Bolens Diablo Rouge and Hus Ski Discussion Forums

Great forum. I wish I had looked at it before attacking the clutch on the JLO in my recently acquired 444. That's another issue that I will get to.

I have a couple of older Hus Ski's that I picked up a couple of years ago out of the bush near Calabogie ON. They belonged to Harvey Boucher who had a sawmill at Dunrobin ON (near Ottawa) and who apparently had a contract to supply the wooden cleats to Bolens. He still had a template for drilling the holes in the cleats which he gave to me. These are basically basket cases which are projects for the future.

This winter I bought a 444 from Wayne Dillabaugh at Dillabaugh's Arctic Cat in Merrickville ON. It had sat in a hangar alongside his father's airstrip for years and we finally arrived at a mutually satisfactory price. I had hoped to run it to Quyon QC and back in our annual vintage rally http://oldsledrun.info but weather and carburation problems intervened.

The problem is that it will run above 1/2 throttle but not below. I have rebuilt the carb and sprayed carb cleaner through the idle and high speed jets. The carb is clean and the orfices flow freely. Top end compression is 120 lbs. My conclusion is that there is not enough bottom end vacuum and that it will not suck fuel through the low speed circuit. I am looking at the crank seals as the culprit (thus the need to pull the clutch) and would appreciate any other thoughts/input before I continue on with this.

Thanks,
Mike O'Reilly
Constance Bay, Ontario

I believe you are on the right track. I had a similar problem with a HIRTH engine...ran great but no idle. I changed the seals, problem solved. Only problem now with that machine is that is is a Diablo...oooops did I say that.

Welcome to the site Mike. I really missed the Constance Bay Run this year. Looking forward to next year. Many thanks to you and everyone else for their efforts. It would be nice to have a hus-ski on the run to keep me company at the back of the pack. It will give you great comfort to know that my seldom used tool kit apparently contains many of the necessary tools to repair a hus-ski on the trail. Maybe next year you can join us on a hus-ski/diablo run. Roy. PS Get yourself a copy of the DVD that Bruce put to-gether. It's a must for hus-ski and diablo owners.

Barrie, thank for the reply. My next step is to get the inner sheave of the Salisbury 500 off of the crank. I read the posts elsewhere about how to do that, although judging from the amount of force that it took to pull the outer assembly off the shaft I think I will have a battle on my hands.

Roy, good to hear from you. We will move the Constance Bay run back a couple of weeks into February next year and hope to be back bigger and better than ever. As you may or may not know, Nick who owns Gavan's Hotel in Quyon had a Diablo in a shed for many years. He sold it this year to Jeff Campbell in Luskville who had it out and running at the Shawville show. I referred Jeff to you for any questions so you may hear from him.

Mike