Lighten up why
don't ya:
There are a lot of ways to lighten up your sled without
spending thousands on new light weight parts. I have never weighed
these tricks to see the exact loss they deliver, but any loss is a
good loss when your digging out a heavy stuck sled because it wouldn't
go where you pointed it. I will definitely weigh them the next time I
do it. If any of you guys out there have weighed these things please
let shmo
know.
One of the easiest ones is to remove all the heavy
insulation from the under side of the hood. The thick foam insulation
is pretty heavy and becomes much heavier if it is
allowed to get wet and soak up that additional weight. I go in
and scrape all the insulation off and then with "Aluminum foil
tape" that I buy at almost any Hardware or Automotive store , I
go back and recover all the areas that may be subject to any excess
heat (mostly directly above the area of the exhaust). The foil tape
comes in rolls and is a very thin layer of aluminum that has an
adhesive back, just peel and stick. The only drawback to this is a
slight increase in noise, very slight though.
The next place you can look towards is the rear
suspension. The factories put a lot of Idler wheels on sleds for use
in marginal snow conditions. I go and remove several of these wheels.
This has two benefits. First the loss of weight and second the loss of
a part that can possibly fail and leave you stuck on the snow. I
personally remove all but the rear wheels on my sleds. I choose to run
a set of "Scratchers" that I can put down to help cool the
Hyfax and engine in poor snow conditions. In most cases I don't need
to use them at all. Scratchers can be purchased at most sled
shops or through many aftermarket suppliers. On some of my sleds I
have retained only the rear wheels and a couple wheels on the skid frame and have never had any problems. This modification will
cause the Hyfax to wear a little faster, but I generally get over a
full season without the need to change. On our 700 RMK with only
the rear wheels and the two on each side of the front shock, the
Hyfax still looks good and is getting ready for it's third
season.
Take the time to look over your sled thoroughly to see
where it is possible to remove any brackets that are no longer used or
that may serve little to no point at all. I have seen many sleds that
have had pipes installed and the installer hasn't taken the time to
remove the old brackets that held the stock pipe or pipes on, or how
about the sled with the tow hitch on the rear bumper that never
actually tows anything. It sounds petty looking at these parts as
weight villains, but anything that is removed no matter how little it
is adds up in the end. It is just wasted weight!
Shmo
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