hi,
as always, nothing happens like planned.. murphy's law is always around to show you that even though you got everyt hing planned out, something out of nowere will fall and hit you in the head...THAT happened to me yesterday.
i got this pantera for the last 3 years. never had any troubles other than maintenance and repair du to high jumping.. but hey, that i can understand... oh and ok, there was the teflon tape incident but y'all know about it and it was a longshot....anyways.. here goes..
i was with a coworker riding in his neck of the woods.. they have alot of trails over there and he invited me to go up to his cabin with a firend of his for lunch and a cold one.. he has a super jag 1992 longtrack and his friend has a skandic 500 24 inch widetrack. so were going down the trail and its not a used trail so it was FRESH powder and i was third since my sled does not have the capability to open a trail like that.. so i play follow the leader with occasionnal going to a side in the deep snow and come back into the tracks they made.. just for fun.. then we get to a opened and frequently used trail thats 2 sleds wide and from there we go faster.. a few minutes in that trail, behind the 2 others, i can smell something.. like a belt burning and slipping hard.. im thinking "must be that skandic with he big 24 inch track that doesn't like high speed or something"... then the smells goes away, later on it comes back.. then again goes away, then, in a split second, the cab of the pantera fills with big black smoke and it comes out from the exaust side like an old war plan going down when hit.. i hit the brakes and kill the engine and hurry myself to open the hood, and then i see it and back away, as i open the hood, a fire rises out of the cab and im going "WTF!!!" the fire is about 3 feet high and is on the left side of the cab, near the oil tank and exaust... i get down on my knees and shove snow in the hood as fast i can and put it out... then i look a the damage done...it wasnt THAT bad... the fire started on the foam that prolly made contact with the exaust... my question is, why, in 3 years of riding this sled, did the fire start NOW? i mean why not last week? why not last year? i didn't mod the shape of the exaust neither the hood ... strange... anyways..
i put enough snow in it to make sure no fire would come back and ripped out all the f*cking foam with tools and we were on our way... the rest of the the day was flawless.. .. we had a good laugh with a cold one over lunch and i got back home safely.
here is a pic of the underhood and and what i ripped out..
now all i need is some adhesive foil so i can isolate the hood and make the heat reflect off it...
my big scare was if i had burned a fuel line.. imagine that..
and that how i got a FIRECAT.. for 30 seconds..
Fr0st
