Well, I ended up losing out on the little xplorer 250 that I found. I had close to a 2 hour drive to get to it so I had to make a Sunday plan to get it and it got sold before Sunday rolled around. Oh well, guess I will find another one when it pops up. In the meantime, a guy let me know about a clean older xplorer 300 that was about ready to get put up for sale. Guy was cleaning out his garage space for his newer stuff and had some old four wheelers and lawn equipment he wanted gone. He had this and a scrambler 400 that he wanted to move. I wasn't interested in the scrambler because it was all in working order and was priced more than I wanted to spend. The xplorer though had a decent battery, winch and plow and was in decent shape. It never got ran much and was just used around the yard and to push snow. Only problem is the issues they have when they sit. It will need a carb kit and a good going over to tighten the chains and lube everything. It smokes a lot more than normal and I just attributed that to oil settling in the crankcase from sitting. I went to pull the recoil to see if that worked and the rope was wet with the blue two stroke oil. Is this just an issue that means the crank seals will fix if replaced or is there another issue that will cause oil to pool up in the bottom end? It runs beautifully but does crank a lot to start which is a positive symptom of bad crank seals. Other than that it runs just like every other buzzy 300 I own, lol.

Thanks,
Mike

 

How you find all these clean old machines that almost look new is beyond me.. Yes,sitting with gas/oil in the bottom end just eats up,distorts seals. Plus usually no one ever turns the fuel valve off which is the reason why the cranks get flooded.Kinda of a siphoning effect as the oil pump line goes to the carb bowl on the 300 and the gas/oil mixture just end up in the bottom end. New seals should solve that,but on the first tank of fresh fuel I'd still premix 50/1 just to be on the safe side. I've seen a few of these old machine that had the bearings washed down that would seize up after being put back into service.

 

Thanks OPT,

My wife keeps threatening me to call Polaris up and make my shed a museum for their older machines, lol. As long as she is ok with me tinkering I will still keep looking for them. I find these things all over. A lot of these older two strokes sit in sheds, garages or barns and get forgotten about. Four strokes bring huge bucks around here with beat up, rough running older 500 sportsmans still fetching 1500 to 2000 bucks. I can find these things for a couple hundred bucks and rebuild them if they need it and I have a good solid machine. This one is for a friend of mine who is looking for something to clear her small driveway and the occasional ride by her camper in the summer. As long as it's taken care of properly (meaning that I do all her service work) it will last her a long time.

Thanks,
Mike