Kanedog discovers a Clutching CATastrophy, again. Pics!

[MK4TDI]

Yes. 4 stroke tcat.

I bet that hurt right away, and still hurts. Fack

 

[drew562]

Getting my alpha ready for a 10 day trip. Went right around it checking bolts track ect. Put a flashlight on my primary and she’s got 5 good cracks on the spider. Leaving in 5 days. I hope I can get one in time. My highcountry has twice the miles and the primary is fine. So far

 

[jhurkot]

Getting my alpha ready for a 10 day trip. Went right around it checking bolts track ect. Put a flashlight on my primary and she’s got 5 good cracks on the spider. Leaving in 5 days. I hope I can get one in time. My highcountry has twice the miles and the primary is fine. So far

You saved a lot of grief by catching it early.

 

[Eldereldo]

The cool thing is that everything I believe can be confirmed/corroborated by non Cat engineers. It’s not like I staged a bs photo shoot and purposely wrecked ****. I do hold some **** back tho. You never want to expose all your cards.

You have copies of those study’s? Willing to pay for to have them done? Otherwise you have conjecture and theories as to why the issues are occurring. With no hard evidence everything you claim is just opinion. Which doesn’t mean that there aren’t issues, but you should have stuck to showing them.

 

[kanedog]

You have copies of those study’s? Willing to pay for to have them done? Otherwise you have conjecture and theories as to why the issues are occurring. With no hard evidence everything you claim is just opinion. Which doesn’t mean that there aren’t issues, but you should have stuck to showing them.

Let’s not deflect and muddy the issue. The pics speak for themselves. As easy as it is to see the cause(s), this issue is far beyond the “why” clutches are exploding. They are exploding. Cat keeps replacing clutches and they keep failing.

There is some progress though. The legal dept wrote a letter to the Federal Gov’t and there has been more than a few clutch meetings with Cat/Team top brass.

Aside from a complete buyback program, customer mod costs included, I don’t know how this safety issue can be fixed. If there’s a buyback program, it will bankrupt Cat.

The above are my beliefs.

 

[acesup800]

Let’s not deflect and muddy the issue. The pics speak for themselves. As easy as it is to see the cause(s), this issue is far beyond the “why” clutches are exploding. They are exploding. Cat keeps replacing clutches and they keep failing.

There is some progress though. The legal dept wrote a letter to the Federal Gov’t and there has been more than a few clutch meetings with Cat/Team top brass.

Aside from a complete buyback program, customer mod costs included, I don’t know how this safety issue can be fixed. If there’s a buyback program, it will bankrupt Cat.

The above are my beliefs.

Buyback what, sleds? Take a little too much meth this morning?

 

[kanedog]

Buyback what, sleds? Take a little too much meth this morning?

Nope, but maybe the US and Canada gov’ts are smoking meth. Sleds are vehicles.

Just imagine if new Ford F-150 driveshafts were failing at the front yoke. Then imagine if Ford didn’t acknowledge the issue and said “we expect the floorboards to protect the vehicle occupants. We comply with Jsxxxcblahblah safety standards.” Guess how fast there would be a recall?

This is no different safety wise. It’s actually worse for the occupant on a sled.

If the manufacturer can’t fix the problem and it is a safety issue, that is where these agencies can help you. Don’t shoot the messenger. I’m only passing on info.

 

[Eldereldo]

And why couldn’t they redesign the clutch and replace them, seems according to your thread a different spacer would stop the clutch from bottoming and get rid of the issue. So recall the sleds, replace the required parts and any damage and away you go. Why would they have to buy back the entire sled?

 

[snochuk]

And why couldn’t they redesign the clutch and replace them, seems according to your thread a different spacer would stop the clutch from bottoming and get rid of the issue. So recall the sleds, replace the required parts and any damage and away you go. Why would they have to buy back the entire sled?

Changing out primary would be far from a corporate deal breaker.

 

[kanedog]

And why couldn’t they redesign the clutch and replace them, seems according to your thread a different spacer would stop the clutch from bottoming and get rid of the issue. So recall the sleds, replace the required parts and any damage and away you go. Why would they have to buy back the entire sled?

Excellent question. There are three problems. Here’s what I see.
1. Cover/spider nut interference-Causes the towers to flex at each full shift action. This issue may have been changed for 2019-2020. I haven’t had a 2020 clutch in my hand yet. Even if this is remedied, the harmonics are still blowing apart the clutches. Also, the belt may be too short to get to full shift. Now the belt will break. If it’s too long, the belt will jump off the primary. The belt length was changed to accommodate the roller bearing.
2. Weak flimsy cover-Allows the towers to flex and weaken, clutch fractures. Easily changed to a stronger version but the harmonics are still causing fractures leading to departing pieces.
3. Harmonics-Attacks structural/stress points causing cracks, premature wear and failures. The new 2020’s are blowing clutches. In early 2017, the recalled clutches had no vibration damper ring. The replacement clutches had one but the clutches still flew apart. A new flywheel and Carbon fibre TCL were incorporated to help vibration in 2020. Clutches still flying apart.
4. Balancing holes drilled in the cover-Some clutch covers are fracturing right on these holes. The holes have affected the structural integrity of the cover. This was just plain dumb on Team’s part. They should have known better. Even if the cover was replaced, harmonics will eat the clutch again.

I can’t see a way out of this for Cat. It’s not possible to ignore it, write fancy legal letters denying it, hope it goes away or bury it. Every solution is a dead end and doesn’t fix the problem. I usually have an idea but I’m stumped on this conundrum.

There are so many clutches to replace, say 20,000+ and then there is the liability issue that is out in the open now. 20,000 clutches x $500=$10,000,000. They were hoping a one year warranty was gonna get the company off scot free. Unfortunately, they knew of the issue. This is where the hot water starts. This is just lil’ ol’ KD on a forum. When legal and liability issues start popping up, employees and ex-employees will start singing like Canaries.

Long azz answer for your entertainment.

The above are my beliefs.

 

[kanedog]

 

[sno_pilot]

wow, that took a while to read through 66 pages. I wanted to make sure i read everything before i jumped in and posted. granted this might be my first post on this site, but i've been active for years on other site and was tipped off to this site and thread from being over on hardcoresledder. I agree with kanedog and the general premise of this thread that there is a problem which needs to be rectified, however this reads too much like a conspiracy theory. below are a couple of some short comings in what i saw over the last 652 posts.

1. I see a little bit of a problem with associating the 2018 recall to all other clutch failures and saying they are all the same. The reason i say that is because a catastrophic failure on an assembly with multiple parts can often times have multiple contributing factors. At the time when those clutches were replaced, if you held the "old" and "replacement" parts side by side, there was a physical casting difference between them. Why the need for the change? I have no idea. However, when that change was identified, in their eyes they resolved the known problem at that time and all of these other failures are from a different root cause. If that's true or not is certainly open for debate, but I'm sure that is part of the reason why Arctic gave the legal response that they did. They took care of what they "knew" to be an issue at that time. Obviously there is other failure modes taking place beyond what they knew about in 2018 to cause the recall, and according to ZRrr's post, it looks like there is finally starting to be some movement on that topic.

2. The crack in the tunnel by the chain case that is shown in post #86 is not caused by harmonics and it doesn't pose a concern to structural integrity. The cause is simply that the outermost layer of the tunnel at that location has too large of a radius where it turns down to the running boards. Once the nut is fastened down it causes a pinch point in outmost layer of the tunnel, which in turn cracks over time due to flexing of the chassis. I say this is not a structural concern because that crack will not propagate any further than was is shown in the photos and it is only the outmost layer that has a crack. The tunnel at that location is three layers thick. If this sled were to be completely disassembled, the two under layers would not have any fractures.

3. As a friend with a machine shop, i'm genuinely interested to hear more from kanedog on his improved clutch design. I know a lot of people often take for granted and assume the OEM always knows best, but the OEM's do have to make compromises once in a while. Sometimes it may be due to design (resources/subject knowledge), sourcing (pricing goals), manufacturing (capability of suppliers), or assembly (process control) and the general public which is free of those limitations does truly come up with better ideas and products. Heck thats why there is so many aftermarket products out there. Although i should add that I think most aftermarket products are simply marketing grab feeding on a captive audience.

 

[kanedog]

wow, that took a while to read through 66 pages. I wanted to make sure i read everything before i jumped in and posted. granted this might be my first post on this site, but i've been active for years on other site and was tipped off to this site and thread from being over on hardcoresledder. I agree with kanedog and the general premise of this thread that there is a problem which needs to be rectified, however this reads too much like a conspiracy theory. below are a couple of some short comings in what i saw over the last 652 posts.

1. I see a little bit of a problem with associating the 2018 recall to all other clutch failures and saying they are all the same. The reason i say that is because a catastrophic failure on an assembly with multiple parts can often times have multiple contributing factors. At the time when those clutches were replaced, if you held the "old" and "replacement" parts side by side, there was a physical casting difference between them. Why the need for the change? I have no idea. However, when that change was identified, in their eyes they resolved the known problem at that time and all of these other failures are from a different root cause. If that's true or not is certainly open for debate, but I'm sure that is part of the reason why Arctic gave the legal response that they did. They took care of what they "knew" to be an issue at that time. Obviously there is other failure modes taking place beyond what they knew about in 2018 to cause the recall, and according to ZRrr's post, it looks like there is finally starting to be some movement on that topic.

2. The crack in the tunnel by the chain case that is shown in post #86 is not caused by harmonics and it doesn't pose a concern to structural integrity. The cause is simply that the outermost layer of the tunnel at that location has too large of a radius where it turns down to the running boards. Once the nut is fastened down it causes a pinch point in outmost layer of the tunnel, which in turn cracks over time due to flexing of the chassis. I say this is not a structural concern because that crack will not propagate any further than was is shown in the photos and it is only the outmost layer that has a crack. The tunnel at that location is three layers thick. If this sled were to be completely disassembled, the two under layers would not have any fractures.

3. As a friend with a machine shop, i'm genuinely interested to hear more from kanedog on his improved clutch design. I know a lot of people often take for granted and assume the OEM always knows best, but the OEM's do have to make compromises once in a while. Sometimes it may be due to design (resources/subject knowledge), sourcing (pricing goals), manufacturing (capability of suppliers), or assembly (process control) and the general public which is free of those limitations does truly come up with better ideas and products. Heck thats why there is so many aftermarket products out there. Although i should add that I think most aftermarket products are simply marketing grab feeding on a captive audience.

Welcome to the Snow and Mud! Hey what’s your screen name on hardcore Sledder? What is your screen name on Snowest? How about super sled? I need to check out some of your posts to see if you are real. You kinda sound like a Cat Spin Doctor. Ya know, mentioning conspiracy theory, manufacturing knowledge, legal knowledge, fuzzying up the issues.
A tad suspect but that can be cleared up easily with a little investigation I’m sure.
This would be wicked if Cat sent a spin doctor to Snow and Mud. History in the making! I’m pretty sure you are a Spin Dr. Kinda hoping you are but then not not cuz you have some good knowledge to share.

Clutches are exploding, tunnels are a cracking, frame bolts are backing out. There no conspiracy theory. It’s happening. Can’t argue with pictures. Cheers

Just reread your post. Definitely a spin dr. I’ll dig up some more tunnel cracks pics for you. They are same ones that Cspc sees.

 

[E-Zmoke]

The original recall clearly states:

Arctic Cat Recalls Snowmobiles Due to *Impact Hazard* (Recall Alert)
Recall Summary
Name of Product: Snowmobiles
Hazard: The snowmobile drive clutch can fracture and fragments can escape the snowmobile shielding, posing an impact hazard.


https://arcticcat.txtsv.com/sites/default/files/_images/content/Clutch-Arctic-Cat-Recall-6.6.17.pdf

 

[06yamahaapex]

There is a new thread on snowest about the drive clutch bearing failure. I bet this has something to do with the failures.

 

[kanedog]

The original recall clearly states:

Arctic Cat Recalls Snowmobiles Due to *Impact Hazard* (Recall Alert)
Recall Summary
Name of Product: Snowmobiles
Hazard: The snowmobile drive clutch can fracture and fragments can escape the snowmobile shielding, posing an impact hazard.


https://arcticcat.txtsv.com/sites/default/files/_images/content/Clutch-Arctic-Cat-Recall-6.6.17.pdf

Ez-smoke, Wikipedia of all things sled comes thru again! The Cat reply to the Cpsc complaint is opposite to what the recall says.

Cat recall statement says the fragments(makes it sound like clutch chunks are small eh?)can escape the shielding.

Then on the reply to my Cpsc complaint, Cat writes that the fragments won’t be expected to escape. Heehee. Which is it? Contradiction right there. Sheesh.

 

[kanedog]

It gets better. Here is the Cat recall statement(pc EZ-smoke) minimizing the potential for injury.

Now checkout Brp’s clutch recall statement. They are upfront and saying it like it is. Yes, someone could die and they say it. Same issue, two different ways of wording it. Corporate games, corporate games.

One recall is a starter ring failure and one recall is a clutch failure. The same injury can/will occur from both so there is no difference. Both spin at 8000rpm and the energy is the same.

There are two other clutch recalls from 1990ish that say the same like Brp but I couldn’t find them.

The above are my beliefs.

 

[bcjeepr]

Arctic Cat .....Dagg

 

[sno_pilot]

Welcome to the Snow and Mud! Hey what’s your screen name on hardcore Sledder? What is your screen name on Snowest? How about super sled? I need to check out some of your posts to see if you are real. You kinda sound like a Cat Spin Doctor. Ya know, mentioning conspiracy theory, manufacturing knowledge, legal knowledge, fuzzying up the issues.
A tad suspect but that can be cleared up easily with a little investigation I’m sure.
This would be wicked if Cat sent a spin doctor to Snow and Mud. History in the making! I’m pretty sure you are a Spin Dr. Kinda hoping you are but then not not cuz you have some good knowledge to share.

Clutches are exploding, tunnels are a cracking, frame bolts are backing out. There no conspiracy theory. It’s happening. Can’t argue with pictures. Cheers

Just reread your post. Definitely a spin dr. I’ll dig up some more tunnel cracks pics for you. They are same ones that Cspc sees.

call me whatever you want, i agree there is a problem that needs to be resolved. but similar to the "flaming" issue, i don't think Arctic Cat has the knowledge or resources to completely figure it out. They'll likely put some band-aids in place and hope it goes away. My original post was simply stating that with the original recall they obviously had identified a problem as you could physically see a difference between the original parts and the replacement parts. However, to simply lump together the original recall and all of the failures since then is too convenient. Is there a problem, yes. Is that problem related to the original recall, no. I've done enough root cause analysis to know that the same failure mode can have multiple root causes. They obviously fixed a "known" root cause with the recall (physical difference to replacement parts). They obviously also didn't fix all of the root causes (continued failures).

i feel i was pretty clear in my explanation of the tunnel crack. you can show all the pictures you want from the outside, but like i said before, that crack won't propagate further than already shown in post #86 and none will have cracks in the middle layer and inner layers of the tunnel. if you are going to show a pic, find a picture with a crack on the inside of the tunnel and get back to me.

i truly do commend you for all the time, energy, thought, and positive contributions to multiple forums that you've provided. and this thread was a rather entertaining read the last couple nights. also, i like your tag line.

 

[kanedog]

Cats root cause of failures is Mgmt. These clowns aren’t doing there jobs. Until Cat fires all mgmt, including the president, all dept heads and everyone on down, the same money losing scenario is just gonna keep repeating itself. One step forward and three steps back. Losing millions along the way. Remember, this is the same crew that sank Arctic Cat to the tune of $247,000,000 and they are still doing it to this day.

Cats issues are easy fixes but they have to decide what direction they are going. Are they 100% gonna full on compete with Brp for market share? Or are they gonna patch things together and hope to sell the sled division? There’s different solutions to each scenario.

Anyways, let’s get this thread back on the rails. Cat clutches are exploding, death or injury could result and Cat has done diddly squat about it. This thread isn’t about me, it’s about a sledder safety issue.

The above are my beliefs. Cheers mofo!