Greetings!
I'm new to the forum and currently rebuilding a 2007 Avenger 700 that my dad owned for the last 5 years. He was using the machine to make the 1/2 mile drive from the farm house to the duck blind. Last winter it threw an idler chain and had been sitting in the shed until I picked it up in July.
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Since then I've been acquiring parts as it clearly needed all chains and bearings replaced. During the disassembly I found that most of the axles were frozen in place and the inners (with the stamped hub) were all bent.
The bigger surprise was to find the outer idler shaft bearings were completely gone! On both sides the idler shaft was wearing against the bearing retainers...the balls and outer races had grenaded and were scattered about the inside of the tub. I also found where someone installed an outer bearing in place of an outer and the axle was flopping all around...not sure what Einstein was wrenching on this thing previously
At this point I'm way more invested into this than I had planned (new axles, bearings, chains, axle seals, brake discs, idler shafts, all sprockets. Basically everything that rotates was trashed but I couldn't tell until all the grease and dirt was washed off. I probably could have reused most of the sprockets, but they were showing a lot of wear and I don't want to rebuild the machine again for a while.
I ended up removing the upper tub and have everything removed from the lower tub aside from the frame. After pressure washing the whole thing, it's pretty clear the frame needs to come out for painting.
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Does anyone have experience with this? I'm a little scared to cut those "Magna grip" rivets that hold the frame/tub/skid together, as I have no way to reinstall those. I'm not sure if I could use standard blind rivets or bolts/washers as they won't be waterproof.
-Josh
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