Well I added to the old Yamaha collection today. I just like these old things... more than enough power for me, and stupid simple to work on...

A while back I got my wife and I a Timberwolf and a Bruin to start trail riding with. They've been amazing machines, but I really wanted two matching machines for us. That way both machines handle the same and she has no reservations about jumping from one to the other, and I only have to keep one set of spare parts in the garage lol.

So I found a local listing for a Bruin at a pretty good price. At first I was going to work out a deal and trade the guy our Timberwolf for it. But in the end, I just bought the thing... I may end up parting with the Timberwolf eventually, but we'll see. 'ol faithful girl might be hard to get rid of lol.

The newly acquired Bruin is definitely well used, needs a little TLC. Needs a battery, some minor electrical work, primary clutch needs cleaned and regreased, and the brakes are dragging a little (was a bear to push up into the trailer lol), but it seems like a very solid complete rig.

Already with the spare parts thing, I have a bunch of them left over from when I converted our first Bruin from 2wd to 4x4, so I've already got another primary on the old motor, full wiring harness, and some brake parts just laying around, so I shouldn't have to buy much to get her operational!

 

Local John Deere store had two Atv's on the lot. A Bruin and a Kodiak got the second 2 days after the first and in fact they were the same color. The Bruin was my wife's and did she have a ball with it. It served us well and was a good machine having no troubles except a carburetor repair. It had the 350 and 4x4. I did like my Kodiak better though which is15 yrs old and going strong `16 years old . She sold hers a couple years ago after she got real spooked out riding it on a icy hill. Kodiak was 450, 4x4,, IRS suspension, differential lock, Warn winch and Hi Lo Park trans so no wonder. By the way I put Interstate batteries in them and got 6-7 years out of both.

 

The wife really likes the size of the 250 Timberwolf, she just doesn't like the foot shifting, and mostly the reverse lever on the side of the engine... And I'm tired of working on it's brakes after every outing lol. She's been preferring to ride the Bruin just because it's easier to operate as far as shifting goes, and now that it's 4x4 (it was just 2wd but I did a full conversion on it), she usually hops on it and I'm stuck on the Timberwolf lol. Which I don't mind that much, I still have fun throwing it around. But that extra 100cc between the legs is nice On our other Bruin, aside from the 4x4 conversion and parts that were associated with that, I've replaced the front brake hoses and brake pads, all the ball joints, and replaced the carb with a cheap Chinese unit (but I've got another Mukuni that I'm about to throw on it). But it's been a VERY reliable machine. I have no issues working on them, they're super simple machines to wrench on and the parts are pretty cheap.

 

Well I tore into the girl today. I knew it needed some clutch work, but did not expect what I found...

For starters, the CVT cover had maybe 4 bolts holding it on. Only two of the 4 holding the cage over the primary. Noticed that there's literal chunks of an old belt all in the CVT housing and shreds wrapped around the secondary, but he DID throw a new belt on it just to sell it... Worse thing I found though, the splines on the shaft that the primary rides on are GONE... the nut and shaft just spin inside the primary... So looks like it's getting torn down to the wet clutch so I can swap that out. Luckily I still have a full 2wd motor in the garage with a good clutch on it, so I'm going to be ripping it apart to rob the parts from it. At this point, the only thing I will need to buy is the gasket that's on the wet clutch housing and a new O-ring that goes around the primary CVT clutch (pulled the cover off it and the O-ring is split, of course...)

Aside from that, it needs a few other little odds and ends, most of which I have spare parts laying around for already. Needs the controls on the left handlebar swapped (starter button is stuck down...), the oil cooler looks like it had a stick jammed into it and pushed it in (it's not leaking, but I have a better condition one to throw on it), valve cover seals replaced as they're seeping a little, and the right side foot step is cracked. But the clutch is going to be the main objective before any of those.

 

Ah the saga continues...

I pulled the secondary off today, cut and dug out the old shredded belt... that was fun...








Now I just need to get the nut off holding the primary on...

I'm grabbing a 1/2" impact tomorrow to see if that will do anything. Hoping that putting some shock to it will help. But at the moment, this is where I'm at.








IF I'm lucky (big if), just the splines on the sheaves are stripped off, and the shaft they ride on is still good, which would mean that I wouldn't have to dig into the wet clutch. But, I'm not going to hold my breath... I've got a new gasket already on the way and have a complete spare wet clutch assembly standing by, I kind of expect to have to dig in that far at this point to be honest...

 

Well a cheap Harbor Freight corded 1/2" impact made short work of it. Put a little pressure on the primary to help add a little tension to it, and a couple blips of the trigger is all is took to crack the nut loose. Then it turn right off by hand. The washer was missing that's suppose to be behind the nut, I'm going to assume that's what caused the issue... Good news is, the splines on the shaft look like they're still in good usable shape. Kudos to Yamaha for making the shaft out of hardened steel and the sheave from a softer metal lol. So now I can just throw my replacement primary (which is used...) on in it's place.










The primary I'm going to install needs rebuild (needs new rollers) and I was hoping to find some usable ones inside this screwed up sheave. LOL NOPE... Guess I need to order some...

 

Well to continue on with this project.

I got the clutch back together, seems to be working great again!







But, with the start up after getting the clutch back together was accompanied by a knock from top end and smoke out the exhaust... So, it needed much more work.

Pulled it into the garage to dig in and see what I could find. With the wife's help (she wanted to get her hands dirty lol), we got the top end torn off in about an hour. Found some nasty scoring on the skirt of the piston and minor markings on the cylinder way. So I'm pretty sure what I was hearing was piston slap. I have a whole second parts motor from a 2wd that's been sitting in the garage that I'm robbing the top end from to install onto this machine, I'm just waiting on the top end gasket kit to arrive.








While waiting on the gasket kit to put the top end back on, I started messing with the front end. Changed the front diff fluid, replaced a bent lower A arm, used a 3 jaw puller to remove both hubs because they had been assembled in the past with no grease on the axle splines so they were corroded on pretty good... replaced those with some spares that I had that still had all the wheel studs in good shape (both hubs that were on it had broken wheel studs...). Also discovered that the reason the front brakes were dragging is because both front brake calipers were seized up... So I'm waiting on new calipers to arrive, and then I can get the front end back together and back on the ground on it's wheels.









It's SUPER convenient to have all these spare parts for these machines though. Has saved me money, time, and headaches, not having to keep going back and forth and sourcing every little nut, bracket, and bolt that I might need. I've found a few broken off bolts in places, and it's nice to have exact replacements to fix all the issues!