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River trip to fix imp

roughwoods

Junior Member
SUPER Site Supporter
Just got back from the Kantishna River.I had a real good 150 mile river trip,got my imp fixed,didn't hit any sand bars or have any motor trouble.I plan on driving the imp home this winter as soon as the ice gets thick.Here are a few pic. of the trip and imp.I had to take off the driver side track and drift the spline end out and found that the bearing was bad on that side.I had a new bearing flew out by float plane so I had to wait two days on parts.A black bear knocked out the drivers side window and bit the seat some but now it looks like it belongs in Alaska.
 

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redragtop

New member
Great to see the Imp up & ready to go, just waiting for snow in MN to go play with our toys! Shouldn't say that to loud, harvest is in full swing here.:hide:

Hey what about that little cabin in the picture,that is what we have been looking at building for a get away. Kind of a trappers cabin. Got any more pics, dimensions, or suggestions on building our own? We pretty much have everything but the building itself, we tend to do things kind of backassward but it works in the end.:YesNo:
 

Trakternut

Active member
Too bad about the "boo-boo" on the Imp. Glad ya got it fixed. Now if them bears will just leave what's left of it alone....................
 

pixie

Well-known member
SUPER Site Supporter
You guys in Alaska seem to have some fun adventures !! I like the bike in the boat :punk:

Glad you got the Imp fixed. I hope this winter is easier on it :mrgreen:

I like your cabin, too. Ditto on > how big is it ?
 

roughwoods

Junior Member
SUPER Site Supporter
The cabin is 16 by 20,tin roof,2" foam in floor ,door opens to the outside so the bears can't push it open.logs are white spruch,lots of work to build.Here are some more pic of our trip.
 

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cabinboy

Member
You folks in alaska sure have to go thru a lot just to get to your cabins. 150 mile boat ride ??? Nice cabin you have there. Glad you got the imp fixed so you can send us more pictures of your adventures.
 

pixie

Well-known member
SUPER Site Supporter
NICE cabin !! Thanks for the extra pictures.
I've always wanted to build a cabin like that .... may happen yet :lucky:
 

roughwoods

Junior Member
SUPER Site Supporter
We don't use current bushes any more.In Alaska we are Currently useing Artic wireing,A 150 mile long heavy duty,insulated Drop Cord!:thumb:I will post some more pic of the river trip and my cabin on Totec lake.It is half way to my cabin on the Kantishna river when we run in the winter .75 trail miles.My main cabin got bear bit,they sure do make a mess! The pic of my log shop is kind of dark hope it shows up ok.
 

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fogtender

Now a Published Author
Site Supporter
Since Roughwoods was posting some of his cabin photos of the Totek Lake cabin, I had a few of them that I took during his construction process and the summer view when I was out working on mine, before he was able to get it together completely.

The photo of the Army tent is what I used when I built my cabin a few hundred yards from this cabin, and then it was moved so he could freeze his butt off at his cabin site at the sub zero temps... Well he froze his butt off when it was over at my place too, so I guess he was seasoned for it!

Every stick, log, window, nail or metal piece of anything was haul out by his snotracs, and they did a very good job considering they were hauling maybe as much as four times the rated loads that they were designed for, and at 40 miles each direction at a time for each load. Although one did break a boggie assembly on the last trip back, it did do much better than I figured it would so I had to eat a bit of crow on that one...

To access the cabins in the summer, flying is the only option, and he went out for a week or so by himself and did the final outside finish work, had a black bear show up now and then and tried to eat a gas can...well did...

The one photo of the cabin with a snowmachine in the background is where my wife and I drove out to see how it was progressing with his construction and check on our cabin. When we drove out the snow was melting fast, there was no standing water on the Nenana River in the morning, when we came back out that afternoon, in the last photo, it shows about a foot of water standing on the ice. Roughwoods made it out about a day or two later, and the river went out either the next day or the day after that. He was cutting it pretty close, but that is what Alaska is about... Then we could have had another wet snotrac thread...

Overall his cabin is really neat and in a pretty nice place to be. Hopefully I will make it out there in a few weeks to my place, and if all goes well, be able to use my dozer/backhoe to dig him a moose trap... That is a large hole for an outhouse that hasn't been finshed yet...
 

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fogtender

Now a Published Author
Site Supporter
Well don't know if we can make it out there before the snow flies... Going to try though.
 

fogtender

Now a Published Author
Site Supporter
Found some more photos of the cabin construction, will post some more of the later tonite.
 

fogtender

Now a Published Author
Site Supporter
Roughwoods had his track rig (Thiokol IMP) break an axle last winter when he was breaking a trail out to his homestead on the Upper Kantishna river district. It was about seventy miles from town, when it broke on the river bank area. He was able to get to it during this last summer on the river and repair it.

This last few days, we rode out to it with gas and new battery to bring it back about half way, where he has a cabin out by mine on the lake that he will use for a halfway point to get to his homestead.

When people hear of "Winter roads", they envision a place where you can drive your truck out into the woods... what they are is very small trails that have been used for years as miner and trapper trails that started out on foot, then dog-sled and now days, snowmachines and other related equipment... not much good for trucks...

Anyway, we went out to our respected cabins the first day (forty miles one way), then the next day we broke trail out to where his track rig was waiting on the Kantishna River bank (another sixty miles round trip). Got it running, I towed his snowmachine and sled while he drove it back to the cabins. Then today headed back to town (another forty miles). I might note that these aren't the groomed type of trails that one might find around some of the more populated areas, these are areas where doing over twenty miles an hour can mean crashing into a tree or going over a bluff, not to mention the critters standing there in the middle of the trail and not wanting to move...

You get to see a lot of wildlife such as moose, wolf, lynx and a host of smaller critters too. We run across wolf killed moose too, sometimes in the middle of the trail. Each trip is different.

While on the way back to town, his snowmachine lost a cylinder. But it appeared to be a coil since if it had been a carb issue and was running lean it would have burnt a hole in the cylinder, it was just dead with compression still. So he was able to drive all the way back, so I didn't have to tow his machine, two sleds and him back to town.

It was a long couple of days, but still a lot of fun regardless. Will be taking a lot of Advil I will assume tomorrow morning... and a long hot bath tonight.


Sunset across the lake to Mt. McKinley


View of the cabin from the outhouse...


Spruce Chicken checking out the snow machine


Spruce Chicken in the tree


Getting ready to get the "IMP" started for the trip home.


Crossing the Toklat River


Towing the snowmachine back to the cabin for thirty miles.
 

NorthernRedneck

Well-known member
GOLD Site Supporter
Nice pics. What year is that snowmachine? Our snowclub has a skandic just like that and we had the same problem with it running on one cylinder. It turned out to be the coil. It only had limited spark and would only run on one cylinder. I had to tow it back one day. Not as far as you guys towed it but still a pain nonetheless. Once we got the coil changed, the machine fired right up and ran like new. Hope that's all that's wrong with yours.
 

fogtender

Now a Published Author
Site Supporter
Nice pics. What year is that snowmachine? Our snowclub has a skandic just like that and we had the same problem with it running on one cylinder. It turned out to be the coil. It only had limited spark and would only run on one cylinder. I had to tow it back one day. Not as far as you guys towed it but still a pain nonetheless. Once we got the coil changed, the machine fired right up and ran like new. Hope that's all that's wrong with yours.

It is about a 98. We figured it was a coil, if it was running lean, it would have burned a hole in the piston after a trip like that, but the plug is fouled. Unpluged the ing. wires and it still started and ran the same, which kiinda rules out the key/kill buttons as having some shorting issues since it didn't run any differently either way.
 

fogtender

Now a Published Author
Site Supporter
Here is a couple videos of the trip back.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmrNlHWfQWM"]YouTube - Imp climbing the gap at the Toklat River[/ame]

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Q1iZmvRzDw"]YouTube - Imp headed back to cabin[/ame]
 
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