08 sportsman 6x6 plastic oil tank to old style aluminum tank

[duhibrokeit]

I have a 08 6x6 500 sportsman with 3,000 miles on it. I’ve already replaced the cylinder and piston due to a banjo gasket leaking on a 60 mile fishing trip this past summer! I use it as a vehicle in the bush as a daily driver, and have too many gadgets on it. I have heated grips, gauntlets, high windshield, kolpin heated seat cover, gel cell batter located in the box for those -20F and below starts. I have an arctic cat inline heater on the coolant line, but the worst thing on a motor is cold oil on engine start. Having the cylinder jacket warm, isn’t warming the oil enough for my liking. After 2 to 3 weeks of 2 miles a day of riding to and from work, the temperature of the oil doesn’t get warm enough to evaporate out the water, and I am constantly draining about a cup or 2 out ever 2 to 3 weeks. I have a 25watt Kat’s Tanis heater pad, and was thinking about putting that on a 0.080 thick piece of aluminum then silicone that to the plastic tank. I know that this will work, and eliminate the possibility of melting a hole in the tank if the Tanis pad would short out. We use a larger wattage style of Tanis system on our aircraft, but they are of much higher wattages/temperature. The used one I was going to use heated up to 200F in 30 seconds on a 0.080 heat sink aluminum block. I know that temperature is about the operational temperature of the coolant, but I don’t think the plastic oil tank can handle that for the 15 to 30 minutes that I want to plug it in prior to riding. I am looking a fixing one of the most stupid things that Polaris did when it came to the oil system. Why would you go from an aluminum oil tank, and change it out with a plastic tank that can (and has been) punctured by willow sticks? My dad and I have both had willows rip the ½” rubber oil lines off the pump and oil tank! You can tell this right away from the smoke cloud that it instantly creates! I think that was impossible with the banjo hard line fittings. Has anyone modded their machines to have an older style aluminum tank to fit? I am so serious about this that I will mount it in the front rack storage system that is pretty much useless, except for holding some gloves and a small sack lunch. I want to keep the water out of my oil! It is just from usage in the extreme cold temperatures. I have also thought about putting in a screw in cylinder head temperature Tanis probe from our aircraft into a pipe thread adapter into the drain plug of the plastic tank, but then again I am dealing with the temperature issue, and those probes run $150 each! So…. Has anyone done this? I am about to, and will post pictures when I am done. I want to do this for winter time use only, and then switch back to the plastic tank in the summer time, unless I can fit the metal tank on the frame in the same spot with wheel clearance. Just trying to make my machine last longer in the arctic! I already am running 5/15 weight full synthetic oil.

[Bruce!]

First off, welcome to the board! Hey my son lives in Anchorage!

[duhibrokeit]

Hey Bruce, thanks for the welcome! I am surprised that people don't have a bigger problem with moisture in their oil tanks! Many people plow with their 4/6 wheelers up here, and maybe either they don't change their oil enough, or they run the same oil in the spring/summer time riding and it evaporates out(or they have it serviced at the dealer and are never informed of it). I don't want to replace anything else on my motor. It ceased up on me with 1800 miles on it and 8 months old. Polaris would not warranty anything! Not a happy owner, but I did get parts for cost, so I did get taken care of the best that they could (still wrote polaris a letter with no response). My entire family has 6 wheelers, because getting to our cabin use to be impossible on 4 wheelers, until they logged back in the area! Nothing can haul or pull loads that these machines can. We haul drums of fuel, entire moose, and much more(over loaded but they are workhorses) , and I know my dad has 2 old chain front drive models and 4 newer models, and my brother has had 1 older chain drive and 4 newer models. We have had one winch solenoid melt down, but no other problems. These rigs do require a bit of maintenance. Constant chain tightening and lubing it with spray molykote, wheel bearing greasing after any trip through water. If anyone owns these, if you removed the rear chain guard, it helps keep the chain area clean and from clogging up with swamp grass and breaking sprockets! About every 3 to 4 years they go through the rigs and replaces all the wheel bearings etc, at a cost of about $800-$1200 . I have not done this, because I've traveled the road mostly with mine. They are using theirs in the swamps going to the cabin hunting and fishing.I only have mind up there because it is cheaper to ship it up there, and I get around 20-22 mpg with it! They are awesome in swamps with tracks, but break hubs/axles! So they stopped running them! So I've been around these rigs for a while, and just want to modify mine to be more arctic proof! These rigs can be great, but without good lubrication… they are just a 1100 pound anchor! In Nome you are allowed to ride atv’s and snowmachine on the roads, and I’ve put 2000 miles on mine this past year, and have changed my rear drive front chain once, oil every other month, and constantly having to drain the carburetor bowl because of the awesome bush fuel laced with water. The new rigs with shaft drive might be nice, but not worth $10K! So I am thinking that no one has tried to modify their plastic tanks back to the aluminum ones. But thought I would put a note out here to find out. It is funny to see 4 wheelers plugged in, but there are reasons why they are! I love living up here, glad I only work in the bush though! 2 weeks on/off schedule rocks!

[4getful2]

i'm surprised you're not using 0w-20
The old style aluminum oil tank will work, but you will have to do just a bit of plumbing on the inlet oil line side

[duhibrokeit]

Well I have my modifications installed. However at -20F and colder, I’m still not satisfied with the results. I need more heat! I have not done the calculations of how much oil is in the crankcase vs. the oil reservoir. From my observation it looks to be about 60% in the crankcase and 40% in the reservoir. I have installed an arctic cat coolant heater on my lower radiator hose (Arctic Cat ENGINE BLOCK HEATER from Moto Tech LLC). I have no idea if that is the same as the arctic cat installation or not, but it was the only hose I could use and their diagram on the one page install instructions, looked similar. The radiator is warm, and the lower hose forward is warm, but going towards the engine block is still chill, not warm nor regular cold. There is no impellor on this heater, just a open through heat, using the thermal laws to circulate the coolant as it warms up. I used a zip tie and hose to stand it off from the lower pickup line from the oil tank. The only worry is that the power line will hit the exhaust, so it is zip tied out of the way. I used silicone to adhere the 100 watt tanis pad (Tanis Air Craft : TAS303 Silicone pad type element - $145.00) on a 0.080 heat sink plate just in case the pad shorted out in the future, the plastic tank will be saved. I’ve ordered an older style metal tank, and will see if it is practical to swap it out or not. I will say that it is still hard to start with the starter, but if I hand start it, the valves stop ticking after about 5-10 seconds, rather than a minute or two. I am running castrol full synthetic 5-20w oil (had posted earlier 5-15). Here are the pictures of the install. I need to add a larger wattage pad to the lower crank case somewhere. I’ll have to pull my plow frame and plastic skid/mud cover off the lower side and find a nice spot. The other option is a tanis pipe plug for CHT probe for piston engines installed in the crankcase drain plug. They are 50 watts, and would heat the oil directly rather than the metal soaking up a lot of the heat prior to heating the oil. They also have drain plug style heaters, but those are for the aircraft engine drain plugs (Cylinder Elements : Tanis Air Craft) here is the tanis heater website. (Tanis Air Craft : What's New Here?) They are expensive! $150 for the probe, but if there is no flat spot on the lower end of my engine, then it would be worth it. I don’t know how much depth I’ll have for clearance though. Also, running through the tundra/swamp/rivers, I’d not have to worry about the CHT probe, coming loose for next winters use.