We are way passed giving up now but, Jeff just got his helmet, we all got our memberships paid up, and the sled is getting dangerously close.  Footwells on, Shock towers on, rear skid just needs one more shock before it goes under the sled.  Leaving the belly pan off to make it easier while fitting our new mounting hardware for the trailing arms.  We got a few things figured out as far as geometry goes.  Might need to rework the stabilizer but this is going to turn out really nice.

its taken a week and a half but i finally found the zero shock ive been looking for...well at least one that will work. ill have to cut it up but thats something we do alot now. we have really been doing alot of work with our shocks here at LMB. were trying some new stuff and some old stuff. all of the knowledge we gain will go right into our soo sled design if i can sell eric on it. i really like our talks about suspension, valving and suspension geometry. hes very interested in learning and has good analytical abilities. nobody else even argues with me.

while we were at krikkes house he gave me a set of shocks to teardown and get troy pierces top secret valving specs. well i tore them apart but im a little reluctant to throw the setup i found in them into our shocks. i was so excited but not so much anymore. they didnt have dual stage valving and also were really light shimmed and were bottoming on the IFP inside. one shock had a longer shaft and the valing wasnt the same between the two. this isnt todds fault at all he was extremely nice, i mean what guy lets you borrow his own personal shocks to take his hard earned secrets? thanks todd

since my sleds almost done and im mostly waiting for parts, i decided to do some work on the speedshop. i painted the door frame and put some new plastic brick molding around it. now for my favorite upgrade, i installed my oak workbench. its been stored in the other garage for a while now and i finally got around to installing it. it turned out great, what could be better that 19' 2 1/2" of 36" deep oak workbench?!?!? yeahhh, i officially have wood.

we ended up at todds place this past saturday and learned alot. while eric was drooling and generally looking gay, i was asking crucial race winning setup questions. we learned alot from a true pro and a legend. we now have the best shot ever for a win at the soo and learned some really important suspension setups.

It snowed!!!  There was white stuff collecting on the deck and grass so I'm calling first snow of the season.  We don't race on the stuff and its actually kind of annoying when you have to clear off test tracks or try to see while racing, but since we are still a little ways away from attempting either of those, let it snow.

The #5 sled now has all of the mounting hardware installed for the bulkhead side of the radius rods.  The rear skid is supper frickin close to being done.  It now has 18 rollers which doesn't quite rival mike's sled but hey, we still didn't start with blank rails.

Thats all I got for now, time for homework.

im 90% sure the cooling system is good. we wheeled her outside and woke up the neighborhood last night. ran into a problem with the track though. it appears that the reason the suspension was so hard to get in, is that it is crooked. so its coming back out. im not screwing around this year. i will not even get on this sled if it isnt perfect. im remeasuring my mounting holes and getting them lined up better. i also noticed the rear shock is close to running out of travel, so im reworking it to work better. ill probably just shorten the shock body.

shocks are set, tortion bar set, camber set, preload set, and everything dialed in. powervalves are repaired. only a couple of things left to do. i need to mod the skis and set the track tension. id also like to do a double check on the cooling system because while we were testing at gun lake last year i had a cooling problem. i dont want that to pop up at lincoln for the first race. ps let eric tell you about what happened to him while we were testing. after the #05 sled gets buttoned then im throwing a ruff setup on the #55 soo sled to get some testing in.

i lived up to my nickname as the "king of overkill" once again. made some pretty sweet shock spring spacers today at jk. rebuilt #5 front shocks and added some travel. ive almost got my exhaust valves fixed on the #05. been really busy putting shelves in my garage this past week and now putting some in the basement. also put a batch of hard cider in the closet for the holidays. sleds at a crawl right now but thats ok. we got a great start this year and we wont have any problem being ready for this season.

Its almost time.  I had to bust out my winter jacket this week because it is really starting to get cold.  As for the sled she still sits waiting.  I got the 9/16" 4130 that I needed for the front end bushings but also realized that we got the wrong bearings for some of the new idler wheels we are putting in the rear skid.  Also still need some thick wall .500" tubing to reinforce the running boards.  This week saturday we are going to walk our section of the snowmobile trails that we don't have time to ride on and clear off all of the brush.  Then Sunday we are going to St

We are making some good progress on the #5 sled but things are slowing down now that we don't have time to work on the sled anymore.  I'm picking up some material this week but will be gone all weekend and next weekend so progress is grinding to a halt.  Rear skid is waiting on a shock rebuild now that we have the locking collar bearings for the guide rollers, front end needs to have the shock towers finished and then all of the trailing arm mounts need to be designed and fabricated too.  Some small stuff left is the kick pan, butt rest, handlebars, and maybe one or two other things.  Hopefully we can get the website updated this weekend too.  I've been working on our brochure, just need time to add the final touches.

sold a bunch of stuff at hastings and two sleds, now i can afford to race this year. also met a good friend from top secret racing. far as race sleds go, fired up the old girl last thursday. cooling system is almost bled up and the new cooler setup is working just as planned. track needs to get stretched out a bit and the handlebars hit the windshield. a little trimming should fix the bar problem but the track can only get stretched while testing. found a bad exhaust valve diaphram, so i ordered both of them. front end needs the jam nuts tightened and its done. ive been waiting to do that because i need more accurate way to set the chamber.

got the track studded, finally. that took forever, fortunately eric was in town this weekend. he helped me install the track and drivers. we also almost got the rear skid in but gave up. the new track is a bit tight and unruely. anyway that made for some ruff times on the skid install. eric got all tangled up pulling the skid backward so i could put in the front mount bolts. he had his feet like up over his head somehow. then i poured on the donkey power and we got one of the rear bolts in. the left rear bolt is a no go. i got a ratchet strap today for try number 17 monday night with eric. chaincase is on and sprockets are aligned and chain is set.

the trailing arms went on ok. i had to add the socket style ends to the shocks because of the new front to rear angles they are at. the rest went well. after some tuning of the steering arms and radius rods and hours of cycling the suspension the bump steer is zero!! ive also made a change to keep my skis paralell at all times. usually the inside ski is turning quite a bit more than the outside. hope it works. the steering shafts have been made and the track is 1/2 studded. the rear cooler came together nicely. it took 2 trips to LKQ for materials. the a/c system on gm cars use the 3/4" aluminum bendable tubing i needed.