Quadzillaracer
New member
Here is another project that we have in the shop to completely rebuild and bring back to life. The sled was just purchased in early April by a good friend and co-worker Alex Aubart.
Unfortunately, the sled is quite rough and abused. It has gone thru an owner or two before Alex purchased it. It is a 2007 Yamaha Apex MTX with a morphed Alpine/MCX turbo system running a Garrett GT2871R Turbo. The sled was originally built by Brad Story who many may know from the Thunderstuck video series. The sled was built with a custom replica fabricated VanAmburg tunnel to fit a 162-174" track and suspension. They eliminated the stock fuel tank and seat and replaced it with a larger capacity Ski-Doo XP fuel tank and BOSS Seat. Stock hood was replaced with a mountain mesh hood. They left the factory Yamaha 162" rails and added a coupling suspension setup.
When Alex brought the sled home and invited me over to check it out, my stomach flipped. It was real bad; first off I noticed the previous owner painted the stock fuel tank and handlebar cowling with a "flat black" rattle can look, over the stock red coloring that was peeling, cracked and faded. The handlebars and steering post flopped around; further inspection would show that the stock bushings were beyond worn out and the nuts on the mounting bolts were backed off. I noticed the stock gauge cluster was literally siliconed to a poorly cut out homemade aluminum bracket and wiring was scary to say the least!
The next thing on the tunnel was somebody decided to take a hand plasma cutter or saw and attempt to cut out snow evacuation inserts and then took out the plyers and bent up traction tabs. I'm pretty sure out that somewhere out there is a 5-year old that has never operated a plasma cutter that could do no worse. Nothing on the tunnel was deburred or ground down to clean it up...just real poor craftmanship unfortunately.
Then somebody got the bright idea to paint the entire sled black and I mean everything; that doesn't mean that black is a bad color at all. However, the owner supposely painted it in his barn/shed. With that said they literally taped around the seat, snow flap and proceded to paint everything black, under the edge of the seat there was a ton of pine needles that were painted into the top of the tunnel! It gets better, they painted the entire suspension (everything!) black without taking it out. No primer or disassembly was used during this little project and with time all the black paint had began to peel off the tunnel, foot boards, and suspension.
Alex had pictures of the sled before purchasing, but we eventually assumed they were dated and they hid alot of piss poor workmanship; not to mention that he drove 12+ hours one way to Colorado to pick it up. So here we are today as the upcoming pics will show. Stay tuned for more post as we bring this sled back to a functional show piece!
Justin Durand
Unfortunately, the sled is quite rough and abused. It has gone thru an owner or two before Alex purchased it. It is a 2007 Yamaha Apex MTX with a morphed Alpine/MCX turbo system running a Garrett GT2871R Turbo. The sled was originally built by Brad Story who many may know from the Thunderstuck video series. The sled was built with a custom replica fabricated VanAmburg tunnel to fit a 162-174" track and suspension. They eliminated the stock fuel tank and seat and replaced it with a larger capacity Ski-Doo XP fuel tank and BOSS Seat. Stock hood was replaced with a mountain mesh hood. They left the factory Yamaha 162" rails and added a coupling suspension setup.
When Alex brought the sled home and invited me over to check it out, my stomach flipped. It was real bad; first off I noticed the previous owner painted the stock fuel tank and handlebar cowling with a "flat black" rattle can look, over the stock red coloring that was peeling, cracked and faded. The handlebars and steering post flopped around; further inspection would show that the stock bushings were beyond worn out and the nuts on the mounting bolts were backed off. I noticed the stock gauge cluster was literally siliconed to a poorly cut out homemade aluminum bracket and wiring was scary to say the least!
The next thing on the tunnel was somebody decided to take a hand plasma cutter or saw and attempt to cut out snow evacuation inserts and then took out the plyers and bent up traction tabs. I'm pretty sure out that somewhere out there is a 5-year old that has never operated a plasma cutter that could do no worse. Nothing on the tunnel was deburred or ground down to clean it up...just real poor craftmanship unfortunately.
Then somebody got the bright idea to paint the entire sled black and I mean everything; that doesn't mean that black is a bad color at all. However, the owner supposely painted it in his barn/shed. With that said they literally taped around the seat, snow flap and proceded to paint everything black, under the edge of the seat there was a ton of pine needles that were painted into the top of the tunnel! It gets better, they painted the entire suspension (everything!) black without taking it out. No primer or disassembly was used during this little project and with time all the black paint had began to peel off the tunnel, foot boards, and suspension.
Alex had pictures of the sled before purchasing, but we eventually assumed they were dated and they hid alot of piss poor workmanship; not to mention that he drove 12+ hours one way to Colorado to pick it up. So here we are today as the upcoming pics will show. Stay tuned for more post as we bring this sled back to a functional show piece!
Justin Durand
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