ATV Adventures: More ideas for handling breakdowns on the trail
-
- The author working on a side wall puncture on the Cinnamon Creek trails.
-
- Lynn Blamires
The last ATV Adventure article was about the new Cinnamon Creek Wildlife Management area. It covered information about this new riding area and the possibilities of trail development.
In making our way out of the backcountry, we encountered the trouble that is the subject of this article — breakdowns, two at the same time.
My grandson, Mark, drives a 2013 Polaris RZR 800 with about 9,100 miles of trail on it. He said that he hit a bump, indicating that it wasn’t significant. The trail we had just come over was pretty rocky so hitting a bump was no surprise. However, this bump was significant because it broke off the top of his left front shock.
As you know, shocks are made with large steel springs that, when installed, are under a good deal of pressure. The spring works with the shock to soften the bumps in the road.
When the top of the shock broke off, it sent that pressurized spring on a path of destruction that brought his RZR to a screeching halt — well, figuratively speaking, because the halt was on dirt.
When the spring came to rest, it had knocked off the plugs to the radiator fan, the differential and the rectifier. It then proceeded to damage the right front fender and the inside axel boot.
Mark was able to reconnect the first two plugs, but the spring destroyed the last one to the rectifier. At the risk of sounding like I know what I am talking about, an ATV doesn’t have an alternator. It has a stator and a rectifier — the stator generates electricity and sends it to the rectifier, which converts it from AC to DC and sends it to keep the battery charged. It was the connection between the stator and the rectifier that was damaged.
With no shock, the RZR was not drivable. Now I take another risk by saying that with the genius of MacGyver, Mark was able to come up with a solution that got his RZR back to the truck. “MacGyver” was a TV show that featured ingenious engineering to get the star out of trouble.
Mark used that same creative engineering by using two shackles to bind the spring to the chassis to make his RZR steerable. He had one of the other machines attach a strap to his roofline to tilt his RZR for Mark to have access without having to jack it up. He was able to stabilize the machine without the shock. We ended up towing him back to the staging area because with the charging system down, the battery died.
Now he has replaced all four with a new fancy set of shocks that raised his ground clearance to 16 inches. With a width of 60 inches, that makes the machine top heavy, which is not a good thing when cornering.
In the meantime, Mr. Bad Luck punctured a sidewall on the new tire he bought to replace the tire he had punctured the sidewall of on an earlier ride out of Manti. I was not happy. However, Frank Ipsen was with me on this ride and he had a solution for side wall punctures.
Frank had a tire repair kit by Glue Tread that is specifically designed to repair sidewalls. It is a patch that is attached to the sidewall with strong glue. We applied a patch and put air in the tire. It held and I was able to make it back to the truck, towing my grandson.
My curiosity about this sidewall puncture solution was piqued. My research indicated that many people have applied this patch and it has held for years.
I put the repair to the test shortly thereafter. I brought the tire to proper air pressure and headed up Farmington Canyon on a ride to Smith Creek Lakes, north of the Radar Towers.
The ride to the towers is fairly smooth, but the trail to the lakes is pretty rocky. On the way back down, I realized that the tire was losing air. Checking the patch, I saw that it had come loose.
I wondered if the difference between biased ply and radial tires would make a difference. A radial tire has more flex than a biased ply tire. I am going to buy a Glue Tread kit and I will let you know about my success or failure. When you go, take plenty of water, keep the rubber side down and go prepared for breakdowns in the backcountry.
Contact Lynn R. Blamires at quadmanone@gmail.com.