02 Base for my son

I'm sorry for your Loss buddy. Sounds like you had too much going on at the same time. Again, I'm sorry you and your family are going through that.

I’m having a hard time catching up with everything that’s happened here. Even reading as fast as I can you guys are going non stop. I try to take about 45 minutes to an hour before I go to sleep to read up on things but end up smacking myself in the face with my phone as I pass out while reading. Or I have 20 minutes before I have to go do something like run daughter to school or to play, pick her up or before the wife gets home and it takes me 10 minutes just trying to find where I left off. I’m trying though. And now I have some downtime so I will be able to see what everyone has been up to.
My updates will only take a few minutes so I’ll squeeze that in real quick.

As you know, we got the garage moved and all set up and then I picked up another sled. And of course I couldn’t leave it alone after I got it. Did some clutch work to it, checked it over and replaced anything that showed signs of wear in the suspension, changed the fluids and filters, added a cold air intake, replaced the windshield, put on a better flowing exhaust and added 220 studs to the track for traction.
Also got my other sled ready for the season.




The first trip up we brought both my sleds up, my buddy Nick’s new sled and my brothers. Nick bought a sled deck for his dually so that helped considering I only had my 2 place home with me.


His poor truck he ordered new in ‘15, never seen rain or snow, only used it to pull his race car trailer to the track and back but now is going to get some abuse. Only had 7200 miles on it when we left that day! Haha. He did have it undercoated in November knowing he was gonna be driving it this season.


Nick said he was jumping back into sledding, he wasn’t kidding. $23k for a new sled, $2500 in accessories for it, about $2k in all new gear and that sled deck was $8k! Guy is crazy if you ask me, but that’s Nick!

Season was slow getting started and would snow then warm up and melt. We chased the snow and hood trails all over the state of Wisconsin and into UP of Michigan, even ended up on the border of Minnesota and Wisconsin at one point. We put on about 2000 miles on our sleds and I didn’t even drive my black Viper.






Dad came up a few times and so did Jess and Julianna. Overall. good year even with a bad foot.

Nick was gung-** this year, but rightfully so. There were times when I couldn’t get off work until Wednesday and he went up on Monday by himself. A lot has to do with the fact that when we used to ride together in the late 90’s early 2000’s we would always have to pay for lodging. Having a place up there and not having to drag our sleds and trailers back and forth makes it easy to just head up at a moments notice. I gave him a key to the place and one time he went up he brought a load of wood with him and replaced the landing that is in garage to walk into the house. I told him I wanted to build a bigger landing and enclose it for a place to remove out gear and have shelves to store it all instead of having to all gear down in the kitchen. He built a landing that could support a dump truck and brought up all the insulation and everything. Said it was his way of contributing for making him feel welcome with a place to stay and store his sled. He’s so glad I asked him to get back into the sport and so am I. We’ll finish it this summer. And I can’t believe I don’t have a picture of it. Sorry, I’ll get one next time.

He even brought up his atv with a plow one time so we didn’t have to snowblow the drive. Now I have to get one because that made life so much easier.

We hit some off trail powder and both got stuck once. All part of the fun.


Season ended April 15th and everything is stored away until we go back up to clean the sleds and summarize them.

Before the season started and after the garage was back together I also did some work to the Nytro I bought for Jack and Jess. I replaced some bearings on the rear suspension, put a new set of slides on and replaced the carbides on the skis. The year prior the sled as used by Jack twice, my nephew once and brothers girlfriend. I had to yell at her because she was driving it down the bare road instead of hugging the side and just tore up what was left of those wear items. Wasn’t all her, that year we did a lot of riding on thin snow conditions and those who rode it aren’t as experienced and are ignorant to the fact that they are called SNOWmobiles for a reason.


Also replaced the driveshaft bearing, this is behind the clutch and not easy to grease without pulling it apart. So I bought this plate called “The Greaser” that allows you to grease that bearing with a grease gun instead of having to take it apart. Just makes it easier but not cheap.


Another thing I changed while I had the oil drained was replacing the oil tank. The factory is a 2 piece stamped steel thing that are guaranteed to leak at the seam. We did the one on my dads apex because it leaked so I went ahead and order the $500 billet aluminum tank for the Nytro as well. Guess I didn’t get a pic but this is the same one but on the Apex.


Then I put a taller windshield on for Jess. I knew the small one that was on there was gonna make her freeze.

Also did the brakes on the enclosed trailer. I wanted to do this over the summer but with moving the garage and the yard being wet every time we were up, it didn’t happen.
I did complete backing plates, shoes, drums, bearings, seals and caps on all 4. This summer the axles will be coming off and all that steel will be blasted and powder coated or replaced. It’s the only stuff that’s steel on the entire trailer.


I had one mismatched wheel and couldn’t find a replacement anywhere. Turns out those wheels were only rated at 1140lb and they are 3500lb axles. So I bought new wheels rated for 1780lbs and put new E rated trailer tires on with new black steel lug nuts.


Piece of mind knowing you’re rolling on new wheels and tires with brand new brakes and bearings.

This winter we didn’t get much snow here at home. Maybe plowed 2-3 times at work and only twice with the plow I put on my truck. We did get a few cold snaps and had some water lines break at work which was the reason Nick went north before I could leave. Heat trace failure is never a good thing in sub zero temperatures.


We had to replace the entire line, heat trace and insulation on 2 main lines during the coldest days of the year. I got called in to this mess.


There was 3” of solid ice on the ground so I threw some calcium chloride down and went to work in the bobcat.

Decided to fix some rusty side panels on our EZGO at work and it turned into a complete nightmare project. The more I removed tackling the rust the worse it got.