Ok guys on my first ride the weekend of December 20th, 2003 which was also a ride after heavy rains in the Rangely area, I hit a washout on the throttle side of my sled. The front of the ski was bent up and I ended up bending the trailing arm. Fortunately everything else looks good and the alignment looks ok. Finally got the part before Christmas.

Here is my question...What have you guys used to compress the front spring and are there any tips or tricks to make the removal and reinstallation go smoother. It looks pretty simple and Im fairly mechanically inclined but I have never had to do anything like this to a sled before.
Thanks in advance.

The Sled is a 2003 MXZ Adrenaline 600ho (not a rev) ASDA front suspension.

Look on the front page of the SnowmobileWorld site, there is an article on installing a Fabcraft front suspension system on a ZX chassis sled. It has the step by step on what you are doing.

Originally posted by 03Adrenaline600ho@Dec 28 2003, 02:45 PM
Here is my question...What have you guys used to compress the front spring and are there any tips or tricks to make the removal and reinstallation go smoother.
you don't have to compress the spring and you'll need a set of snap-ring pliers that have small ends on them to drop the spindle out.

You don't have to remove the spring from the shock. Just raise the front of the sled to take the weight off the suspension. Remove the lower bolt on the shock.

You might want to check the shock & control arms though. Even though I had no problems getting home after my accident (steering wise), the shock & both control arms were bent along w/ the T/A.

It is an easy, yet time consuming fix. But check everything over really good. Bending a trailing arm usually causes more problems, you could have bent the footrest, radius rods, stabilizer bar, just check everything out. Taking it apart and putting back together is easy though. Just raise the front end off the ground and start taking thing's apart, the shock don't need to be compressed as long as there is no pressure on it. Check the shock though, they bend easy with the trailing arm.

Thanks guys, the trailing arm was bent but not severely, in my uneducated opinion. I'll see if I can take a picture but looking at it everything looks good except for one thing and it was hard to tell if it is a problem or not.

The shaft that goes into the back of the trailing arm was not centered perfectly in the plastic cut out of the body it appeared to be toward the back of the sled a little, but did not appear bent to my untrained eye. The trailing arms rubber bushing/boot covers the plastic hole completely so I'm not sure that this rod was suppose to be in the center of the plastic circle. Also I had no problem removing the back of the trailing arm from this post. The footrest was still in its stock position (not bent up or collapsed in). If any of you guys have a picture of the generic suspension components with their names I could explain it a little better, but I'll keep you posted.

thanks for the help and I apologize for lacking the specific Jargon to speak intelligently about what I'm observing.

Anytime that I have to straighten a trailing arm sled I always measure the rear of the arm to the back of the sled. Just locate a symetrical hole or corner at the back of the sled to measure to. I have used the holes for the rear bumper cover already or an edge of the tunnel at the corner of the snow flap. You can use these same points when you check your ski alignment. I will usually put a few tarp straps together and hook one end on each handle bar and loop the strap around the back bumper. Don't just tie the handle bars back with their own strap as this wont allow you to center the handle bars, the straps need to be hooked together and not to the sled. Be sure also to measure your handle bars' height from side to side, they'll bend down pretty easily in a crash.
Hope this helps, good luck.