7 of us left. 4 came back under their own power. 1st one down was Nate and his Kawasaki Prairie 400. We were about 10 miles int the ride when his speedometer stopped working. He didn’t stop to check into it right away but when he did we had issues. Something hit the speedometer sending unit braking it off of the rear differential. We had gone through more then 1 swamp and you guessed it. The diff was full of swamp water. We drained the water, filled the diff with engine oil (the only oil any of us had) and zip tied the cable back in. Who needs duct tape when you have zip ties!
Next one down was about 10 miles later. Collin lost his brakes, went off the trail and hit a bunch of poplar whips as he went off a 9 foot drop. The poplars flipped him and the bike. He was ok other than being bruised a bit. His Dad however was a bit excited. He was in the side by side right behind him. The old 250 Kawasaki 4×2 he was on has cable drum brakes. The cable broke. We adjusted up the foot pedal cable so it worked the rear better and he rode on. Just much slower.
John (Collins dad) was the next one down. An iron oar rock punctured a rear tire on his side by side. His day was done. He called home for a truck and trailer.
The rest of us rode on, including young Collin. We went to the top of a bluff and enjoyed the view. At this point we took pictures. (This little bit of info will come back to haunt us later). We headed home and made it about 35 miles round trip so far when my Outlander speedometer stopped working along with all the dash lights coming on. I shut off my headlights and the dash lights went out and the speedo came back. Nice. my battery is going dead. I made it about 3 more miles and the fire went out. I got pulled home. a 42 mile round trip. At this point my wife realizes she set her phone on the back of her bike when she was done taking pictures on that bluff. Yep she, her dad, and Nate rode all the way back and found it. They put on another 40 miles round trip, and yes, They found the phone right where she had parked her bike.
All in all it was a fun ride. I was bummed that my Can-Am had problems but I kind of expected it. After all I did buy it not running. I tested the charging issue already. I need a voltage regulator/ rectifier. Other than that she ran like a top. I can’t wait to fix it and put some more miles on it. I’ll pick up a battery too. This one looks to be original. the date code on it is ’04 after all.
Here are a few pictures from today.
