I’m not sure when the photos of this 1977 John Deere 340 Liquifire were taken, but this is what about half of our winters look like lately in Minnesota; no snow. It’s quite different from the 1960s and 70s, the golden era of snowmobiling, but maybe it’ll change back someday. The seller has this nice-looking sled listed here on eBay in Lynn Center, Illinois, there is no reserve, and the current bid is just $202.50.
We’ve all heard of John Deere, the giant global manufacturer of tractors, heavy equipment, commercial and residential lawn equipment, and many other things. At one time, this famous company made snowmobiles and if they had stuck with it, could have been one of the big producers today. We’ve only seen three (actual) John Deere vehicles here on Barn Finds over the years, oddly enough, all written up by me. Hey, I like unusual vehicles.
John Deere jumped into the snowmobile market for the 1972 model year, just as winters were starting to regularly peter out, snow-wise. They had the bank account to stick out the bad winters and they hung around until 1984. They really made some great snowmobiles, a few of their models are quite collectible today and they were all cool, no pun intended. The 340 Liquifier was the baby brother/sister to the 440 Liquifire but is a fine machine on its own. As the name suggests, it’s liquid-cooled with an ingenious system of having a heat exchanger on top of the aluminum tunnel (where the track is, and under the seat) so that cold air and snow would keep the 4.5 quarts of coolant cool enough and recirculate it through the engine. A couple of issues with early JD racing sleds forced the engineers to try to come up with a better cooling solution and this was it.
The coolant gauge in the center kept track of the temperature, and you can see this one was running when the seller took the photo above. It’s idling at 1,200 RPM, the coolant temp is 162’ish, and there are only 982 miles. It would be fun to clean this one up, it doesn’t need much cosmetically, and new decals are available if a person wants to go all Concours on it.
The engine is a Kioritz KEC-340, a 339-cc liquid-cooled, two-stroke, reed-valve twin-cylinder with (new!) dual Mikuni carbs and 47 horsepower, a literal rocketship compared to the 8-hp and 10-hp snowmobiles we usually had growing up. There were around 2,000 340 Liquifires made in 1977 and the seller says it starts first pull even when it’s below zero. This looks like an absolute jewel just waiting to be cleaned up for riding and vintage snowmobile shows. Speaking of that, there’s a big one here in Minnesota this weekend, I would love to have this Liquifire for that. Have any of you owned a John Deere snowmobile?
The John Deere side of our dealership sold a slug of JD snowmobiles, starting with the 300 thru 600 in ’72, then changing to the more streamlined machines, like the one featured here, in ’76. The first ones left something to be desired while these were much more reliable. These were great on the plains but they sucked big time in the mountains because they were easily 100 lbs. heavier than the competition. Get one of these stuck in 10 feet of snow and you were almost in there until spring.
JD came out with a much more versatile line in ’78, with the Sportfire, Trailfire, and (new) Liquifire. The Sportfire and Trailfire were good machines overall but the new Liquifire, with that Kawasaki engine, was a lot of trouble. Engine troubles up the gazoo; JD changed out the carbs at least twice, and there were some problems keeping the crankshafts inline. Of course, about that time, Kawasaki itself brought out a snowmobile with the almost exact engine, that gave no problems at all. (Conspiracy?) Polaris bought Kawasaki’s snowmobile dept. and later absorbed John Deere’s snowmobile business too.
I had to say, “Good riddance.”
I had a JDX-8 which was fairly good in the mountains but was not good for winding out across a frozen lake at 75 mph. It would lose the downwind cylinder at constant high speeds and opening the mixture right up didn’t help much. A customer relieved me of the one I had and he used it to check his cattle and did well for a few years until one of the boys ran it over a steep bank over the river and sort of folded it up into a compact “suitcase.”
I suppose if our dealership had a separate department for snowmobiles it wouldn’t have been all that bad but for us, back in the day, snowmobiles were a pain in the neck. Customers would show up at coffee time on Friday afternoon expecting major work to be completed by 5:00 so they could be at the mountains first thing Saturday morning. There were some Fridays I didn’t make it home before 10:00 that night.
What made it worse was that EVERYTHING was supposed to be on warranty. Snowmobiles were the absolute worst victims of abuse that you could imagine. Guys would chase coyotes (hides at one time were at a premium) through barbed wire fences. The snowmobile jockey would crouch down under the handlebars and drive right under the fence. The hood was usually shattered with the windshield somewhere way up in the sky, looking for the Sputnik satellite. But that was all “warranty” because the machine is only a month old.
No, I was really glad when JD sold the snowmobile division to Polaris…
Awesoma post,,,
Thank you for a great, blast and no so blast from the past experience.
:),,, just when I’m feeling a bit blue, Scotty G and BarnFinds( and Geo) to the rescue. I’ve been looking for a snowmobile tip, and Scotty beat me to it. JD snowmobiles were made near my parents cottage in Horicon, Wis. I believe the “Gator” is still made there. While Minnesoty has the distinction of being the snowmobile manufacturer of the world, Wisconsin wasn’t far behind. To be blunt, JD snowmobiles were pretty much junk, as Geo mentions. The Liquifire should have come with a stock tow rope included, it was a poor sled. JD did have a novel idea, one model had no chain case, direct drive. Not on the Liquifire, I wonder why that wasn’t more popular. The other well-known sled, and a much better design, was the Mercury. Those were fast, great handling sleds. My Yamaha Exciter was a Mercury Trail Twister knockoff. After a slow start to snowmobiling with a ’69 Polaris Charger as a kid, I got a Scorpion 400 Super Stinger, that was a miserable sled, then an Evinrude Rotary with 50 miles on it, I got for free that never ran, then hit the big time, a ’77 Yamaha 340 fan Exciter. That sled changed everything about snowmobiling. Dependable as a washing machine, I put thousands of miles on that sled, never let me down. It should be noted, there are 3 types of “cooling” a sled. Free air, fan cooled and liquid, the latter the biggest PITA. My last sled was a 1980 Yamaha 440 SRX, Yamahas 1st liquid cooled sled. It suffered all the same issues as the Liquifires, only the SRX had a radiator. The heat exchangers on the JD were a poor idea, but the Yamaha was no better. The main advantage of a liquid cooled, is tolerances in the motor can be a lot tighter, as cooling is more consistent than a fan cooled, and generally were a lot faster, when they ran, that is. Considering what a PITA liquid cooling is, I just don’t understand why it is so popular today. Every liquid cooled recreation vehicle I’ve dealt with always has coolant issues. A fan or free air eliminates all that hardware.The SRX was also a poor sled, stranded me a couple times, both times, the water pump failed. Fast though, kept up with all the 440 SkiDoos, but handled sluggish. One sled I rode, a Polaris 3 cylinder job was without question the worst sled. One has no business going 100 mph on the snow.
So, all that kvetching aside, the nicest sled made? Why that would be the Arctic Cat 700 Wildcat. Now that is the Cadillac of snowmobiles. Great find. I miss snowmobiling the most of all activities. I realize the irony of that statement living in the Rockies. While probably the most pristine snowmobiling in the world, $100/hr., castrated sleds to 20 mph, and all sleds come with avalanche poles,,,um, no thanks. Give me an old RR right of way in N.Wis. any day.
Oh, one more thing. Scotty mentions the “no snow”. Back when I was a lad, (60s) winters were quite different. I remember walking to school uphill both ways in blizzards,well, not quite, but we had mombo snow in the upper Midwest then. It was the heyday of snowmobiling, every lit beer sign had fuel, and one place we stumbled upon had the most unbelievable smorgasbord you ever saw. We always said, the sleds ran better after closing time.
So wha’ happent? Well, much as I hate to admit, Al Gore may have been on to something. No snow in Minnesoty and blizzards in Florida? Something katywampus.
People panic about climate change and tell everyone who will listen that the sky is falling. Well, out west in the Chinook Belt, no 2 winters have ever been the same. I remember Christmas 1960, the grass was green and it rained. In January I wore a raincoat to school.
Then there was ‘68-‘69 when it went down to 20 below just before Christmas and stayed below for 104 consecutive days.
A lot of people came west from Minnesota and Wisconsin to homestead. When I was a kid a lot of those old timers were still around, and they told of winters back east where there was no snow until April.
My grandfather ranched in the Four Corners before he came north in 1910. He came up to look around in January 1907. It was 55 degrees, and sunny. Beautiful. In 1950 he said, “never take off your winter underwear till the First of July; put it right back on come the Second.”
I’ll turn 72 this year and all I can say is that winter is what the good Lord gives us…
Yep. I was there when old Al said the world was ending in 2008, and 2020. What a visionary.
@ Big C – the world was never said to be ending in those years- this is called misinformation. However, to maintain an “automotive” connection, snowmobiles are a minor, but valid contributor to the overall degradation of the environment.
Those Gators 🐊 are a rugged machine. They have a rear diff lock too. 🔐
I was a Polaris dealer and it was interesting that you could buy John Deere parts directly from Polaris. Virtually all sleds of the period were outclassed when Polaris brought out the amazing 340 IFS in the 1979 Indy sleds. These handling rockets would easily pass the biggest 600 sleds on a rough trail
You couldn’t put me a on “panner” after that.
Free or fan cooling topped out at around 70 hp, which is now an entry level hp number. On Polaris sleds, liquid cooling was totally reliable, I can’t recall ever having trouble with a LC sled.
Interesting as a collectable, a lot of fun for kids at $250.00!
I wasn’t a believer in CC until seeing the simultaneous billions of dying trees in Oregon due to record temps in the summers. But now I believe.
The problem seems to be that many people confuse “weather” with “climate”. Today, the “weather” is cold, so there is snow on the ground and I will go snowmobiling (I have to keep an automotive connection in my comment to avoid being banned). “Climate” happens over longer periods and is impacted by external factors. An example of “climate” would be in fifty years, your great grandchildren might be asking, “What’s a snowmobile and what were they used for?” (again, automotive connection- you have to be careful). Of course, until that happens, you could always take your snowmobile to New Orleans, Galveston or Pensacola- I understand that they are experiencing excellent snowmobiling weather right now.
If I owned a Ferrari, I would replace the yellow and black prancing horse fender badges with these John Deere yellow and black leaping deer badges just to tweak the aficionados.
The neighbor worked for the area JD dealer. They had the only Deere sleds I knew of then. First a JDX and then a Spitfire. Good running machine that Spitfire. Easy on gas too. Nice looking unit this one.
Man, you guys must have rode your machines into the ground with no maintenance and very poor mechanical skills. We had the old bulb nose Ski Doo and then 70 Ski Doo Olympics, then John Deere. We had a 500 and a 600, the next door neighbors had two 440 Liquifires and ten doors down were a JDX 4, a JDX 8, a 440 Cyclone and a 500. We did maintenance and the only breakdowns we ever had were belts and a couple of boogie wheels, which we caught before going out. We rode every Friday and Saturday night and long trips on Sunday before dawn and came home before 7pm so we had enough rest before school on Monday. For the thousands of miles we all put on our sleds we had zero breakdowns on the trail that required towing (just belts) in fact the only sleds I remember broken down were Kawasakis and an occasional Ski Doo, especially the early single cylinder ones, usually broken exhaust pipes from the vibration. Even the Ski Whiz, Massey Fergusons and the rest were pretty reliable, all depends on maintenance and not beating the crap out of your machine.
Kid of the seventys in mn. Lots of snow.polaris or cat,and for a short while scorpion.loved the cats.always looking to go faster.want to go slow,you would buy a ski- doo Elon.great little rabbit hunting sleds.still have a 95 thundercat,great sled.
Just yesterday I was looking out the patio door and a sled was heading up river. Not enough snow to open the trails so the person at least got some riding in. I never saw them going down the river, I hope they made it!
Hi Mike, only one way to ride on a river, wide open. Never liked river riding, too unpredictable. Lake riding, now that was fun. The trails were usually so rough, it was relaxing to hit the lake, and relax.
I’d like to say thanks to gary ^^^, he’s right,you know. Out of due respect for the great folks of Horicon, I shouldn’t have said the snowmobiles were junk, the older ones he mentioned, the ones with Kohler motors were good sleds. Not exciting, but good utilitarian sleds. It’s when they tried to keep up with the Asians, things went bad. They all had problems, just the nature of the machine and the environment. Living in Wisconsin, it was literally a Rollodex of different machines. With over 200 brands, we saw them all. Coleman made a nice sled, and the Suzuki Fury was an awesome sled. Sno Jet/Kawasaki also a nice sled. Can’t leave out SkiDoo, but I knew folks that had a lot of engine problems too.
The other thing, is sorry ladies, but snowmobiling was a mans sport. Most women don’t like the cold, or blast through the woods at break neck speeds. It’s why the “340”s were generally always the women’s machines, and the men had these snow melting 700s. The old Arctic Cat 4 cylinder King Kat was the most outrageous.
Remember how the older ones messed up TV reception?
Yes, they did fool with the TV picture. I had forgotten about that.
Out in the Chinook Belt you had to be careful when racing across a lake. I recall a couple of guys rip-roaring across a lake one night. They went from east to west, not realizing that the Chinook wind had been blowing for a couple of days and there was no ice left. Well, they hit about 50 yards of open water. Both went down in the drink. Interesting that the one, an older single cylinder SkiDoo, they just pulled out the spark plug, pulled the start cord and it was mostly Okay. Had to realign the crankshaft eventually. However, the other one, a brand new Everest, it folded up both conrods in two, split the cylinders, and split the crankcase down the middle. Nothing like a full hydraulic look at 7K rpm, huh?
Kind of an interesting tidbit is this past Wednesday evening here in MN a John Deere Liquidator still in 1977 race trim with dings and dents and the correct and rare motor (in pieces) sold at on line auction at $11,750. Be sure though not to confuse the Liquidator with this Liquifire as not really any similarities at all. Like comparing a Shelby Mustang to a 6 cylinder Mustang. The Liquidator is the ultimate John Deere collector sled
Auction update: this one sold for $525, a heck of a deal…