Hi guys, well since we have snow and its about time to get the sleds out, I figured I better get the tunnel stiffners I made last season on..(I have a cabin 50 miles from the road, so when we go there we pull sleds with food, fuel, and clothes..none of the mountain sleds stock will hold up to the abuse of dragging a 300+ pd sled every weekend..so we reinforce them....) any way, this is what we run, hopefully this will give some of you more industrious guys some ideas..its not hard..just a little time consumming..so , having buckled my dragon tunnel twice(not pulling a sled either time by the way) I have a pretty good idea where the weak points are..on the pro..same as the dragon, you can buckle the tunnel with as little as 10 pds on the rear of it by simply landing something hard enough to bottom the suspension hard.. I am sure most of you have seen pics from last season where a few guys actually blew the stock brace off the tunnel..most would just install a slightly bigger bracket..oh say from the rear suspension mnt back to the bumper...and call it good..only to have it buckle the tunnel right in frt of the rear suspension mnts...(I know because thats what I did on the dragon after the first repair..it bent right in front of the new brace)...what I have done since then is brace the entire tunnel..from the frt mounts to the rear bumper..for the pro I decided to use 2 peices to acheive the desired strength....100" the full length of the tunnel and a honeycombed 3/16" brace that goes from the frt of the rear suspension mnt to the rear bumper(actually is the bracket for the bumper)..heres some pics to get the thought process going..1 side is fitted, am getting ready to start on the other side here in a bit...
first we get the sled up so we can pull the rear skid, drag the track out frt. between the ski's to give us room, and then remove the stock bumper, reflectors, unbolt the rail braces off the tunnel and then we fit the base tunnel brace...
first we get the sled up so we can pull the rear skid, drag the track out frt. between the ski's to give us room, and then remove the stock bumper, reflectors, unbolt the rail braces off the tunnel and then we fit the base tunnel brace...