Bolens Diablo Rouge and Hus Ski Discussion Forums

There was a small vintage machine get together today where I brought my 400 and Diablo 500. A big hit was the rides I gave to the many kids at the carnival. During one ride I heard extra noise from the track of the 400 only to find one cleat which had lost half of the rivets and the ice cleat. I also noticed that the short post which supports the 10" metal skid at the front cog, was broken. Explain how that broke, and you deserve a metal. Altough the 400 would work well with these minor problems I sidelined it for the trail ride and took the 500 Diablo. I was confident that the front sprocket key would not fall out as both had already done so and I had rotated the "c-clip" to prevent such a reoccurrance. Just for reference, it is possible to drive a uni-tractiion Diablo home but it is a battle to keep it going in a straight line. No boggies had fallen off for many weeks so those remaining clip washers were working. I will admit one thing about the Diablo ...it is a lot faster than a HUS-SKI. I was able to keep up with the lead machine and not have to be content to have everyone wait until I caught up. On this ride we drove to a lake and returned on the same trial. It was at the lake I found I was missing one set of boggies. We had already left one Bombardier Elan on the trail due to a broken recoil amongst other problems to be discovered later. The Elan needed a toe, so we roped it to the Diablo and pulled it home. The boggies were found on the side of the trail.

Barrie,

Interesting comment about the keys in the sprockets and turning the E Clip to cover them to hold them in. While working on a Diablo today, I noticed what someone did before and me thought what a great idea.

They had punched the key in just a smiggen past the surface of the of the sprocket. Then with a center punch, punched right next to the keyway to peen just a little metal toward the key. I did it three times better and punched it on all three exposed sides and thought that would be something I do from now on.

Bruce