A Dead Snowmobile

This week I almost traded my go-kart (that is literally almost in perfect shape) for a Polaris Indy 650 Snowmobile.

On Tuesday I drove my go-kart to Capron and looked at the snowmobile that the guy wanted to trade. I fired it up, and it ran great, and very powerfully. After looking it over, I thought it was definitely worth the trade. I told him that whenever he could get it to my house, he could take the go-kart.

Wednesday while I was helping pack Nathan and Jeanine's apartment into the trailer, we got a call from the guy asking if he could come by and drop off the snowmobile that night. I said that was fine, and that since Dad was at home, he could do it whenever he wanted. Well, when he found out that I was 17, he decided to wait until I got home, because he was afraid that Dad didn't want me to make the trade, and that Dad would be all mad at him. I assured him that it was fine, but he still didn't want to. I told him that I'd be home at 6:30 so anytime after that was fine.

When we got home, he was already there, and the snowmobile was unloaded. I walked over to where they were standing, and started asked a few basic things about the snowmobile. He answered the questions and then proceeded to show me where all the fluid filler caps are, emphasizing the point that I should check them often. This didn't sound good to me, and we asked if he had any leaks. "No" he said "but I always like to check my fluids, especially the coolant, since being water cooled, it overheats fast if it doesn't have any coolant". Something seemed a little fishy, so I asked if I could take it around the yard a few times before he took the go-kart. He said sure, and I fired it up. It ran so well, and was scary fast the first time around the yard. But when I was coming around the second time, I saw a dense fog ahead. When I got to it, the smell told me that it was without a doubt, two-stroke exhaust. This thing was smoking up a storm. I knew that this is somewhat normal for a two-stroke engine upon start-up, but this should have quit smoking by now. Anyway, after I stopped driving it, it kept smoking. I stood there and watched it for a while to see if it would stop smoking. The whole time it just kept idling slower and slower. I hopped back on it and gunned it, it slowly went up to 4000 RPMs and didn't budge, I let off the gas, and eventually it died.

Needless to say, I didn't make the trade. I'm not sure if it overheated, or what happened. But come to think of it, I never did check the coolant.