I have a 2001 Polaris Sportsman 500 HO that was given to me by my dad. He's 84 now, and hasn't ridden this machine in 5 or 6 years. It's in very good shape overall, and it has very low miles and wasn't ridden hard. When he was using it he had it serviced annually by the dealer, but it hasn't been touched since he stopped riding. I cleaned a mouse nest out of the air box and replaced the oil, oil filter, gas filter and transmission fluid. I cleaned the old fuel and varnish out of the gas tank and carburetor. After adding fresh fuel, it fired right up and purred like a kitten. However, the machine wouldn't move. I then removed the CVT cover, and it was PACKED with a GIANT mouse nest. The sheaves of the secondary clutch were so corroded and pitted that I replaced it with a nice used one that I found on ebay. The sheaves on the primary clutch are in excellent shape, but there's some corrosion on the shaft that prevents the spider from sliding all the way out, and therefore the sheaves don't open all the way. I feel relatively confident that I can remove this corrosion with some fine steel wool, but I'll have to take the primary clutch apart in order to do so. By the time I buy a clutch holder, a jam nut socket and a spider tool, I'll have spent more money than it will cost to replace the clutch with a decent used one. I found one that looks good on ebay, but it came off a 1999 Sportsman 500. The seller is fairly confident that the machine it came off had EBS (as does mine), so I should be OK there (assuming he's correct, obviously). The question I have is whether or not the spring and weights would be the same for the two different model years. The springs are both blue, so I assume those are both the same. What about the weights? Does anyone know if there was a change in the weights between the 1999 and 2001 model years? If I have to change the weights I'll need to buy all the clutch tools, and I might as well rebuild the clutch I already have. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

 

It could have EBS on it even if it didn't stock with EBS that year. I'm not sure when they came out with it. My 1997 didn't have EBS but Polaris made an EBS kit that I had the dealer install. Your 2001 is an HO like you said, but the 1999 Sportsman 500 wasn't an HO. So even if that's the right clutch, my guess is that the weights and/or springs would be different because of the 15% or whatever it is difference in power.

 

assuming the weights are in good shape and the pins aren't bad and have free movement you just switch them out. however since you need a clutch puller (ie it's a long threaded bolt) to pull off your clutch you can take apart the face plate and clean most of it up without removing the spider. not sure how bad your is. just a thought

 

If you're gonna get the tools anyway, forget about the used 99 clutch. It'll probably be in as bad or worse shape than the one you already have. Take the original apart, clean it up and lightly grease the one-way with high temp grease. Put it back together and it should be good as new. You'll also need a 3/4" breaker bar to get it apart and I'd suggest a 3/4 torque wrench to put back together. It requires something like 200+ ft.lbs.
An alternative might be to take it in to a shop and let them disassemble it. Take it home and clean it up. And then bring it back for them to put back together. They shouldn't charge much since it'll only take them about 15 minutes with the appropriate tools.