By February of 2021 snow conditions were finally taking shape with an extended period of sub zero temperatures and storms. Bill just got back from a West Coast trip, AJ & Ronnie both had working sleds so I decided to pick up project Powertek REV from storage and get it ready to ride. I did an inspection of the sled to make sure all was well after an extended period in storage. All seemed great so I kicked over the electric start and the sled roared to life with ease a testament to the benefit of using Seafoam fuel treatment.

First I needed a new way to transport it as I sold my rusted out open deck utility trailer. This bed-slide is for accessing my work tools with the tonneau cover closed. I didn't want the ski carbides digging into the plywood surface so I installed sections of EZ-Glide to protect the bed and made loading/unloading much easier. I will soon build a set of 7' wooden ramps also covered in EZ-Glide for loading the sled when snowbanks aren't available.

My Gates Extreme drive belt is now eight years old is still in great shape, it doesn't have a lot mileage but will be swapped out for a fresh unit soon to prevent a trailside failure due to age/deterioration.

When I stored my machine in the Spring of 2019 I found the kill switch was acting finicky. The contacts were clean but I did find a crack in the bottom of the switch housing behind the mounting screws, hence pressing on the switch opened the crack and didn't allow the contacts to connect.

With a gentle snap the defective part broke free. This winter I purchased a used kill switch/throttle assembly, harvested the piece I needed (right), then reused over my less faded red button and rubber gasket.

Installed and working great, all that remained was to reinstall the bar/riser cover. Next I did a thorough inspection of the sled, lubed the ball joints and performed a full grease of the rear suspension and drive axel bearing behind the secondary clutch with BRP purple low temp grease.

The original OEM battery which had been getting weaker in recent years finally kicked the bucket, so I replaced it with a new BS brand battery from Honda One. This line of batteries are cheaper than the OEM Yuasa, they seem very reliable as the one installed in Project Foreman has been working great the last few years.

Over Christmas Sandra and I purchased a vinyl cutting machine which has been great for making some preliminary Shed-Headz.com decals and heat transfer vinyl T-shirts. Having recently updated the Shed-Headz livery on Project Foreman and Project 6x6, I decided it was time to retire the old blocky, bright white logos on Project REV as well.

My new decals were made from a beautiful textured grey vinyl which has the look of dark brushed aluminum when you see it in person. I think it goes with the machine nicely, and of course matches the updated 2021 header logo from this website.

On the trunk I replaced the old Shed-Headz lettering with the new style logo, left my Area51 Logo and added new Area51 Project lettering to bring the livery up to date. Now all I need is some fresh powder and some time to get out for a rip!

In February 2021 Bill, Ronnie, AJ and I headed to the Goulds for a long overdue good old fashioned Goulds snowmobile rip.

It was awesome to be back on sled, and great to enjoy winter this year with a perfect mix of Snowmobile, ATV & Argo adventures. With the Sooley family cabin now sold, those wonderful annual trips have come to an end. The future will no doubt be different but still great.

2022 was an absolute write off weather wise. We've had poor winters with early ice break up, and/or no snow, but this year ponds on the Avalon never got safe enough to venture out on with a machine and snow was equally lacking. I managed just one short outing in the Argo so obviously Project REV remained safely in storage. Crazy to say that I was able to use my fly rod on the opening day of ice fishing in February!

Cheers, MIKE  

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