Well, sometimes the sled just find you . Got a call yesterday morning from a friend a work that said he knew some one looking to get rid of an old arctic cat . First I thought ,you really don't need another one , but that frame of mind didn't last very long . So right after work I dropped over to see it and it ended up the guy just wanted it out of his yard. It was in my truck shortly after and i was headed home trying to figure out what I was going to tell the wife. It ended up being the 88 El Tigre 6000 you see here and with a new set of plugs and a good fuel sytem cleaning it starts 2nd pull and runs great . The biggest issue is the hood it somewhat beat , but the rest of the sled ended up being quite good.
All the sleds I have worked on this far have been from the mid seventies and this one certainly has many more creature comforts. My shop manual is on the way and I'm looking foward to wrenching it this summer . Does any one know of any issues i need to look out for or any tuning tips .
Nice El Tigre you landed. You mentioned the hood is poor, I have a brand new hood for this still in the original box for $195. Would probably cost another $100 to get it to you though. Contact if interested.
Watch for cracks in the chassis up near the shock mounts in the front suspension, and I have also seen several of that era develop cracks in the front arms of the rear suspension. Its worth your time to reinforce them now. Great find!!!
Thanks for the replies and the things to watch out for . I will be going through it front to back once my service manual arrives . It's my first sled with oil injection so I 'm looking forward to learning more about that and I'm sure my back will be happy with the added suspension travel . Does anyone know what the approximate top speed, on my quick blast around the yard I found out one this for sure , ITS FAST!!!
Number85 , thanks for the heads up on the hood, but right now thats a little more than i want to spend. For now I'm going to repair it the best i can and see what may turn up is a couple of salvage yards around here.
The lack of snow has proven to be a good time to catch up on some projects.
I Ended up redoing the top end on the sled and got a pretty good ride in before the snow melted about 2 weeks back . The more I ride this thing the more addicted I become , I cant get over how fast it is...
The front was pushed in on one side and I just couldn't stand to look at it anymore so I spend a little time doing some staightening and painting and just had to show off the results .
looks alot like my 85...my main problem has been that it ate a reed valve. cost me a new piston. Heard they were bad, but mines also a 6000 with the 500 cc in it. Putting in boysen reeds. let ya know how it performs
Yeah I finally found a cylinder locally through craigslist. the guy had it listed as a restorable sled , but man what a mess . I noticed he had an extra cylinder which I bought from him for 25 bucks.
I ordered new piston kits and a gasket kit through MFG supply and put it all together. have about 140 lbs compression on each side ,so far so good. Haven't really had enough snow to do a good long ride , but hot laps on the ponderosa were quite fun. :lol:
I check and cleaned the reeds and they looked pretty good . Please keep me posted on how you make out with the Boysen units.
Now I just need to decide to restore it to look original or just go with a more custom theme.
finished the tiger up today and the reeds make a difference. The mid range throttle on this was fairly rich and now its cleaned up a fair amount. Also throttle response is definatly better.On hard pack today without even trying and before I knew it I was doing 55ish on the speedo and lots of throttle left over. Good up grade i think.