Justin Sorenson is a snowmobile Racer that has a Unique Set of Skills that produce some of the Finest Snowmobile restorations on the Continent.
Justin specialty is Yamaha Race Snowmobiles in any condition and restoring them to concourse condition. He also has developed the Yamaha SSR registry for rare race sleds. You can view his page on FaceBook
[Music] hi Justin how are you I’m good thanks for inviting me over to your house here at Spirit Lake Iowa um Justin is quite the Avid restorer of Yamaha SSRS it’s got a great reputation I think you guys uh that tune in Bonsai need to see this guy’s action and his his work and we want to question him on uh how you go about taking these wrecked beautiful pieces of history and bringing them back well it’s uh it’s a lot of hours um but I have like a small team that helps me um friends that are specialized in certain things come and help me out and uh you know we Farm a little things out just one man show and I couldn’t get them all done without help and uh got some great guys that do painting and welding and FB some small Fab stuff you know and uh um we pull them together that’s excellent so it was all supposed to be just for fun you know to help guys out well you know it I think that that’s beautiful that you do that and your your your love for the machines really shows in your craftsmanship I mean the finished product is uh better than showroom condition so well than they um um if you you you know some guy could probably pick them apart but uh you know they are raced pretty hard back in the day and uh they’re pretty tough shape some of them when they come let’s not mention any names right right so um the 78 uh SSR um had limited production you uh do you know roughly how many were produced um somewhere between 160 170 okay right right in there right on yeah we have about 70 I think odd numbers in the National Registry for the SSR out of the 160 plus made um and not all those are complete sleds of course some of them were just a motor some of them just a chassis and and uh some of them are complete sleds and and some of them don’t match each other so you know it’s kind of reason we started the registry to get guys original engines back with their original chassis and just to help people out and they’re so hard to get parts for so if a guy’s got an SSR typically he’s got Parts MH and then you know hopefully you can talk to him or trade him for parts that he might have and you need and vice versa so that part’s fun and then NW working with the Maha guys is pretty good because yeah we’re small small group I think compared to the players and sco guys and we’re always kind of in a a little smaller Circle compared to the other guys well said well we have a lot Li more limited uh parts available to us I think I bit like the UT than the other brands do there’s so it seems like there’s anything you want you can either it’s being made or it’s it exists you know so you don’t really end up really missing much for the other brands it seems like right on right on so we missing trailing arms for this you’re you’re doomed for about five years till set turns up for to finish your restoration right on right on or a fuel tank or you know anything like that yeah and that Parts just so everybody knows um not only they’re rare they’re very expensive yeah they’re starting to get really expensive give us an idea about how much a piston costs for one of these yeah an original OEM piston you know can be upwards of $400 you know on a set of rings you know a ring single ring about $100 you know can be wow um unless you get them somewhere where somebody doesn’t care or don’t know what they have you know um you know uh trying to find an original set of pipes is non-existent you know it just stuff there’s just not nothing left of them no parts and and like you and I were talking on the phone it’s um almost hard to uh read recreate these pipes because now correct me if I’m wrong I would got in a discussion with a friend of mine this morning and he said they may be double layered well the is that the problem their one piece fits just slightly inside the next piece and they step up you know oh but uh my pipe guy Shane Lang is just awesome he just uh um he he can make anything it’s just incredible to have him on right on so right on y so um how many years have you been doing this well the restoration thing just kind of started after we quit racing I really didn’t have you know with racing you have no time for anything except for racing so when you stop racing you have lots of time it seems like yeah so open shop and uh couple of guys has called hey you want to work on my stone build and I said sure bring it over you know so um just started from there and I think there in the last uh two and a half maybe three years there’s been 1977 srx’s through in various doing various different things to them and I think maybe seven SSRS now so far wow that’s a lot of work yeah yeah and just one man guy and as much begging as I can get from my friends to help you know um my cousin Andy took over painting um for me now so he’s just outside of town and that really helps so he’s fantastic you can see his work it’s just incredible that’s insane yeah and it’s it’s uh super cool to have guys like Shane and and Andy uh on on helping out beautiful um can you tell me something about this sled oh yeah that’s a it’s one of Dave Heights House’s uh SSRS that he raced in 78 and 79 um yeah the the guys used them up the good guys and they had spares um so uh Dave’s not for sure how the 79 season engine got in this chassis um because this chassis is really nice and his you know his chassis got used up and uh but uh you know he thinks this his backup sled or sled that he raced later in the year would didn’t get a lot of damage to it but uh paperwork history um you know with Eagle River and the Derby archives um without Chuck Decker uh saving all the um um the history of all the numbers that were Ever Raised there these are just just another snowmobile you know and uh that’s incredible that we have that resource well thanks yeah like Dave he won the world’s championship in 1978 superstock 3 on the SSR and uh uh at Eagle River so you know yeah and and his same super stock SSR he finished uh third place in the super modified class on a stock SSR wow so he did he did a good job on an SSR um you know I think he won four major super stock 3 races in 78 um on on one so including the world championship and uh second place at the World Series on a stock one in the 440x class even incredible yeah yeah yeah so Dave’s been a good sport uh sending me pictures of the racing and stuff on it and I got photographs of this sled with the cameras all taped to the hood that they did for ABC back in the day in New York no way yeah yep so incredible incredible now you saw me looking around I was looking for that picture uh the Hall of Fame picture you mind grabbing that oh sure sure so we have a picture here I believe this is uh the snowmobile Hall of Fame in St Germaine yep Wisconsin yep so can you tell me something about this amazing picture um yeah that’s uh me standing with the the kalamazo team sleds from 1977 um this is actually one of four made factory super mods uh by Yamaha 4 the for the guys here in the the lower States you know compared the Canadians got a couple of them too but uh um but yeah we we found them and uh restored them with the you know took us a know a year or so to get them done and uh um took them up to the Hall of Fame and uh they’re actually owned by the Drake family from mcart Lake Wisconsin now oh W yeah and I’m happy they they’re good caretakers of them and they really love them and and uh great family and uh that’s just about it right on you know right on the rarest of the rare yeah yeah they’re pretty rare you know um the Derby archives actually didn’t email me when the numbers came up right they called me you know so then pretty excited it’s a unbelievable uh un unbelievable thing to happen you know and I’m glad that I found them and uh was able to have the resources to uh put them back together you know so if you have any questions about Yamaha numbers or you want to join uh Justin’s page the SSR SRX registry yeah there’s the SSR registry and then and then on Facebook there’s uh the 1977 SRX um registry and information group and then my my uh the Restoration Group is separate from those two because the the other two groups I wanted for the guys to share their sleds and and uh you know have their fun with their sleds and I want to do my restoration separate from those two and just keep them away very very smart very smart well I’m going to take this home with me yeah yeah I think my wife has a copy that’s we have here well we have the the beginnings of an SSR restoration and uh this is actually Andre’s sled and and a 20 what is it 24 hours it takes you to get here if you drive from your place to my place and uh um just see the condition and how far we go and and uh how to try to get these back to as best looking as we possibly can we can’t get everything but we sure try pretty hard to get stuff want show some of the uh the problems with mine yeah yeah um it was in a pretty good accident at one time or maybe a couple times where it was in a barrel roll um the chassis is Twisted it has uh this is crushed down and it’s this is all leaning everything from here down to here is all leaning like this um it it had a track explosion too that um pushed the bulkhead out on us and tore up the main uh part here that holds the the pillow block down um and uh somebody at one time cut the shock Towers mounts off to Fab up different shocks and stuff the guys tried everything with these uh to make them work better for themselves so some of the stuff will we will try to uh fix it and straighten it all out all right on this lead back to the Dave Heights house SSR um what did you have to deal with with this restoration that was Sim similar like yours um exploded track um pushed out bulkhead um many braks and cracks in the frame main frame uh the pipes were uh very bad condition either dented really bad or rusted through um Shane can take an original set of pipes that are smashed up and we cut sections out of them and he actually together with me kind of holding them so they stay in place and cutting and fitting then he can weld them together and make an original set of pipes from old junk that we try to save as much of the old junk as we can because there’s just nothing out there and it’s gold yeah and uh duplicating you we could have made brand new pipes for it but it doesn’t look the right you know on certain C certain sleds it’s perfect for but uh when you’re trying to do a period restoration and uh get them as close to original as possible it’s nice to have original pipes it’s one of the main things that people see absolutely now I’m noticing these carbs mine did not come with carbs no um and I had to find a set of carbs and luckily with our with the friends that we have um I found a set of carbs for years and yeah they’re special just for an SSR nothing else um is is for them you know um the the bells were designed by Japan by the Japanese Engineers that to work with a power jet with the hood on um typically power jet requires a airbox to make the right flow from the mainjet the power jet up into the the carburetor but they designed those bells so that you didn’t need an airbox so it’s pretty cool very awesome Yep for superstock racing because this was sled was designed for super stock not modified or super mod or anything like that it’s just for super stock class beautiful it’s just Immaculate now this height adjustment I don’t have one of those no that’s added on later by Racers um just to help them you know adjust the front arm some had them some didn’t you know quickly right in the freezing coal because yeah Factory got Factory sleds all had those pretty much um you know and uh I see him time to time on other sleds and there’s a lot of holes there and so we refinish them and put them back on that’s beautiful it’s great how you get the plastic back as well because you know that plastic Fades right yeah yeah some of them I have a guy that will make me a reproduction one but every so often that we come in and like this one’s really nice and the original SE I was able to save the original seat cover and the tank shroud and some of them are just so far gone that A reproduction is what we use and they really look good too these These are kind of nifty as well rubber nipples this a rubber carb cap um they’re actually another super super hard piece to find for them um very difficult a 40 mm cap and just the 76440 7 7 SRX 440 and the SSR had those a beautiful handle burst yep had straightened out and rechromed and um they sometimes they turn out pretty good that was beautiful great work Justin thanks Andre [Music] [Music]
