Stop!

The Archer,

Once again somebody does not understand how 4WD functions on a Polaris ATV. The rear tires do not have to "spin" for the 4wd to work.

I put my Polaris on a trailer that has a 12" height differential from the pavement. The quad is put in 4wd and crawls up the ledge without rear wheel spin.

If you check out the difference in gear ratios between the front and rear axles of a Polaris, you will find that there is a 16% difference in gear ratios.

There are 360 degrees in a circle. 16% of 360 is 57.60 degrees; less than 1/6 of a tire revolution.

Revolution or rotation not spin.

So after the rear tires rotate 1/6 of the tire diameter or 57.60 degrees the front tires will engage.

Please do not perpetuate the rumor that the rear tires of a Polaris must be "spinning" before the 4wd will engage.

BTW, have you ever been in the position where you cannot find the right gear/range on your King Quad? One gear is too high and then you have to down shift and can't get the wheel speed to clean the tires?

(Avoid the "sinkhole" on the Red Top Trail)


Enjoy your machine.

sounds like i am wrong....let me rephrase that sounds like my brother in laws machine is messed up.( and i am wrong) maybe all you polaris fellas can lend some advice then. on this specific machine the rear wheels spin, yes spin, not slip and then the 4 wheel drive kicks in. is their some kind of mechanical failure or could it be an old design. again we are not talking about a brand new sportsman here. we are talking about a 1994 polaris 300 4x4, and it is very tired. it has had a rough life and needs to lay down and die. let me tell you what when you start it it sound slike it did just lay down and die!! any words of wisdom?

yeah i have a few experinces with the being in the wrong gear at the wrong time. when i am crossing the river nile or something to that effect i use super low range and the third gear.( with the diff lock.) if i start to bog down i can drop one more gear and still get enough wheel spin to clean the tires out. if i do get stuck using that setup i am in way over my head and it is time to pull out the winch anyway. :-) (if you want to read my lastest "way in over his head" story take a look at the where to ride section under red top trail) i am a hunter first and a off road rider second. i use my machine for animal recovery more than anything and because of how the hunting seaon fall and where i hunt i usually don't have to go through much mud to get to the animals. trees, rocks and logs on the other hand....... later felas

Having just retired a 1995 Sportsman 400 I know where you are coming from. Because the 300 is also a two stroke like the 400 it is very easy to spin the rear tires while accelerating. In fact that was one of the reasons I loved the machine. The straight axle and the acceleration. Nothing like power sliding on a desolate forest logging trail.

But... that quad would also climb onto my trailer without "spinning" the rear tires. Maybe you are only observing the 300 in the dirt.

hard to say........

this thing is a piece of work thogh. you have to read off the magical swear word list if you want to have any prayer of getting it started.

how would a guy even begin to trouble shoot this problem? is the system electrical or mechanical?

I would agree that either your 4wd must not be working correctly, or you don't even own one and just wanted to do some polaris bashing. I own a sc500 4x4, but I believe the system is the same as on the sp500 and I have never experieced any of your problems. I truely believe that Polaris does have the best 4wd set-up around. I drive mine in mud, steep hills, hardpack, swamps, sand dunes, then add a layer of snow and frozen lakes and it gets real fun. I rarley get stuck, and when I do it is usally my own fault not the bikes. So if you are truely experiencing these problems take your sp500 back I'm sure the warrenty would cover any repairs. But if you are just disappointed with your polaris 4wd go to honda page, I'm sure those tractionally challeged rancher guy would love to hear all about it.

pay a little closer attention to my posts.

first of all i stated several times it is not my machine it is my brother in laws'.

second, my signature says i ride a suzuki king quad

and finally i never bash other peoples machines. we all work way to hard all week long to get to the weekend for some riding. what ever brand you sit on is wonderful and the best machine in the world is the one that smiles at you when you load it on the trailer. my only goal here is to have some friendly conversation and try to help my brother in law fix his machine. the only mudsliggin' i do is on the trail with my little billy goat. no hard feelings.....

My reply was to fourlix not you archer, fourlix sounded rather rude in the way he described the Polaris 4wd, Archer, you sound like you know what your taking about and said it in civil talk, not Know it all jargon. no offense intended archer

excuse me, i did not mean to jump on you. thanks for the reply. happy trails....

To TheArcher, My dad up in cloquet, minnesota also
has the 1994 300 4x4 non named atv. up untill about 1 month ago or so. He still had the old factory tires on his machine. Since I bought new rims and tires, my dad now has my polaris factory 25 inch tires that came with my 2000 xpedition 425 cc 5 speed. My dad has noticed a big change(improvement), in how his atv is just by putting on better tires. rangerchet