Santa didn’t bring a new snowmobile
Tuesday 25th December, 2007 | 11:34 pmKat and I decided to take the dogs out for a Christmas walk (that and I wanted to to try getting my snowmobile back to the village), so we headed out to the new airport:
When we got to the snowmobile, I turned the ignition turned on, choked it, and it started on the third pull. I think I’m actually flipping it off in this photo…
I rode it a few hundred yards and it was still having problems, but I tried heading back to the village anyways. Was fine at a constant 6,000rpm along the runway, but then cut out twice on the trail back to the village as the revs rose and fell across the bumps. Finally, it quit and that was it. After another half an hour battle we retreated home to check things out a bit more (more commonly called calling my dad 
). Still, was a pretty walk back, and it broke down only a few hundred yards out the village:
After a bunch of suggestions, I left it a couple of hours to settle itself down hoping it would start up again and at least get me home, but nothing. Don’t think it’s what was causing the problem originally, but it won’t start now due to some kind of fuel flow failure. Ended up with all the fuel lines disconnected and joints cleaned, but the fuel pump doesn’t seem to be drawing any fuel in after it’s expended what was already in the lines and the filter. There’s definately gas in the tank and the lines and valves all appear clear, and I’ve tracked down problems online with snowmobiles having sat for prolonged periods of time then having fuel pump and / or filter issues. Either that or there’s a blockage somewhere possibly due to freezing somewhere I can’t see, so all I can do is hope it clears tomorrow enough to get me home. Can then look at whether it’s worth replacing the fuel lines, filter and pump (fairly cheap and not too complicated) and whether that’s been part of the bigger problem.
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Iain Foulds, 25 years old. Originally from England, now living in Bethel, Alaska where I work as a systems analyst for the school district. I've been involved in a number of open source projects for many years and used to produce two major music podcasts.