About me

Name is Bill Bula, originally from Southern Ont. Canada. For the last 8 years I have lived with my wife of 15 years Lisbeth, kids Kristi 15 Carly 12 and our Labrador Emma in Norway.

It's a small town population of around 4000 called Rjukan. There is a historical significance here in this town concerning heavy water and German occupation that I will not get into now, but if you are curious about the facts just Google the towns name and all will be answerd.

I'm a baby boomer born in 55, work as a sales engineer here in town, a good job that allows me to travel the world. Wife is a school teacher, so we enjoy all the comforts of a middle class family.

Love nature, fishing of any form gets me excited!! Fly, worm, spinner or on the ice, I do it all. My wife is Norwegian and we live in the town she grew up in. Her mother has a cottage up in the mountains, 30 minute drive from our home. No running water and an outhouse but every minute spent there is a gift. In the summer you can drive within 200 meters of the cabin and hike the rest. Winter is a different story, 2 meters of snow and a cross country ski trip of 4 klm. pulling a sled with food and drink for the weekend or longer.

Last October I was involved in a bad car crash and resulted with 14 screws and 2 plates in my left hip. Recovery has been slow, but I hope to be back to work by the end of summer.This brings me to the point of beginning this blog, with the injury I decided that cross country skiing would be put on hold for a few years, and to be able to get to the cabin in winter I would use a snowmobile. I love all things vintage, cars, motorcycles, cameras, watches and radios. I can sit and watch discovery channel where the guy rebuilds an old car or bike and be completely entertained. Wishing for such a project myself I decided a vintage snowmobile would be a practical and inexpensive project. But which one would I use?

I went to the Internet and googled vintage snowmobiles and was amazed at the hits. Just by luck the first one I opened was Sledder Al's Vintage Snowmobile page http://home.cogeco.ca/~alamore1/SNOWMOBILES/SNOWMOBILES.htmlhe turns out to be the one that starts me up. I send him an email telling him of my plan and ask him what sled would be reliable and good in deep snow. He replied the next day you should look for an Elan. Ask around some more and get the same answer, Elan.So I went to the Norwegian equivalent of eBay and found a 1976 Elan 250E white hood with penguins, paid too much, but that's okay.Being the age I am, my computer use was always work related or fact finding on the Internet, forums were unknown to me. But on Al's page there is a link to oldski-doosled forum, joined that and I have been pestering all the members for information ever since. I would like at this time to thank each and every member that has helped this green as grass Ski Doo owner start and continue this project. They are too many to mention but they know who they are. Thanks from 75 Elan.I have never had negative comments only great information, I'm no mechanic by any means, only have a little experience with 2-stroke outboard motors with my father who collected them when he was alive. I have some tools and not afraid to use them. I can ask the most fundamental questions on this forums, and always get help, never a snicker or "you got to be kidding". Some of the technical discussions on this forum are way over my head, guys like goose, 1970TnT, Bones and Poidy continuously amaze me with there knowledge I sit there slacked jawed at there technical jargon. I only hope I can learn half of what they forgot.So now I have started my project, I have started about 2 weeks ago and have spent many hour out in the garage with my sled. Enjoying every minute.