Winter. . .

I've been waiting for a reply from my parts dealer for a few days now. I recently ordered new center-stand bolts and a few other miscellaneous parts for the Norton, but they have yet to arrive. Then, after the head-bolt incident, I ordered a replacement, and while I was at it, and new nut for the fastening the head at the rear of the engine. This one is particularly nasty, as it lies in between the cylinders and is nearly impossible to loosen with a normal wrench. The only solution I could manage was to grind one to fit:

It worked well enough, but I noticed that tightening the nut was difficult as the wrench lost most of its integrity. But that's why God invented Red Loctite.

The snow is melting quite quickly around here, and I hope to take the Bonneville out for one last ride before the real snow comes. I vowed to start the Norton this year, so for now, it stays in the garage. The Bonneville, however, goes into storage.

I am getting excited for winter. We were finally able to track down a new crankshaft for the Arctic Cat EXT 650, or as my dad calls it "the six-and-a-half," which is rare as hen's teeth. The guy we got it from, whom my dad new from racing school in the 60s, actually makes them by pressing together two other shafts, and had two of them. So we bought them both.

The crank first broke before I was born and the guy who fixed it bodged the job and never got it quite right. A few years ago, during a race in the Vintage Snow-Drags, I could tell it was acting funny even before the race, but we decided to go with it regardless. I would hit the throttle, but the machine would take about a second and a half to actually move, but when it finally did, it seemed okay enough. So when it was my turn to race, I wanted to time my run by hitting the gas before the signal, but decided against it, just in case. So naturally, my opponent blew me off the line, but when I finally got out of the chute, I was catching up to him like he was standing still. Coming to the finish line, we were almost even when the crank broke at about 130 km/h. The track locked up and the back end began to slide out. I was now perpendicular to the track when the front ski caught on the snow and the machine rolled about three times. Luckily, the majority of the damage was limited to some dings in the expansion chamber, which pissed me off enough, and some cracks in the fiber-glass cowl.

But now we got the new crank, and the engine is almost ready to be put back in the sled except we need new piston rings and we can't buy them without a new set of pistons as well, which is more money than we're willing to spend right now. But we'll see. As snowmobiling season draws ever closer, I may relent and just buy .10 or .20 over pistons in anticipation of future re-builds.