Best way to go about this ??? Want more bottom end torque for towing a sleigh for ice fishing,so I want to know if it would be better to look at clutching or gearing ???? Please don't saY a bigger machine,I just can't afford that right now !!!

Thanks Seppi

Gearing is what you want to do to get better low end. However, we use a number of those 340s around here. We personally have two in our yard while a neighbor I've worked with has at least a half dozen more. They are good pulling machines just as they are, capable of pulling sleds of several hundred pounds. I don't think you really need to gear them down to make them get the work done. The only exception to that might be trying to pull an ice-house weighing 1000 pounds or so across a lake. For that it would probably be advisable to gear down. Of course it would probably make as much or more sense to put a couple dozen studs in the track too, and even more advisable to get another machine to assist.

If you do decide to gear it, simply increasing a tooth or two on your lower sprocket will be noticeable. The upper gear is rather small already so going smaller (and to an even tighter radius) is probably inadvisable. I would look carefully at the case to see if there is actually room for a bigger sprocket on the lower side. As I said, we have never changed gearing on these machines as they are quite useful in terms of torque just as they are.

Gearing is what you want to do to get better low end. However, we use a number of those 340s around here. We personally have two in our yard while a neighbor I've worked with has at least a half dozen more. They are good pulling machines just as they are, capable of pulling sleds of several hundred pounds. I don't think you really need to gear them down to make them get the work done. The only exception to that might be trying to pull an ice-house weighing 1000 pounds or so across a lake. For that it would probably be advisable to gear down. Of course it would probably make as much or more sense to put a couple dozen studs in the track too, and even more advisable to get another machine to assist.

If you do decide to gear it, simply increasing a tooth or two on your lower sprocket will be noticeable. The upper gear is rather small already so going smaller (and to an even tighter radius) is probably inadvisable. I would look carefully at the case to see if there is actually room for a bigger sprocket on the lower side. As I said, we have never changed gearing on these machines as they are quite useful in terms of torque just as they are.[/b]

So here's the problem,i'm a big Boy,6' and 300 #s ,pri..clutch and secondary have been cleaned and inspected ,upper and lower drive bearings been replaced as well as a few idler wheel bearings......Seems to pull OK when cooler outside....but its boggy when it warms up(the machine)...125psi PTO side,123 Mag.....about 600km on top end rebuild last year...spark plugs seems to always be on the very dark brown to blackish side!! Has stock35 pilot and 145 mains for our alltitude of 900' above sea level...like I said mid to high speed seems fine,but boggy at the bottom! ANY IDEAS ??

You might play with the jet needles a bit. Dropping them when it's warmer may give you the improvement you want. Boggieness is unlikely to be solved by gearing. The clutches on the little 340s don't seem prone to wearing very fast. However, if they have been in any way degraded over time due to corrosion to where there is just a bit of unwanted resistance, that might have some effect. I assume that you weights were nice and tight when you went over the primary? The bearing on the outer plate as well as the primary shaft also need to move freely. The secondary can be given a bit more tension to keep it from opening quite as soon as it does. In your situation that might be helpful also.

Are you running the stock rear suspension? 300# is rather much for those Lite GT suspensions in IMO. I go just over 200# and find the suspension barely able to keep up. Newer models have somewhat better suspensions. Also, you can stick other suspensions under the GT as long as they are built for the 133" track.