This 1989 Yamaha Enticer 340t has been around before "day one". Having passed hands from Mr. Sooley to his young feller & crew member Paul Sooley somewhere around 2001 this tired old beast was in need of some major work. The sled had a 340cc fan cooled twin cylinder two stroke engine which ran well and was actually pretty quick. Unfortunately a run in with a tree by Mr. Sooley meant the frame was bent and out of alignment. This was the first sled project undertaken by our crew, most of it took place in Maffer's back yard and often into the wee hours of the night during the summer of 2003. Unfortunately there are not many photos from the early days of this sled, or the initial rebuild as photography wasn't as popular or convenient as it is today with digital cameras.

We completely stripped the Enticer right down to the frame and tunnel, and then drilled out the rivets to separate the two and replace the bent front chassis. Acting on a tip, we all headed to the Horse Chops Dump to search for a bravo frame rumoured to have been discarded there. Similar to the Enticer frame, we could use a Bravo frame for parts. After picking out a good frame, I happened to spy a familiar shape peaking from under an old washing machine. Low & behold sitting there was a nearly perfect Enticer Frame!!!

Upon arriving back to Maffer's Sled Restoration Facility (we hadn't thought of the Area51 name yet!) we cleaned the new frame, welded on a new sheet metal belly pan, and attached it to Sooley's tunnel with proper steel rivets. Now the rest of the reassembly could finally begin. I spent a couple hours pounding out dents in the metal side panels while the guys reinforced the weakened tunnel with fibreglass woven mat and resin.

By far the funniest part of this saga was when Sooley went to paint the hood in Maffer's shed, in his choice of Tremclad Blue. Since there were no witnesses, we can only speculate the procedure used in the application of this paint, but at the end of the day the hood was painted, along with EVERY SINGLE surface inside Maffer's shed!!! The whole place was coated in blue paint!

At the end of the project we managed to get the sled back together, running and working great! Sooley even recovered the factory seat after one of Maffer's dogs ate a hole in the middle of his!

Later projects found Sooley welding up running board reinforcements and actually successfully rebuilding the motor! The motor rebuild went a lot better than an earlier Carburetor rebuild.

After a few years of riding, pounding and jumping the old Enticer Sled Sooley moved on to a bigger and better sled, a 1997 Bombardier Mach1 in the spring of 2004. Unfortunately the following winter the Mach met its demise at the peak of Mt. Peyton just outside Grand Falls, NL (which is ironic because the Mach made quite a Grand Fall!)

After this incident the Enticer was brought out of retirement for a little while until Sled Sooley picked up another dandy used sled, a 1994 Bombardier Mach 1, 670 twin in 2007.

Cheers, MIKE