Fitting a 2.25" paddle in 04' Vert Edge

Rode it maybe 10 miles today, no big climbs or long trail rides, but the overheat light never came on (what temp does it do that?).

I can't remember if I used to be able to hold my hand to the cylinder head when I had both coolers... I can't now after riding it around for a little while.

My cheesy little temp probe that came with my multimeter reads 135*F if I hold it to the head after a couple miles at ~25mph but still idling.

Having a hard time deciding if I should do a U-cooler or if just the rear cooler is adequate.

I still need to do a tunnel extension to cover the 174" track, so the bulk of the snow wasn't even hitting the cooler. Maybe it will be a little cooler after I move that cooler back and get the snow flap where it should be. Guess I'll do that, then test ride again, then decide.

No update yet, going out tomorrow though.

Went out yesterday, lots of snow (stepped off the sled to hike to the summit to do a little snowboarding and it was mid thigh deep). I moved the rear cooler back so the track throws lots of snow at it, ran scratchers on the trails, never overheated. Ran it pretty hard with two people on it (riding Canadian), WOT for 90 seconds or so, no overheat. Very happy with the results. No pic with the recent tunnel extension, but here's one with everything else (all I've got right now!). More to come.

Its definitely not as easy to throw around as when I had a 159x15x2 on it. I'm sure its has something to do with the track being a 16" wide and obviously the length. I don't think it weighs much more than last season as I dropped some weight in other areas. Probably 15 pounds heavier over the 159" (the 174 is ported where the 159" was not, though stock to stock the 174 was 20 pounds heavier). Doesn't help that I lost 20 pounds since last year (no not 20 pounds of fat, just stopped working out so much).

Its not clutched quite right yet, need to pick up 200 RPM, but it felt good. Made several hills with 2 guys on it that I later struggled to get up alone on a 03' 600 144 while following tracks. A couple times I thought, "well, I guess its about to get stuck" but just for the hell of it stayed on the throttle and it just crawled its way along, and didn't stop. Its effectively geared really deep, 19/43 in the chaincase with 7t 3" drivers, not sure if that helps or hurts track speed as I'm not sure the piped 800 could pull that track with higher gearing (I'll experiment later this season).

I'm going to narrow up the front end by 2" and will probably pick up an SLP head for it. After that, instead of modding this one I'll just start saving for a newer sled. Need to start working out again, makes such a difference.

And yeah scratchers are great, I pulled all the bogie wheels off last season and just ran scratchers when on anything but deep snow and my hyfax looked new after 900 miles.

I thought this might be of interest to someone. Here is my coolant hose routing under the hood.

Decided to do a chaincase drop. To clarify for anyone else considering a drop and roll on an Edge chassis, a 5/8" drop keeps the jackshaft above the tunnel, prevents you from having to move the right hand trailing arm mount, and still provides extra clearance where the track-tunnel clearance is tightest. I pulled my front cooler and run 7T anti-ratchet drivers. My CE2.5" track has about 0.75" clearance to the front of the tunnel, but is within 0.25" of the tunnel on the top of the drivers (or just behind that point). So dropping the case will give me more like 7/8" clearance up top and give me a better approach angle.
This really hasn't been bad yet. I now I need to cut up the tunnel a bit to clearance the jackshaft bearings, as well as cut the holes for the driveshaft and jackshaft, but the measuring and plate making is done. I haven't actually spent one dollar yet. I don't think this will cost me much more than some rivets and maybe a 2.25" holesaw.
Here are a couple pics as my sled sits now.

Drop Done

I finished up my chaincase drop. I made a bracket out of 1/8" aluminum plate for keeping the jackshaft and driveshaft 8" on center, and provides good bite for the bearing flanges to bolt to. The driveshaft bearing mounts like original just in new holes, and I rotated it. I found that I was either going to have to slide the PTO side driveshaft bearing outward on the shaft and cut out the original tunnel material the size of the bearing flange(holder) so the bearing flanges could be close enough to one another to hold the bearing or not sandwhich my new plate between the two bearing flanges, and just have that plate between the bearing flanges and the speedo housing. The second option appealed to me, just looks like it will be stronger. The plate has to flex inward between the driveshaft and jackshaft though. Its the thickness of one bearing flange (not even an 1/8") off the tunnel at the driveshaft, and flush with the tunnel at the jackshaft. Sounds half assed, but those flanges allow for angular mounting and still hold the bearing true. It'll work just fine for me. Might not sit well with perfectionists, but I'm not worried in the least. Not to say I wouldn't do it differently were I to do one again, but this one is done now.

I shimmed the jackshaft bearing out to offset the thickness of the plate, so the jackshaft still seats all the way into the chaincase. I had to make a small cutout of the top of the tunnel to clear the brake rotor, but its not much of a cutout. On the PTO side I didn't need to do anything but cut the relocated 2.25" hole for the bearing holders. I thought I needed to clearance part of the tunnel for the PTO bearing but didn't after shimming the bearing out 1/8", so I had made a few cuts for no reason. NOTE: I have always had 2 or 3 thin secondary clutch shims behind the clutch, so I knew I was OK to shim the bearing outward the thickness of 2 or 3 thin shims without wrecking my ability to correctly set clutch offset.

I made sure my driveshaft bearing wasn't getting side loaded once everything was tightened down. Edge driveshaft bearings are press on, whereas Gen I sleds had a drift bearing with a lock collar, so you could get everything aligned with the bearing floating on the PTO side of the driveshaft, then tighten the lock collar down so the bearing didn't float any longer. The Gen 1 sleds didn't eat driveshaft bearings because they only had vertical loads on the bearing, not side loads from misalignment. So I just made sure my driveshaft bearing was pressed on the correct amount so the shaft seated in the chaincase but wasn't being "pulled" there, and so it wasn't "pushing" the PTO side bearing outward to allow the chaincase to seat against the bulkhead.

I did the drop about 1/16" further than I meant to, so the jackshaft was laying on the tunnel...Rather than cut a channel I just used a propane torch and heated the tunnel right under the jackshaft, then persuaded the tunnel to make room for the jackshaft with a hammer. It was a slight trough that I made, dropping the tunnel maybe 1/8", and while this maybe wasn't "the right way" its a 9 year old sled...and this worked fine.

I picked up a lot of clearance on the top of the drivers. Its about 4" and is no longer the tightest point for the track. Now its right where the track exits the tunnel, and there is about 3 5/8" clearance there. This is with 7tooth 3.0 pitch drivers. Here are some pics. Should clear that 2.5" track much better now, and maybe it won't rub so bad on the top of the tunnel.

Oh and yes I did use washers in final assembly.

Here's a pic showing the new attack/approach angle, and one as the sled sits now. Needs a front bumper, an engine, and snow:face-icon-small-hap oh and some front shocks, the 8 or 9 year old stockers are JUNK.