FORGOTTEN Vintage Arctic Cat Pantera Snowmobile - Will It RUN AND RIDE again?

i just picked up this beautiful 1976 arctic cat pantera 5000 it's really a 5 000 i wonder if i had family in the marketing department anyway it appears to be in excellent excellent condition and very well kept but the last time it was registered for use was 1999 or 22 years ago so today i'm just gonna get her fired up and we're gonna go bang some ditches that doesn't sound right but it's too late now [Applause] [Music] derek's buying junk tip 2316 subsection d hook your peepers in around you just give her a scan where are you what are you doing where are you at if there's junk everywhere stacked up in heaps you're tripping on it the feller can't find the thing to the stuff you're in for a doozy now there are some exceptions to that rule so don't get angry at me there guy but what i'm getting at is when i went to pick this sled up you walk into this feller's barn it was tidy everything had a place it was clean it was organized it was well swept the guy cares about stuff this sled here was up on what are they called pallets wood thing in a cube had a tarp on it covered up and it's got 914 dryer sheets in it for some reason and mothballs so i mean he cared about the machine he actually had one just like it with the factory windshield and i think it had some saddle bags on her and i turned it down i just didn't have to change at the time so we ended up with this one here and i think we have a really good shot just based on how this thing is looking i'll pop the hood on this baby and let's take a gander at it so before i get in the power barn and get that up we'll kind of just walk around this old gal and talk about the pantera model arctic cat was kind of like mopar they had 87 made up models most of them didn't mean much other than different stickers articats kind of the same thing the pantera was known as kind of a powerful cruiser so supposed to be comfortable on the trails and the ditches but it shared the same engine as the el tigre which was actually factually the fastest snowmobile for several different years that should be a forced air suzuki two carburetor engine in there and we'll figure out here in a minute but this one had some pretty cool options you had the nice wood grain nice gauge set up in here this one's got 2 112 miles which is fairly low for a 70s machine some you get 6000 even up into 8 000 but then you don't know if the engine is original or not but looking at this already i think this is completely original i've kind of already onced over the thing all the way down to the flap has the original arctic cat flap on it but being this was a cruiser had a nice little trunk area and he had an extra little fuel tank back here just in case empty more dryer sheets sparklater heavily used that doesn't look too good actually now guy can get his brandy in there he's had hitch options and other things like that and the other thing is they were heavier than the lt gray but they're really not that heavy i mean a guy can throw these around pretty easily brake moves throttle moves lightning no lightning get a headlight on pretty basic stuff this one is pull start only so you just had run and off choke isn't stuck being stored indoors is huge i'm not going to pull the rope you'll see why in a minute i got dryer sheets everywhere fiberglass is in great shape i don't think this thing's been used or abused hardly at all not even a poker run bumper isn't caved in so it hasn't rained at somebody at 48 miles an hour skis aren't towing or toe out that's pretty amazing and this is that plush ride guy gets shocked later up here on the old spring now we got luxury going on most of the articaps this gets broken chipped off and that's from guys just being careless and slamming the hood down so that's one of the very first things i look at i mean this thing's really been taken care of hasn't been twisted up this is a snow stuff windscreen that's aftermarkets the originals of course are up here some reason straps are busted off that's no big deal i think i got some actually that's pretty well fogged up tunnel's in good shape you want to look for wrinkles right here that's from hitting culverts this is a little bit kitty wampus so i'm going to take a look at that closer but it's not bent i'm not seeing any huge wrinkles in there nor on the other side and then the confirmed age on these arctic kitties there's this tunnel tag in all of them well it should be there this one is six of 76 and this is when they were making them and thief river falls minnesota and then here's that tag december of 99 now that doesn't mean that was the last time that it ran i have no idea or no way of telling but i don't know why it would be a good running machine and you wouldn't license it up and go scoot it around i guess but hard to say but yeah overall i think i got a pretty good deal on it i am going to probably eventually polish the tunnel up get the seat recovered and stuff like that but let's get the power barn open see what we got going under there and then we'll roll it on its side take a look at the skis and the track and everything else got her propped up here got some life left in these rods those should be fine the hi-fax skidders sliders track my bobbers these look great in fact they must have been replaced right before it was put up they're faded but i mean they're in really good shape still so that's nice tracks cleated it does have some dry rotting in it but it's an old school see that arctic cat that a that's really cool bogeys look fine no excessive wobble the springs aren't busted sometimes you'll find that these are snap shock isn't blown out or bent so i mean overall it's ridable we'll need a track pretty soon that dry rotting it's going to start ripping and coming apart but it's it's a good going to town and the ditch unit for sure so this is the suzuki this would be a 500 dual carb look how clean this thing is it's very rare that you see a machine this clean in the belly everything's here spare belt these are the temperature sending units so these go under the spark later and you got left and right head and that would be this gauge up here but there's these old crumbly dryer sheets they're just they're everywhere on the sled in fact i think they're even in yeah here there oh some seeds fall might have to clean that out even in the exhaust this guy put him everywhere so he clearly cared about the machine didn't want anything to happen to it but i mean everything looks to be complete hasn't been hacked up factory pipes on it all the wiring looks to be in good condition throttles move freely there's no clamps on any of the fuel lines so well i guess there is in that one but these back here looks like an aftermarket on off and filters way down here that looks pretty good although these hoses of course rock hard i mean they've been replaced but years and years and years ago i would say a little bit of oil down here but again it's this is one of the cleanest 70 sleds i've seen under here it's really been taken care of some fixing here of course these have been fixed on guy doesn't want his lights coming out so she's been night driven that's a good hint there let me pull this out i think we got it clear now sounds like great compression let me pull the gas cap see what we got this says it's empty but it's not it's not good it is i mean there's just a little tiny bit in there but not a ton plastic tank that's really nice saves a ton of work i'm not even thinking i'm going to flush that being it's plastic i don't see any evidence of it being cracked or leaking so i think i'm just going to take the air box off take the carburetors off let's pop the bowls off clean them up a little bit and just make sure that the needle seat float look okay and then i think it's as easy as find some sparkle laters throw some fuel in this thing and this just start pulling the rope and see what happens to everywhere i look i'm finding these dryer sheets maybe it does work i don't know do you guys use dryer sheets or moth balls or what have you i've used dryer sheets before but i can't really say that they worked but maybe they do i don't know you guys can put it down in the comments if you've got anything to keep mice away i'd sure like to know i'm having a heck of a time nothing in here oh there is a baffle in here and that must have kept the mice from getting all the way in there were some seeds that came out of here when i pulled that one sheet out i think take the boots off the back of the fuel making happeners and this air box should be able to come out of here i don't know which direction it comes out but we'll figure it out this way maybe there we go oh lots of silicone around the inlets here man this thing is clean again that was a fuel inlet hose and no clamps just easily slid off that's i don't know if he was in the middle of changing out filters or changing out hoses these are obviously different but i'm gonna have to put some clamps on those that doesn't make sense to me wow how long are these wow really clean really clean we might not have much work to do today which is nice i'm ready to just go ride same story of course i smell like varnish oil but they are very clean so these have been siliconed up i don't know if this was cracked off or if it was just leaking not that it's doing a ton not quite sure what oh yeah they're cracked so i'm gonna have to redo that i guess and look how clean it is in here that's pretty crazy yeah these didn't have any clamps on it easily pulled right off these are exceptionally clean so take these clamps off and i don't know if i want to pull these choke cables out so i might just swing them over here get some paper towels down snip off the old bowl of the carburetor hopefully i can get it off without breaking that gasket because then we're up a quick without a paddle i wanted to knock this out quick so i could start drawing i did the same exact thing but i use the black permatex i think there must have been that clear window silicon on there and gas and oil will eat that up this will hold a little bit better schedules got this side off flipped the belt guard up got the speedo cable out of the way then i can actually get to the screw there being really gentle here i don't want to break these boots they're fairly soft yet which is great [Music] yep okay yep this would be the right one as you're riding it crack this open see what we got in here i'm going to guess that this guy probably cleaned everything before he stuck these in storage just by looking at this sled gentle gentle derrick be gentle gentler oh i didn't break it floats are moving that's great needle stuck very typical um i'm gonna get something to press this pin out and then i can work this needle free with just some carb cleaner don't pull them out with pliers to score them up but shoot some juice in there she'll loosen up and then we'll see if we gotta emery cloth that or just be really delicate and shine it up a little bit so it doesn't stick anymore i'm in a predicament here on this fuel make it happener and i wanted to show you guys this case you want to cross it in order to remove the needle and seat this little pin right here has to come out that goes across there and holds this this one's been flattened or tampered on this side and it's not impossible but getting this pin out is uh quite a bit of work and pretty touchy if you get too rambunctious i don't know the technical term but this tower of these stems you can snap these then you're jb welding it or buying another carburetor so i'm actually going to leave this alone and even though that needle is stuck i'm just going to set it up like this and then i'm going to take some juice and just try to work it free this way while it's in there and as you can see that's not in my favor yet there she goes now she's starting to work free put it over here now there so i'll keep working on that and make sure that this is going to be moving freely so that's now resolved that i'll run some more through there just to make sure it's not going to stick again otherwise these carbs look like they're in very good shape one of these floats was sticking like that there it comes i'll shoot some juice in here too lubricate these up but these have definitely been cleaned before it was stored this is the left carb now didn't break the gasket there is some dirt in this one yeah another stuck needle same story here i'm just going to clean her out just like this and hope that like a break or free there she goes those are back in throttle caps are back on these micunies are really good carbs actually it takes a lot to fumble them up i think before i put the fuel lines back on i'm going to try to prime on it a little bit and basically i could dump some fuel in here and i'm gonna blow some air in there and see if i can at least fill these lines down at this part here so i'm not cranking on it forever to get these bowls filled back up and if that doesn't work then i could put a line on a one gallon jug and there's that little breather nipple and i could pop that onto the carb here just flip the gas can upside down and that'll fill the bowls up for you so you have fuel quicker that way as well so i'll find some gas and i'm just going to mix it to 50 to 1 and put that stuff in there and i think i have a cap for that too we'll see yeah so this here is around 50 to 1. the sled calls for 20 to 1 originally back in 76 but keep in mind that oil has changed so much and so is gas that i'd started at 40 or 50 to 1 right around there read your plug see how it's performing and make adjustments from that point so i got the old nozzle later 3000 xl over here and i'm gonna put my hand around this and then give her some air and i'll set you guys up and hopefully you can see the filter filling with fuel and we get all this here primed up there we go and then i'll switch this back to off well we got the fuel system all figured out carbo-riders cleaned up got the lines primed let's see if we got some lightning and then we'll go to just throwing out the old back looking forward to it dope grab some ngks here stuck one in just gonna lay it across the head and basically we're looking for lightning anywhere in this region we're gonna call that good make sure the keys on kill switch isn't on here's hoping i definitely don't have another coil a little bit there we go well she ain't nothing to run to town and have a beer about but i think we got some lightning in fact i saw lightning on the left side better with the plug off it arched across to the head so i think screw those sparklaters in hook up the fuel line say i'm going to put some clamps on that and then we just let's see if it starts huh here we go place your bets it's definitely gonna run it's just how much work is it gonna take to get it running i'm gonna go with choke see what happens [Applause] oh unbelievable that was okay i'm that was not expected this thing runs amazing wow two poles i didn't even get the l bring the thunder that's just wild i think i've got myself a really good running machine here i'm gonna wait about another half hour i'll get the air box back on and everything else and then i'll fire it up again for you guys let you guys hear it run a little bit more in the meantime i'll check the oil here look over a couple other things brake pads look fine just make sure she's ready to go out and hit the ditch because you know i'm going to do the right thing and i'm just planning on going several miles from the shop since i know nothing about the sled and the reliability of it because i found some finger drifts they look pretty good so got to get in them i got updates scooted it around the shop i don't know three four times until my face fell off got her up to temp did the old well it shut down it did and then while she fired back up it did i even got tail lips and a head lamp i mean it's ready to go to town i trust it so i'm going to get the overalls on throw a brain bucket on and jam it in the ditch i got i don't know eight nine ten miles something like that just drove by there on my pickup this morning it's about as deep as snow we're gonna get around here got some finger drifts i just like smashing into them so i'll take you guys with me and hopefully i don't gotta walk on home i do have a name for it already daryl after daryl abbott formerly a pantera i think it suits it well it's got a vulgar display of [Applause] [Music] horsepower [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] hmm uh [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] this sled is a ripper and i ain't kidding you i don't know how or why but it runs really good i'm gonna get another half hour 45 minutes of riding in mazel just keep scooting that way if you guys want to see more sled content post down below please i take a look at those often thanks guys for watching we'll see you next time you

Channel: Vice Grip Garage

Views: 834,951

Keywords: motortrend, roadkill, vice grip garage, vise grip garage, vgg, vintage, classic, snowmobile, snowmachine, polaris, arctic cat, arctic, cat, barn, farm, find, will, it, run, will it run, abandoned, forgotten, pantera, cheetah, el, tigre, el tigre, puma, skidoo, ski, doo, scorpian, scorpien, riding, snowmobiling, old, start, ride

Id: e5YcmkJzVoQ

Length: 26min 59sec (1619 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 12 2021