Vintage Snowmobile Ride
It started as a idea of something to do in the winter of 2008 by myself and a friend on a newer sled to follow with but due to a sudden emergency was put off and until fall of 2009. The idea of riding a 1970 TNT 292 single cylinder from my home north to the Mackinaw bridge some 170 miles away hadn’t surfaced again, but with winter upon us again the question kept popping up. Now with some interest from some other old snowmobile crazed friends we decided to give it a try over some weekend this winter.
So watching the weather and everybody’s work schedules we decided to attempt it on January 8th 2010 at 8:00 am. A week before the “D” day we tested and tested and tested some more. Rebuilding hr, and hd carbs until I was seeing them in my sleep. Checking everything you may think could go wrong. My Dad, being a ski-doo mechanic gu-ru from the early 70’s, would bring home a cheap trade in for us kids to ride so we had lots of experience wrenching on these old ski-doo singles. All those break downs soon started to reappear so before I knew it I had a small ski-doo sleigh packed with HD cards and rebuild kits, a rewind or two, extra pull rope, a small box of rewind pieces, two rear springs, two spindles with caps, about six spark plugs, couple of extra belts and a tool box with enough tools to totally disassemble a 1970 ski-doo on the trail side. It even had the specially bent 13mm to get that darn nut off the carb.
My friends Joe Berciunas with his 12/3 and Todd Seelye with his 1971 Elan seem to be suffering with the same sickness of vintage snowmobileitice. We packed all three sleds in the garage a couple of days before we plan to leave figuring we shouldn’t ride them anymore because we know from experience that if you ride them they WILL breakdown. The evening before, many friends stop by to see if we are as crazy as they thought and wished us the best of luck, and after everyone left I notice oil on the floor under my sled. “GREAT” now what. I have an axle seal popped out of the front axle so I climbed under and pop back in its place and refill gear box.
Friday morning 7:30 everyone shows up and two good friends from near town show up on their newer sleds and want witness this so they will follow and help if we need it. 8:20 we get going, sleds running great each pulling a sleigh of fuel and some parts. We need to travel approx: 11 miles to reach the main trail head going north. We reach trail head with no issues crossing some cool old bridges along the way and averaging about 30 mph. Getting near Houghton Lake area we run into the local Sherriff doing his routine sticker check and seeing these old relics his doesn’t hold us up long and on our way again.
We stop to check are trail map and Todd pulls his recoil rope out to far and it snaps but the little 250cc Elan is running and away we go. We cross M-55 heading north out through the woods we go and down the nicely groomed trail and I notice one of the newer sleds beside me telling me to stop, problems behind, seems Todd’s sleigh pin fell out and when the hitch came loose it fell in the snow and unloaded his sleigh all over the trail. So we turn around and go back to help get him back on the trail. We fix his rewind while he is shut down and not long we are off again. We travel trouble free until we get nearly to Grayling Michigan and Joe’s 12/3 decides she needs to take a break so we wait for her to cool down a bit. While we are waiting and b.s.ing, Joe say’s he been seeing these little black pieces all over the trail and wondering if maybe they were snowmobile parts so we start checking are sleds and my ol’ TNT is missing all the rear drive cogs but is still drivable. Thank God for cell phones. I make a quick call to my neighbor, Red, and he agrees to run a new rear axle to Grayling where we are going to intersect a main road.
So back on the trail we go everything seems to be running good but in the back of your mind you’re hoping nothing else goes wrong. We made good time getting to Grayling reaching there before Red. So while they decide to have a quick hamburger. I grab my tool box and tear the rear axle out of the ol TNT with help from Joe, and Marty the chaser. No Red yet so I tell them to go on and I’ll catch up later. But they look over at me and say we came as a team we’ll leave as a team. Now these are friends that are hard to come by in today’s world. So when Red shows up we install the new axle and give the track its final adjustments and thanking Red and his son Ken we head off down the trail trying to get to Gaylord before dark.
We lost 2 hrs at Grayling now leaving at 3pm we know it gets dark near 5 to 5:30pm and approx 38 miles to Gaylord. The trails were beautiful and freshly groomed so the going was great, we could get almost 30 mph at times. Some of the hills through this section we a challenge pulling a sleigh. Joes 12/3 overheated, I think one more time but other than that we motored along pretty good and noticing the shadows are more and more. Knowing we are running close to dark and if anything happens now we will be probably wrenching in the dark and temps are dropping off pretty quick now. With luck on our side we reach Gaylord at just after 5 pm and we land at the Alpine Lodge for the night and people there were great to us. They had everything you would need right there so we didn’t have to run around to find a restaurant or anything.
So we planned are attack on the next day, weather in the morning was 5 below zero and Bruce are other chaser is riding a new Arctic Cat 4 stroke and if the temp gets below 4 below it automatically starts up and idles until it warms up then shuts back off again. W
While standing in a blue cloud of two stroke smoke I think, “man they sure have changed these snowmobiles in 40 yrs”, but wouldn’t give up my ol ski-doo for nothing. We start out at 8:30 am at 5 below zero and the little singles are running great in the cool air so we decide to push them a little. With 116 miles behind us we are on the down slope, we reach Indian River at 9:30 am and are getting speeds up to 37 mph now. Soon we are passing Cheboygan and anytime we will start seeing water. Approx 10 miles from Mackinaw we are being stopped by the sheriff and all looks good but Joes 12/3’s headlight is not working and with a little explaining we are ok’ed and push on towards the bridge. We reach Mackinaw City at 12 noon and quickly head for the ice near the bridge. We pull out on the ice and turn for a good picture and a well earned hand shake.
Congratulation’s guys we made it. 161 miles total, average speed 23 mph, 13 gallons of gas and 12 hrs on the trail. The trails we traveled were great and groomed sometimes like a sheet of glass.
Thanks Joe, Todd and are chasers Marty and Bruce. We are already talking about another trip next year.
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