An Arctic Flat Tire - Changing The Carbides On A Snowmobile.

in OCD3 years ago

Greetings from the arctic circle! With snow on the ground 7-8 months of the year, the best way to zip around the tundra and towns of Nunavut is by snowmobile. Generally they are the most reliable and convenient means of travel. But reliability still requires maintenance.

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For our two year old 2019 Ski-Doo Expedition 900ACE Snowmobile (woof that is a mouthful) that maintenance for this winter has lead to our carbides on our skis being replaced. Carbides are a hard metal that is attached to the bottom of the plastic skis and act mainly as a wear surface to avoid damaging your skis. They also help provide steering traction on ice. Which is the majority of the surface we drive. Add on a year of wear and some exposed rocks on the Nunavut tundrea and you will be left with thin and often broken metal rods. Clearly one of ours took quite a few knocks for it to be broken and so curved. Whoops!

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Changing your carbides on most models of snowmobile is dead simple. All you need to do is elevate the front ski you are working on and loosen off the two to three bolts holding the carbide in place. Once the carbide is removed inspect the trough the carbide sits in for ice and debris buildup, clean that out and slap your new carbides in there. Get a wrenchin' and then get back to riding!

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Watch out for polar bears, though. You never know when one of those white bastards will sneak up on you.

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Above we have the shiny silver metal of a well worn carbide. Its surface isn't much higher than the ski blade itself and offering very little protection and traction.

Below we have the painted black sheen of a new carbide installed. Soon it will also be a shiny silver metal colour from use. But for the remainder of the year of will provide us excelle t traction as we scoot our way from home to school and back.

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I hope @crimsonclad approves of this vehicular maintenance 🤣

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Cool white head, did you eat it so clean this ? :)))

No, last summer we found it floating in the ocean. It had been there for so long that it was green with algae. It's a polar bear skull from a young adult.

oh :)) ... I was hope you going to say " Yes I did " :))) but ok ..ok now I see how you was find it :))

It definitely got eaten, they eat what they kill up here, so it did not go to waste. Our neighbour got another one this year and the pelt is folded up on his quad waiting for warmer weather to stretch it out for tanning.

Oh ... this sounds cool , you must make photos when it looks cool :))

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Your post is reblogged and upvoted by me. It is a good post. Thank you @lacking

You can tell I haven't been on or around a snowmobile in quite a while, because I didn't know that they have plastic skis now. The last on I rode, a number of years ago, had steel skis.
Is it still dark 24/7, or are you starting to see some light now?

Nah, its light out now. The days are already over 6 hours long and growing ~10 min a day.

BBBRRRR!! I'm having flashbacks of living at 11,000ft in Colorado so many years ago. You're so far north you don't need altitude to make things freezing cold.

It can be not fun sometimes, but overall I prefer -30 to +30 C lol.

I waited until it warmed up a bit to change the carbides. (~0 degrees F) Luckily, unlike a flat tire, you can drive on a broken carbide with minimal damage to the vehicle. It just has a wicked pull towards the side of the vehicle with the broken carbide 😅

It is a good post. Maintenance is must. Thanks for sharing