wayneb
Newbie
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- Aug 10, 2010
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- 9
Hi There,
New to the forum. Waiting for a new left-over 2010 RS Pro.
I plan on buying a tobbogan or sled to haul stuff in addition to doing so grooming.
Does anyone have experience with Equinox tobbogans.
http://www.eqnx.biz/boggans/industrial.html
Thanks.
Wayne in Sask.
New to the forum. Waiting for a new left-over 2010 RS Pro.
I plan on buying a tobbogan or sled to haul stuff in addition to doing so grooming.
Does anyone have experience with Equinox tobbogans.
http://www.eqnx.biz/boggans/industrial.html
Thanks.
Wayne in Sask.
dfitzwater
Newbie
I use an Equinox trailboggan behind my machines. I just picked up a 10' Siglin style sled from www.northernsledworks.com and can't wait for some snow to use it. The Equinox boggans work well and are very durable. I've hauled 55 gallon drums of fuel and lots of moose in mine and never had any problems.
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pm yellowknife as he was using one of these in his adventures in the milage thread he won. he tests everything really well.
Crewchief47
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Boy maim, that's an understatement.
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lol do you think?
Yellowknife
TY 4 Stroke Master
You guys crack me up.
wayneb, here's what you need to know about the boggan's you are looking at.
They are a solid fiberglass boggan, yes, but ultimately it depends on how much weight you'll be towing and what kind of terrain you'll be riding over.
If the weight is substantial (full boggan with heavy objects like fuel and dead animals) and the terrain is rough (like moguls) then the boggan will not endure the abuse over the long term.
The hitches are weak, they use a foam style of bumper-system which falls apart and can not handle stopping and acceleration under much load.
The tow bars are weak, do not try to back up (reverse) with these tow bars, they will bend and eventually break. You will also notice 'play' (wear and tear) where the tow bar bolts to the sides of the boggan. You end up with slop in there which will then cause the hitch to bend and eventually cause damage to the hitch on your sled.
But it isn't all doom and gloom, i've had mine for 8 years running!
If you are doing light duty stuff with it, then it will work fine for you as advertised, but by no means are they industrial strength out of the box. With light duty work, the only change i'd recommend is changing out the hitch on the tow bar by replacing the foam with springs - I got our welding shop to do that for me, you can really put a load on it and it absorbs the weight while braking without sacrificing the sled's hitch or the rest of the tow bar. Eventually you may need to reinfoce the entire tow bar, right from the mounting plates (they aren't thick enough!) to the thickness of the bars themselves (put smaller diameter tubing inside) along with corner support plates (brackets) where the cross sections of the town bars meet.
If you plan on doing heavy duty stuff with it, then you should immediately do what I recommended above, PLUS strip the thing down without runners or rails and get the entire boggan fiberglasses with another 1/4 inch thick layer of fiberglass. Since I have done all of this to my boggan it has gone through 2 seasons without any signs of wear and tear. Compare that to when it was in stock form and the thing was falling apart literally after only one season. Mind you that's with heavy loads, rough terrain (no groomed trails here) and even a few rocks hitting it!
The great thing about these boggans is that they are repairable, unlike the plastic ones. I do not recommend any other boggan other than the 3 models you provided a link to, and believe me, we're tried over a half dozen different models including Equinox Plastic boggans which blew up into pieces on the trails.
One more thing, the large white skid plate that goes across the bottom - for light duty it is fine. For heavy duty, you may end up punching a hole right through it with a rock. The colder it is, the worse that plastic is. We blew the skid plate up on one of ours and the junk wasn't worth the trouble. With the reinforced fiberglass layer you can hit rocks all day long (well, you know what I mean)...and those sheets are expensive to replace, but i believe most of them come stock with them now.
Always replace runners with 2 inch ones as well - and if you end up replacing runners, use hex bolts and nylock nuts, not the crappy star-screw driver bolts they give you, cause once your runners wear out the indent of the screwdriver on the bolt head will be long gone and they become a pain to remove afterwards.
Finally, if you're putting anything heavy into the boggan, make sure you have a sheet of plywood down in the bottom first. It will protect the boggan and also protect your gear (like gas cans) from getting holes in the bottom of it from rubbing against the bolts that hold the runners on.
And one more thing. Your rails to tie stuff down will fall apart eventually. We tried different things for replacement. You know what works best for durability AND tie down-ability? Those nice pieces of steel that you can buy which people bolt down on their docks at camp to tie their boats to! You can quickly wrap rope around them with a sailors knot or whatever its called, and they are solid and durable, and a breeze to tie down and untie things.
One last thing (promise!) I recommend wrapping your gear in a tarp inside the boggan. You see how deep those things are, if you just let your gear bounce around inside it will become destroyed and probably fly out (oh we've learned all of these things the hard way)
Enjoy your new boggans guys - despite their faults, they can be awesome.
Was that detailed enough? ahahaha
Cheers,
YK
wayneb, here's what you need to know about the boggan's you are looking at.
They are a solid fiberglass boggan, yes, but ultimately it depends on how much weight you'll be towing and what kind of terrain you'll be riding over.
If the weight is substantial (full boggan with heavy objects like fuel and dead animals) and the terrain is rough (like moguls) then the boggan will not endure the abuse over the long term.
The hitches are weak, they use a foam style of bumper-system which falls apart and can not handle stopping and acceleration under much load.
The tow bars are weak, do not try to back up (reverse) with these tow bars, they will bend and eventually break. You will also notice 'play' (wear and tear) where the tow bar bolts to the sides of the boggan. You end up with slop in there which will then cause the hitch to bend and eventually cause damage to the hitch on your sled.
But it isn't all doom and gloom, i've had mine for 8 years running!
If you are doing light duty stuff with it, then it will work fine for you as advertised, but by no means are they industrial strength out of the box. With light duty work, the only change i'd recommend is changing out the hitch on the tow bar by replacing the foam with springs - I got our welding shop to do that for me, you can really put a load on it and it absorbs the weight while braking without sacrificing the sled's hitch or the rest of the tow bar. Eventually you may need to reinfoce the entire tow bar, right from the mounting plates (they aren't thick enough!) to the thickness of the bars themselves (put smaller diameter tubing inside) along with corner support plates (brackets) where the cross sections of the town bars meet.
If you plan on doing heavy duty stuff with it, then you should immediately do what I recommended above, PLUS strip the thing down without runners or rails and get the entire boggan fiberglasses with another 1/4 inch thick layer of fiberglass. Since I have done all of this to my boggan it has gone through 2 seasons without any signs of wear and tear. Compare that to when it was in stock form and the thing was falling apart literally after only one season. Mind you that's with heavy loads, rough terrain (no groomed trails here) and even a few rocks hitting it!
The great thing about these boggans is that they are repairable, unlike the plastic ones. I do not recommend any other boggan other than the 3 models you provided a link to, and believe me, we're tried over a half dozen different models including Equinox Plastic boggans which blew up into pieces on the trails.
One more thing, the large white skid plate that goes across the bottom - for light duty it is fine. For heavy duty, you may end up punching a hole right through it with a rock. The colder it is, the worse that plastic is. We blew the skid plate up on one of ours and the junk wasn't worth the trouble. With the reinforced fiberglass layer you can hit rocks all day long (well, you know what I mean)...and those sheets are expensive to replace, but i believe most of them come stock with them now.
Always replace runners with 2 inch ones as well - and if you end up replacing runners, use hex bolts and nylock nuts, not the crappy star-screw driver bolts they give you, cause once your runners wear out the indent of the screwdriver on the bolt head will be long gone and they become a pain to remove afterwards.
Finally, if you're putting anything heavy into the boggan, make sure you have a sheet of plywood down in the bottom first. It will protect the boggan and also protect your gear (like gas cans) from getting holes in the bottom of it from rubbing against the bolts that hold the runners on.
And one more thing. Your rails to tie stuff down will fall apart eventually. We tried different things for replacement. You know what works best for durability AND tie down-ability? Those nice pieces of steel that you can buy which people bolt down on their docks at camp to tie their boats to! You can quickly wrap rope around them with a sailors knot or whatever its called, and they are solid and durable, and a breeze to tie down and untie things.
One last thing (promise!) I recommend wrapping your gear in a tarp inside the boggan. You see how deep those things are, if you just let your gear bounce around inside it will become destroyed and probably fly out (oh we've learned all of these things the hard way)
Enjoy your new boggans guys - despite their faults, they can be awesome.
Was that detailed enough? ahahaha
Cheers,
YK
- Joined
- Jun 1, 2004
- Messages
- 7,728
- Location
- sudbury on
- Country
- Canada
- Snowmobile
- 2016 apex xtx
2011 apex xtx
2009 phaser rtx/x
1997 et410t/r
1988 vk 540
we figured you might have tested one enough
good info to know for when my uncle needs a new sleigh.
good info to know for when my uncle needs a new sleigh.
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