i have a 2000 polaris 500 sportsman it over heated the other day i tore it apart the fan is fine so i guess im gonna get a new thermostat piece is that all that is left or am i forgetting something an also ive never done it but ive heard that purging the system afterwards can be a pain is their any tricks or what the best way of going about it

 

Most of the time it's the thermal sensor #4010261 located at the bottom of the radiator that ties into the fan circuit that shorts out and won't trigger the fan. There is also a 10 amp sealed fan circuit breaker under the front panel too that sometimes can be the problem! Just make sure there is power on each side of wires going into and out of the sealed plastic pouch! The older 500s take time to purge all the air from the system since there isn't a bleed screw like on the 700 and 800 engines at the thermostat housing. Best to jack the front end up with the tires off the ground a little,fill the radiator and slowly add coolant as the engine warms up and the coolant level goes down. You can see also if coolant is slowly returning to the radiator which means water pump is ok. May take a few times for the fan to cycle on and off to purge all the air. Usually when the fan kicks on the radiator level will drop quite a bit,but just keep topping off the coolant while the fan cycles and off a couple more times to be sure all the air is gone. Then replace the cap and top off overflow bottle. OPT

 

yhank you so much i jumped straight into the worst thing i could think of i pulled off the front cover an got to looking found a wire that somehow got unhooked hooked it back up wired up the fan an everything else an held a torch on the sensor fan cut right on so i put it back together an finally got done purging the system an it works great thanks