The property where I live is quite low lying and unfortunately in the spring of the year the ground is so wet that I can't use my tractor in certain parts for the first months or so after spring thaw. I would ruin the ground or get stuck and spend more time landscaping than doing actual tasks. For this reason I needed something light and nimble so I purchased a used 4 wheeler.
The 4 wheeler I settled on was a Polaris Sportsman 400. This was small enough to get around the property, yet powerful enough to pull logs, move dirt and trailers around with ease. It has electric start, automatic transmission, belt drive, winch and decent tires. It was an older unit, a 2002 but was in need of repairs. A lot of the needed items I could do myself so I purchased it for a fair price knowing the work that had to go into it and the cost of materials. The important part was that the frame was solid and not bent, all the plastic was in good shape and the motor did run until a critical side component broke that the owner wasn't prepared to fix it.
Here is a quick list of what was needed to get it running again
So the first thing I had to do to the machine to get it running was to replace the stator and cover. I knew upon buying it that the stator was non functioning and the machine was running when it blew so it shouldn't take much to get it back running again. I decided to do this first as if this didn't get it working then it wouldn't be worth spending money and time on the rest to repair. Removing the old stator I could see what went wrong. Turns out the recoil dog under the cover broke free and rattled around inside the cover destroying everything in it's path.
Polaris 400 Sportsman Stator - https://amzn.to/3wLrTVN
Recoil and cover - https://amzn.to/48PyhbR
Carb jet kit - https://amzn.to/3IteILJ
With the new stator installed along with a new recoil and cover it was time to give it a try and see if it would start. It eventually did but ran a little rough. I forgot to mention the machine had sat for almost a year before I git it so things could be pretty gummed up.
Now that the machine was running it was time to fix the front end ie. rad, winch and bumper. I assume by the look of it someone had hit something hard in the front end bending things but not doing any major damage that couldn't be repaired.
I straightened the bumper by inserting a large metal pipe into it and forcing it back straight. I pulled the rad and shrouds and epoxied new air baffles and blew the entire rad and screens out before reassembly. The winch was bound up so I took it apart and pulled the cable out to rewind and straighten everything, then popped in a new battery. The last thing to do was to change out the carb jets and clean the whole carb up so it would run smoothly.
Well all in all I spent a couple days labour on this machine and not a fortune on parts. Since then I have been using this 4 wheeler all the time to move items around the property, go hunting and help logging in the bush. I really don't know what I did before getting it. Here is a link that shows everything I did to get the machine running and back on the trail.