The Namesake

skiroule

Well-known member
It took a few soul-searching sessions (and more than a few Lake of the Woods Brewing Co. “Channel Marker” citrus ales) to make the decision to go public with this project. Success is never guaranteed, but in the end, I figured that I’m only really risking a mildly bruised ego if it can’t be completed as planned.

The subject of this go-around is a 73 Skiroule RTX 440. This was a somewhat sentimental choice, as I owned the 72 version of this sled back in the day. It was a major leap from my 68 Johnson in terms of styling and performance. While it wouldn’t equate to today’s sleds, it could be ridden faster than common sense would dictate.

The RTX that ultimately became the base chassis for the project was originally purchased as a parts sled. I bought this sled from a guy in SE MI (on ebay, no less). He contracted a second guy to deliver it to a third guy in the Twin Cities, who agreed to store it until I could get down there to pick it up.

Like a lot of sleds of this vintage, she’s a little rough around the edges.

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I have been nibbling away at this project for a while now so will be able to start providing some updates in the near future on how I got to where I’m at.
 
Sweet!! Another project finally! After following your Chaparral restoration,and how well it turned out(Better than new for those who didnt follow)Can't wait to see the progress on this one! Thank you.
 

jd

Administrator
Staff member
Nice find Kelly!

I sure wish we lived closer to each other. It would be an honor to be your apprentice and learn the way of the sled restorer Jedi Knight!

Looking forward to being able to follow your progress!

-John
 

J.Glenn

Member
I'm glad you decided to go public with this. I know I'll be following along. Can't wait to see the progress!
 

euphoric1

Well-known member
skiroule, looking very forward to your play by play, you are certainly a master and a magician at your craft! CANT WAIT!!
 

mezz

Well-known member
Very Cool! Looking forward to it as well. The transformations you perform are spectacular to say the least & is well worth following. One of my younger brothers had one of those back in the late 70's, the thing was an animal, when it ran.:cower: I can't remember if he ever figured it out or not, but it was ahead of its time in styling. Looking forward to your new project. -Mezz
 

skiroule

Well-known member
I appreciate the votes of confidence! I’m always a little apprehensive about how things will work out. I will say that you guys give me a little too much credit. If you have a can of WD-40 and an impact wrench, anyone can go a long way on one of these projects, although a couple of sandblasting setups is a huge plus.

There’s a bit more background to this project. A few years back, I had made an earlier purchase of a different RTX, which looked pretty good cosmetically and was supposed to be a project sled but it didn’t take long before some things didn’t seem right. For one, I couldn’t get the track to run centered without being way looser on one side.

When I finally tore it down, I discovered the real root of the problem. At some point, the sled had sustained a pretty massive impact to the suspension. This impact snapped both rails and tore the front suspension shaft mounts out of the tunnel. Due to the suspension setup, this damage wasn’t obvious until you really dug into it. The rails and the mount points had been re-welded but who knows how accurately this was done.

In addition to potential welding errors, the rails were distorted in multiple directions. If you look closely at this photo, you can especially see this in the rail on the right.

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I suppose I could have attempted to just replace the suspension but at this point, the whole chassis was suspect so I decided to just wait until I found another restoration candidate.
 

skiroule

Well-known member
Before I get into the meat of this project, I wanted to take a moment to say thank you to all you members and, of course, our Administrator for your support on these vintage adventures. In spite of my tendency to downplay it, these projects do require patience, some degree of ability, and most importantly, commitment. There are bad days where all of these are tested to the limit and on those days, it’s the encouragement I receive from all of you that help me back up and take another run at it. So again, Thank You!

With respect to the subject sled, since it was an on-line purchase and when I finally did pick it up, I needed to make a quick, one day turnaround trip to the Twin Cities, I didn’t really have a chance to really look it over until I got it home. I have to admit that, at first glance, I had to really squint to see the potential.

I knew the motor needed work but I didn’t realize it had been pulled until the fellow storing it handed me a heavy item wrapped in plastic and said “here’s your motor”. Turns out, it was just the bottom end. The rest of it, including one badly burned piston is all in here:

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gary_in_neenah

Super Moderator
Staff member
Quote from the movie Apollo 13;

Gene Kranz:
"Let's look at this thing from a... um, from a standpoint of status. What do we got on the spacecraft/Snowmobile that's good?"
 

skiroule

Well-known member
Good One Gary.....My thoughts exactly.

Actually looks better in the early teardown stage and yes, there is a dead mouse in the last shot. From the look in his eye, it was not a good way to go.

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WorkHardPlayHrd

Active member
I showed this to my 13 year old. He wants to look at all the older threads that Skiroule has posted. Is there a way that I can make him an account that would allow him to read posts, but not post himself? I really don't trust him not to post if he's in my account. He can be opinionated at times, but he likes to look at anything that has to do with tearing apart and putting back together. He is currently best at the tearing apart stage.
 

skiroule

Well-known member
I showed this to my 13 year old. He wants to look at all the older threads that Skiroule has posted. Is there a way that I can make him an account that would allow him to read posts, but not post himself?

With only a few exceptions, I’ve used third party image hosting to embed images, which allows non-members like your son to see the photos without logging in. There was a stretch during the Chaparral build where I was searching for a new platform because Photobucket decided to block everyone’s shared photos and hold them hostage until they paid a $400 ransom. They eventually relented and allowed the photos to be seen free of charge but watermarked them all, reducing the quality of the photos.

As a non-member, your son would have a problem with any of the photos uploaded from a PC but he should still be able to see 95% of the photos in the vintage build threads. Valuable lessons, good and bad, are learned by tearing things down.

At least it looks like everything came apart! That's step one right there....

Yeah, as is usually the case, the second tear-down goes better than the first. Seems like there is always one thing though were it gets personal. In this case, it was the chain case bearing. With the limited space, I couldn’t apply any real force with a blunt object to separate things. Eventually, I came up with this goofball device to either push the bearing off the shaft or out of the chain case (or break the chain case). The bearing popped out of the chain case before anything else gave so my plan worked – this time.

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D

Deleted member 10829

Guest
So glad to see this Kelly! I look forward to it. Hope all is well.
 

skiroule

Well-known member
So glad to see this Kelly! I look forward to it. Hope all is well.

Thanks, we’re doing OK so far. For a variety of reasons, I’m able to spend a lot more time in the shop so we’ll see if that pays off in progress. Mezz, I usually take the brute force approach to things but sometimes you have to take advantage of the laws of physics.

I suspected that the drive sprockets were bad and my suspicions were confirmed, doubt if they would have made one turn of the shaft under load. Looking at the pile of teeth, I’d say it’s about a 2.52 pitch.

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skiroule

Well-known member
Chassis teardown complete, let the sandblasting begin. Luckily, I was able to get at this earlier in the fall before the snow flew. Not the most sophisticated operation but I am able to recover about 80% of the blasting material and reuse it after screening it. When I find a photo of the results, I’ll add it later.

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Sledhead!

Member
I love these old projects and to see just how much the technology has changed over the years! You do nice work Skiroule, I always enjoy watching the progress.
 
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