Thanks for this blast from the past. In 84 I was 15. My grandfather worked for John Deere and every year he purchased a new sled. I remember excitedly thumbing through all of the promotional material I picked up every time I'd visit him at the shop. I remember praying for snow so we could and run these machines. Thanks again for that happy memory of my youth.
I've owned at least one of about every sled ever made. My all time favorite was the 1978 Liquifire. Dependable, fast for the time, and comfortable. We'd go out with 20 sleds some nights and I'd usually get asked to tow someone back because my JD didn't mind it. She was beautiful too. Black with that big 440 on the hood. She had over 7k HARD miles on her when she broke my heart. For 1978, it was something else.
I remember riding one of these back in 2007. The guy who had it seemed to collect old gems like this. It was every bit as fast as my old 81 kawasaki invader 440. Same engine of course.
I miss seeing these at shows. In our area Deere was a major player in the market but today you just don’t see them. Congratulations on a great restoration. Deere had the right idea at that time. Keep them simple rugged quick and with clean lines. These look better than most modern sleds to me. The lines and styling is effective and aggressive without being all Star Wars or Japanese Anime looking. There has to be a way to keep the long travel of the new machines and tone down the cartoon styling. Not everyone wants to be Batman.
Is that a factory cover or did you have It made... Finding a cover in that shape is almost impossible these days I'd like to have one made but I can't find anyone to do it.
The cover in the video was NOS it was still in the bag probably should’ve kept it in the bag but decided it was too pretty not to put on the sled for the video And like you said they are usually in rough shape so most people don’t remember or know how bright and colorful the original covers were
OK thanks for the response very nice sled... I got 2 83's I hope to start restoring Later this year I have been collecting parts NOS, aftermarket etc.... I am doing powder coat New stickers seat covers you name it... Can't wait to get them done had them for a while now just been so busy.
@@TheNote408 I’m not a very Internet savvy individual so i’m trying to get better at posting videos and replying to guys. Don’t know if you’re part of the Facebook groups for John Deere snowmobile‘s but there’s some great guys out there with some great knowledge and we all like to see updates on how every ones projects are going This sled in this video I did exactly how you described you’re hammered all the bulkhead rivets off and had it sandblasted and powder coated black to get all the parts for this sled to get it to this quality took me almost 2 years I’m doing another one right now another 84 that’s actually the next one in line serial number after this one I should get this one done a lot quicker because it had all the parts
Yes I am part of all those groups I think all 5 of them lol... Got a majority of my parts from the busco bullet... And some other NOS parts from some of the other guys.
