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TECH TIP

� By Pete Bengel

Tom Keifer of the band Cinderella once belted out a great 1980’s power balladwith what are probably some of the most truthful lyrics ever. “Don’t know whatyou’ve got ‘til it’s gone”. Whether you’re a farmer, a hunter, or just a plain old

off-road enthusiast, it’s easy to become very reliant on your ATV. Over time your reg-ular routine even becomes dependent on having a trusty ATV to haul you from placeto place, carry supplies, or pull a load. It becomes easy to take the relationship forgranted. Eventually, even the best maintained ATV will suffer some kind of failure,and THAT is the day you’ll figure out how much your ATV really means to you.Above: Our trusty Polaris Sportsman finally had lost its spark. RM Stator helped us get back the old flame.

EVERY ROSE HAS ITS THORNFor our workhorse 1999 Polaris Sports-

man 500, that day came recently. After 18years of faithful service, the mighty Sports-man had literally “lost the spark” and fellinto silent uselessness. After years of run-ning a winch and hand warmers, and quitehonestly being jump started and ran on acrappy battery too many times, we finallysuffered a catastrophic ignition failure.The epoxy that holds the magnets to theinside of the flywheel released, allowingthe magnets to do all sorts of vile things toour stator. In case you’re curious to knowwhat that sounds like when it happens… itsounds a lot like a cash register. CHA-CHING!

After a sobering visit to our favorite Po-laris parts website, we found that the OEMstator and flywheel would cost us close to$800 in parts alone. That little slap of real-ity convinced us to seek a source for after-

market parts, so we surfed on over towww.rmstator.com to see what they of-fered for our disabled Sportsman. As itturns out, the folks at RMStator are wellacquainted with the electrical woes ofthese aging ATVs and offered all of theparts we needed and more. As an addedincentive, the RMStator replacement fly-wheel is an updated design which encasesthe magnets in a thin metal liner to keepour failure from recurring.

A short time later, our virtual cart was fullwith all of the parts we’d need to have ourSportsman breathing fire again. Not onlydid we procure a new, updated flywheel($199) and stator ($159), but we alsosplurged on a new, high-performance CDIbox ($59). Because our Sportsman typi-cally uses a lot of electrical accessorypower, we also thought it would be a goodidea to replace our aging and somewhatcrusty-looking voltage regulator/rectifier.

Since the RMStator replacement part wasa modest $49, it seemed like money wellspent. We also discovered that in additionto all of the ignition parts we’d need, RM-Stator offered a universal flywheel puller($49) that would come in very handy sinceours suffered a catastrophic failure afterbeing used as an emergency gear pulleron a past endeavor. All totaled, for $515with free US shipping, our cart containedall of the parts to completely replace ourSportsman’s destroyed and aged primaryignition and charging system. That’s al-most $300 less than just the OEM statorand flywheel. And with RMStator we gotbetter than OEM quality parts! Bonus!

DON’T STOP BELIEVIN’A few days later our package showed

up and we began the process of bringinglife back to our Polaris. All things con-sidered, this was a fairly simple job. The

Make sure to use the supplied dielectricgrease on your new connections to en-sure long life.

Notice the deformation and ripples inthe center of our old regulator/rectifierhousing. This is an indication of pastoverheating and potential failure. Thenew RM Stator part (at left) is ready toreplace it.

Our RMSTATOR puller worked great,and works on many different sizes offlywheels for future use.

Left: Years of exposure to the elements will greatly compromise your electrical connections. Center: When your flywheel mag-nets release, your stator will often bear the brunt on the damage. Right: Is it defective or not? www.rmstator.com lists diagnosticspecs for all of their replacement stators.

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toughest part is removal and replace-ment of the regulator/rectifier which ismounted to the frame rail in a nice tightarea under the hood in front of the radia-tor. It helps to have small, but stronghands for this part of the job, and we’drecommend doing it on a flat, clean sur-face as you’re likely to drop the screwssomewhere between two and one hun-dred times. All of our new parts installedperfectly. Every part is a direct OEM re-

placement and is completely plug-and-play. RMStator also supplies a packetof dielectric silicone grease with theirparts which helps your connections sliptogether easily and completely, and alsoprotects them from the elements. Theythink of everything! After a quick look todouble check our connections and bolts,we turned the key on and pushed thestart switch. The mighty Sportsmanfired right up and ran like it hadn’t run in

years, which made us realize that ourproblems had probably been lurching formost of a decade.

NOTE: RM Stator offers a VERYhandy diagnostic chart on their web sitewith the proper specs for your electricalparts. It helps you determine which partsneed replacing by listing the correct volt-age output. It’s like they sent a techni-cian out to help. You can find it under theTESTS & DIAGNOSTICS button at thebottom.

KICKSTART MY HEARTThere’s something satisfying about an

older machine that runs like new, andthat’s exactly what we have in our ’99Sportsman, but with the price of OEMparts, you can’t help but wonder if it’smoney well spent to revive an older ma-chine. That’s where we really appreciate acompany like RMStator that offers such acomplete range of parts to not only replacewhat’s defective, but update your systemto a more modern design… and all at avery reasonable price. Thanks to them,our trusty old Polaris Sportsman 500 willbe scouting, hunting, and plowing for yearsto come. As Bon Jovi once belted out inhis mega hit, you and your machine willNever Say Goodbye.

RM Statorwww.rmstator.comPhone: 1-877-838-1399

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RM STATOR IGNITION

RMSTATOR stator and flywheel. Updated parts at less than half the cost of OEM.Notice the new RM Stator flywheel is lined to prevent anything coming loose andgetting into the stator and creating a repeat failure. THAT is looking out for you withexcellent design!