2010 moose hunting

[chinook]

Good trip, Dad had his clutch come apart 20 miles in the first day & I had to tow him out, 19 hour day & if I didn’t have my tracks it would still be there. My wife and I were able to stalk down on this guy about 1.5 miles away he was with some cows. We got him 40 minutes before dark. Wet year lots of mud & water, the tracks did great in that stuff (Unstoppable), but we chose to use the wife’s to do any running around, and it was hers that packed this guy out of the swamp bottom at midnight.
Wanted to say thanks to Rock Doctor, the video on rebuilding the secondary helped hers had no problems this year, no belt squeal. The discussions about running with tracks helped too, I had no trouble & put it under a lot of stress pulling out the old conquest.







argos.jpgcamp.jpghis and hers.jpgmoose 2010.jpgmoose.jpg

[plott hound]

by golly thats a nice moose.them big ones good eating up there?

[chinook]

This guy didn't stink at all, and yes he's been a good eater. We just got back our hot dogs & pepperoni sticks they turned out gooood.

[AlaskaGrizzly]

Nice moose! Did the primary or secondary clutch come apart on your dad's conquest? I'm curious as we have conquests too.

[Rock Doctor]

Great Moose, I just got one myself yesterday. Mine is a little "Wonky" in the antler department. He has a single spike on one side and he is an 8 point on the other side . Oh well, I don't eat antlers, so I don't imagine it will matter too much.

Glad I could help you out a bit earlier.
I'm also interested in what happened to your dad's Conquest. What clutch? Do you have pics?, Do you suspect what it might have been that caused it to fail? When you say "came apart", do you mean "Broke" or "Bolts/nuts backed off"?


RD

[chinook]

Rock Doctor congrats back at ya. We filled the freezer last year with a cow. We felt blessed to get this guy for sure. 58-3/4”

The conquest is a 2002 with just under 500 hrs. Dad has been known to grind the gears now & them too. It has all ways seemed to have a loud transmission, louder then the conquest I had. Hindsight being 20/20 the old girl told us she was having trouble. I asked him about it before we left, if all that noise was normal; I thought I was just hearing things now that I was used to the Avengers. Well about 4 miles in, he said it was acting funny, and I could hear something was up. After looking it over I found a loose radiator hose and thought anti-freeze was causing the belt to slip and squeal, tightened that and realized there was more to it, I found that the secondary side brake actuator bolts had backed out, so it was rattling loose and the bolt was rubbing on the rotor. So I fixed that & things seem much better, still a lot of noise but he felt it was normal. We continued on. We made it to the river which was very high and turned around for plan B. While back tracking to our second spot he got stuck in a mud hole, when I went back to give him a tow I found out he had smoked a belt too. We changed his belt, I towed him out and we went about another mile. I had stopped to let them catch up and I could hear him coming and boy did it sound bad. I had him shut it down and started inspecting the clutch and transmission. I found the Secondary was messed up the helix had broken of one of the tips. We took a lot of weight off him and started to nurse it out. He went about another mile and the whole Secondary helix failed, which smoked other belt, and there we were….. I began the long tow out.

I have not torn it down and only have ideas that the transmission may be the root cause of the problem. I told him to get the parts & well start with his Secondary. The transmission fluid still looks good and doesn’t smell, but I haven’t drained it yet to see if it has any shavings.

[arp35]

Great story...very envious of you being able to hunt large game and have your Dad with you. If you add a bear or mountain lion attack it would make a great movie. Keep feeding us info about your trips and be careful out there...

[AlaskaGrizzly]

Chinook,

Thanks for the info on the clutch. Reminds me of the time that I had to tear the secondary on my 80's argo apart 20+ miles from the hwy because it kept sticking open. I ended up buying myself a new secondary because the original clutch was too worn out to bother fixing.

As far as transmissions goes I'll share my experience. I've have two Conquests, the 2000 has a louder transmission than the 2003. I bought the 2000 last Fall and gave it a work over during the winter. The transmission noise bothered me so I tore the transmission apart to inspect it. I thought it had a bad gear or something. The oil I drained out looked normal. The bearings & gears all looked good. I put it back together and it is still louder than the 2003. If nothing else I now have a piece of mind of knowing what I've got.

Where in Alaska do you live? I'm in Wasilla. If you get into the transmission have some questions let me know. I've been into 3 of them and the trickiest part is getting them split.

[chinook]

I feel fortunate to have be able to enjoy these trips with my dad, not that there hasn’t been some adversity. I hope at 70 I'm able to go and that our boys will take me/us.
No bear attack stories but, we have a good number of “moments” that didn’t seem fun or funny at the time which now we can laugh at. Don't attempt to climb up on the argo rack while your wife is taking aim at a large bull, make for a long ride home.

AKGrizz. Thanks for the input, I’ll keep you in mind when I get to tearing it down. We live in Sterling now; I grew up in Cooper Landing.