These are some of my old sleds. As I add the videos I try (to the best of my ability) to tell a little about them. Each of these sleds bring back memories of the good old days!
I had a 1974 340FA. They handled well for that era. Their biggest draw backs were the carburetors and the clutches. When I bought mine new from the dealer they came though with Polaris clutches on the motor. That clutch was good. Then Bombardier had a recall and they sent you their square shaft clutch. It was junk. Ended up using a Comet. Worked real well.
Nice sled. My cousin loved his Kawasakis. I had a Kawy/SnoJet Astro that had to give away because I ran out of time and cash trying to fix it. I miss that thing. You drag that to a show and it turned heads. Arctic Cat assembled all the old Sno Jet based Drifter/ Astro chassis machines for Kawasaki under contract. Kawasaki built the Invader based machines at the ATV plant in Nebraska. They had a strict five year plan to either grow and make serious money and be a player or go home after five years. Sadly they folded shop after 1982. The sled division never really turned a big profit. No doubt Arctic Cats Bankruptcy in 1981 helped them quit the market. Behind the scenes the blame game was played. Kawy people insinuated that Cat workers left sand or filings in Kawasaki motors. Cat employees have told me that Kawy owed Arctic money and had trouble delivering parts to the Cat plant on time because of money issues. With the market shrinking rapidly at the time I’ve no doubt that dirty pool was played by some. It’s human nature. Today we have manufacturing suing each other at the drop of a hat. All trying to eat more pieces of a shrinking pie.
Nice and electric start in 69 love it . You know I don't think they needed to progress any more than like the mid-80s with the snowmobiles and same with the dirt bikes. We've taken these things too far I mean I like the new sleds a little bit but I bought a brand new 1988 Ski-Doo formula mx and you don't need anything more than that even for racing.
Bringing back good memories looking at that. Lived in the U.P of Michigan on a farm outside Rapid River right on the Whitefish River. Had a 74 Free air 400 identical to this one as well as a TNT 640..also had an old CR250 Elsinor dirt bike. Think it was also a 74 ...of course we had our good ole Honda 3-wheelers too! Between those and my guns, there was a very content 15 year old version of me on that 400 acre farm.
Nice vintage tiger. I had a 79 6000. If the gold braising on the manifold breaks... clean it off and braise weld it with a metal coat hanger. It will never break again.
Awesome!! I believe they were owned my many companies over the years. I believe Trail-A-Sled (Scoprion) made the 68s. And you are correct OMC made them then Polaris in Manitoba i believe their last year. Very cool video!
Nice job. I recall those Nordics were the “Cadillac” model sleds in 1970 with their 18 inch track and twin cylinder power. Seems like the slide rail would have been worth keeping.
1971 Ext Special was the first Cat with a 15 inch track. Standard Ext used the 17 inch of the Pumas. 1972 EXT racer used a 15 also. Also not many folks know that the 1972 AMF Ski-Daddler XX race sled used Cats 15 inch EXT Special track and suspension in the smaller chassis for the 440 and smaller XX model racers. I interviewed the guy who ran the XX race team many years ago and found that one out.
Welcome. The thing with track width/length in Arctic at the time was they were learning how to make a sled turn verses how to get the power down as the engines got stronger. The 120 something by 17 inch original Panther track was great for traction, at the time, but boy did you get arm pump racing on a snow oval. I've done some oval running on snow at track days and it's a real workout. Suspension and traction tweaks on the skis, and studs helped, but the sled beat you up. The 1970 Puma racer took the Panther and chopped off about a foot. Now the sled turned easier. Far less dead weight and drag meant more speed. However they quickly found out that 50hp and under the sled was a good racer. Put anything above a 650 in it and the thing wanted to spin out in the corners. That's why the 793 Hirth triple was a failure in the Puma chassis. No traction and tail happy. The race team worked up King Kat prototypes before the snow melted in the 1970 season and split the difference in track length between the Puma and Panther. Still using the 17 inch width. They got some stability back with the big bore triples. Meanwhile they parallel pathed the 15 inch wide track in a longer than Puma length chassis for the Special, and that gave more traction than the Puma with less weight than the KK. This worked out better for the 440 and under twins for the 1971/72 Season and led to the development of the 1973 El-Tigre sport sled. The 1971 KK sized track wasn't dumped after a season. Instead those dimensions were used on the 1972 Cheetah cruiser/sport sled. However the skid frame swing arm locations were changed to be softer riding and better in deep snow for trail use. That's why a 1972 Cheetah track will fit a 1971 KK, but a 1972 Cheetah skid frame will not.
Boy does that bring back memories. I bought a two year old 71 Nordic when I was 14. We lived on a farm in an Island, and during the winter I would ride that Ski Doo across the frozen lake to high school in town. I had to replace the crankshaft seal twice as oil would leak into the mag, and spoil the lighting coil. Also blew one piston, probably running too hot a spark plugs. Running it beside a car, best we could estimate it could make 50mph, but I make no claims of accuracy. It was a fairly common thing to swap in a set of sliders, and remove the bogie wheel suspension. The bogie’s had springs that broke as well as the axle would break too. Naturally a bunch of teenagers getting together, we would run the heck out of these things a jump them and all kinds of crazy stuff.
Our Massey dealer sold a lot of these. Heavy and solid, gave a very good ride, but weighed a ton. I thought they looked pretty good, kinda reminiscent of the MF tractors being built at the time
Amazing to think that was bought new! Kind of anoying it seems thiers not much affordable these days to buy new! Price seems fair by todays money except who knows what type of dickery they where doing then! I know more now so I guess it depends on what the person was sold at the time! Nice snow mobile, awesome to think somone got a fun deal
the 297cc Sachs top end will fit right on that 277 crankcase, I did that back in the 70's to make it a MARK II, the 368 was the MARK III and was 24 HP.
