both the primary and secondary are toast in my old 01 sportsman 500 im working on. Not much options on ebay except extremely expensive OEM or aftermarket.
Has anyone ever ran a niche clutch? this was originally EBS, but looks like the non-EBS is much cheaper as well so I may go this root. Any other decent options out there?

 

Several people have posted about buying Niche clutches. Haven't heard any bad reports on them.One member posted that he didn't have to change the spring or weights. If mine I'd go to non ebs clutches and use the 3211077 belt. The first 3 year model Sportsmans (96-98) used non ebs clutches and didn't have the creeping, alignment issues and wear that ebs models have.No one really complained about them as 4 stroke engines have a natural engine braking to begin with.Some people that traded in older models for newer ebs equipped models didn't like the excessive breaking. For a couple of them I swapped clutches out back to the old non ebs clutch system.

 

I actually had EBS clutches installed by a dealer on an older Sportsman 500 I had. I liked it because the brakes lasted way longer. I hardly used them. Later on they put the original clutches back on because one of the new ones had a crack or something and had to be replaced. That being said, if I was getting new clutches for an old Sportsman 500 I would just get whatever is cheaper.

 

Thanks guys, ya std clutches are half of the ebs, and the chances of finding good used ones that don't have the sheaves worn out seem to be much better

 

Plus almost all non ebs clutches will work on other machines. A drive and driven clutch off an old Magnum 325/425,Trail Boss 250,Blazer,Xplorer 300/400,etc will fit the Sportsman 500 also if you find some good clean used ones.

 

Good point about the non EBS clutches being used on other models. Even if he needs different springs and weights there should still be good deals on used clutches.

 

found a good primary now for a secondary (non ebs) you wouldn't believe some of the junk some people are trying to sell. I've never seen clutch sheaves pitted so bad, they must have been under water maybe even salt water

 

I'd have a set of cheap ramp buttons on hand when you do find one.https://www.ebay.com/itm/EPI-Seconda...dZ35dR&vxp=mtr You can look under Trail Boss,Blazer or Magnum secondary clutches on ebay and find them from 15 bucks up. Yes a lot of them look like they were under water a lot.

 

My oem brakes lasted 6,200km/3,875 miles - the key is to lightly press/release the throttle repeatedly to keep the non ebs clutches loaded up... works great.