I am going to assume that my coolant has never been changed on my 04 sportsman 500 bought last spring. I have one torx screw left to remove which is holding the front luggage rack on, but its so bloody tight it won't come off. Any ideas? brute force,wd40 isn't working.

Anyway thats my first problem, the next one is I have never changed the coolant on any atv. So I am guessing once I remove that effin torx screw I take the top cap off the rad, then the bootom screw off the rad and let it drain. Should I stick a hose in there to get rid of all the crap? I have the 50/50coolant, is there anything else I can do?

thanks

jeff

 

well i got the screw off using a lot of leverage and found the cap to remove. the existing coolant looks nice and clean, but I will change it anyway.

So where is the drain????????????


thanks
jeff

 

should be a petcock on the (sittin on bike) right hand side of the radiator. then you need to let the water drain out of the lowest hose that runs from the radiator to the motor (loosen motor side)

 

Just take the bottom hose off of the rad.

 

<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Originally posted by: atv gooroo

Just take the bottom hose off of the rad.</end quote></div>

I wouldn't do that! You will make a huge mess as it will come out all at once. Eggenz got it right...

 

I have an 04 also and there is no drain plug, so this is the only way. Just do it out in the yard and all will be fine.

 

that is why I ask. thanks but what about flushing it with a hose?

 

You can flush it with the hose. Just remove both hoses on the rad and run water through them until clean water is coming out. When you start to fill it up, leave the top hose off until it starts to come out of the hose to help keep air out. When the fluid starts to come out of the top hose attach it to the rad and finish filling. Crank up the machine and let it heat up and let the fan cycle atleast twice adding coolant to make sure all of the air is out. I use prestone 50/50. What ever you use make sure that it does have water and not just straight antifreeze and that it is silicate free. Have you snokeld the recovery bottle yet? I did not think that I needed to untill I flushed out my system last week and removed the bottle to find that it had grit all in it.

 

I tried to get at the petcock sitting on the right side of the rad, I could see it but couldn't access it........too much in the way. So I removed the hose that goes to the engine, slightly in front of the recoil. Swoosh I have old anti-freeze mostly in a container, some on the ground, and some still sitting in the engine. Which I could not get out. If Polaris would of put a valve there to drain the coolant then this whole process could be much easier. By this time I was too bitter to flush it and just added 50/50 coolant and let it run.

atv gooroo-I did empty out the reservoir bottle, I had to take the torx screws off and turn it upside down, but no grunge in the bottom. thanks for the advice.


jeff