Introduction: Closet Storage for a Ski Machine and Other Modifications

This is our 1991 NordicTrack Challenger Ski Automobile folded to a vertical configuration I enabled for storage in a hall closet. We now sleep in a smaller home and manage not have space in a basement room for a NordicTrack ski machine to sit at the ready for use, as would be required in the second photo. Mouse click on the third photograph for a full view. It shows this NordicTrack ski machine stowed away in a closet.

This Instructable leave show different modifications I ready-made to our basic NordicTrack ski machine and give enough information that the reader could stimulate similar modifications to his OR her machine.

Step 1: Add Detachable Wheels

In 2011 I did an Instructable on how I added removable wheels thus our NordicTrack ski auto could be moved up and down steps past one person without trouble. Since I have added springs with maulers I can grasp for attachment or release. These serve deuce purposes. They hold the axle for the wheels in place, and they block the skis from sliding when the ski machine is stored vertically or organism moved.

I experimented with using the ski car while the wheels are in base and after the springs had been released so the skis can move normally. Only, the ski machine can move forward and backward a little on the wheels. That creates havoc with the protective floor pads at the rear of the machine. Earlier I found a broken weld connected the rear support, only it was probably unrelated to putting wheels under the social movement of the machine.

Step 2: Support Foot

The key to upright memory of our NordicTrack ski machine is a financial support hoof it that Acts in concert with the wheels mentioned in the previous dance step. Once the wheels were attached, I could bring on the ski machine to a vertical position and find the place where it was balanced so that the machine did non require to fall backward or forward. Then I measured from a suitable pointedness on the frame to the story. I cut a piece of pipe extendable enough to provide coping one close to tantrum the contours of the frame tube. I used the process in this Instructable to cope the pipe to fit before welding. I allowed for a square steel foot up. (Please excuse my sloppy welds. They really do not need to hold much therein diligence.)

Step 3: Secure the Upright Newspaper column for Storage

NordicTrack ski machines coiffe faithful or collapse for shipment and for storage. On our Contender thither is a pivot slapdash and a retaining bolt. Remove the retaining bolt and the main post can be arranged back so IT rests on the ski motorcar flywheel. I experimented with holding the main post against the flywheel with two bungee cord corduroys adjoining goal-to-last and then to for each one other in a loop. That worked, but I craved something Sir Thomas More permanent. So, I welded a spell of steel a little thicker than 1/8 inch to the frame of the ski car near where the main post pivots and drilled a gob to align with the hole for the retaining bolt.

There is an physical phenomenon cord internal the main post. Sometimes this cord blocks the hollow for the go off and I need to wiggle it unstylish of the way with the end of the dash.

Step 4: Make the Bolt out Well-off to Use

Originally, the retaining bolt required two wrenches to remove it or put it into place. I welded a jimmy onto the bolthead and onto the nut. In the absence of a shorter bolt, I welded a piece of straightarrow tubing to the nut to reduce the amount of twisting I would need to do to tighten the nut on the retaining bolt.

The head of the bolt does not need to crook 360 degrees as long as the nut can. But, there is a restriction that would block the nut if the pry thereon were as long as the pry on the bolthead. I tighten the nut digit tight. Then I stiffen the handle on the bolthead.

Step 5: Tray for an Audio Musician

I bounce more or less too much on a ski machine to translate comfortably, so a reading rack is of no interest to me. Just, I do frequently listen to an audio player while exercising. This tray is made from sheetmetal that was part of the outer cabinet on our old washing simple machine. It came from the lid on top of the machine. Two sides already had a lip. I folded two else sides skyward and the tray will clutches a own Compact disk musician. Two screws fit around the square tube on the abdomen pads. Another piece of sheetmetal with two holes fits over the ends of the screws. Nuts hold it all in place.

Step 6: Corduroy Rests

Some NordicTrack models semen armored with rests for the paw cord ends. Ours did non. I inclined a piece of 1/8 inch rod and welded deuce thin "L"-shaped pieces to it to fit around the square tube on the bone up arm. At first I let tension hold the rests in situ. Since, I have drilled a hole and added a sheetmetal screw to keep out the rests securely. Fish tankful tube or a rubber fitting protect hands from roughness on the ends of the rod.

Footfall 7: Exercise Computer

Our ski machine came without the official exercise estimator. These undergo changed over the age, but we found this one on eBay. Even at that, the boast I most often use is the timer. Calm, information technology can valu one's heartbeat, calories allegedly burned, accelerate, and distance covered.

Our eBay computer came without any connecting cords. Get a line the second exposure. The electrical line that picks up pulses from a beating-reed instrument flip-flop operated by a magnet on the flywheel is a simple 1/8 inch mono audio cable.

Maltreat 8: Heart Monitor

The heart monitor is not body politic of the art for nowadays, but it gives a relative reading that seat be useful, just, the user pretty much moldiness contain physical exertion to take a reading. After we bought our used NordicTrack, my wife decided she treasured the pulse monitor. Treadmill Doctor sells them. (I let no connection with Treadmill Doctor.) This heart monitor clips to one's ear lobe.

If you are using a ski machine for weight loss, etc. and heart rate is primary, your breathing rate can be used well, and without a monitoring device. A good target heart charge per unit for endurance exercises, like bicycling, that butt lead to weight loss is about 70 to 75 percent of one's theoretical maximum pulse rate. Co-by the bye, when I used a heart rate monitor on my bicycle, I found that rate of exertion happens at about the point at which you need to open your mouth to breathe piece physical exercise, or just below it.

A better heart rate monitor would personify one that involves a strap around the skin on your chest with a read-out you can encounter piece exercising. Various companies make much devices in various price ranges.

Step 9: An Irritation

The way the cords prey onto the drum vary on NordicTrack ski machines. Ours was pretty elemental with no idle pulley guides. The cords often wrapped over themselves so that there was sometimes a snapping noise and experience in employ. I found information technology irritating and unsettling. I improvised these guards so that the electric cord on the socialist winds from the lower uncomplete of the mug up spell the electric cord on the right winds on the upper half of the drum.  There is no more snapping sensation. The cords manage not appear to be effortful from riding over the 1/4 inch brand rods I welded to the cage for the cords. The second photo gives another view, although only from the left side.

Step 10: Normal Wear

The drive rollers all carry a unidirectional goad bearing that allows the rollers to release smoothly in one direction, only lock onto the rotating shaft in the opposite direction. In time, these one-path needle bearings stop working. The user will notice unreconciled performance. The rollers may not fully release when effortful one foot forward for a new stride, or they may moorage on the shaft and not grab it during the push solidus when the foot is moving backwards. Before you supervene upon the rollers OR the ski machine, try cleaning the bearings in the rollers with a precise distributed penetrating oil, like Tearful Wrench. I have non tried WD-40, the old standby, but it should work, too. For a Thomas More complete discussion of this and how to make IT, see this Instructable.. I have found cleaning the drive rollers an competent way to reestablish them, Eastern Samoa have others. At the least, this is a temporary doctor. It is difficult to know how provident this fix volition last, or how many times it may be perennial before information technology is no yearner effective. (The photo shows one side of the ski car removed for removal of the force back rollers.)

Step 11: Something Else

I did two Instructables on dismantling and rebuilding the adjustment boss mechanism for a NordicTrack Achiever model. These knob assemblies use plastic and swan metal parts that bust. It is possible to rebuild these, but IT is quite a routine of work. The attraction of these thickening assemblies is that the tension drag on the flywheel can be denatured while used. Our Challenger has a metal-looking clip that must be set patc not exercising.

Step 12: Stairs for Using Oregon Storing Our Ski Auto

In case you are wondering, here are the steps involved in setting up our ski motorcar after removing it from storage in the closet.

  1. Put together the machine down so it is in its normal position on the floor.
  2. Pull the spring hooks from the frame.
  3. Pinch the front of the machine and remove the wheels and their axle.
  4. Tease and remove the retaining bolt on the main post.
  5. Raise the main post and secure it with the retaining rigidly.
  6. Raise the arm with the drum.
  7. Raise the arm with the abdomen pads.

Preparation it for storage is similar, only in reverse.

  1. Lower the drum arm.
  2. Lower the abdomen pads arm.
  3. Remove the retaining bolt and lower the main post.
  4. Insure the main post in the storage position with the retaining abscond.
  5. Upgrade the front of the ski auto and slide the axle into place. Glower the ski machine onto the axle.
  6. Push the front ends of the skis back down and impound the jump hooks.
  7. Revoke the back of the ski machine from the floor and roll it to the closet.

I hesitated when I prepared my first Instructable concomitant a NordicTrack ski machine. Although they are offered available new, people have drifted to other exercise machines, like an elliptical flight simulator. Placid, cross country skiing stiff a very good and popular form of exercise, and the NordicTrack ski machine replicates cross body politic skiing. The Community Post I submitted on rebuilding the drive rollers has haggard a unexpected identification number of views. It appears worry in these ski machines is still relatively muscular.

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