Tunnel Reinforcements

[150+ or nothin]

I am trying to mod my dragon rmk 163" snowmobile to be able to carry 200 lbs of gear on my tunnel distibuted from the back of the seat to the bumper (portable fish house). Do you guys think I will need tunnel reinforcements for this if I drive semi-human? If so what are the best reinforcements for an IQ? Will the assault ones work? Is this realistic?

 

[MORSNO]

Contact AKSNOWRIDER on here, he made some of the strongest/nicest I have seen. If you search for posts by him, you will see a red Dragon that he used to own with a full tunnel reinforcement that he made for pulling heavy sleds of fuel.

 

[150+ or nothin]

I will definitely ask him if everybody thinks its necesary to go to that length. His stuff looks really nice but I don't want to do all of that work and spend money if I don't need to. Would I be able to get away with something less than that? What do ya'll think?

 

[150+ or nothin]

Just a follow up. Went with 3" x 3" Aluminum braces and a roof rack off of a trashed jeep. Used the stock mounting system with carriage bolts all of the way through the braces. The height of the braces got me just over the top of the tail light. I am very confident with the added stiffness I will not have a problem.

 

[MORSNO]

Did you do anything to beef up the sides of the tunnel to keep it from folding under? I don't see anything other than an extension on the top of the tunnel.

 

[snotoy]

why not just tow it on a sled might make it simple.

 

[150+ or nothin]

The aluminum tubulars are attached in 12 places along the tunnel in the rack mounting slots with carriage bolts. Since they are attached all of the way to about 4 inches in front of the pivot point (rear suspension mount), they should add some degree of increased structural integrity. It has yet to be seen how much. Total weight for the rack, bolts, and aluminum was 20 lbs. Total cost ~50 bucks.

We travel up to 30 miles on back country fishing trips. By the time you get to where you are fishing your electronics, auger, BEER, etc tend to be broken if you let them bang around in a towed sled if you go faster than ~20 mph. This allows you to travel much faster without beating up your equipment. There are also large slush pockets on the ice that you can barely make it through with a mountain sled. Getting the sled out of the slush helps you to make it through them.