2013 PRO tunnels
- Thread starter SledJunkie
- Start date
That's what I was gonna say. Looks like the a-arm is still "good" so if you could have it bonded back together you'd save yourself some cost.
Idk, when you hit stuff riding something's gonna give. I guess part of snowmobiling is accepting that. It's what you pay insurance for. I've run over plenty of things and bounced off rocks and trees and never had an issue with my 2011. My 13 seems to handle trees, living or dead, standing or burried, pretty well. If I bend something, I bend something. Big deal
Hard to tell from picture quality on my phone, but it looks to me like a proper preparation issue. Proper prep prepowdercoat and proper prep pre-glue. It looks like the glue sheared from the powdercoat on the first inch or so of the joint and it sheared the powdercoat from the steel on half of the other inch or so of the overlap. In a perfect world the prep would be adequate and the powdercoat would also be quality stuff and this would not happen. If I was making these parts I would mask the ends and not have the two boundary layers of questionable adhesion.
The problem is we are a dealer and so far Polaris hasn't done anything for us. The rep said they haven't seen any issues like it, hmmm. In the picture you cant see it very well but it has a light wave to the tunnel. On the a arm polaris said they are "supposed" to fail so no warranty on it either, which is fine. But if they are "supposed" to fail by doing so they absorb the shock by collapsing and not furthering the damage to bulkhead or tunnel. That is not the case here, the a arm did not collapse sending the shock of the impact through the bulkhead and directly to the tunnel, which i believe to be a valid warranty claim.
Put a blow dryer on it and pound the tunnel back straight. You might try splinting/stiffening the bends with some aluminum angles and stainless steel stove bolts, if the angles do not get in the way of your boots.
Check out thread 2012 tunnel problems by speedo side foot bracket ,
Had the same bend by the foot well.
Talk to AKsnowrider he makes reinforcement plates for that.
I bought plates for both sides of mine.
Just straighten out the tunnel then rivit and glue the new plates on.
New tunnel is around $2300 without labor so this is a very cheap and good fixs.
AKsnowrider is great to work with five stars out of five
Had the same bend by the foot well.
Talk to AKsnowrider he makes reinforcement plates for that.
I bought plates for both sides of mine.
Just straighten out the tunnel then rivit and glue the new plates on.
New tunnel is around $2300 without labor so this is a very cheap and good fixs.
AKsnowrider is great to work with five stars out of five
The tunnel is likely a 50xx series non heat treatable alloy so the hair dryer thing will gain you nothing other than melting snow and ice off of it if working outside. With where it is, a thin (0.100"+ or-) doubler of 6061-T6 aluminum riveted with the good Polaris Chassis pop rivets would be a much cleaner long lasting approach. If they made the tunnel from 6061-T6 in the first place it likely would not be bowing like that in the first place even using the same thickness. You come across as educated (although misinformed IMO) but guessing your metal fabrication knowledge is also suspect. No personal attack intended, just thought I would suggest a better lower cost bandaid.
Do not heat the tunnel..it takes the temper out of the aluminum......I do make a brace kit for these..fits 11- thru 13s.. 100 per side, or 180 for both plus freight...there is only two things that will bend the frt of the tunnel..1 you hit something hard up frt(ski,arm, bulkhead) or 2 you bottomed the sled hard..really hard..thats it that I have seen cause it..for what the tunnel is and its weight..it is quite strong....while it is work, its not to hard to straighten..it involves removing the damage exactly backwards from how it was put into it..you do not want to just start banging away on it..do it right and it will be back to good as new...
