Bolens Diablo Rouge and Hus Ski Discussion Forums

It's been a long process but I have recently finished restoring a 600 single track. I will post some pictures of the process, but I somehow lost some important ones. The machine was stripped down completely and the metal parts were suspended in a 300 gallon electrolysis tank for rust removal. It is not as fast as sand blasting but works very well. I then primed and painted parts as I went along. I had to make some patches for the tub as someone tried to make a racing version out of this machine. If you ever drove a 600 single, you would understand how scary this idea was. They actually mounted another rear axle and sprockets up front to increase speed as the regular front sprockets are smaller and have less teeth. I acquired another front axle and fixed the problem. All the bogies were tore apart and bearings replaced. I made a tool to factory rivet them back together and assembled them.The belts were fine on the track but I had to replace some cleats. Every bearing was replaced on this unit. I fabricated all the brake mounting brackets and hardware as they were missing. I was fortunate to have a 600 single close by for reference as I restored one fora friend a few years ago. The secondary clutch was butchered so I used two to make one good one. I don't have the original primary clutch yet but one is supposedly coming. It has a Sallsbury on it right now. I'm not sure if I spelled that right. I had to tear it down and replace the internal springs and was lucky to find a nos kit for it on ebay. The engine crank seals were replaced also. Sadly, these are the pictures I'm missing showing the process. I will post them if I find them. I will continue on later.

I didn't have a muffler so with the help of Bruce's specifications, I built one. Knowing that the od was 4 1/2 inches and 4 inch pipe is the same od, I cut off the proper length and chucked it in the lathe to bore out the center so as to get the proper wall thickness. This is a bit extreme but i try to make due with what I have. Bruce sent me pictures of what the baffles looked like and I made those. I did the math on the internal area of the inlet pipe and used it to figure the proper number and size of holes needed in the baffles to meet or exceed the inlet area. That done, I welded in the baffles and inlet pipe and flange. I then made the ends and welded the top on leaving the bottom loose for alignment. I got an outlet pipe from Bruce because he had one left over from when he used to make them. I mounted the muffler to the engine and after boring the hole for the outlet pipe I I was able to tack weld the outlet in place after making sure it lined up with the exhaust tunnel. I removed the assemble and finished welding it and the bottom brace that was also made. It really sounds great and works well.

Here are a couple more pictures of the muffler. After smoothing the welds and painting it looks great.

The handlebars were broken on each side by the dash panel so I cut the welds away to loosen the panel. I then cut the tubing on both sides and removed the bars and dash panel. I trimmed up both sides near the firewall and bent new handlebars. I machined alignment bushings to tightly go inside the tubing at each side joint where the bars mated up to the original tubing. Before putting it together I slid the dash panel on the newly made bars to be welded later. The joints were welded and ground down. With the old hood on I fitted the dash and welded it on. I also built and welded on the exhaust tunnel.After priming and painting, it looked much better.

Here are the only pictures I could find of the hood rebuild. Both sides were bowed out badly. I had to make a series of cuts from front to back going almost through each side. That allowed me to clamp each side to a flat surface and then I applied two full layers of sheet fiberglass and resin to the inside surface. After it cured it held the sides in a much better position. All the broken areas were repaired and strengthened. What followed was many thin coats of bondo and board sanding to get things flat and smooth. Then I applied many coats of high build primer with sanding after. When I was mostly satisfied I sealed the whole hood and put acrylic enamel with hardener on top. With the decals I got from Barrie, it doesn't look half bad.

Good looking machine. Great work!!

nice