I have recently purchased a 2009 Polaris sportsman 500 HO.
I live in the upper midwest and it has been in the low teens for temperature.
Tried to start polaris the other day (garaged), after sitting for a week or two, and ran the battery down.
My question..... How do you get the battery out ? There is not enough room in the wheel well to get it over the holder ?
Also... are the HO's harder to start in the winter.... any tips...?
Thanks....
a atv also has to pass EPA emission tests. the carb models are lean as can be to pass these tests so getting one started in cold weather is going to be a problem,big reason why most quads today have EFI.
yeah, the battery comes out of the wheel well. it is a pain in the ass the first few time you do it, but that is how the battery goes in and out. to connect the cables again i find it easiest to use a 10mm open ended wrench and tighting from underneath the seat. you will porbably have to pull the plastic back a little bit to do it, or you can take a router and grind the plastic away until you gain clearance.
and yeah, that carbed machine is going to be hard to start when it is really cold out. cold air is really dense, so you are getting way more air molecues to fuel in the cylinder, it way lean. there are three things you can do to help get it fired up. you can get it jetted richer, but you might have to go leaner again in the summer. you can spray some ether or brake cleaner into the intake, but i wouldnt do this all them time. the easiest, and also works for getting a sportsman with a flooded carb started....
1) put the machine in NEUTRAL (very very important)
2) open throttle wide open
3) turn key over to start cranking the motor
you are going to get the most amount of fuel you can mixed with the air to try to get the A/F mixture back to an acceptable ratio. during the winter at our shop, when its teens and 20's, this is how we get the carb machines started. it works
Mine starts like a charm. You can turn the Pilot screw out about a 1/2 turn extra for the winter months. You do have to remove the carb (first time) and CAREFULLY, drill out and remove the brass plug that covers the screw. Adjusting it out a little bit will make the fuel mixture a little richer with the throttle closed (when you start it), or just slightly opened.
Once you put the carb back on, you can wrangle a small screw driver in there to make additional adjustments when needed.
Of course, I'm not saying that I did that, because it is not "legal" to tamper with that screw. :wink1:
Thanks for the help.... will try the battery thing... winter, its hard to bend plastic out of the way.
As far as the carb and cold weather...
Will try the neutural and full throttle and see what happens.. thanks.
I'm not mechanically inclined, so drilling holes in the carb ...pass on that.
I thought it was just my luck with the machine not starting... sounds like everyone has this problem.
I had 80 mile on the machine and the key for fly wheel broke and screwed up the insides... factory warranty was over by a month, but polaris picked up the parts.. still had to pay labor, sucked.
So, I just thougth..here we go again....
You could ask your dealer to do it... it really helps. Just tell him it starts like crap in the winter.
I did mine because it ran too lean at start up in all weather with my K & N filter... worse in cold weather. Turns out it helps the cold starting a lot.
mine is a pain as well to star in winter as i plow with it. i have an 08 500. i also had a 00 sportsman but that one seemed to always start in winter with no issues. i dont know why. but im shure the epa and the damn tree huggers has something to do with it.
im also pretty shure the efi are taking over not becuse of the ease of starting but becuse of pollution issues, and people just cant wait to get on and go. and its just one more reason for some one to charge you more to hook it up to a computer and charge you just to do that. one of the reasons why i didnt get an efi. plus i dont think its worth another $1000 plus it costs more to fix an efi. least IMO!
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