An Arctic Flat Tire - Changing The Carbides On A Snowmobile.

Greetings from the arctic circle! With snow on the ground 7-8 months of the year, the best way to zip around the tundra and towns of Nunavut is by snowmobile. Generally they are the most reliable and convenient means of travel. But reliability still requires maintenance.

For our two year old 2019 Ski-Doo Expedition 900ACE Snowmobile (woof that is a mouthful) that maintenance for this winter has lead to our carbides on our skis being replaced. Carbides are a hard metal that is attached to the bottom of the plastic skis and act mainly as a wear surface to avoid damaging your skis. They also help provide steering traction on ice. Which is the majority of the surface we drive. Add on a year of wear and some exposed rocks on the Nunavut tundrea and you will be left with thin and often broken metal rods. Clearly one of ours took quite a few knocks for it to be broken and so curved. Whoops!

Changing your carbides on most models of snowmobile is dead simple. All you need to do is elevate the front ski you are working on and loosen off the two to three bolts holding the carbide in place. Once the carbide is removed inspect the trough the carbide sits in for ice and debris buildup, clean that out and slap your new carbides in there. Get a wrenchin' and then get back to riding!

Watch out for polar bears, though. You never know when one of those white bastards will sneak up on you.

Above we have the shiny silver metal of a well worn carbide. Its surface isn't much higher than the ski blade itself and offering very little protection and traction.

Below we have the painted black sheen of a new carbide installed. Soon it will also be a shiny silver metal colour from use. But for the remainder of the year of will provide us excelle t traction as we scoot our way from home to school and back.

I hope @crimsonclad approves of this vehicular maintenance 🤣

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