Leaderboard

Hello all, Bryan from the other forums here. You will need a PDF viewer. Windows 10 uses edge as default, otherwise install this. Double click on the manual you want. Top right hand of the screen click the download button. Manual will then be downloaded to your computer. I add any manuals I find, otherwise feel free to shoot me the manual and I can get it added. 🙂 Thanks everyone! CLICK HERE FOR THE SERVICE MANUALS

sunday on 11-15-2020, i dropped this 5 pointer, he weighed out at 135 lbs, first buck ( or any deer for that matter ! ) i've killed in 40 yrs !!. missed a shot on a couple does, but they were too far out anyway, and the darn sun was in my scope..grrr...but i still came home with this , so i did not come home empty handed :-). i am on the left in pic, guy on the right is who gave me hunting rights to his land for 2 yrs to hunt for fixing his atc125m here awhile back. and the one pic is him sitting on his beer thrown of bud of nothing but 30 packs of bud ( about 20 of them ? )..lol.

I just finished repairing a speedometer display with heavy sun UV burnout for our member LedFTed this morning I wanted to show results of UV damage repair, other than the reprogramming that I do Before and after pics below- my phone reflection in 2nd picture- not screen defect .....😊

These ES preps are a one-time routine maintenance procedure. By following this guide thoroughly and completely several problems that Honda created at the factory will be solved. Among those ES faults are: Honda ES systems are not waterproofed, neither electrically or mechanically Honda uses the wrong type of grease in their ES systems Honda uses insufficient amounts of grease in their ES systems (which is a good thing because the recommended grease itself is garbage) Due to excessive friction in stock ES systems reliability is non-existent, battery current required for operation is ridiculously high and the ECM is at risk for burning out You will need basic hand tools, a tub of NLGI #2 synthetic grease, dielectric grease, cleaning solvent, warm soapy water and most of the other supplies in this photo. For this guide I am using a 350 Rancher ES. All other Honda ES systems are similarly assembled so these steps apply to all of them. Begin by cleaning up the front cover and ES reduction gears cover and shift motor areas to prevent dirt and grime from getting in your work. Then unplug the harnesses and remove the reduction gears cover assembly which includes the shift motor and angle sensor in this case. Remove the reduction gears from the cover and move them to a work bench for further disassembly and cleaning. Do NOT drop the shift motor or magnets housing as those magnets can shatter or loosen from the housing. Remove the shift motor from the reduction gears cover and disassemble the shift motor completely. Inspect the copper commutator bars and the brushes for sticking, arcing or excessive wear. The commutator should be smooth and blackened with no signs of heavy arcing or erosion. Do NOT polish or sand on those commutator bars. Those bars have a thin layer built up of graphite lubricant on them. If you remove that layer you are forcing the commutator to wear in to the brushes again, which greatly reduces the life expectancy of the motor. Leave them alone. Clean the magnets housing and the armature with warm soapy water and soft plastic brushes and rinse, then squirt them both down with rubbing alcohol to remove the rinse water from them. Set them aside to dry. If you see any corrosion around the gasket sufaces of the housing or nose, remove the corrosion using sandpaper or a scotchbrite pad. You'll need clean, shiny surfaces for sealing watertight during assembly. Prep those previously leaky gasket surfaces now. Clean the reduction gears cover and small support bearings thoroughly in solvent. Clean the gears and all of the remaining metal parts in cleaning solvent as well and blow them all dry. Using a finger tip, push synthetic grease past the gaps in the metal bearing shields into each of the support bearings in the reduction gears cover until those bearings are completely packed with synthetic grease. Each bearing will take ya about 3 or 4 minutes to pack so expect to spend at least 15 minutes on them. You should feel them drag on the thick grease while turning them once you get them packed full. Now is a good time to clean up inside the front cover on the motor too, and get those support bearings repacked with synthetic grease. Note: It is very common to find one or more of those tiny reduction gear support bearings installed crooked in their bores from the factory. If you find one not installed properly, straighten it up in its bore by tapping on its outer race with a plastic screwdriver handle. The outer edges of the races should be flush with the chamfer of the bore. Failure to fix crooked bearings results in reduction gear(s) rubbing on the aluminum housings causing them to bind up. Binding gears can cause the shift motor and/or the ECM to burn up. Repack the ball bearing on the end of the armature with synthetic grease by pushing grease inside the bearing past the gap in the metal shield. Add syn grease to the bronze bushing inside the magnets housing and wet the shaft where it fits into that bushing. Be careful not to get any grease on the armature outside of that bushing and shaft end. Put a small amount of grease inside the rubber seal lips in the nose of the motor to lubricate that seal. Reassemble the brushes assembly. Coat the rubber gasket (o-ring on some models) liberally on both sides with silicone gasket maker. Depress the brush springs & brushes into their holders and place two small alligator clips (or bent pieces of wire) to hold those two brushes back so you can set the nose of the armature shaft down into the nose housing. Remove the two alligator clips from the brushes once the armature is down in the nose and clamp the end of the shift motor shaft lightly in a vise (or you can get a good grip on it with your fingers and hold on tight) while you lower the magnets housing down over the armature. If you let go of the end of the armature shaft while lowering the magnets housing down the armature will pull out and your brushes and brush springs will fly away. Hold on tight... then put your final two or three bolts in and snug them up. That completes the shift motor and reduction gears cover assemblies preps. The shift motor is now properly lubricated and is sealed up tight. Its fully submersible, you can shoot it with a pressure washer as often as ya want to and it won't ever need any more of your attention. Now move your shift motor back to your ATV... where you have already repacked the support bearings in the front cover. Remove the rubber o-ring gasket from the cover and coat it liberally with silicone gasket maker. Stuff it back into its groove in the front cover once it has been completely wetted with gasket maker. Also remove the o-ring gasket from the nose of the shift motor and coat it liberally on all sides with silicone gasket maker before putting it back in its groove. Coat each of the reduction gears liberally with syn grease. Don't be shy with it... stuff those gear teeth full of grease and make sure both sides of the gears are wetted with grease before installing them into their repacked support bearings. Then install the shift motor assembly onto the dowel pins in the cover. Apply silicone gasket maker to both sides of the o-ring gasket for the angle sensor and install the angle sensor into the reduction gears cover. In this case (350 Rancher) the shift motor harness must be routed underneath the angle sensor before the sensor is snugged down. Do NOT overtighten those screws. Now hold the bracket in place and snug each of the four mounting bolts down in a criss-cross tightening pattern. Do NOT overtighten any of those mounting bolts. You are now back where you began. Next up, adjust the change clutch per the service manual. Remove both front and rear fenders. Open EVERY wiring harness connector pair on the ATV and pack dielectric grease into each connector to seal out oxygen and water. Do NOT skip this step, this is very important, saves you 100s of $$$ and countless hours of your time! Just do it and don't be caught whining about it! 🙂 Finally, clean the frame and motor grounds and clean and dielectric grease the battery terminals. You will need a battery installed in your ATV that is in decent condition. Put your fenders and trim back on the ATV. Enjoy your properly prepped and now bulletproof Honda ES system. You're done working on it for at least ten more years, more 'n likely 20. Have fun with it!

We had a long discussion when we started the board, even discussed having a "Political Forum" so things wouldn't get into the tech/general discussion boards, but ultimately decided that discussion politics tends to turn people against one another, and felt like it would be detrimental to the forum community to have members start hating each other over their political beliefs. There are a few liberal members here. It's funny that I got along fine with them, but once we stated political beliefs, a perception of a person becomes jaded a bit. It isn't right, but that's usually how it happens, and that's why we didn't want to bring politics onto this board. We're here primarily to talk ATV's, and if a liberal shows up, am I not to help him because he's a liberal? Would I like it were the situation reversed, and someone didn't want to help me because I'm a gun loving, tax hating, big government despising free market capitalist? There are lots of things in this world that divide us as a people. The idea of not bringing politics onto this board was a decision made to try to keep the members here from becoming divided. I say all of that as someone who has strayed into political posting a little more and a little more. I'm as guilty of it as anyone here. Honestly, our politics are part of who we are, so it is very difficult to NOT talk about it, but as my grandmother said "Don't talk politics or religion with people if you want to continue to get along with them." Most of us here lean conservative. I am dismayed at the direction our country is moving in now, but I also understand and have seen people who otherwise got along, end up hating one another over politics, so if I want to delve into those discussions, there are other boards that are better suited for that. For the conservatives, hit up General Discussion on AR15.com. For the commies...er, progressives, Democratic Underground. The way this was brought about was not handled well at all, so hopefully permanent damage has not been done to this board, but more importantly, to long-term friendships. I think what we all need to be doing now is praying for Fish to recover quickly. Like politics, religion is another thing that people tend to argue, and like politics, it's part of who we are as individuals. I'm a Christian, and I'll be praying for Fish to recover quickly. I hope all of you will pray to whomever you pray to, or if nothing else just close your eyes and hope hard that Don gets better quickly. Fish, you are an asset to this board and it won't be the same without you, so I sure hope you'll reconsider leaving us. I hope you'll recover quickly, and once you're better, we can argue about what we can and can't post here, but right now you don't need to be arguing with anyone, you just need to be working on getting better.

Tonight I decided to take my wife to a place called candy cane lane. Just a cul de sac of houses of Christmas lights. One lite up lice Chevy Chase Christmas Vacation with the RV & all. On our way over we witnessed a large Doe run across oncoming traffic & made it. I KNEW she wouldn’t make it across in front of me.. 3 lanes & too many cars. She got hit twice & NO one stopped! I couldn’t believe it. I put my 4 ways on & got her off the road flopping around in pain! Well god ! I didn’t have my large CRKT (brand) pocket knife. Thank gawd the wife had the one I bought her last year.. so needless to say I put her out of her misery as fast as possible. I had a hard time for a few hours.. it’s one thing to pull the trigger & bang flop, but to take a life with a 4” pocket knife is another. Here in Alberta that’s illegal! Unreal if u ask me. I did what was ethically & morally right. I now have a dedicated knife in the Nissan. It was terrible to see an animal in that kind of distress.. but as a hunter/human I felt soo bad... glad I made it quick for her.... I hate to see any animal or person suffer...

Got my Whitetail Buck Deer! Chasing his girlfriend; peeked at me from behind a tree. 170 yards—in the forehead—with my 6.5mm Creedmore. Not another step and never felt a thing

I was looking through some old pictures recently and it got me to thinking why I got back into owning ATV's again. My most memorable, funnest ride ever is without a doubt when I went to Alaska for the first time and my buddies brother in-law who lived there had a Honda Foreman ES and a Polaris sxs. He took us on a 23 mile ride (one way) to a Glacier. It was awesome, we even stopped to fish for salmon in a beautiful stream on the way back. This got me to thinking it might be nice to hear what everyone else considers their most memorable off road experience, so please share. Here are just a few pictures from my 2010 Alaska trip. Enjoy!

Traded some labor for an enclosed trailer. Have plans to utilize this trailer for several different things. Going to use it as a job trailer, when needed, with quick mount removable shelves, also fireworks storage during our fireworks selling season, and to haul my two 570's when going on a longer haul to the trail head. It needed a little TLC here and there. Several marker lights didnt work as well as taillights on one side, wheels were in tough shape so cleaned them up and repainted them. There are a few small things left to fix but for $2000 in labor trade couldn't really go wrong.

Trail cam picture

Well this thing turned into a LOT of time on the phone last night with my local sheriff, the sheriff over in Mississippi where the tires were listed, and the seller. I called the Lafayette County (Oxford MS) sheriff and gave them the guys info, and they went out and checked them out. I think the sheriff meant well, but the seller said he'd had them for quite a while and that they were bone stock wheels and weren't my tires. I sent a close up of the flat flange on the Rubicon wheel and explained that they weren't common, and certainly not common when painted with the exact tires I had, but I knew it would be an uphill battle so I told him I understood that I couldn't prove they were mine, and thanked him for going out. A bit later the seller sends me a text and (paraphrasing) says "Hey, we just had the sheriff come out and said these wheels might have been stolen out of Arkansas recently. We have had them for about 2 months, so these can't be yours. Is it safe to assume you won't be coming to look at them and aren't interested in buying?" I merely sent a screenshot of my post on bookface from Oct 8 describing the tires and wheels, and he replied and said "Well that is from before we got these. I'm going to have the sheriff come back out and we'll have a closer look at them" At that point he could have just done the "These are mine, cops are gone, I'm in the clear even if they are stolen" but he didn't. Apparently his teenaged son had traded them for assassinators less than two months ago, and they'd been on a 420 Rancher prior to that (so misunderstanding there). We go back and forth a bit, I explain the odd wear on them, the painted aluminum wheels, etc, and at this point we're both convinced that they're mine. He said his boy asked him what was going to happen if they WERE stolen, and he told his kid that he'd have to turn them over. I tell him that I understand they weren't the thieves, and that I'd planned on offering a reward if they were recovered, so I'd work something out with his kid. He said the sheriff was coming back out, and asked if I happened to have any pics of the tires where they could look for distinguishing marks. I went back and found the original ad where I picked them up, and forwarded those to him. A while later he calls me and asks me to look at one of those pictures, and there is a cut/crack at the base of one of the lugs in the pic. He said none of the tires he has have that crack. He said he'd found the guy they got them from, and called him, and got the name of the guy who'd sold them to THAT guy, and then called that seller and he had bought the tires new. I said "well if that's the case, these aren't mine, and I've wasted your time" The sheriff called me back a while later and confirmed that he'd closely inspected the tires, no crack, and that he'd traced back the lineage of the tires and they had been swapped a few times locally, but the original owner was there in North Mississippi. So, a dead end. BUT, it's nice to know that there are still honest people in the world who want to do the right thing. That guy could have easily walked away and never sent me a follow-up text, and I would have been ticked off thinking he was a dirtbag who was going to profit from selling my stolen goods. Instead, he spent the time and effort to make sure that what he had wasn't my stolen wheels and tires. Sucks that I didn't get my tires back, but I have a little more faith in humanity than I did yesterday (still very little, mind you, but a bit more than I did yesterday LOL). Sorry this is long, but wanted to fill everyone in on how things panned out. I am going to get the kid a gas card, mail it to him with a note about doing the right thing. I hope he'll realize that while, unfortunately, crime DOES pay, sometimes doing the right thing does as well, and hopefully he'll follow his dad's example as he gets older. His dad said the kid just bought a 98 Dodge Truck and is trying to fix it up, so with a gas hog like that I know a gas card will come in handy.

2004 Rubicon, only modification is a front disc brake conversion.

My nephews first deer today.. !.... Quite the story to go with it too! Lol! Gong Show TBH.. lol

Where did all my text go? Lol gotta retype. Me and 8 other did what was know as the MABDR. I departed Wisconsin and Drove 670 miles to kentucky the first day on the trust super tenere, we explored the natural bridge which was pretty cool. The full Album of pics will be below. The first night we woke up to 30 degree tempurature, thank god i brought my 0 degree bag cause i was warm! This was taken in Damascus Virgina, the start of the route. These next pictures just show the beautiful colors! Ooops a dropped bmw gsa 1250 lol The end of the route, just a fantastic journey! The way home we broke off from the group i wanted to explore and went thru Pennsylvania and saw Kinzinua bridge. You could walk to the end and see the other half taht collapsed. Went and found a geocache and had to walk thru this creepy tunnel! Did I mention peak colors? Full Ablum here for those interested! All in all I saw 10 states and did 2900 miles in 8 days!

This one is my oldest daughter's boyfriend. This is the kid who lost his dad a couple of months ago, and whose mom took off when he was a baby. He's moved in with an aunt and uncle and his dad's friends are still making sure he has places to hunt. He's been after this one for awhile. I'm pretty sure he hit this one last year with an arrow and couldn't find him, but knew the deer had survived from game cam pics.

Here are my two cars. The 57 I have had since I was 18 years old.Its been redone 3 times,the last time it was a body off the frame resto.The 69 I purchased in 93,drove it a little here and there. The car sat for almost 11 years until a year and a half ago when I decided to redo it.

Some of the guys who have been around for awhile will remember the discussions we had when this board was started, in regards to politics/religion. At the time some members though it was a bad idea, but some thought it should be allowed as "free speech" Those arguing to allow such ultimately won out, so we've had free reign to do so for quite awhile now. As some predicted, it ultimately has caused problems. We've had some long time members who contributed greatly who left the board, and we've had some infighting amongst those who have remain. In short, it is proving to be eating away at the board, a little at a time. We started this board after vertical scope ruined the old board. We have a group of guys here who like to work on ATV's, and who like to help others work on ATV's. I see them as puzzles to be solved, and I enjoy working through the problems, and I also could not have done MOST of the projects I've fixed without help from the guys on this board. THAT is why this board is here. Discussing politics and religion, and having memes posted everywhere has detracted from the primary reason for this forum's existence. If this board is going to continue to survive, things have to change. We can't be fighting amongst ourselves. That said, I like a meme or two, and sometimes I'm in the mood to argue politics and/or religion. There's a great place for that here. It's free. https://www.ar15.com/forums/general/General-Discussion/5/ Huge forum, much bigger than this one likely will ever be, but it's somewhere I frequent that allows the shenanigans. They can afford to have members at odds with each other. Here, we can't. We're too small, too closely knit, and it's tearing this place apart. I ask for your understanding, that we all can tell @shadetree that he was right when he says "I TOLD YOU SO!" and that we can go back to fixing ATV's here.

Congrats to our winner @Wheeler Our 2nd place @_Wilson_™ And a tie for 3rd place @Freedomflyer and @riverc Forum management will be in touch with all of you about getting prizes sent out! Thanks everyone for your participation!

1999 Honda Foreman TRX450ES. Basically stock! Just got done fixing her back up to presentable.

This has been an extremely busy summer as well as a wet spring. Trails didn't open up till mid July. Now it's hotter than blazes and we're worrying about fires again. Have been able to get out a few times in the last 2 weeks. A coworker bought a side-by-side much to my chagrin. We've been out a couple of times, verifies once again that I'll stick with ATV'S. They have a really tough time fitting through our 50" trailhead gates, they're very noisy, and have poor all around visibility from inside. To each there own I guess. Have hit a couple new spots with some great views have taken a couple we met a few weeks back out on their first ride. They were in 7th Heaven and plain on selling their boat and changing over to atv land lumber. They had a great time and really want to find a machine or two. I'm looking forward to meeting one of our own. Prov, out of Minnesota, and a friend of his, are heading to my backyard. They are going on a road trip and coming through. We are hoping to link up the evening of the day they arrive and have dinner then I'm going to take them out on a mountain ride the next day. Yes they are lowering their standards and are climbing onto a couple of Can Ams but they're willing to make the sacrifice to take in some Montana scenery. I'm borrowing my nephews machines so will let them use mine and my wife's machine for the day. I am really looking forward to sharing one of our favorite trails with them and hope they have a great time. My two brothers and one of their wives will come along to keep my wife company. Should be a great time. Here's a few pics from my latest outings.

Picked this up this morning after a long wait, and a few compromises, it’s a 2022 Rubicon 520 EPS IRS, so footshift with powersteering like my other one just not a “deluxe”. It has a 3500lb Kolpin Winch with synthetic cable and heat demon hand/thumb warmers. Stock tires on for now, couldn’t get Mud Bugs, so I ordered 28” Swamp Witches off eBay, figured I’d give those a try. Should be here next week. first impressions, not much as changed since they came out 7 years ago, but still a nice machine, 520 seems to pull harder than the 500, more mid range-top end but hard to make a true comparison as I’ve never ran the 500 on stock tires. True test will be when the Swamp Lites are on. Rubicant 1.0 isn’t going anywhere, although I’ve been neglecting it a bit lately and it’s in need of a rear diff rebuild.

Last and final update: i am calling this project done !, i will not be doing anything else to this 2005 trx500tm from here on out, here is the final pic's for all you atv porn pic pervs !..lol.

Haha! I went out with two other buddies so I was coming back with a bike or without it. Good news, I'm 99.9% sure I solved my issue.. . Read the below carefully, maybe even twice to understand whats going on and what actually solved it. To recap. Thursday night I loosened the exhaust valve to .007. As I stated a few posts earlier I grabbed a chinesium carburator from a colleague (for testing purposes). I adjusted the valves, and installed the Chinese carb and the machine fired up (machine was cold). It ran okay, if I let off the throttle it would fart and burp out the exhaust. I figured its the air/fuel setting on the carb as I found out that Chinese carb was actually for a 400 machine.. Anyways.. I left the bike that night be as it was getting late. Friday I came home from work and figured, no point in keeping that Chinese carb on there. Going to reinstall my own OEM one, need to put all the other plastics back on for Saturdays trip. As I am taking the Chinese carb off.. I noticed the the choke (my OEM) on my machine had seen better days, I compared it to the Chinese one that came with the Chinese carburetor that I left still in the box because I was too lazy to swap the choke plunger Thursday. I noticed the chinese choke plunger had a much better condition o-ring.. I figured what the !. I'll take the chinese choke plunger, install it on my cable inside my carb. Connected it all up, machine was cold, I figured ! its going to crank over. Crank crank no fire. So I'm standing there now with the exact same symptoms with a cold machine like I've had when its warm. What the !! 😭 What's different? I'm looking over the bike, try to crank again no luck. Thinking to myself what did I change... AHHHH! The chinese choke plunger. I figured I'll unscrew the plunger out completely from the housing to see what happens, and the bike fires on the first instant, runs like crap but it fired. Hmm.. I take the plunger put it back in into the housing.. no fire. If the plunger is in the housing and if the choke is pulled in or out it won't fire. If I remove it from the carburetor it fires. After closer examination the chinese plunger is slightly different than the OEM one and it didn't even really fit correctly inside my carb. So I thought what' the chances of my OEM plunger actually being faulty? Because I am seeing the exact same symptoms now with a cold machine as I did with a warm one. Called the dealer saturday morning before my trip, they had the plunger in stock. Went and bought it, $90. 😡😱 At this point.. whats another $90. Came home, installed the new OEM plunger, after a bit of feathering with the throttle and playing with the choke knob of how far its pulled in or out I realized how sensitive the choke is - bike started up and ran great. Loaded the bike and off we went, I've put over 100miles in the last two days (the weather was 7 Celsius and 12 Celsius), with numerous pit stops (turning the bike off) and the bike started every single time. Not a single hiccup. every single time we'd stop I thought to myself this is the end of my trip, it won't fire when were ready to leave.. NOPE it started. So the whole starting when warm issue I believe was my plunger. It was not seating/sealing and working as it should regardless of the actual knob position (IN or OUT). Conclusion when the bike was cold it was a lot more forgiving on starting with the old OEM plunger even thought it operated poorly and incorrectly. However, when the bike warmed up.. the choke had a much more important role to play and as it wasn't properly working/sealing so it wouldn't allow the the bike to start. After some more miles, I will pull the valve cover again and set the exhaust side to .006 to prove my theory. But I think it's safe to say its the plunger, because the bike wasn't starting Friday after I swapped the plungers (Chinese and OEM) even thought it was cold engine with the .007 gap on the exhaust so the plunger was affecting it.

Most of mine in this one besides motorcycles and lawn stuff.

Congrats @Goober for winning quad of the year!

Here’s a ! of a load. The ol half ton didn’t mind too much other than braking. Probably 2 cord in there.

Making your own rifle stock ain't as hard as you'd think. For years this has been on my list of things I've wanted to accomplish in my lifetime. One thing that has kept me from doing it was the time involved and the cost of a decent piece of wood. Being retired all I needed to do was to find a piece of dead tree. Keim Lumber in Charm OH has a very nice selection of reasonably priced pieces of lumber and for $38.00 I found a piece of Ambrosia Maple large enough to make 6 rifle stocks two of which would be nice wood, too decent having a few worm holes and two fair quality with only a small amount of striping and more worm holes. This one was made using the decent wood having some marking and a few worm holes. The only power tools used were the drill press, band saw and few passes down the barrel channel with a table saw. Rifle is my Savage FVSR in 22LR. Scope is a BSA 3-12 Mil Dot side focus Midway clearance special from a few years ago.

2008 TRX700XX Barkers exhaust & fuel computer Ricochet skid plates Kenda Bearclaws tires on the front Kenda Kutter tires on the rear Trail tech voyager pro Outlaw gas cap More I'm sure I've forgotten More to come eventually

Rained all day opening day here in Michigan. My son sat out all day in it and saw nothing. Came back on day 2 and was rewarded with this nice 6pt

Hunt Camp 2020 paid off!! I headed north this time with a buddy from work who wanted to get into hunting. It was a crazy week! I pulled my first Polaris (XP850 with 240lb rider) out of the woods, sorry no pics.. How ironic my 424 switch let go that morning so I was locked in 4x4. His quad over heated & was dead in the bush. Thank gawd I was locked. 3rd gear 5k plus rpm got him out. Managed to fix both quads. Seen insane amount of deer everyday. Found the best area & I got er done. He was unlucky but learned lots & had a great time. We had insane weather. +13c & sun to -10c & blizzard. Ran a tank of fuel a day! The 40 pilot I just installed was too much I think. A lot harder to start but fine & less backfire in decel... other than that Ive put a lot of miles on the quad this year! More than any year since I bought it!! Had an awesome hunting trip!! Even though it’s not a huge deer I’m still getting it mounted as my buddy had a taxidermy shop. (Lone Wolf Taxidermy).. here’s a teaser of my last years deer.. almost done...

Took this 8 point this morning. He was about 30 minutes behind a doe but stopped long enough for me to take a shot. Honestly thought I missed him because 5 minutes after I shot, the buck on the camera slipped out from the same block of woods and by me. I never saw him because I was too busy texting the BBD to my wife and buddies. Phone went off and said I had a picture. Ouch... I sat there from 7am when I shot till 930 am when I had to get out doubting myself. 155lbs . My first shooter buck I had a chance on in a few years. I have passed on smaller bucks.

We survived Zeta. They are saying it was a Cat 3 storm. Winds over 111 mph. The east winds came first and were stronger and longer. The eye went right over us. It was calm for over 30 minutes and then the wind switch to the west and went from 0 to 100 in one second. I was outside and it was crazy. Had to get in quick. they say 3-4 days for electricity for us. My buddy in New Orleans says they told him 7-10 days. So many poles down. Running a generator so pretty comfortable except for the Internet. On the phone only at the moment. So many stories.

Took this nice buck tonight.

NOS Taillight kit for 98-00 TRX300FW complete including replacement wiring harness. NOS TRX300FW Speedometer Kit, KPH version, I have a couple of these. NOS TRX300FW Hour Meter and mount kit NOS 93-00 TRX300FW Warn 424 still in box NOS 1992 TRX300FW Cooling fan kit NOS 1995 Foreman 400 Speedometer mount kit, mounts same analog speedo that the 300 uses onto a 400 Foreman.

Well lady and gentleman its finally time. I put a wrench on the quad to start the motor removal process. Here are some pictures of the new parts so far. This is going to be a full top and bottom end rebuild with the following -All new oem bearings(everyone in whole engine) -New oem oil pump assembly -Cometic gasket and seal kit -Custom cp 12:1 stroker piston -Crankworks balanced and trued hotrods stroker crank -hinson bullet proof basket -hinson clutch kit And thats just the start. There will be more budget pending. Stay tuned!

Today I took her for eye apt. Appears her left eye nerve has a little “something” & goes back in a month for a follow up. She is always dizzy & unsteady in her feet. Her BP has come down nicely so the pills for that must be working. She will be getting a medical layoff from her work. But all in all she has been a lot better than last week. Thanks for all your support & prayers.

I was driving home yesterday, remembering how I used to toss beer bottles out of the Jeep and try to hit road signs when I was young. Great fun. Now I take my kids every so often and we pick up trash on the side of the road. It's funny how as we get older and mature, we tend to think about the world we're leaving behind for our kids and grandkids, as well as other nature. Point being, we have a responsibility to nature to not be slobs with the planet. The problem is, all these green MANDATES end up being about putting money into someone's pockets. As of right now, "alternative fuels" are horribly inefficient and are worse for the environment than fossil fuels. Will that change over time? Yes. Is "green energy" now green? Nope. Last night during the ball game I saw GMC is coming out with an electric Hummer, while Ford is releasing a fugly new electric "Mustang" suv looking thing. Let's look at the diesel burned to produce the products that are in the batteries of those electric vehicles, plus the pollution created moving those materials to a manufacturing center, making batteries, and then, worst of all, what is left when those batteries are worn out. Anyone think about where the electricity comes from to charge those batteries? Coal fired plants, more than likely. "Green" crap, as far as government is concerned, is nothing but another way to take taxpayer dollars and put them into the pockets of corrupt politicians and their cronies. Go out, pick up some trash on the trail. Teach your kids the responsibility of taking care of mother nature. Recycle when you can. Do what you can do, but stop pushing for these corrupt POS's in govt to mandate stuff. All is does is make us poorer, and push things down our throats that are worse for the environment that rolling coal in your diesel.

I've been reflecting on an experience I had a few years ago on a snowmobile forum. I had joined and was lurking and reading through old threads because I had just gotten an old sled that was still in excellent condition, and I was trying to sweeten my good fortunes by doing a complete motor-out of the frame teardown on that old sled, to replace any worn parts and replace old grease & lubes in every single moving part on it. This was a unique place in that there were two Admins there, one who seemed to be intelligent but didn't share with others in the forums at all... he would post industry news articles and such and he seemed to be focused on providing interesting things for folks to read and he managed the upper levels of the site, keeping the place orderly and insuring stray threads got moved into proper categories. He had good command of his skills, was a professional and reasonable fellah. The other Admin was very outspoken and was posting everywhere. He liked to talk about politics and guns in as many threads as he could and he came across as a demanding personality, who used language that was very raw and taunting, often provoking. Everyone seemed to be afraid of him and his Admin powers. He was the kind of person that expected everyone to bow down and agree with him, else he'd belittle them & attack them personally. I saw that happen a couple times to members, as I lurked & read through the site looking for information about my old sled. I noticed that there were two very knowledgeable members in that forum that seemed to provide the majority of the help & advice to thread posters & new members asking questions. One of the members posted often, while the other member rarely did, but it was obvious that they both knew their stuff. Despite there being thousands of other members on that site, most of the active chatter's stayed out of threads where a person was asking for assistance. The outspoken Admin pretty much ignored folks asking for help in new threads too, until a thread became hot, then he would show up and dominate it, he'd derail it all.... so he could brag about scaring the poor guy he just pulled his pistol out on that day and threatened to shoot. Or he'd bash Hillary or Obama some more... rant & rave about what so & so lapdog just said on CNN... or he might attack a thread starter by accusing him to be too stupid to be there. That Admin appeared to be a psycho mess... and I learned that he lived in the main city of the county that I had once lived in, which cemented my perceptions of him... I hated that county and it's peoples, they were snooty, arrogant jerks with holier than thou' attitudes. I had escaped to the UP to become free, now many of those disgusting old memories began flooding back in... polluting my pristine new to me paradise mindset. So anyway, I stopped reading the overbearing paternalistic psycho Admin's rants and raves and continued on with my sled refresh project. I ignored him, but since so many threads in that forum were also being ignored, and so many folks were arriving daily needing help... well, I began to respond to empty threads and new threads wherever I felt that I might be able to answer a question, or provide the person with some direct assistance. Soon every new thread in the forum was receiving a welcome and a few replies. I kept quiet most of the time in threads where the two expert members showed up, they were both knowledgeable & experienced, I wasn't nearly as much... but I posted in almost all of the other needy threads daily. The psycho Admin fellah was being good to me in threads and hadn't attacked or threatened me. He was punching the Like button often and he even sent me a thoughtful PM, thanking me for helping out with this 'n that. He asked about my past experience with sleds in PMs, what did I do for work and where was I from. I answered him truthfully but did not share that I was from the same area he lived in. I simply omitted that part of our conversation. 🙂 The best thing that happened to me during those first couple weeks of posting in the forums though, was the fact that many other members seemed to loosen up and many of them began to contribute inside new threads, which really added a lot of value to those threads, I felt. You see, I know two stroke motors very well, but I am no expert on all things snowmobile... I was grateful to see other long-time members begin to chime in to help. Some members even began to respond to new threads as soon as they posted, often arriving first to welcome & beating me to them. 🙂 We were having fun in there and the forums were zipping along. My project bargain sled refresh was almost complete too, with still two months left to go before first snow would land in paradise, da UP....! Life was looking really, really good! Then one day out of the blue the psycho Admin attacked me in a thread, accusing me of being a democrat! I have no idea where he came up with that idea cause I never talked about my views on the world, or mentioned politics or shared anything about guns or anything else that he was interested in. I had kept my head down and stuck to business, I hadn't ever shared anything unrelated to sleds or motors. But he came after me firing questions so I told him the truth, bluntly, that my views are apolitical. I told him that I do not vote. I told him that I don't pay any attention to any politician, I distrust AND dislike them all. Honest truth! My views are apolitical! He went off on one of his rants and called me a liar and a Killary supporter right there in the forum thread. So I logged out and left the forum. Never said another word to him, just bailed out. The next day I logged in and began to post in assistance threads, as usual. The psycho stayed away from new threads all that day, but I saw him ranting and raving about politics in another section of the forum in the afternoon, and read him bragging about shooting at someone in his back yard that one time way back then... about an hour later in another thread. So I decided to bail out early. Hoping to avoid the psycho, I logged out before supper time. That night he sent me a nasty PM demanding that I explain how I felt about the republican party. He asked me if I owned any guns. Do I shoot them. He demanded that I show him pics of my guns if I have any, to prove to him that I am "not a stinkin' commie killary lover" in his words. He cussed me up pretty good in that PM.... and it !!!! me off big time! I saw his PM notification from the forums land in my email inbox, so I logged in to respond to his PM, telling him that it was none of his business what I might own. I stated bluntly that I pity ignorant fools such as he. Leave me alone. I didn't cuss at him either... I just dismissed him. By the time I woke up the next morning and logged into the forums, psycho-macho had gone through every post in every thread where he had ever supported me or praised me in the past and had deleted all of his thoughtful comments. 🙂 He also had worked all night to toggle all of the "Like" button presses that he had ever awarded me during those recent couple of months, and he had toogled all of the "Like" button presses that I had ever awarded to him too! He also had deleted all my posts in every thread in the forums where I had quoted his words, and deleted every post in every thread where he had quoted my words too. Psycho-fool had scrubbed and scrubbed hard all night long to remove all references within the forums between himself and myself! Hahah... I am dead serious folks! He really did work very long and very hard at it! I had a couple gazillion posts scattered around in there! All prior love was now burning hate! 🙂 A couple hours later that morning I received another nasty PM from him. I saw the notification hit my inbox, but before I could open my PMs to read it.... psycho Admin BANNED me. I read his final passage from my inbox: "I am going to shoot your !!!" I went back to that forum about a year later to look around and see if my old psycho buddy might still be banging around there or not? But I couldn't find him anywhere. The only posts that I could find by his username were very old posts. I saw no posts that mentioned him either. So I assume that someone might have pulled the plug on him and set him free? Either that or some person shot the gun-waving psycho dead in self defense before he could shoot another innocent victim? Either outcome is fine with me. ------------------------------------------------- Nothing folks, And I mean NOTHING! -- Is ever worth fighting a fellow human over. Whenever I hear someone speak those words, (politicians, all of them do it)!!!! -- I instantly am aware that another disgusting psychopath believes that I am STUPID! Don't ever fight with anyone again, you're both being incredibly stupid! Psycho-macho ain't adult dadgummit!

inside pics.

ok, got my brand new 2021 sunlite home last night, here's a few pics of the outside for now. not happy about the 30 amp power cord not being 25ft !..lol. i'll have to get an extension cord to plug it into my 30 amp outlet box later.

And then later in the week I shot 3rd and 4th deer of the year, with rifle and from my adapted ladder stand though. Doe was much closer to the camera in the picture, she actually was only about 110 pounds. Buck weighed 192 dressed though.

We had 65 and 70 degree days this weekend followed by 40 degrees and heavy rain yesterday. Dropped to 20 last night and froze everything. Saw a huge buck at night but almost nobody has seen one during the day. They will get moving sometime. Going back to camp Thursday. This was the buck I got last year. Last pic is the biggest one I ever shot.

update: got to koolaids place at 5:45 am ( roughly ), pouring down rain driving to his place from the freeway, had to wait for him to get there, he was coming back from a job he had to run too. waited in my truck while he was getting the trailer awning down. then i sat there waiting for the rain to stop. finally about 7 am, it let up, got the atv pulled under the awning, up on milk crates, took the right side clutch cover off, everything looked right, EXCEPT THE CHANGE CLUTCH ?, the friction disk were not tight against the middle center plate !!. i asked him on the phone that night we first talked if they were tight ?, he said yes. then i find out that he thought i was talking about the centrifugal clutch ?!!..lol. anyway, i fixed the change clutch, fixed his ignition switch, packed up, sent bcs a text at 9:04, telling him i was headed back home. another happy ending !.

Some friends picked this up yesterday morning and we took a drive to one of my favorite places. Kind of in our backyard, for Montana anyway. We drove the Beartooth highway, was hoping to get up there right after they got it opened up but waited a little too long and didnt get to see the snow along the road. Was beautiful nevertheless. Left home by 7am and got up to the town of Redlodge which is pretty much at the base of the mountain by 9am. Just took our time and enjoyed the drive and the scenery. At the top there is a small rope tow ski lift and there were people skiing down a small area on the snow that was left. At the very top people were skiing down another area but hiking back up and shuttling up for each run in cars, trucks, and Van's. Had never been there this time of year so was pretty interesting to see the different types of people and their passion, energy, and reason for being up there. Always amazed at the little flowers that pop up and show some color among the tundra like landscape at 10,948 feet of altitude. Got the rare treat of seeing a couple of mountain goats that were near the road picking the salt off of the rocks from the snow that had been plowed off of the road (We use salt here to melt ice off the highways) Had a great time with our friends and was a beautiful day. Still ice on the lakes at the top. Was 52 degrees, when we dropped back down and drove to Billings was 100 degrees. Topped the day off with buying a couple of guns, a little .17 caliber HMR for shooting gophers, and a little Smith and Wesson EZ 380 for my wife. Her hands are so small it's hard to find anything to fit her. Was nice to get out of town for a day back to the grind tomorrow. 🥴

This pic was Thursday morning after the tornadoes came through McComb. Some of the guys from the office went and cleared one of our coworker’s driveway so she could get her car out. I used the trusty old rancher to move chunks we cut up.

Powersportsnation asked if they could use my pic....

Here’s my old quad with the bumper..

ok all you pic perv's, here's some honda porn for ya !. got the engine installed, rear diff installed, rear swing arm installed, done for the night, I'm tired.