My daughters boyfriend brought home an old 1988 trail boss 250 yesterday. I guess he saw me tinkering with these old polaris two strokes and decided he needed one of his own. Pretty clean machine for the age and was owned since new by an older gentleman that used it to make firewood and plow snow. The guy was a self proclaimed "small engine mechanic" back in the day and decided to rebuild the motor since it was starting harder and harder than he liked it to. New piston, rings and bore job with a fresh carb kit. He said after he did all that, it wouldn't start so he pushed it into the corner of the garage and put it up for sale. My kids boyfriend looks at it and scoops the plow, winch and wheeler up for a couple hundred bucks and dumps it on me last night after a fun day of me winching people out of the ditch with my wrecker and I was resting in the easy chair. Pull it in the garage and check the basics. Had great compression, fuel was getting to the carb but wouldn't fire if I shot a bit of gas in the carb opening. Pulled the plug and found that the guy in his haste to put the plug in such a confined space, that he bent the electrode down tight so there wasn't any gap. Crazy.....

Are these early models similar to the newer 250's? I never liked the looks of the early trail boss models with the weird gas tank set up and the gaudy grill set up under the handle bars. Frame is quite different and so is the shifter. One thing I am curious about, is this a full time four wheel drive set up? For the life of me, I can't find a button to engage the AWD.

The old fella gave the kid all the paperwork he had with the machine since he picked it up off the showroom floor. Have you ever seen an original owners manual that was in good shape? How about the approved polaris safety certificate? Weird. A lot of the safety brochures that he had were geared towards three wheelers so it tells you how early these first four wheelers had hit the markets.....sure has changed with what is available now, lol.

Mike

 

Lawdy, I remember these old 88 models as well as the 87's we got when we first opened the doors,then the 88s came in.Long rear brake cable and yes the awd was active at all times. The awd sytem was different also as it had a plunger in the back of the roll cage that activated the rollers in the cage to ramp up into the hub.No armature plate used,no coil. Strictly mechanical awd. Polaris only offered 4 models that year(3 with the big tank) but when the first 88 Trail Boss 250 came in was when they got rid of that bulbous tank and this style machine was used well into the 90's. I remember all the riding courses I had to go through with customers and my name was on a bunch of the certificates.. Just something to show that they could at least handle an atv enough to get it off the lot..

 

I figured you would get a kick out that OPT, lol.

It is sure different looking at this old paperwork versus what is out there today. That was good to know about the AWD system, I never knew they had a system different than the electrical one that is in my style of machines. The kid has the thing running really good but it idles very high so it's hard to get in gear. I tried adjusting the carb and the cable at the etc, but nothing brings it down to a reasonable level. The old guy put a new throttle cable on it so I am assuming that is where the issue lies and I need to look at it.

Thanks,
Mike

 

Don't over look crank seals on a machine this old if the cable doesn't fix it. Notice on the 88 Trail Boss 250 pic that you don't see a shift lever even though the old 88 bulbous tank Trail Boss 2x4 and 4x4 had a shift lever? The Trail Boss 250 had 3 position shift notches on the gear case and you had to bend over and pull out a spring loaded **** and place in either neutral,reverse or forward.Next year they came out with the shift lever and linkage on the Trail Boss 250. Finally felt the machine was set up right and that's when they started flying out the door after people drove one around a little. Simple and easy to maintain,could out run several other brands at the time,then these people would get mad and come in and buy one.Word of mouth got around quick about the Polaris machines that started out being sold in ranch and feed stores.

 

Interesting old machine that is well taken care. Looking at how well the manual and certificate is, teasing to see how the machine looks. Share some when you have