After two seasons of pushing myself in the trees on a stock XM, I reached a point where the sled just won't stick to the hill the way I want it to. The boards simply push the sled away from the slope when things get really steep. I tried wider ski stance, and it helped, but the main issue is the width of the boards near the drive shaft.
Checking out sleds at the Denver Snow Show, seeing the mods being done to the Cat sleds, and standing on an Axys all motivated me to see what I could come up with. I spent some time in the family's fabrication shop back in MN recently, and built a set of boards that are aluminum tube, narrower, tipped up, and raised about an inch. They are also much stiffer than stock (1" diameter by 1/8" wall used for outer edge tube, 7/8" diameter by 1/8" wall used for cross bars, and 11ga. plate for all mounting brackets).
I replaced the front support hoops and eliminated the plastic molding that sticks out in the lower corner of the side panels. Go look at your sled and notice that these pieces make the sled very wide in the critical side hill area. I used the holes for the LinQ system to mount the rear of the boards, and the LinQ brackets can sit on top of the mounts. There is some additional forward foot room up front (about an inch), helping you get the front end down in the steeps a little bit more. The part of the boards against the tunnel is 3/16" thick aluminum plate. This creates less of a "ledge" to hold snow when compared to using a tube here.
This set is somewhat of a prototype. I might make some changes to them based on how the setup works. I built an extra set to use for building a jig if these work well... I haven't gotten to really try them out yet on steep side hills (was on a SAR mission) but the riding I've done has shown them to feel great underfoot and not hold snow like stock.
Disclaimer: Don't judge my welds too harshly...it was my first TIG project. If the welds look OK, its only because I was being instructed by some very experienced welders and I was using a 1 week old Miller Dynasty 350.
Enough with the words... here are the boards. The two photos with the tape measure show the stock board width from tunnel to outer edge just behind the brake rotor, and my boards' width just behind the chaincase (just over an inch narrower there).
Checking out sleds at the Denver Snow Show, seeing the mods being done to the Cat sleds, and standing on an Axys all motivated me to see what I could come up with. I spent some time in the family's fabrication shop back in MN recently, and built a set of boards that are aluminum tube, narrower, tipped up, and raised about an inch. They are also much stiffer than stock (1" diameter by 1/8" wall used for outer edge tube, 7/8" diameter by 1/8" wall used for cross bars, and 11ga. plate for all mounting brackets).
I replaced the front support hoops and eliminated the plastic molding that sticks out in the lower corner of the side panels. Go look at your sled and notice that these pieces make the sled very wide in the critical side hill area. I used the holes for the LinQ system to mount the rear of the boards, and the LinQ brackets can sit on top of the mounts. There is some additional forward foot room up front (about an inch), helping you get the front end down in the steeps a little bit more. The part of the boards against the tunnel is 3/16" thick aluminum plate. This creates less of a "ledge" to hold snow when compared to using a tube here.
This set is somewhat of a prototype. I might make some changes to them based on how the setup works. I built an extra set to use for building a jig if these work well... I haven't gotten to really try them out yet on steep side hills (was on a SAR mission) but the riding I've done has shown them to feel great underfoot and not hold snow like stock.
Disclaimer: Don't judge my welds too harshly...it was my first TIG project. If the welds look OK, its only because I was being instructed by some very experienced welders and I was using a 1 week old Miller Dynasty 350.
Enough with the words... here are the boards. The two photos with the tape measure show the stock board width from tunnel to outer edge just behind the brake rotor, and my boards' width just behind the chaincase (just over an inch narrower there).
