WildBear ad: Trusted with every scale in the county, but not 2 plugs

For 31 years the state sent me to check whether a gallon at the pump was really a gallon. Gas stations, deli counters, the truck scale at the pulpwood yard. Then last October a service writer at the Ski-Doo dealer, a kid about my grandson's age, typed in the VIN on my 2020 MXZ and told me the book says the plugs on the 850 are a dealer job. Let me back up, because you should know who's telling you this. My name is Bob. I'm 66, I live outside Negaunee, Michigan, about 10 miles west of Marquette, and for 31 years I was a weights and measures inspector for the state. If you've never thought about that job, here's what it was. I drove a white pickup with a 5-gallon test can in the bed and a case of certified weights behind the seat. I'd pump gas into that can and read the neck. If the pump said 5 gallons and the can said less, that pump got a red tag and stayed off until somebody fixed it. I checked deli scales, produce scales, the truck scale at the pulpwood yard. When a pump passed, I put a wire seal on it, and my initials were stamped in that seal. That was the whole trade. Other people did the work, and I came in after and said whether it was honest. So I know a little about being trusted. I also know about not being trusted. Station owners did not love seeing my truck pull in. A man in Republic once followed me around his pumps with his arms folded the entire time. He passed. He still didn't unfold them. The sled is a black 2020 MXZ with the 850 E-TEC. I bought it the spring I retired, out of money my wife Ilene and I set aside for 9 years. Every season, my brother-in-law Kenny and I ride up toward Big Bay on December 1, the day the trails open, and eat breakfast at the same place on the lake. 4 years on this sled, and 11 before that on my old one. Last October I rolled it out of the shed to get it ready. It started, but it ran uneven, like one side wasn't pulling its share. Kenny stood there listening with his hands in his jacket and said, "That's a plug." I'd already decided the same thing. I've changed plugs on lawnmowers, outboards, a Ford pickup, and a 1978 Ski-Doo Everest that I did with a socket out of the kitchen drawer. But I'd heard the 850 buries them. So before I dug in, I drove into town to the Ski-Doo dealer to ask what they'd charge and maybe how they get at them. The service writer couldn't have been 25. Nice kid, clean shirt, name on the pocket. Brody. He typed in my VIN and didn't look up. "Plugs on the 850, that's a dealer job," he said. "The book says the dealer should do those." I asked him which book. He said the service book. He said there's a lot to take apart on that engine and they see guys bring them in worse off than they started. He said $189, and the soonest he could get it on a lift was the week before Thanksgiving, because everybody in the county was bringing sleds in at once. I told him I'd been changing my own plugs since before he was born. He smiled the way you smile at a man telling you about a fish. "I'm just going by what the book says, sir." I want to be fair to him. He wasn't rude. $189 wasn't going to sink me, and the week before Thanksgiving would still have gotten me to Big Bay. The shop may be right that a lot of guys make a mess of that job. But I drove home on 41 with the radio off, hearing it over and over. The book says hand it over. 31 years, I was the one who decided if somebody else's work was good enough. Now a kid with a keyboard was telling me I couldn't be trusted with 2 spark plugs on a machine I paid for. Ilene asked how it went. I said I was doing them myself. She said, "Okay, Bob," in the voice she uses when she's already planning the drive to the dealer. That night I went out to the shed and pulled the hood, then the side panel, then the clutch cover. With a flashlight in there, you see what Brody meant. The plugs sit way down deep, and everything else on that machine looks like it got packed in around them afterward. I had a 5/8" deep socket. It went down onto the first plug and seated fine. I could feel it go home. That part was easy. Then I put the ratchet on it, and the handle hit something before it moved far enough to catch the next click. I tried a stubby ratchet. Same wall, just closer. I tried my flex-head. The head bent fine, but the handle ended up right where the stubby had been. I tried a universal joint on a short extension. It hung off at an angle and wanted to walk off the plug every time I leaned on it. That's how you round a plug, so I quit before I found out. I tried a wobble extension. It didn't have enough angle for what that spot asked of it. By 10 o'clock I had 6 tools on the shed floor, a cold cup of coffee, and the socket still sitting on that plug, the only thing out there doing its job. The next morning I read the Ski-Doo forums with my reading glasses on. Plenty of owners have done this job. A lot of them pull the secondary clutch to make room. Some pull the jackshaft. Some move the gas tank so they can get the airbox out. I'm sure those men know what they're doing. But I spent my working life telling people that if you have to tear half of something apart to check one part, the setup is wrong. I was not going to pull a clutch and a jackshaft for 2 plugs. That's how an evening turns into a week and a part you can't find in October. So the second night I went back out with the same tools, like they might have changed their minds. They hadn't. I set the clutch cover back on loose, turned off the shop light and sat on a bucket in the dark for a while. I'll be honest. I sat there wondering if the kid had me figured right. A week later I was in for a cleaning with Doc Pelto. He's been my dentist for 20 years, and he rides too. The girl at the front desk had already told him the whole story, because Ilene told her. When the hygienist stepped out, he leaned over me with that little drill in his hand. "Bob, how do you think I get at your back molars?" he said. "I can't fit a straight drill back there. Your cheek's in the way, and your jaw only opens so far." He held the handpiece up in front of my face so I could see the head, bent off at an angle. "The motor's up here in my hand where there's room. The bit's way back there where I can't reach. Inside, the turn runs down the handle and goes around the corner to the bit. So I never have to move your jaw. I just move the turn." Then he said, "I had the same fight with the plugs on my own sled 2 winters ago. Come out to my truck when we're done." In the parking lot, he opened his truck box and handed me a flat metal bar. Socket drive on one end, ratchet drive on the other. A sealed chain inside carries the turn between them. "Same as the handpiece," he said. "Socket sits down on the plug. Ratchet sits up top where it can swing. The chain takes the corner." I turned it over in my hands the way I used to look over a pump before I sealed it. All metal, 0.7" thick, thin enough to slide in where my ratchet couldn't. It's called the WildBear Offset Extension. I ordered one that night and a second one for Kenny, because his Renegade has the same 850. When it came, I pulled the hood, the side panel and the clutch cover. Same as before, and nothing more. The clutch and the jackshaft stayed right where Ski-Doo put them. I set the 5/8" deep socket on the WildBear, slid it down onto the first plug, and laid the bar along the open path up top. The ratchet sat up where it finally had room to swing. I took my time. A few short swings, and I felt the plug let go. The socket stayed square on it the whole time, and I backed it out. On the second one I had to try a couple of angles before the bar found a clear line, and then it came out the same way. The new plugs I started by hand, turning them in with my fingers until they seated, the way I always have. Then I snugged them with the bar and ratchet. Before the clutch cover went back on, I wrote the date and my initials on a strip of tape and stuck it on the inside. Same as the seal on a pump. Checked, and signed by the man who did it. I put the boots back on, then the clutch cover, the panel and the hood. It started and ran even, both sides pulling. We got 8 inches of lake-effect at the end of the month. Not enough for the trails, but enough for the power line behind our place. I took the MXZ out a couple of miles and back with the headlamp that came free with the 2-pack still on my forehead, because I'd forgotten I was wearing it. I called the dealer and canceled the appointment. Brody said, "No problem, sir." I told him thanks, and I meant it. On December 1, Kenny and I rode up to Big Bay for breakfast, same as always. I'm not a mechanic and I'm not selling anything. Nobody paid me. I'm telling you because I almost let a sentence take my own sled out of my hands. The WildBear is $79, or 2 for $119 and they throw in a free headlamp. That's the deal Kenny and I split. It's rated 53 ft-lb, but what I bought it for is reach. It has a 60-day money-back guarantee and ships from the USA in 2 to 5 days. Doc Pelto still asks about the sled at every cleaning, and I still can't answer him with my mouth open. I just give him a thumbs-up from the chair. What's a job on your own machine somebody told you wasn't yours to do, and how did you handle it? https://wildbeartools.com/products/extension-wrench