Dads’ ATV

[cheesy]

My Dads’ ATV is moving to my garage in a week or two. He’s finally realized that he is too old to be bushwhacking around with my younger brother. With that in mind, he’s tried selling it for the last few months with little luck. Reasons being are its age and it’s a 2 stroke. It’s a 95 or 96 Polaris Scrambler 4wd. It only has about a thousand miles on and really clean. It also has enough low end grunt to climb a tree.

Guess I have to find somewhere in Illannoy to ride it. It doesn’t seem as friendly here to ATVs as Wisconsin is.

[Bruces]

We used to have the biggest Polaris dealership in the world here in Sudbury in the 80’s and 90’s ,there are few of the Polaris 2 smoke quads around here ,and I had 2 early 2000’s 4 stroke models .My quads worked good ,but when they died I had a hard time sourcing simple parts like stators and cdi’s .I dumped them both to another guy that had a few and none of his ran either ,all with no spark and no parts available .I think the 2 strokes were probably better ,but they are all over 20 years old now so getting parts might be a chore .
Have fun with it

[bigdano711]

From what I understand, Polaris machines are NOT cheap. Some point was being made that you get what you pay for. That saying needs to be deleted from your mind, because it simply is not true. You think a $250,000.00 Lamborghini has zero issues ever because you paid a quarter million on it? Please.

[cheesy]

Originally Posted by Bruces

We used to have the biggest Polaris dealership in the world here in Sudbury in the 80’s and 90’s ,there are few of the Polaris 2 smoke quads around here ,and I had 2 early 2000’s 4 stroke models .My quads worked good ,but when they died I had a hard time sourcing simple parts like stators and cdi’s .I dumped them both to another guy that had a few and none of his ran either ,all with no spark and no parts available .I think the 2 strokes were probably better ,but they are all over 20 years old now so getting parts might be a chore .
Have fun with it

Oh, I intend to have fun with it. Not that there are many places that I can use it here. I’m thinking of keeping it registered in Wisconsin for that reason. That way I won’t have to pay the daily non-resident user fees. May as well put that flatbed trailer to use.

As far as keeping it running, I have a pretty good track record of keeping old crap going; 75 year old DeSoto, 44 year old Honda, 25 year old Troy-Bilt tractor. My only semi failure so far has been the 72 Kitty Kat with the failed unobtainable coil on the little Kaw engine. Not done with it yet.

I was corrected on the rig it’s an Xplorer 400, not a Scambler. Little lower top end and more capable on the rough stuff.

[cheesy]

With Busters surgery, the upcoming dog sitting of our grand puppy while daughter and oldest grandson are in S. Korea for a TKD tourney, and SIL and youngest grandson are in Cunuckistan for the Hockey Hall of Fame, then having youngest grandson underfoot when he gets back from Canada until his mom and bro get back from Korea, I pushed back picking up the ATV until the end of the month.

Too frickin hot, humid, and buggy to go bumming anyway.

[cheesy]

Got the Polaris home yesterday.


It wasn’t the greatest trip I’ve had to Dad’s. A lot of damage up there from a recent storm that produced baseball size hail. Cell service was spotty and Dad’s internet was down until yesterday morning.
The plan was to cut down the damaged trees on Thursday but with a heat index at 113F, we said, “Nope, ain’t happening.” Dad said he had five trees down. I walked the property and counted fifteen. His battery operated chain saw isn’t going to handle it, either. It will be another trip up with my big gas saw, along with my brother and brother in laws help.

Dad also has(had)skylights in his barn and shed. Those are history. The insurance adjuster is supposed to be there this morning.

Back to the ATV. It’s a Sportsman, not an Xplorer. To give you an idea of the size, the floor of the trailer is 6’ x 12’. It does go like stink, sixty on the open road. In low range, it walks up the sides of my ditch at an idle. I was able to keep it registered in Wisconsin, that only cost $5. It will be $30 next March, but that’s for two years.

I still need to go through it. It idles a bit rough and what Dad says is good, is barely passable to me. Case in point, I drove his ‘Raunchy-ero’ Thursday and, to quote a British test driver after getting out of the Austin-Healy Spite prototype, “The thing is a bloody death trap.”

So, some maintenance while I don’t have the grandsons underfoot.

[cheesy]

We had our first hiccup yesterday. It fired right up and then quit. It would occasionally fire, then it wouldn't. Dad said he'd paid some one to go through it. I think he bought a bill of goods.

Anyway, air filter was filthy. I hit that with compressed air and was amazed at the amount of ick that came out. New air and fuel filters will be here tomorrow.

I bought 4 plugs and found two new ones in the tool box. I put in a new gapped plug and the beast fired right up. Who the hell knows?

I did find the fuel line runs up against the spark plug boot, so that's getting re-routed when I change the fuel filter. I'll probably just change the fuel line while I'm in there.

[cheesy]

Did a bit more to get my Dad’s fingerprints off the beast. The windshield was crooked because all the nuts were loose. That’s straight and tight now. Got the idle right. The filters should be here today, but this day has been designated as a goof off day. Maybe take in a movie, go for a bike ride, or a paddle in the kayak.

[cheesy]

I got this thing to be a workhorse around Cheesy Manor and to get rid of the oil burner Troy-Bilt tractor left by the previous owner. The tractor is listed on Freecycle right now. If there is no action on it by Friday, it’s going on Marketplace.

The ATV is doing all I ask of it. Last week, I picked up a five gallon bucket worth of dropped apples and hauled those out to the woods. I’ve done this with the Ural, but that’s always has been a bit dicey as it’s wider than the trail and the skinny tires find all the ruts. I feel like I’ve done fifty push ups by the time I get back to the house. The ATV didn’t care.

Today, I used the ATV with a tow strap to straighten out the lean on one of our smaller apple trees. It complained a bit because there is no reverse in low range(note to self, go the other way in the future) but it got the job done.

I just now need the figure out how to raise the trailer hitch a couple inches.

[bigdano711]

Bring camera and get action shots, please.

[cheesy]

Ya know when a simple 10 minute job turns into several hours of suck. That was yesterday. The plan was to mount an inductive tach/hour meter on the beast and possibly the heated grips when they showed up.

I had an extra tach laying around, so I decided to use that. I wrapped the wire around the spark plug cable and started the engine and the tach worked. Good. I started routing the wires, this tach has a ground wire, don’t know why but if it works… I’m not having any luck feeding the wires past the fuel tank, so I pull the the top plastics off. Sunuva…I find a broken chassis ground wire between the engine and the frame. Plus the back of the engine is covered with oil. Crap.

I find that the terminal on the wire is broken. Surprisingly, I had some 6ga terminals in my stash. Get that fixed. Did I mention that tiny hands are needed to work on this thing? I look for the oil leak and notice that the oil injection banjo fitting bolt is loose. I got half a turn out of that. I foresee a trip to the local hydraulic shop for some bonded washers in the near future.

Go back to getting the tach installed. Get all the wires routed and neatly zip tied in place and mount the tach. Fire up the engine and…nothing…nada…a blank screen.

[cheesy]

So I took the failed tach apart. It already didn't work so I couldn't make it worse. I was hoping for a dead battery. No luck, it was potted. Aimed it towards the trash and missed. Twice.

Anyway, the new tach is here. I bought the new fluids today. Most of those I was able to find at WallyWorld but had to order the special transmission oil from Amazon.

It's going up on jack stands Monday and getting a thorough going through. After finding out what the guy my Dad paid to do, or didn't do, I have to.

[cheesy]

Good lord. I despise having to fix other people’s so called repairs.

I pulled the front wheels off this morning to service the front hubs. Take a gander at the calipers. Look at the inner pads.



There are no inner pads, just the eyelets. The rest of the pad had been cut out with an RA grinder. And the piston is riding on the rotor. A complete set of front and rear pads are on the way now. After seeing that cluster, I went to service the front hubs. That’s never been done. It was a cussfest getting the caps off. Then there was no oil in them. Luckily, the bearings are okay. The hubs call for the Polaris special hub oil at an OMG price, or Type F auto trans fluid at a Wally World price. Type F it is. Cracked that bottle open and it was 1972 again, when I was swapping out the Merc-O-Matic in my 1965 Marauder that I bought from my neighbor for $25. I thought gear lube smelled bad.

As frustrating as this is turning out to be, I’m glad my Dad gave it to me. If he’d managed to sell it and there’d been an accident because of those brakes, the shitstorm would have been horrible.

[cheesy]

Finally got all the fluids changed and all the zerks got zerked. Today was the day to get the new brake pads installed and flush the brake system. Hahahahaha! Ham Fist, the drunk mechanic in Wisconsin, really boogered up the calipers. I can probably rebuild them but I opted for new calipers with pads.

So far, my free ATV has cost me:
$5 registration transfer
$50 fluids
$12 tach
$17 heated grips
$18 brake pads(that are going on the shelf)
$46 calipers
$16 Skid plate(Missing, quite a story behind that)
$3 drain plug seals
$18 spark plugs(4)
$14 air and fuel filters
$5 hose clamps(10)
$5 hardware

Some of Ham Fist's work.

Kind of over tightened that, didn't ya, Hammy.


Nice job, routing that vent hose against the muffler, Hamster.


I am trying to cut back on the alcohol consumption, but this isn't helping.

[cheesy]

Today was ‘Finish The Turd Day’.

It took all of thirty minutes for that to corkscrew into the ground. I got the new front calipers mounted and the MC reservoir shiny, inside and out. I went to open the bleeder on the rear caliper and that SOB snapped off with no pressure.
Between soaking with PB Blaster and copious amounts of heat over five hours, it hasn’t budged. It doesn’t help that the caliper is aluminum and the bleeder is steel. A new caliper is on the verge of being purchased.

In between heat and soak cycles, I made myself useful and got the front chain guard, skid plate, left rad shield(right shield is AWOL), tach, and heated grips mounted. Also managed to get the harness and relay assembled for the grips.

I’m leaving it mostly alone until Monday. Grandson Owens’ seventh birthday party is tomorrow and it’s also supposed to be very hot.