Zollinger Tube Chassis Restoration

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I thought some of you may like to see a build I wrapped up earlier this spring and hopefully it’ll help turn up another sled I’ve been looking for. Without getting too crazy into the long story of finding this sled it was found in Alaska after being sold by a family member, unfortunately it had been parted out to the point where it was almost unrecognizable.

 

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After the logistical nightmare of getting not one, but two of these chassis. (More on that later.) home to Utah I could finally see what I was working with. All in all the chassis was in very good shape just missing the front nose structure and the tunnel liner had seen better days.

 

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I set to work straight away on stripping the chassis down and building a new nose using the other chassis as a guide.

 

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With the nose tacked into place and the paint cleaned away from a few cracks I took the frame to a local rig welder to be finished up and have the cracks repaired which left me with the task of cleaning up and polishing the liner.

 

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With the chassis back from being welded it was then sent off to ZBROZ to be sand blasted and powder coated. The outcome was very nice! I then reinstalled the newly polished liner.

 

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Next I began work on restoring a set of PLP trailing arms, which revived the same treatment as the rest of the chassis.

 

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Over the next few weeks build progress slowed while I struggled to find parts for the build. Luckily enough I turned up a few jems including new hoods. A new 144” finger track and a brand new set of Tison/fastrax long trailing arms. I also tracked down a set of crank shop 9800 rpm pipes minus the flanges and missing some of the silencer parts.

 

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Another issue I faced was shocks, being that there were only five of these sleds ever built I couldn’t just buy anything off the shelf. But as luck would have it in the box of parts that came with the chassis was one of the original custom built works shocks. I again turned to zbroz to have them replicate the shock using newer more up to date technology. Once again they killed it with the final product.

 

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With the front suspension sorted it was time to focus on the skid. I began hunting for and even purchased a couple of used m10 suspensions. Up until this point I had been working from just the one photo in my first post of the sled sitting in the Tison showroom, but a friend stumbled across this image while surfing. I know the hood throws it off but sure enough this is the same sled as in Tison’s show room the picture came from a for sale ad in Alaska for a Tison TMK, oh how wrong they were.

 

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But with this new photo brought to me a glaring problem BOTH of the m10’s I had purchased had the wrong rail profiles/design. For most this wouldn’t be a deal breaker but for me I couldn’t live with it so back I went scouring for another and after much digging I was able to turn up the correct skid, threw a quick polish on it and it was ready to install.

 

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With the skid ready it was time to get it assembled as a rolling chassis.the stock skidoo chain case cover was polished and the 20 year old brake rotor was sent to ZRP to be cut and lightened. I also was able to source a NOS hole shot skid plate just like the original.

 

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With the sled now sitting as a roller it was time to focus on the motor, up to this point I had planned on rebuilding the $100 blown 809 triple pictured earlier but a stock rebuild wouldn’t do this sled justice nor would it turn the rpm the pipes were tuned for but a full mod motor build would cost thousands on top of a budget that was almost non existent at this point. Facing the reality of the project being halted it sat as a roller for a few weeks when one day I received a call in response to a wanted ad I had posted and what I heard I almost couldn’t believe.it was another tube chassis but not just any chassis it was serial number 002 of 2 built by Mark Holz for Kirk Williamson later recognized by its Captain America theme as raced by Dean Williamson. It too was almost unrecognizable after changing hands but it was powered by a running 809 triple just what I needed.

 

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I’ll admit it did feel like Robbing Peter to pay Paul harvesting the engine from one vintage tube chassis to put in another but the Williamson has found its way to a good home with someone who was actually a part of Kirks team back in the day. He plans to stuff a 1050 Polaris watercraft based triple in it. Now back to my build, with the motor and pipes in place I then set about on building the silencers.

 

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After the silencers were finished they along with the pipes were sandblasted and painted with high temp ceramic header paint.

 

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With it starting to really look like a sled it was time to focus on the seat and hood mounting. I made a cardboard template then transferred the pattern to some black UHMW I had a friend whip up some custom hood pins as well.

 

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Now aside from FACS class in middle school I have zero sewing skills or knowledge so I had to outsource the upholstery work. Thankfully using pictures I had found in old photo albums and some supplied by Curt at Fastrax we had a pretty good idea of what the seat should look like.

 

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Alas another skill I do not possess nor have the patience for is paint work. Luckily I had some connections to one of the best paint shops in Utah, Elite Customs. Again working from nothing but old photos they were able to recreate the original paint job amazingly.

 

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Now while the hood and seat were being done I was tying up details like the fuel tank, fuel lines, coolant hoses and killswitch

 

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Another job to be done was building all the enclosure panels around and under the engine.

 

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If you’ve followed along this far thank you. And know the final reveal is coming soon but first one more cool story. While talking with a friend in Alaska (whom was instrumental in getting these chassis back in the first place.) about a sled he just picked up something caught my eye. Remember that only 5 of these sleds were ever built so parts for them aren’t exactly all over the place which is why I was astonished by what I was seeing peeking from behind a diamond plate tach mount. The ORIGINAL custom made CNC handlebar clamp. With a little sweet talking and some trading done it was back where it belongs on the sled it was built for be it a small part it’s still significant in taking this restoration to the next level.