Aside from all the other little projects on this ATV, I can now turn to the suspension. I know that it sat in a field with a moose snowplow attached to it in the up position long enough for the air to leave the tires, and the tires to slowly bury themselves in the ground enough for the plow to hit the ground. In other words, the front springs are shot, especially considering they are at least 14 years old. The ride is mushier than hell, and the front tires dig in on a turn badly. If I am seeing the pictures of the sportsman right, the front rack should be fairly level with the ground. This rack is pitched downward.

Anyway, It seems the Polaris HD springs can be gotten as a pair at a reasonable price.

For working, meaning towing and pulling, I will have the rear suspension lockout installed so the rear is not as much of an issue right now for work. But the fronts feel dangerous for playtime and the family seems to want to take the turns a bit faster than the springs can handle.

 

I'm still at it.

I managed to get the new synthetic winch line in. I used a 3/16 Devil's hair brand 50ft. I also replaced the rollers with a aluminum Hawse fairlead. Jees, what a pain. I ended up having to remove the metal bumper, plastic bumper and the winch to do it!. There just was no enough room behind the fairlead bolts to remove the originals to put in the new bolts. So, tear it all down.



Now it was time to finally check out the snowplow. It needed a couple of nuts and bolts, but it hooked right up easily. The top right of the blade is bent forward, but a judicious use of a hand sledge and some paint will fix that.



As you can see in the picture, the weight of the plow bogs it down pretty good in the front. Sitting on it makes things worse. I did order a set of OEM Polaris HD front springs today. Considering it dives in a turn and what I see with the plow, it seemed pretty important to do..



Now the question is should I order new rear HD EFI springs too?

 

Try the fronts first. The weight of the blade probably weakened those front springs. The rear may still be good. Worth checking out anyway...

 

Thanks, Kymco. I thought about what you said and decided to give it a test. The rear seems not too bad. I put the 3 point hitch on the back along with the landscaping rake. With my butt in the seat, it only sagged about 1.5" . I think maybe just a notch or two on the adjusters will take care of that.

It's too dark now to take decent pictures of the three point setup installed, but I'll get some tomorrow, rain and weather willing.

I've been waiting to finish the wiring for the three point since I want to take off all the racks and skins on the ATV at once, refurb and paint the racks, run the wires, replace a couple of hoses, install the front springs, adjust the rear shocks and lightly pressure wash the engine, trans and chassis. There are too many dead rodents resting around in this thing. I gotta get rid of the smell and dirt. Put it all back together and give the skins a final wash as they go back on. At that point it will be clean, deodorized, and all systems fully operational.

Anyway, that's the plan. Hard to realize that I've only been working with this for a little over two weeks. Waiting now for an order from Partszilla for new screws, stickers, and various hardware for the racks .Then I begin the above work.

After all that is done, then it will be time to let it out for work and play.

I may just install a bar light on the front at the same time. Depends on if I can find a decent spot to put one.

 

Lookin good, sounds like your havin some fun on your project! Keep us posted....

 

I put a set of those HD springs on mine, and my only regret was that I didn't do it sooner. It's real easy, and makes a huge difference.
If you want, take a look through my build thread. Similar machine.

https://atvconnection.com/forums/pol...man-build.html

 

Had a bit of a delay on this. My daughter left the garden hose laying in front of the front steps. I went out at night, tripped on it and sprained my Knee. At least I'm able to hobble around a bit now.

Anyway, Here are a couple of pics of the latest. The promised picture of the 3 point hitch installed. Unfortunately, I had not installed the suspension lockout at the time. When I said that the rear did not drop a lot, I was dead wrong. What it was doing was the implement hit the ground and kept the rear from going down any farther. It looks like a good 2" drop with just the 3 point and the tool bar on it. (no implement) near 3" with me on it . The suspension lockout unit will keep it from sagging at all, but I'd say those springs in the rear are having problems, too. Probably all the shocks are shot, with my luck. I'll know more when I replace the front springs in a week or two.




Here is the Kolpin independent suspension lockout unit. It is just a set of brackets that bolt to the lower A-arms and an adjustable length bar that is pinned at each end. To take it out and have normal independent suspension, just pull the two pins, remove the bar, and stick them in the ATV rear storage box. Takes less than a minute. From tractor mode to fun mode in 60 seconds..


I took the hitch bar that was shown in the previous picture back to the store. It sat too high to be able to tow my yard trailer. and I really have no use for a ball. So I bought a 8" drop ball mount and it gets it reasonably low enough to tow my pin hitched trailer. The trailer is one of these 17 cu ft units: Precision 17 cu ft cart.


As far as towing and dragging logs and brush around, I ordered a 2" receiver tow shackle bar from Home Depot. It will be in next week. Overkill and a half, but what the hey, I had some store credit to use. (Edit: I changed the picture from the Home Depot image to a pic of the tow ring on the Sportsman.)

 

This old fart finally figured out how to publish a vid on Youtube. Never had a reason to before. This is right after I got it running on July 17th. Took it to the back yard.



I took all the implements down the hill to a small shed in the back yard. I put the plow and the three point on the ATV for transport. It looked odd enough that I took a pic. The rear suspension lockout is installed so the rear did not squat.

 

I sheared the sheep this morning. Took about 2 hours to get it all off. It's ready to start the wiring, washing and putting Herculiner on the racks. This is after I pulled out another pile of dead and/or putrid things from it. I did not notice that the camera lens was fogged from the heat. It made the pics a little fuzzy.

 

A couple of close ups. Nothing special. Just consider them as "before washing" pics.