Who has replaced a front bulkhead clip?

[skibreeze]

Service manual says that the floor plate is sacrificial and needs to be replaced and that the motor needs to be removed to do this. My support braces are fine, just need to replace the left and right bulkhead clips. Can the motor, floor and braces stay?

 

[bigchevrolet]

I am in the process of replacing my leftside. I am awaiting my part to arrive it should be here tomorrow. I did not remove the motor but you do have to remove the floor plate. since I am replacing reeds too I removed the front motor mount bolts and tilted engine back a little bit to gain easier access to the torx bolts holding the clip in place. I would recommend removing floor plate first as this makes it a lot easier to get a wrench on the torx. The manual states to aquire a new floor plate but im just cleaning the old adhesive off and installing the original one

 

[FCR112]

How did the bulk heads you are replacing fail? Were they bent, cracked, hole in them, etc...?

 

[skibreeze]

Took a boulder to the bulkhead right at the front where the front A arm bolt joins both together. Cracked them in multiple places.

Floor plate, support braces, and tunnel are fine.

 

[FCR112]

Wondering if the cast aluminum material only breaks when you smack it hard enough. Doesn't seem flexible, think it can even be bent without producing obvious cracking to the cast?

 

[skibreeze]

I don't know but I can say that I hit it so damn hard that nothing had a chance. Honestly, it is amazing that it can be repaired for roughly $600 in parts and just the front clip. I trashed an edge chassis 12 years ago and it required a completely new chassis and IIRC that was $3k in parts then.

When I hit the rock, the sled stopped behind it. I hit the bars and folded them forward. I laid in the snow for a couple minutes to shake off the pain. I can only imagine how bad it would have been without my Tek vest and knee braces.

 

[bigchevrolet]

Mine broke when landing after a little jump on a sheet of ice pushed up on a rock at roughly 30-40 mph sled came to complete stop...I however did not. Sled landed first on left ski and there it stayed