinger]

Well I put in a good 6 hours on it so far and made some good progress.

I got my rear drops plates fabbed and figured out what I was going to do with the front. Its impossible to use the factory brackets for either the fron or rear mounting of the skid. For the front you need 3/16" alum plate 4"x4" square should do it. For the rear you need 1/4" plate 7X9" works well.

One problem with the rear that I forgot about was there are no nuts, they are welded on the plate and I never bought any that would work so I cut the stock mount and used the left over piece with the nuts installed on it. I hope it isn't too narrow the track will fit in side of but with no slack, I'm not sure the track will ever even touch it but just in case. Anybody know where to get nuts for teh factory 14mm bolts?

Another problem I ran into was measuring from the driveshaft. I had a tmeplate I thought was going to work great and it did but on teh first hole I found out I was 1/4" off side to side in the front! I measured 3 times and everything, come to find out I was butting it up to the driveshaft (because its nearly impossible to set it to the 'center' of it when you can barly see it) and there is a collar on one side and a hex bushing on the other that must be differnent outer diamters. Frick! Luckly I was using a small pilot bit and was able to drill the larger hole where it needed to be. Not before I wasted a 1/4" rear drop bracket that has a hole in it 1/4" off center

So anyway I'll fab up a new rear bracket tomm and get some 3/16" plate and get the front on. I should have the brackets made and mounted and the skid test fitted tommorrow. With any luck tommorrow at this time I'll be riveting them in place and putting the seat back on!


Here are some pictures of the partially fabbed rear bracket and why the front one will not work.

 

[kinger]

End of day carnage...

 

[FAMILYMAN]

Your doing this while there is snow on the ground???

 

[Jack_Shaft]

Glad to see that you found yourself an Edge skid, it will ride very well under your RX-1.

I had it kind of easy when it comes to measurements from the driveaxle, I did a track swap at the same time, so the drive shaft was out of there and I could measure from the holes.

14mm locknuts shouldn't be that hard to come by, even McMaster-Carr can deliver to your door in a day or two in the States. I had the opposite problem up here (Canada) trying to find some 9/16" UNF fine thread locknuts for the front torque arm mounting bolts on the Edge skid I have. Worst case scenario ask your Yamaha dealer to go for a look with his mechanics, I think some of the Yamaha crate bolts use 14mm lock nuts. I actually go to the dealership every now and then and pick up a full box of metric crate bolts, they come in handy when working on Yamaha/Toyota/Honda products!

I am surprised that you didn't just relocate your rear drop brackets for the rear mounting of the Edge skid, I did that with mine and it worked fine.

I'll get some pics.

 

[kinger]

I made the plate because the rear bolt was back about a inch further then the stock bolt and if I sled the plate back I didn't think it would be tall enough and the track would hit. I could have spaced them down but I didn't want to drill more holes in the tunnel for the bolts, so I chose the plates. They look nice when done.

 

[kinger]

Your doing this while there is snow on the ground???

Yes makes me mad I was wishing for snow and now we have it and I am working on it! I did it because the track howl is so annoying I can't stand to ride the sled and I'm hoping the edge skid fixes it (polaris idlers). We'll see....

 

[kinger]

Good day today I got it done! Here are some pictures

 

[kinger]

Any questions ask I made notes for people wanting to do this in a RX1 and it would make your life a WHOLE lot easier. I'll make a how to for Mr. Sled to post and include more detail then most people post. Thansk to everyone on the site for the help!

 

[redsnodog]

Looks good Jesse[we bought your old viper]Interested to see how that works out for you ,keep us posted........Jim

 

[Jack_Shaft]

Looks like it sits as high as my Pro-X skid does, do have a fair amount of sit-in sag when you get on it? I have about 3" of sit-in and it rides nice, just looks terribly high without a rider.

 

[kinger]

Yeah I have a small issue where the rear is about 1" lower then the front and some folks on HCS think its causing some of the issues I'm seeing.

#1 if I 'lift' the sled up and gently let it down and sit on it I have 4" of sag, if I jump on then off and back on I only get 2" because the skid doesn't come back to full top position.

#2 when sitting there it rests against the rear blocks and I think it should be against the front blocks with no weight on them?

#3 when I jump on the bumper about 6-8 times the sled will bottom out on the last jump and will sit there with me on the bumper. I get off and it come back up but slowly.

I'm thinking I just need more spring, right now its on medium and just not firm enough. That or I screwed up the geometry and need to raise my rear hole so its the same height as my front hole. I'm not sure which.

For some reason I can't get it through my head that if the rear of the skid is lower that it was put all the pressure on the rear of the skid and the front can't take as much, I assumed the sled would sit level no matter what and your just setting ride height. I made sure there was 24 1/8" between the front and rear hole so i was pretty confident raising up a inch would just give me some more clearance for my studs and such. Any thoughts?

How is your mounts in relation to top of tunnel between front and rear?


It does soak up bumps like nobodys business, man that is how a suspension is supposed to work! Wow its amazing how much better it is!

 

[Jack_Shaft]

My skid is similarly mounted; lower in the rear than in the front. My exact dimensions are in the Aftermarket Suspension category, it was stickied.

The first thing I had to do was buy a set of fatboy rear torsion springs, the RX is too much sled for the Edge skid to handle. Even with the torsion springs upgraded, I'm still up on max rear spring preload, I weigh about 225lbs without gear, so that's to be expected.

If I lift my sled up by the rear bumper and let it sit, the rear of the skid is on the floor and the front of the skid is about 1" off. As soon as I take a seat, the rear scissors compress and the rail goes flat to the floor.

The fact that the rail doesn't sit perfectly flat when the skid is completely unloaded kind of bugs me, but it's hard to argue when - just as you say - the skid soaks up bumps very well set up this way. I have my rear scissor stops (coupler blocks) way back towards the rear (drilled new holes about 1" further back) and that gives me more weight transfer, which I like in order to keep that big, heavy RX-1 nose light when I'm playing in some fluff.

I originally had the rear torque arm mounted in the tunnel - no drop brackets at all - and it was terribly low - I'd have to say that was too low and incorrect. However, if there was an easy way for me to move the rear torque arm another inch up into the tunnel, I'd like to try it and see what the results would be.

What I plan to do soon is actually put a carpenter's 4' level on the two suspension mounting bolts on a rear Pro-X and compare it to my installation. I suppose I could do the same by measuring from the floor to the bolt centers on both sleds and comparing.

Either way, I have been reluctant to change anything since my sled rides so damn good right now and transfers weight well too; hard to mess with a good thing, but the fact remains that the skid should really sit level when the sled is unloaded.

-JS

 

[kinger]

If you want to compare my rear bolt center is 1.25" from the cooler fins, I can drill one more hole up tight to the fins and get it almost perfect to how it sits in a edge tunnel.

I'm still on stock edge springs, I do have the shocks stiffened up through a revalve and heavy fluid. Probably the only thing that keeps it from riding all the way down! Its funny I take a jump and the sled just hangs like a low rider till I let off the gas or tap the brakes to let the skid get back to to top.

We weigh the same to I weigh 225 but with gear another 15lbs or so.

Aside from what were seeing do you know what the correct posture is for the sled? Is the arm supposed to be touching the front scissor blocks when you get off? Be in the center when sitting on the sled?

Does it come right back to top and when you lift a polaris up is there travel left or does the skid come off the ground?

It would help to know these things to see if were chasing something that is real or just percieved by us.

Check out this link in HCS, jbshocks and michachicks seem to really know thier stuff. JB has seen the exact same problems going 1" lower when people swap the edge into the XC chassis.

http://www.hardcoresledder.com/forums/i ... try2396469

Thanks for the help so far!

 

[06RTXTASY]

#1 if I 'lift' the sled up and gently let it down and sit on it I have 4" of sag, if I jump on then off and back on I only get 2" because the skid doesn't come back to full top position.



Your getting that because your rear of your skid is lower than the front as you said. Its taking most of the weight instead of it being balanced between the two. When i extended my skid it did that when i had the front skis on the dollies and the skid on the ground . I could pick it up like 3-4 inches and it would sit in without any weight about that much. I scared me at first until i took it off the dollies and it fixed the issue.

 

[Jack_Shaft]

#1 if I 'lift' the sled up and gently let it down and sit on it I have 4" of sag, if I jump on then off and back on I only get 2" because the skid doesn't come back to full top position.



Your getting that because your rear of your skid is lower than the front as you said. Its taking most of the weight instead of it being balanced between the two. When i extended my skid it did that when i had the front skis on the dollies and the skid on the ground . I could pick it up like 3-4 inches and it would sit in without any weight about that much. I scared me at first until i took it off the dollies and it fixed the issue.

Quality post here, thanks for the insight.