I installed a winch on my 05 polaris 500 sportsman. I removed the plastic cover where the winch was installed. Does anyone have any suggestions as to putting the cover back on? What should I cut it out with? Thanks!

 

Try this
Polaris Winch Cut Out Panel

 

I agree with ROade. The panel with the winch cutout is the way to go. I tried cutting my panel with a mototool and a few measurements. It didn't come out as clean looking as I wanted it to. The only drawback I can see with the pre-made winch cutout panel is I'm not sure if you will be able to use the free spooling feature of the winch to let cable out.

 

Yeah, there is still room to reach the free spooling lever on the side of the winch with the special cut-out panel.

 

The pre-cut panel from Polaris works but I found that cutting out a hole worked well for me. A dremel and a sander to smooth the edges out did the trick pretty quickly. You can see a pic in my gallery that shows the front or you can find the same pic at Winch Cutout.

Good luck,
chad

 

Perfect, thank you very much. D

 

i left my cover off so when i trade i can reinstall it when i take my winch out and also i found that you can wash your radaitor a little easier to reach parts of it that you cant see w/ the cover on.

 

All good points, but for $4.99 plus shipping (21.38 total to me), and I have my original plate, it's not a bad deal.
Props for mentioning the free spool access
I totally forgot about that, seeing how my cut-out plate is still in the box because my new( bought new-had it for 3 days) 05 700 is in the shop ( 2 weeks now)for 3 busted cv boots and dealership is waiting on polaris to decide if it's under warranty
so glad I still have my other toy:
ROad Goat

 

I kind of like the looks without a cover on it

 

I went to the dealer $7.99 no S&H I had to move the shiny blue Polaris emblem from one to the other.