I am thinking about buying a used 500 Sportsman to build for rock crawling and extreme trail riding (no mudder machine for me!).

Could sure use a little advice if anyone has some experience or general ideas.

Thanks

 

I would stay with the 01 and up model 500 HO.

 

i would say 2002. no plastic steering bushing, 500HO motor, something about good and strong u or cv joints, huge 5.25 gal fuel tank, nice looking front end and graphics.

Green/Yellow/Red/Remmington(mossy-oak) and Duck's Edition (wetlands). GREAT color palet!

2002 would be my vote. excellent year!

~MT

 

a 500 HO and a 700 Carb would get my votes, mainly the 700 just becaues its gobs of torque

 

EFI is the only way to go. No bogging out on extreme verticals and offcambers

 

A good 2002 H.O seems like a good choice. Lots of them around and not too expensive. How extreme of a built up will this be? If your about to swap almost everything on it, my be worth buying a bike that is cheap and rough looking.

 

Thanks all.

Cointoss.......I considered this, but I was thinking of just putting some serious armor on a newer bike and just beefing the clutch somewhat.

I use my 800 and my wife uses her 700 for almost 90% on trail riding and dont want to beat the s**t out of them. What I want is a third machine that I can ride and break and still have another machine to ride while I fix my off-trail machine.

I have been researching this and it looks like I could almost buy a new 500EFI here locally for what I would put in a 2-3 year old machine including the cost of purchase. I may just buy a local bike here..............a friend of mine has a 2005 700 EFI with 20 hours on it and he will let me have it for $5000-$5500; this bike has armor, winch etc. so this may be a way to go. I still like the idea of the 500 though.........solid and fuel efficient (compared to the 700-800).

Thanks again for the reponses.......gave me something to ponder!!!!!