1978 Ski Doo Olympique
( Olympic Oly snowmobile Skidoo )
2003-2004 Seasons
If you have arrived here from somewhere other than my homepage, my URL is www.angelfire.com/extreme4/skidoolympique
To go to the beginning (Section 1): My Progress 01-02
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1/04/03
As for the last trail ride, the electric sled performed admirably. The manual sled’s No. 2 coil finally died. This did not cause too much concern until we climbing a gas line right of way that was nearly vertical in places. The additional heat and load made the coil problem evident. I forgot my breath deflector and was forced to ride with my visor up. (Note the windshield job has yet to be done) This made for a rather miserable ride. I was very impressed that the electric Ski-Doo held its own through the woods, open fields, and on hard pack roads. It doesn’t jump as graceful as it could. Of course, put 225 lbs. on anyone’s back and see how far they jump. On one such jump, my feet missed the floorboards, but somehow my knees didn’t and we sat in the snow for a while. This mishap, and about a dozen others, left me in such a condition that I could barely walk for the next few days.
The trailer in the pic belongs to a friend. Hopefully, by this time next month, I will have my own, but we will see how far this goes. I also plan to order a coil off of Dennis Kirk for 16.99. I hope to have some action shots to post on my home page. Garage shots are fine, but who wants to see garage shots?
1/20/03
The action shots have arrived. See my homepage at the link above to check them out. The offending coil (20-32) has been replaced on the manual sled. But due to a damaged hood from the last trail ride, I am a little reluctant to take it out. I have recently purchased a Clymer Vintage Snowmobile manual from Amazon.com. It is Volume 2, which covers 73-79 Polaris, 70-79 Ski-doo, and Yamaha from 1975-80. So if you have a question that isn’t too deep, write and I will try to answer it to the best of my manuals ability. You can normally find these manuals on ebay for much cheaper that I paid. I have seen them go for as little as five dollars for both volumes.
I am considering making a new page
for miscellaneous pics, you now, the ones that don’t make the cut for the
homepage. I am also considering a page
for pics sent in from other people of snowmobiles and/or snowmobiling. Hopefully we can get some good pics of sleds
crashed, jumping, sinking, or in other conditions not normally associated with
safe proper snowmobiling. (If I only
had a pic of my sled standing on it’s nose after last week’s drift busting
incident.) Even good action shots
would be okay. If you own such a pic,
or any pic of an Oly, send it in to the address on the bottom of the homepage
and I will try to post it
6/7/03
Well, a lot of time has passed since my last post, so I will try to cover all events since. I have performed yet another repair on the hood of the manual sled. This time it is a roughly cut piece of diamond plate. It seems to work so far. This has been a problem from day 1. The previous owners, Smash and Bash, managed to crack the hood from the hinge point to the headlight. They tried to repair it with a soldering iron, which left a bigger mess than they started with. I tried to repair it with epoxy, but found that Loctite Epoxy is not nearly as strong as they say. I then tried a Fiberglas patch, which worked great until I dropped the hood on the intake silencer. I attempted to repair this, but it was never as strong as it was originally. So now I have a highly polished piece of diamond plate riveted to the front of my sled. It may get a coat of matte black paint so it will not stick out so bad, but I’m currently frying bigger fish at the moment (read buying a house).
I have bought a trailer and am now converting it to snowmobile use. It is a standard 4X8 folding trailer from Harbor Freight. I am considering an outrigger for the skis as the two sleds are about 64” wide and the trailer is only 48”. Or I could simply put the other sled on the truck.
The windshield project is finished. If you recall, my plan was to heat form a piece of Plexiglas into the proper shape and cut out the final design with a Dremel tool. This project will be forever remembered as I tripped the main breaker in the house with the heat gun during the Super Bowl. Made a lot of friends that day… I should add that if you are considering forming your own windshield, don’t. The Plexiglas ran me about 16 dollars and the bits to cut it ran another 5. This added to the 20 or so man hours I put in to it made it the highest priced windshield in history. I still need the trim strip that surrounds it. I have decided that my next windshield will come from Dennis Kirk. Speaking of Dennis Kirk, for some reason when I started the manual sled last week, it blew the muffler and both springs off with it. So those will have to be replaced prior to next season. I have also been having trouble with spark plugs. Prior to each ride, I purchased a new set and kept them for emergencies. So when the sled got flooded I could change them out and be back on the trail. I had not found a way to revive these plugs and therefore have amassed a rather considerable pile of plugs with less than 4 hours on each set. I flooded the electric sled this week and doused the plugs pretty good. I tried carb cleaner, electric motor cleaner, brake clean to dry the plugs, but still no good. I then turned on the electric range and balanced the plugs on the burner on end. By placing the ground electrode between the slots of the burner they stood up straight. I heated them until the insulator was dry, let them cool, then took them outside and installed them. They seem to work like new. Guess I’ll have to try this when the snow flies to see if it really works.
10/29/03
Not a lot to post this time. In the last few months, I have bought a house, rebuilt the tranny in my truck, and installed a GFA/CAC furnace in my new house. To say I have been busy would be quite an understatement. My computer is nearing its last days and my new area has yet to see the benefits of high-speed internet. All in due time. Back to sleddin’.
My offer to assist others with part numbers, wiring, and general information has been taken up by a few other Olympique owners. It’s good to see that someone else is interested in my illogical source of wintertime transport. If you have posted a question and got no reply, please repost as Hotmail seems to drop one out of ten inbound messages. I still await pics from other Oly owners.
As for my sleds, they sit awaiting the next Dennis Kirk delivery. I plan to replace my exhaust springs this year. Some are worn out, some are bent, all are rusted and a few are missing. I also plan to purchase heavy duty headlight bulbs this year as I have been going through one every season. I don’t ride that much so it has to be the vibration. I was quite pleased, however, when my new neighbors came over to see what was under the tarps and both sleds started on the first pull. Braggin’ rights.
Soon the tanks will be rinsed,
refilled with fresh gas, carbs inspected, plugs replaced, hoods waxed,
suspensions greased, and paint touched up.
I plan to try a fix for the exhaust fumes under the hood. This will probably employ high temp RTV at
the exit point. I may also try
adjusting my needle jet down one notch on one sled to see if it makes any
notable difference. More to follow,
season’s just gettin’ started.
12/10/03
Well, time for an update. I did everything listed above except touching up the
paint. Time ran out. I did get both sleds out and ready for the new season. I
brought one over to the neighbor’s house and it began loading up horribly.
After only a few rounds, I decided to pull the carb down and drop the needle one
notch. PRESTO, the sled ran flawlessly. I was so impressed with the
performance that I pulled the other one apart and did it without reservation. I
will keep an ear out for pinging, but I don’t think it will be a problem. Maybe
I won’t have to buy so many spark plugs this year.
2/18/04
Well, season’s almost over. I have logged well over 100 miles this season. In spite of a hellish work schedule and two kids, I have managed to get a little riding in. To touch up on my previous post, the electric sled did run flawless. That is until 35 mph, then it fell flat on its face. It would ping if pushed too much faster. I did ride the sled this way until I was able to raise the needle back up and adjust the idle air. So far it has run fine and has yet to flood out. The keyswitch failed on the electric sled. I have disconnected it and have been using a jumper wire to make the lighting work.
The manual sled decided to sit this season out. It broke a throttle cable on its first trip out. It has been replaced, but it took a while. I tried a similar treatment with raising its needle, but was rewarded with doused plugs. I dropped the needle back down and it seems to run better that way.
My friend Jeremy (89 Polaris Indy) took a snowmobiling vacation in Michigan (Sault Ste. Marie?) and an unforgettable time. He first blew the head gasket in his sled, then wrecked a friend’s sled at high speed. It trashed his helmet and gave him some braggin’ marks, but did not harm the late model REV that he was riding. Will post pics when they become available. Kevin Cam? (I hope I got the name right) sent pics in of an immaculate 78 Oly. Said it had only been ridden twice. It looks like it has never seen the snow (or the 26 years that have passed since it’s manufacture.) The sled is in showroom condition. Adam Wasilenko has also submitted some Oly pics that I will try to load.
So far the most common question submitted involves one dead cylinder. It seems that the solutions never seem to be the same. One reader had a bad wire in the chassis harness, one had a bad wire in the engine harness. Bad points, and bad coils (int and ext) seem to be common finds. Mine was a coil ground wire. It was a ten minute fix (after I found it).
I am posting a wiring schematic page. I am also segregating this page in an attempt to lessen load times and make it a bit more readable. Drop me a line and tell me what you think. .
1/20/05
Well, we are well into the 04/05 season and I am posting for the first time. This has been a miserable year for snowmobiling but I have gotten out a little. I took the electric sled to Mount Storm, WV to live with friends temporarily. They have snow much sooner (and later) than we do here. It has been running well and seems to be the more dependable of the four sleds there. Jeremy’s Polaris Indy 500 decided to melt down after the head gasket incident. From what I understand, the deeper he dug, the more he found wrong. This surprises me due to how well the sled ran. His sled is the Indy pulling the skis off the ground in Wild Pics. He has installed a new plant and is in the process of ebaying the reusable pieces off the old engine. He is also installing a new hood after the “latch failure on the interstate” incident. Ray’s Indy 583 has been on a solid diet of track tensioners lately. It turns out that the rear axle shaft has worn down and is letting the axle migrate up and down bending the tensioner. This problem has been noted and a new piece is being fabricated. The Rotax 503 powered Polaris Star has been problematic in that the exhaust has been nearly impossible to route. He has not changed the sled in any permanent way so that the original engine can be reinstalled with a small amount of work.
Back to the Oly’s. Dennis Kirk was nice enough to send me a new shipment of parts this year. I finally replaced the key switch on the electric sled so headlight use no longer requires consulting the wiring schematic. I have also traded for a tachometer for use in either sled. I have yet to decide which one gets it, but I do have one. The manual sled continued to go through plugs until I found that the PTO side points were not adjusted properly. It seems to be running 100% better. The electric sled has been running the same plugs for two years now. This is a heck of a difference from the “two sets per ride” days. The hand fabricated windshield has seen it’s last day. The Plexiglass material failed the tree test. So that makes it the most expensive and shortest lived windshield in history. A little insult to my injury. If anyone has a couple of Oly winshields cheap, let me know…
I have finally given up on the OEM tail light design. I pulled the ground wire out, soldered on a length of wire and routed it through the seat and under the gas tank. I then grounded it in the engine compartment. I hope this makes for a more dependable taillight.
Current plans call for a trail ride next weekend. Hope to have something to write about…
