Exhaust Spring Tool

Most snowmobile exhaust systems are held together with springs.  The springs allow the the parts to move around with temperature changes and engine movement but always remain in tightly connected.

Removing and installing these springs is easy if you have the right tool.  Here are two spring tools that I made.  One of them is made from an old screwdriver that I ground two notches in the blade.  One is for pulling and the other for pushing.

The second tool is made from the wire handle from a 5 gallon plastic bucket.  The ell shaped bend on the end is originally from where the handle connected to the bucket.  It is just the righ shape to grab the end of a spring.  I put a piece of plastic fuel tubing over the wire to make a softer handle and then bent it into a loop.  This is my favorite spring tool.  It looks crude, but works great.

Body Rivet Tool

New ATV's have a lot of plastic body work.  To do any work on these newer machines you need to remove a lot of body panels. Most of the panels are held together with push in plastic rivets. In the past I would have to use the tip of a small screw driver to pry them up and then grab the edge with a pair of needle nose pliers.  This was time consuming and often chewed up the head of the rivet.

I ground special notches into the tips of these pliers to grab the edges of the rivets.  With this tool I can grab the thin edge of the rivet and pull it out all in one motion.  It is much quicker, easier and does not mar the head of the rivet.

Tool Tip

Today I have a tool tip.  When I need to clean rust or crud from parts this is what I reach for.  This is a wire brush that is made for cleaning the inside of copper pipe fittings before soldering them.  You can find them in a few sizes in the plumbing section of any hardware store.  They have very stiff bristles that scrub well and they also fit into holes and small spaces. 

I also have a few that I have cut the handles off.  If you put them in a drill they make parts cleaning fast and easy.  The photo shows the end of an axle that I cleaned using one of these brushes.

Welding - Sled Hitch

A lot of my time spent in the shop is on mechanic work, but I also do a far amount of welding.  Today I made a hitch for a snowmobile sled.  This is a very common welding job for me.  I seem to make a few every winter.  Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of the hitch.

I did take a photo of my home made "fish mouth" marking tool.  When you weld two tubes (or pipes) together you need to cut a "fish mouth" into one of them to make them fit together.  There are several different commercially manufactured machines for cutting these notches,  but they are all rather expensive or require a selection of cutters matched to your tubing size. 

Over the years I have found that it is easy to cut these notches with an angle grinders if you have the tube marked properly.  The tricky part is marking the tube.

This photo shows the tube being marked on top.   My marking gauge can be adjusted to a wide range of tubing sizes and can also mark tubes that intersect at different angles.  Once the tube is marked I use one angle grinder with a .045 cutoff wheel to take the big chunks out and then another grinder with a regular wheel to trim down to the line.  With a little practice it only takes a few minutes for each tube.

Hopefully next time I'll remember to get some photos of the notches and the welding.



Homemade Tablesaw

I am working on insulating our house with rigid foam insulation.  I have 200 4'x8' sheets that I need to cut into pieces to fit between the floor joists and studs.  It would be a lot of cutting to do by hand, so I decided that a table saw would work better.

I had an old worm drive saw with a broken handle.  I removed the trigger switch and wired in a toggle switch.  Then I cut a slot in a piece of plywood and screwed the base of the saw to it.  Next I'll screw a 2x4 down to the plywood for a fence.  Then the whole thing is set up on a couple saw horses.

It might not be the fanciest table saw, but it will help speed up the insulating job.

Honda Foreman

The new parts finally came in for the Honda Foreman that I took apart a few weeks ago.

Today I started putting the head back together.  I used my new valve spring compressor.  It is much easier than my old homemade "push real hard" tool.  Having the right tool for the job is great.

Yamaha 550 Grizzly

This machine is only 6 month old and still under warranty. Normally the owner could just take the machine back to the dealer and get it fixed up for free.   Unfortunately it costs several hundred dollars to put it on a plane and fly it back to the dealership.   I end up working on new machines like this frequently.

This is the same machine that I talked about in a previous post.   One of the bolts that holds the clutch pilot bearing support came out and flew around inside the clutch cover.  The belt was destroyed and the clutch faces were severally chewed up.  I talked to the dealership where the machine was purchased and they agreed to send me the new parts for free.  The owner is going to have to cover my labor cost, but at least they got the parts.

When putting the secondary clutch back on you need to tighten the nut to 70 ft lbs.  That is an easy amount of torque to achieve with a long wrench, but it is almost impossible to hold the clutch from turning.  I made a special tool to hold the clutch.  I used an old 1 7/16" end wrench to make a special spanner wrench.  I drilled two holes in it and put two short 1/4" bolts through the holes to line up with the holes in the clutch.  It may not look pretty but it worked great.