My father inlaw has a 98 SP500. When the temp gets low, say 35 or lower and you hit the starter you can hear the starter turn but its not engaging the motor(when it is warm out it works fine). Also when it does this and you try and pull start it the cord just comes out without the recoil engaging either. I'm pretty sure that the recoil has to come of and that things need cleaned and lubricated in there but I'm not realy sure what. I have never had a recoil off before and don't want the thing to come springing apart on me. My question would be is this something that I can fix myself or should I have him take it in for service? I am pretty mechanicaly inclined but if it is a realy tricky job I may not want to attempt it. Any inputs would be greatly appreciated.

Warm up the quad and completely thaw it out.

Drain the recoil starter housing of any fluids which may have accumulated in there.

Take the starter off and clean up the starter drive lubricate it with Polaris starter grease, it is good but expensive.

Take the recoil starter housing off and take a look at why the sprags are not engaging.

Basically it sounds like a dirty starter drive in need of lubrication. Only you can figure out what is wrong with the recoil starter. Good Luck.

Thanks for the reply. We had already taken the starter off last night to check the splines and see what we could see. Wow is that ever a fun job in 10 degree weather. I didn't want to pull the recoil housing off without gaining a little more knowledge about it first. We did pull it off today. It was pretty easy to do and there was water froze in the recoil and the bendix. There was also some corrosion on the bendix. We took them inside and let everything thaw out and then cleaned and lubricated it all, put it back together and it works like new. We will know now that when we are in the deep water in the summer to make sure that we pull the drain plug once in a while and make sure that the pull handle is tight down over the fitting. Once again thanks for the reply.