Changed my oil for the first time today after research on the forums. Thanks guys and couldn't have done it without you. For some reason I have this scared feeling I did something wrong and I will describe below. Here was my procedure:

1. Loosened oil tank bolt and let drain.
2. Loosened crankcase bolt in back and let drain(where most of the oil was)
3. Took off oil filter cover and put in new filter and bolted back on
4. Put bolt in oil tank and tightened little more then hand tight(scared to strip)
5. Put bolt in crankcase and tightened
(I thought it was leaking oil out the crankcase cause I saw drips of oil, so I tightened the crankcase bolt more a bit and BAM it came loose again. Did I strip it and what do I do now? I figured since the bolt was going int he crankcase I could give it a little more!)
6. The drips were from oil that had got on the skid plate
7. Warmed up engine and drove around a little
8. No leaks from oil tank bolt or crankscase bolt
9. Still worried about the crankscase bolt and maybe stripping it
(Has this happened to any of you and again what should I do?)

While idling I hear light knocking noises, nothing serious. I can't remember when I bought it if it did it before the oil change. I didn't remove the oil tank hose to clear the screen either. So is the pump maybe not primed and how do I tell if the oil pump is primed? I measured my oil and it was right above low mark on the dipstick. Also, I bought it used so that's why I did this oil change right away. The oil was black as night and had white swirls in it when I drained it into the oil pan. Are the white swirls water or nothing to worry about?

Thanks everybody and please help me if possible. This is my first quad and I don't want to ruin it, especially since I'm flat broke now.

Dale

 

As far as the knocking noise, Polaris' are known to make noises, so i doubt it is anything to worry about. I doubt the white swirls are anything important, but if you are worryed about that AND the bolt that your are worried that you stripped,(i think the bolt is probably fine) I might change the oil in a few days, to test the bolt AND to check how the oil is. Thats just HOW I would do it, but i may be wrong. Good Luck with your Predator!

 

The noise that the Pred motor makes is primarily its cam chain tensioner. FYI.

 

After running it feel the oil tank. If it is warm then you have good flow. I pulled the screen on my Sportsman during the 3rd oil change and it was clkelan so I won't do that again for a while!



Chris

 

you want to make sure when you tighten everything back, not to tighten them too tight....especially in the plastic, when I tighten the bolts, I use a 1/4" ratchet, so I know I can't overtighten them.

 

There are torque specs for most fasteners/plugs, if you don't have the feel for tightening things by all means get a torque wrench. You will save yourself many headaches and feel good that you done things by the book...

 

Bingo Powerslider! Especially with critical fasteners....actually great to always us one. Get a torque wrench. If you felt your crankcase threads give like that, odds are there's probably thread damage. Erroring on the side of caution, a tap could be very carefully threaded in. There's always going to be the risk of recovering metal chips though. Heli-coil in the future is also an option.

You can get a safety wire drill guide from MTE Industries, and locate an anchoring point. There's an article in the July/August issue of ATV Sport (written by some yahoo [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img] ) which can guide you through some tips, tricks, and ideas.