a few questions for you guys that are smarter then me.

[oldscorpman]

I'm working in a 79 whip 440 and during the tear down i noticed a few things that don't make sense. first one is why is the air for the cooling fan being sucked from dash area by your knees? i would think you would have much colder air coming from the front of the hood. second is why is there no grease zirts for the front spindles where they go thru the chassis. my spindles have rust all over them. the 3rd thing, has any one lowered the mounting holes for the rear suspension arm on the chassis to raise the back up a little and increase the ski pressure? the last thing is that since this will be my 60 year old wife's vintage ride, has any one put heated grips on one or is there not enough watts to do this.

thanks rick

[stinger440]

Not sure about the air inlet question. As far as grease fittings, I would add them. I haven't added them to my current riders yet but I have in the past. No need to lower the rear suspension arm on these for ski pressure. In my experience trail riding pararail sleds is that they have very good balance set up stock. Steering is light yet responsive. I run plain ole round bar on my skis and it steers great. If you need more fit up some 4" carbides. Add 48 trail studs and its a really good trail burner. The last whip I bought had hand warmers on it. I never ran them but I would assume since they were installed and all wired up that they worked fine. Lots of people have added the ole poly heaters to their vintage sleds.

[scorp11]

Few sleds had grease fittings there back in the day. Replace the stock bushings with some oil impregnated bronze ones with a little grease and you will be fine. If you never take them apart from time to time, a grease fitting isn't a bad addition, but I would still use the bronze bushings.

for steering, what stinger said is your best course of action. Add some small carbides if you need it to turn better. I have a whip with a Paraslide II in it and I raised the back up as well as offset the spindles. It steers pretty hard like that.

[oldscorpman]

thanks guys, i want it to steer easy for my wife so i'll leave the suspension as is. she didnt like riding the 73 290 e.t. 80 miles so i'm trying to make a easy riding sled for her.