What To Look For

[steiner]

A buddy dropped off his sled to check out possible damage. He snagged a metal culvert with the outside edge of the ski at low speed.

 

[Seavey82]

A buddy dropped off his sled to check out possible damage. He snagged a metal culvert with the outside edge of the ski at low speed.
View attachment 158639

Looks like subframe is bent to me. You can see the shock is not centered between the a-arm. Lots of information on it just do a search. Grizz makes a gusset kit and has posted info on how to repair it.

 

[maim]

damn low snow.

 

[Stubbs]

X 2 on the bent subframe. The project Nytro a picked up had an absolutely pretzel for a subframe and only one of the four a arms was bent, and only slightly at that.

 

[grizztracks]

Check the frame to see how bad it got bent. If there's no apparent damage to the frame then try using a pry bar between the a-arms to move it back. Remove the lower a-arm and set it on a flat surface to see if it's bent. If it rocks it's bent.

 

[steiner]

Thanks! Will be checking into this tonight.

 

[Snowman871]

Lots of good input already. Definitely looks like a bent subframe, shock should be centered.

I went through the same thing on my Nytro. Straightened it out as shown and pulled the subframe to add Grizz's gusset kit. All beefed up now

 

[steiner]

Okay. So this machine has the Grizz gusset kit installed. Using a pry bar the spring is now off the upper A arm. Not as much gap as the other side is. Any more crank with a steel bar and I am afraid that the upper arm is going to snap. Sitting on the lift the one ski dips further than the other. Put my incline meter on each spindle. They are 2* out from each other. Good side is 7* and affected side is 5*.

 

[steiner]

Got the A arms off. Lower one is not wobbly when set on the floor. No visible cracks, or kinks in the subframe. I'm guessing the subframe is slightly tweaked but not visibly tweaked.

 

[grizztracks]

That weld on the gusset looks rough. How are the a-arm bolt holes?

 

[RobX-1]

Something to check when my son hit a manhole cover with the outside ski at low speed and bent the sub frame on the Nytro was that one of the steering post brackets were tweaked and caused the offset of the shock between the a-arms. It was difficult to determine as all my measurements were coming up the same when comparing both sides but visually you could see something was out of whack. It wasn't until I disassembled everything to remove the sub frame that I noticed the steering post bracket being bent. I opted to replace it with the updated version that had the gussets installed from factory but still have the old sub frame I can dig out and take a pic of what was tweaked if that would help.

 

[RobX-1]

Here you go steiner. Since you had provided me with pics of the front exchanger when you had the motor out of an Apex, I thought I could repay the favor and provide these to you. I know when I was inspecting the sub frame and laying the a-arms on a flat surface and wasn't finding anything bent, it was frustrating since you knew something was bent to cause the offset of the shock between the a-arms. Here was what was bent on mine to cause the shock to not be centered between the a-arms.

 

[grizztracks]

The last time I ran into a frame bent like that the sled was rolled and took a hard hit when it came down on the side of the ski. I'm not sure if it's possible to reinforce the frame for these type of impacts that twist the upper and lower portions out of square. I'll have a couple of frames out on the floor this weekend and will be looking closer to see if this could be prevented.

 

[steiner]

Steering post bracket is good.
Found a bent bolt on the lower control arm. Sent buddy on a quest to find one. Hopefully a new bolt will get it closer to stock settings.

 

[steiner]

Noticed the left shock where the hit happen is leaking. Sending both shocks out for repair and rebuild.