Random Ridings
__________________________-from the e-mail trail
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I have BIG TIME Chappy news! Today I was at a friend's house discussing (what else?) vintage racers and he told me he knew of a Chap IFS racer right in my town! I just about.....well, you can imagine. Anyway, I went and looked at it tonight and my god, it's a real IFS 650 racer! It's in pieces, and in rough shape, but without any shadow of a doubt restorable, and it's 100% there, including engine and everything. The Fuji 650 triple F/A turns over and would probably run. The only thing I saw on it that was unfixable were the original aluminum skis were totally shot. The track was in really nice shape, and everything. The rear shocks are enclosed by aluminum, and the seat snaps onto the sides of the tunnel. The track (from what I'm told.) is a cleated Arctic Cat unit. It's all there, pipes and all. Anyway, the story goes that this guy has owned the sled for over 20 years, and that it passed through the hands of S&S Distributing in Wayland (about 7 miles from where I live, now known as Waco Sales but still run by the same guy). At some point before ending up out near Cobb Lake, then getting bought and spending the last 20 some years in storage and hasn't run since. I'm trying desperately to get my hands on the machine, but the owner is somewhat convinced he's "going to do something with it someday." (which is the usual story, and then they let it sit there and rot forever). The good news is that it's indoors, but is still going to need a total resto. The hood is probably the worst part. The front edge of it has a large section missing, but looks repairable. I am left wondering only a couple things. For one, how many of these were made? and two, can I still get parts for it if I get it? On that first question, I know pretty much that it's at least a '73, because it has a later looking hood and is the one without the windshield and the black area surrounding where it would be. The IFS is totally enclosed by the bellypan and hood, and supposedly the bellypan is in three pieces. The very bottom part, the individual sides, and then the hood. The dash holds only a tach and three temp gauges. It has two fuel tanks, one on the clutch side of the machine just under the jackshaft secondary, and another right in front of the rider like a regular Chap. Can you shed any light on this one for me?? I don't know if I'll be able to pry it out of the hands of this guy or not, he told me he fully intends to restore it but lacks ambition. He also has a couple other guys interested in it that I imagine have more money to offer than I do, but I'm going to try. He said he paid $500 for it back then, so I offered $600 for it but he's kinda sketchy and said he'll get back to me on it. If I had more I'd offer it but I guess we'll see. Anyway, if you have any idea about how many were made or what year it is I'd sure appreciate it! Thanks again,
9-21-01 I am the Proud owner of a 72 Chappy 440. As a child I remember begging my dad to purchase a Chaparral for us but it never happened. We rode Polaris. Well, the dream never died and last spring I was driving down the road and for sale in someone's yard was the Chappy . . . Bought it on the spot. Overall it was in pretty good shape, minor tear in the seat, and it needed to be cleaned up. It also had a pretty weak track. I fixed the seat, cleaned it up and put about 150 miles on it this past winter. . . (a couple of classic rides but most of all I was reliving my childhood) I'm just so happy to finally have my "Chappy". . . My wife calls it my 2nd wife. Anthony 3-25-2001 Nice site. My Dad was a Chapparal Dealer and Moto-ski for many years in Aberdeen South Dakota. He sold over 300 of the 1974 SSX 340 and 440. There were alot of the 340s around here but now it is hard to even see one on the trails. We sold the one 440 ssx we had about six years ago and we also had the Firebird 292 that was a great sled. Still wish we had kept both of them. The reason my Dad sold so many of the 1974s was if you bought a SSX he gave you a 80cc chapparal Dirt Bike for FREE... He bought a whole rail box car load of them and they were great bikes. We had a 80cc and 125cc that my brother and I rode for many years and never had anything break on them. They had Fuji engines in those bikes also. My Dad has since passed away and this summer I will go through some things that he had packed away as I no I may have all kinds of service manuel items and other things from the factory as he was a dealer for many years. Keep up the work to save the memories of the good old days. I now ride Arctic Cats. Scott in South Dakota 3-28-2001 With the 80 cc I blew away 125cc kawasaki dirt bikes all day long. We also had a white in color 125cc Chap dirt bike racer that was a rocket in the dirt.
Ed -- I've added a preliminary page for Chaparral
Dirt Bikes. Please send any info and pictures you have to
Chaparral@spiritusa.net
My father has one of these in near perfect condition sitting in his garage (also has a spare 3cyl fujistar with it ). This is the first time I've seen another one like it. His has been sitting for at least 20 yrs (broken track). I built one back in 1990 for it, took it for a quick ride and about went deaf. Those three unmuffled chambers are loud. Gregory I just want to say I love your site, and I LOVE my Chaparral. Last winter I went to Moosehead lake ( Rockwood Me.) for a few days of ice fishing. I took my 100 dollar Chaparral and my buddy took his 72 Cat, to meet up with some friends. Upon arriving we noticed all the more recent model sled were still in the yard, and everyone was down on the ice. When asked why they didn't have there sled out they told us the banks were to big for there sleds to break through. So I off loaded my 72 Chap and started her on the third pull and proceeded to blaze a trail from camp to the ice. Let me tell you those guys with the pretty sleds have never lived that down. Hey Love the site, maybe you could add a readers picture area so some of us could show ours? Hi, thank you very much for the FAQ page!! I picked up an SSX and my son went to work "fixing" it...!!! Well, the fuel lines were rotted and he ripped 'em off without checking how they were routed. Naturally by the time I got there it was head scratching time....I did ok and ended up routing them correctly but had the "extra" stem to ponder. Your fuel line routing diagram cleared up the confusion!!!! GREAT. I really like the sled...it
is in fairly good shape. I'll take some photos soon. I have
also found a cache of parts nearby and will probably post parts for
sale....found a complete SS/3 and have Thanks again! I thoroughly enjoyed your web page. To put it mildly, it sent shivers down my spine. My brother bought a '72 Firebird 400 new. Neighbors also bought a pair-340 and 440 respectively. At that time (I was in diapers yet) Chaparral was the one to beat. Ski Doos fell behind and Arctic Cats were no where to be seen. I learned of Chaparral's early '70s prowess from the one time Chaparral dealer (and at the time, not so suprisingly, the local Polaris dealer). He still has an autographed picture of the '72 SSX racing team on the track at Eagle River. As the Snow Goer article stated,
the technology used to create the first IFS was generated by Team Chaparral
and the Unsers. I can still remember the Polaris promo for the RXL with
the Unsers standing proudly by their IFS creation, too bad Chaparral
didn't get the well deserved recognition for it. I proudly use my knowledge
of that fact to correct seemingly knowledgeable Any and all information you have on the '72 Firebird SS and the '74 Firebird 493 would be greatly appreciated, as my son and I are currently starting a resto job on these sleds. Photos will certainly follow. Long live the 'bird-with the triple black stripes projecting from under that aluminum grill! Thanks, Bill In the '73 model year Chaparral tried to make too many changes, and during production they also modified the clutch again because the components used in the prototype were too expensive. As a consequence to these changes we had problems with the pararail suspension, not enough snow could get over the edges of the track to lubricate the rails in light snow. The rails were prone to break. Chaparral was forced to retrofit the pararails with a reinforcement kit and bogie assist. The clutch worked great when we first sent the sled out but after a short time they were rattling and locking up. After an inspection we found the internal spline bushing was completely worn out. The other problem was vapor locking. This was caused by the added insulation that they had used reduce noise. Chaparral was true to their word and recalled the sleds to be retrofitted. We not only modified the suspension, as noted above, but we replaced the clutches (Salsbury) and removed all the insulation. After all this work, the sled performed well, but they were a little short on traction. Learning what they did wrong in '73, Chaparral applied that knowledge to the '74 models. The '74s were a premier sled, fast, maneuverable and good looking. They were well ahead of their time. It was then that Armco Steel closed the doors on Chaparral. I think for two reasons. One [was that Armco realized it was not in the snowmobile business and snowmobile manufacturing] was not part of their core business and the second because of the '73 loss due to the retrofits. I did hear that a company in Canada was making a sled similar to the Chaparral after '74, but they were not able to get going in the market. They were called Argo. I have four sleds, two 74s and two 73s. One SSX liquid and three Firebirds. I am looking for some 74 parts including tracks, suspensions and engines. Thanks, |