North Pole Motor 3/4

Handlebar cuffs

Having handlebar cuffs turned out to be worth their weight in gold! They bring their best protection against the cold when they fit tight around the forearm. But when the fit is so narrow, the thick layer of clothing which I wear, makes it difficult to put the hand in there. It does occur that the cuff tucks up a little, making it impossible for my hand to reach the handlebar straightaway. In case an obstacle appears on your way at that exact moment, it will make you sweat. After I once was only able to stay upright by pulling out all stops, I tackled the problem by unzipping the cuffs a bit. This way, however, they won’t offer optimal protection. Therefore, I want to adapt the part of the cuffs that sits around the hands, by making them of hard plastic or aluminium. Probably I will take hand protectors that are used in motor cross as a base. After insulating them at the inside I will attach arm parts of original Touratech cuffs. This way a much shorter part will exist out of the flexible cuff material, which brings me the hope that it won’t tuck up that easily and that my hand will slip in there more smoothly. Even if these thoughts don’t turn into the desired result, this adaption will make, in any case, the operating of the clutch and brake leavers easier. Also, the operating of the choke won’t be hindered, nor will the kill switch be switched to OFF by accident.

To be able to keep a decent operating temperature in the engine while riding, I had completely covered the front of the radiator from the 2013 Polar Ice Ride R1, using three aluminium plates. In the middle I used a solid 2 mm thick and 20 cm wide plate, which ran from top to bottom. I wanted to leave that one on, even after we reached warmer temperatures on the mainland. The reason was that I didn’t use a front fender and without that the chance of damaging the radiator by stones, thrown up by the front tyre, was very high. To the right and left of that solid plate other aluminium plates were mounted which had 1 mm thickness. In there I could make air breathers in case there would be a shortage on cooling. By bending the breathers further or less open, I would be able to control the cooling.
That was the idea, but it turned out totally different. Even after removing the two breather plates, at times the bike still had to deal with overheating! Yes, overheating at minus 30 Celsius! Mainly due to the wind direction. A tailwind meant overheating for sure and when having a crosswind, it depended on the wind force, the outside temperature and my riding speed. If the bike stood parked while idling, it only got enough cooling when its nose pointed into a stiff wind. Headwind while riding however, made the engine cool too far down, which at the end will cause damage. Especially on the first camshaft which faces the cold wind. For this reason, the 20 cm wide plate -covering a big part of the radiator- had to stay on its place in any case. But because the ventilator was positioned directly behind there, it couldn’t cool the engine enough if the wind came from a different direction.

What is the right way to do it?

On the North Pole Bike two things need to be done totally different.
• It may not have the radiator positioned straight behind the front wheel. This way the necessarily space will be created for the front wheel and a suspension with a long travel.
•2 The cooling should stay the same whatever the wind direction is. It also needs to be adjustable because of the huge outside temperature differences that we are going to face. -10°C until -50°C / +14°F until -58°F / 263.15K until 223.15K

The intention is to place two small radiators, just before the engine. One on the left and one on the right. They probably will be mounted in an angle or completely in line with the riding direction. By building an air chamber on each radiator, I can have the supply of cooling air entering from above. This way the wind force and direction no longer affect the cooling. Ventilators behind the radiators, which get controlled by a thermo-switch, regulate the intake and cooling. In case the outside temperature gets so low, that even without running ventilators the engine becomes too cold, I can temper the flow of cold air by a manual slide in the air inlet or even block the inlet partly with duct tape. Once this is all build and functional, I am going to look at a possible way to reuse the warmth that the ventilators extract from the radiators to heat my feet and/or knees and/or hands.

Starting a through and through cold engine will guaranteed damage it. Besides that, starting it takes a lot more effort, or it won’t start at all. That’s why I will mount a pre-heater in the cooling system. An aggregate will produce the necessary 220V to operate it. The glow spiral in the pre-heater warms up the coolant. Hot liquid rises, so a circulation starts that eventually will heat up the engine. Actually it’s a reversed cooling process.

During the 2013 Polar Ice Ride, I had a 220V – 100W resistance wire winded around the carburettors to pre-heat them. Roughly half an hour before starting the bike I connected the wire to the power, delivered by an aggregate. To get as much as possible from the generated heat into the carburettors I had the whole unit -including the resistance wire- covered with a layer of aluminium tape. This combination turned out to work very effectively. It really made a huge difference! That’s why I will use the resistance wire, which was given to me by Ride-on MotorTours, also during the North Pole Adventure.
Extreme cold requires a different carburation, namely with more fuel. That’s why Yamaha uses jets from 150 instead of 130 in their 4-stroke powered snowmobiles, which are fitted with virtually the same engines as the R1’s. In 2013 I coincidentally discovered this knowledge while I was searching for a cause for the far to light colouring spark plugs. That indicates a lean combustion, which eventually could cause damage to the cylinder head and valves. Luckily those 150 size (snowmobile) jets were available in Barrow at the time. During the North Pole Ride I will mount them in the carburettors beforehand. By the way, those bigger jets will give you problems high up in the mountains, because of the lack of oxygen. But there’s no need to worry about that on the polar cap. ;-)

Regular oil solidifies around -25°C/-13°F. During a cold start this ‘gel’ cannot get pumped around. Through lack of lubrication the engine could get internally damaged and that we need to prevent from happening. Especially for the 2013 Polar Ice Ride Challenge, Putoline Oil developed the 4T POLAR-Oil, which still remains liquid at temperatures of -50°C/-58°F. Besides that, their product has the same or even a better protection than the standard prescribed oil, even at normal temperatures. Of course, I will use their 4T POLAR-Oil also during the North Pole Challenge.