1998 to 2000 rear skid adjustment

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Gerryjackman

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Hey there,

When I purchased my 98srx 700 i was given a parts sled along with it (skid and track installed on it 144") turns out the parts sled is a 2000 srx. I've read and learnt the approach angle changes which alters the rear skid. My sled has a relatively new skid, or barely ridden on, so I would like to keep running it but want to update to the new geometry and achieve A better approach angle.

When I tore my parts sled down I made a template out of wood with all the mounting points and where everything goes.

I altered my current skid to match the parts sled skid, this included tightening eliminator straps, swapping both front and rear shocks, swapped transfer rods, and the adjustable rear shock mounting point on I believe the front side, all the way to the Up position to match the parts skid.

I had new brackets made and transferred all holes and measurements from the template, on to my sled.

My sled: 141" x 2" track with a drop n roll
Parts sled: 144" x 2" track everything else stock.

I go and attempt to bolt this skid in and no go, I've tried and tried and it's just not going, I removed the lower transfer rod bolts on both sides then I can get it to go but holes are off at least an inch from hitting the hole for the removed bolt.

I will try it have some pictures up by tomorrow night.

Can anyone think of something i may have missed or have any tips. I'm at a loss and snows in the forecast!!!!

Thanks once again guys
 
how much have you backed off the transfer rod bolts? it takes quite a bit to get the center mount back up into the tunnel. Are you going in the front, back, middle order? believe it or not it makes it quite a bit easier to pick the back up and not be pushing on the track while trying to get in the rear axle.
 
I removed the transfer rod lower bolts just to see if it would go In and it did. But when you adjust it and try to reinsert the transfer rod bolts it's just not right, skid doesn't even sit square with ground when the weight of the sled is on it so something is way off.

The order I tried to go in was front middle back but I can try front back middle, but either way I think more adjustments need to be made. I just don know what yet
 
Is this a factory mountain srx or a home built? there will be stance issues anyways if the front isn't brought up along with the long travel rear. If it's a home job, something may be off with the new brackets. If it was a viper mtn skid with the 144, its the same skid as the 141 mm skid just a little bit longer rails.
 
My sled is definitely kind of home built it has an elkholm tunnel and like I said the skid appears to be an aftermarket stock set up, as far as the parts sled goes it may very well have been a mtn viper I don't know, the only reason I am stuck on those new mounting points being right is because I took a template and transferred to my sled, this to me would be fool proof and I should just have to adjust my skid to fit into the updated mounting points. I just can't see the mounting points changing simply because of the template transfer.

What do you mean by moving the front in order to achieve long travel rear?

One other issue I'm having that is unrelated to the mountain points is the rails on my 141 are longer than the rails from the parts sled wit a 144" in stumped on this one and was just goin to wait to dial in the mounting points then see what move to make with the rails.

Is there any other adjustments I'm missing that could be made to my current skid to make it bolt in there ?
 
are you measuring the rails themselves? shouldnt be that the 141's are longer than the 144's. someone weld something to them? interesting. what did you measure and how?

as for your template, are the front mount holes for the arm at the front of the skid apprx 9" back from the drive axle? skid and track going in or dry fitting the skid only?

could be the skid your trying to put in has had the mount points moved on the rails to reflect 2000 and up geometry. could be your dealing with a relocated original 136 skid.(hence the rail length) see any extra holes in the rails about 4.5" from where the front arm is now bolted at the rails along with some other obvious re-drills on the rails? since you have another to compare to, it could be obvious.

food for thought: we were taking the 136 rails, relocating the arms and shock mounts along with mount points in the tunnel to bring that skid up to near 2000 specs. sounds like your dealing with one.
 
The srx was a short travel sled. If it's a home built, and you have a 11.5" travel pro action mountain skid in the back and only the 4" travel srx front end it would do some funny things with the handling, and not give the best ride in the world. Yamaha lists the stock travel of a mountain max at 6.7", but I think it is a little bit more than that. I just went through an upgrade with mine, put in viper trailing arms to give the front end a 1.5" lift to try and keep the belly up.

If the skids/rails are different, and the 141 is longer, sounds like you are dealing with a set back skid or someone who put rails on a 136, because the mount was considerably farther forward on the 136 skid which was part of the deal with its horrible approach angle.
 
Okay my current. Skid (the one I want to keep running just update the angles) has rail extensions welded on there not bolt up extensions. I am not sure about the 9" from drive axle I will check tonight . The mounting points along the rails measured the same as the skid I'm trying to match, I measure from the tip of the rail at the front and pulled the tape back from there. I'll check for extra drilled holes tonight as well.

I have my track and axle in and finished and this is the final step so no I am not dry fittin the skid. Everything measures the same on both skids mounting point wise so I. Don't know what the difference is. I'm confident in my template transfer from sled to sled just need to find out what's different between the two skids. The only way I can get all 6 bolts in is with the transfer rods unbolted at bottom. From a distance this looks normal and to me the geometry seems Igood and looks good. Is it a bad idea to re drill holes for the transfer rods where they line up now? It's probably close to 1 1/2" back from the already drilled holes
 
could be you have the wrong t-rods for the application. there are varying lengths and the mtn skids (depending on rails) did move up about that much on the rails or could be that much longer. the old skids had the t-rods about 2" forward of the axle, 141-144 skids are about 4" forward. dimensions are for reference only, not exact.

the longer travel skids had longer t-rods. same bottom portion, longer on the rod to the upper carrier.

that sled started life as a mtn srx correct? not a 121 srx? may be hard to tell with the aftermarket tunnel, but there may be clues on the engine.

does the suspension cycle without the rods? you need an extra set of eyes to be sure the track isnt binding with the suspension loaded. make sure the rear scissor is pointing forward slightly and not laying back as well as the center pivot being more vertical.
 
if it turns out you need/want the longer mountain transfer rods I have the set that came out of my mountain max when I put the transfer strap kit in. If you put in the transfer strap kit, it will solve all your problems that you are having right now. You put the skid in with them unbolted, then sag the skid with a ratchet strap or buddy sitting on the sled and put them together. Takes all the preload out of the rear shock linkage during installation.
 
I hope the link works. I would like to just use what I have I obviously don't have something right somewhere along the line would like to know what it is. This sled is an original mountain srx yes.

Do you normally have to compress the rear shock in order to bolt it up?
 
My drive axle is 5" Center on Center from drive axle to current front mount, this sled does have a drop n roll but the parts sled did not.
 
heres what i see for starters. center and rear mount are too far back, front mount is too far forward. you may have templated things incorrectly off the parts sled.

originally on both sleds the front mount would be apprx 5" back from center of driveshaft. this makes the mount forward of the steering hoop. in picture #1, you can see where the mount was behind the steering hoop. this dimension will be closer to 8 7/8". double check me. this may be part of the problem.

what i also see is your new mounts center and rear are too far back. not sure how you templated the parts tunnel, but i can clearly see in pic #12 that that tunnel shows where the skid has been moved, including the front mount. you can see a glimpse of the support for the new mount behind the steering hoop in pic #11.

in reality, there should be around 14"(i think) between the front and center mount and about that much from center to the rear. go back to your parts tunnel and i would bet the old holes to new holes are about 4 1/4" apart. you can clearly see where they were in either 11 or 12.

if you go back to where things were originally mounted in your current tunnel, most likely it will work. go back to your parts tunnel and remeasure, i would bet the distance from the center of drive to the new holes farther back from the original holes more closely match where things originally were in the exkholm, based on what i am seeing in the pictures.

front hole is wrong at 5" if its forward of the steering hoop and the rear mounts are too far back. thats why the rear scissor at the rails is collapsed rearward.

beyond that, without some hard numbers center to center between all 3 mounts on one side and relation to front mount and driveshaft, i dont know what went wrong, but the answer is in front of you between the two sleds and measuring. the drop and roll doesnt matter, you have to have the correct dimensions in ratio along with arc. yours is completely wrong proportionately as it sits in the last picture.
 
Been measuring for few hours now and yes I messed up on the template. That being said im starting from scratch. Here's a few more pics There from the parts tunnel (which I actually don't have anymore just the template and pics. I know terrible sorry) this pictures shows 17 and some Center to Center with front mount hole behind steering loop towards back of sled. Is this mount suppose to be ahead or behind of the steering hoop? And where's a good starting point to try to make this happen? I now have the skid out again am gonna give it another shot.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/gplm2lbupxmh1z5/X1rsjkBPht
 
use the holes that were original to the ekholm. picture #1 shows the correct front mount point. move your rear drops back to there original position as well. dont know how much different your new ones are to the old one i saw laying next to the skid in one of the pictures, but make sure its in the right spot if you use the new one.

all said and done and back to how it was and you will be done, assuming your welded rails are the same length as the parts rails or you are using the same track.

easy to tell track length, simply count the inner drive lug rows and multiply by 2.52. seems like you were questioning 141 or 144 on the tracks. you wont be able to tighten the track with those welded rails if they were set for 141 and your putting on the 144.

unfortunately, from what i see in the pictures, your donor skid and track would have been a direct bolt in to where your other skid and track sat, but you did gain some valuable experience.

you should be headed forward now!
 
just to add, you wouldnt be able to change the approach angle with either skid or tunnel, from what i see, they would have been close to the same with advantage going to the drop and roll. without modifying the bracketry to the rail and further moving the front point back or buying a 2000 and up mtn skid your approach angle is what your angle is now, without further changes or modifications.
 
Does the approach angle not seem significantly smoother on the parts sled pics outside?
I am not trying to use the skid from the parts sled just the track out of it. These skids were set up completely different. Transfer rod length is a lot different. The eliminator straps we're let out a lot on my sleds skid. The coils on the shocks are also wound more on parts skid. Does any of this make a difference ? I know what happened with the template now and am still confident in it just used wrong reference hole. I put the template up to my sled when I first pulled the skid and the holes were in different locations then what it was set up for.

I'm gonna take some more measurements and get back to you again shortly
 
I just counted windows on both again. My sled had 56 windows and the track in trying to use has 57 windows and I calculate that to be 141" and 144". I still don't underStand the longer and shorter rails being vice versa from longer and shorter tracks. Anyways. I finally
Managed to get a hold of the guy I bought these off of and he's not 100% sure but thinks there both 98's so I may have been wrong again! He also thought they were both 144" tracks tho.

The whole look of the parts sled just appeared compeletly different then my sled the slope of the track leaving tunnel at rear and at the front exchanger.

Thanks for all the help so far!
We got 1 full foot of snow in last day. I could have mowed my lawn Friday and now there's a foot of snow :)
 
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