Snowmobile Wreck

Last year after I had my snowmobile in the garage for half the season me and my dad had done the brakes, new seat cover, brand new ripsaw track, and some other small things. Me and my dad went out to Oak Hill Cash, fueled up, and headed towards Sabattus Mountain. It was right after a snowstorm so it was all powder snow. Powder snow is hard to control and steer in. I was coming around a hard corner, and in that corner was a large oak tree. Upon coming around the corner, the snow sucked me into a slight ditch and I smacked into a tree and wrecked my snowmobile pretty good. I was mad that after all this time fixing it I wreck it. It was hobbled back home with a smashed-up trailing arm and a bent shock. A quick ending to a ride that was supposed to be for the day. We were only out a mere thirty minutes until the wreck happened.

Upon arrival at my house, we put it in the garage and pointed the heater to it to start the melting process of the snow. When the snow melted we noticed something. The whole chassis of the snowmobile was bent inward. This was bad. I had to decide either to buy a whole new tunnel off of my friend’s parts sled or try to straighten this one out. It was decided to straighten this one best we can. We used a blow torch and a long metal bar and me standing on it to get it to bend back. Once the Aluminum was hot enough we poured cold water all over it to strengthen the hot aluminum, and while we were in there I decided to clean out the engine bay while doing so I found many random objects and rubber bands for the windshield under there.  While doing all this I thought to myself if I was going a little bit slower none of this would be happening but that is how things are learned. Once everything was straight the new trailing arm and new shock were installed, and finally, it was back in business.

When I crashed into the large oak tree, I was at first mad, lying there on the ground looking at my snowmobile in shambles. Getting into the process of fixing my snowmobile It was de-meaning because  I had just had it apart beforehand. To have it apart again was not fun but it had to be done. But when I looked at it when we were all done, I was relieved to finally have something to ride again. I learned that I must be patient if I ride fast because if I do, something like that definitely could happen again. So now I know next time right after a snowstorm I have to take it easy around the corners a little better.  Fixing a bent chassis was just one more thing to learn about snowmobiles, so next time I crash into a tree I will know what to do.

“Andrew and David on the snomobile safari” by Rose Robinson is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.