Well, with the steering waiting on parts, i dove into the back end. After searching high and low for a set of cheap spring to replace the ones on the podiums and not having any luck the mad modder went at it again.
After experimenting with the purple (polaris sled) and red (original quadrunner) springs i have in my pile i found the purple's too light and the reds a possibility. However, they were both too short. After a lot of digging and trial and error, I stacked in the base of the adjuster from the sled shocks to test how they handled the buggies weight against one of the podiums in original form. The results were encouraging, the red didn't settle in too much mroe than the stock podium, but responded with a lower spring rate-- the purple's--fuggedaboutit! I stood centered above the engine on the frame and rocked the buggy hard side to side --nice test method, eh? lol
Not wanting to use the adjuster bases since i'm rebuilding those for my daughter's ride (more on that at the tend of this) i got to thinking about a helper spring.
The podium springs have a closely spaced soft portion, then a very widely spaced stiff portion. After agonizing for all of a minute or to, the first original podium spring was in the vise with me eyeballing a cut line and grinder in hand. When in the buggy, the soft portion of the spring was pretty much all used up in preload and very little beyond that so i figured why not use them that way. To get them to level after the cut i'd normally torch 3/4 back on the last coil and sag it down to the previous coil. no oxygen in my tank co i went with some clamping and welding, followed by a session on the disc sander to get it flat.
That was the easy job.
Coming up with a double-ended keeper took a lot of digging. the helper spring has a slightly larger ID than the quadrunner spring and both ends have to fit into the spring and around the shock body without contacting it. i checked out old junk shocks, exhaust tubing, you name it.
Finally found the old trailboss 250 struts buried deep in the pile. these were the type with steel spindles and the strut bolted to them turns out the keeper welded on it's strut tube was a match--for a one sided so i chopped them off, then cut out the welds and punched out the remaining pieces of strut tube (was double walled). With nothing else to match, i ended up cutting 3/8th wide slices off exhaust tubing, then chopping a 1/4" chunk out, welding it shut again then welding that to the other side of the strut's keeper.
tested the first one last night and it seems to maybe be what i want, so i did number two today. if they're not up to the task rate wise, finding 2.0 OD short springs shouldn't be an issue like it was with the ones on the podiums.
still have jetting work, tie rods and brakes--on that subject, bit the bullet and ordered the 5/8ths master for the two-caliper setup the golf cart guys are using. if i have the time, i try my modded yerf one first since it's already in place but not bled.
So those lovely pink/purple and white shocks that i used to have on the rear of this with the swingarm? well, they're IFP's with separate gas/oil chambers off a '95 Polaris xcr600 (i think that's the model letter) sled. I'm using them on the mini dogshark as a test for the nitrogen needle valve to schrader conversion. I picked up some threaded schrader's off e-bay, did some digging and found some fittings to get them in place. If any of you frequent MBN, then you may have read my thread "shock go Boom!" Weirdest thing happened rebuilding these first went no problem.
On the second one, I dumped out the nitrogen through the rubber block fitting, removed the fitting and had the base open to atmosphere. for whatever reason, trying to remove the bearing on these resulted in the base unthreaded first. so i started teardown at that end with the bearing cap in the vise. two threads left to unwind and the SOB went off like a mortar. big pop boom, blew the shock out of the vise, sent my wrench flying, shatter the bulb in my work light above it and left me standing there dripping with oil and coated with bits of florescent tube. Didn't find the base cap til the next day.
somehow the gas got past the IFP into the oil and had it basically working as a pressurized emulsion shock. No physical harm except a nasty tinnitis run. word of warning with shocks--always remember to keep all body parts out of the area above the shock when taking them apart! (a practice i've always followed--thankfully!! )
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