I picked up a 1999 Polaris Ranger 6X6 from a good friend a couple months ago. He drove it in the barn 6 years ago and its been untouched since. I put new fuel, fuel filter and plug in it and it pretty much fired right up. I drove it about 2 weeks and it just died on me. We rebuilt the carb along with new coil and plugs. I am getting fuel, spark and air. It will spit and backfire on starting fluid, otherwise it wont if try to fire. We are 90% certain the timing is correct. Anyone have any insight to these before I pull the top end off? It acts like there's no compression. IT has a pull start and a compression release, so I am not sure testing compression would work correctly. Broken ring or a hole in the piston, maybe??

Have you ran a compression test?

You should have my phone number.

I haven't. I just haven't gone through the effort to go get a tester. But I am curious if it would work? There is a compression release for the pull start, seems like that would let it test correctly.

Backfiring is typically timing related.

You need to make sure the valves are opening and closing when they should, step one…. Compression test

If you want help, ask and we can set up a time.

As usual, thanks for the offer! You are always willing to help. I am with you and think its compression related. I am 95% certain the timing is correct. What I suspect, and you can confirm, is that the rings were stuck when I initially started up and it just took a while to let go. I plan on pulling the head off this weekend.

Turned out to be a bent valve. Whole top end will be new and I will still be in this thing for a song.

Post some pics of it. I like these 6 x 6's.

Here’s all I’ve got at the moment. I’m pretty excited to get it going. It’ll climb a wall of you let it.

That's a project right there. Good luck and post again once you get it going. If you got it cheap or free definitely worth an investment.

Well, I paid $500 for it. I'll have right at $1k into it by the time we get it running again. I can't get many OEM parts anymore, most are unavailable or just crazy expensive. Cylinder and piston are both Chinese parts, so hopefully they'll work well enough for what I need. I guess time will tell.

Have you tried:
Parts Pit Stop
It's my goto for motorcycle, atv, utv, etc. parts.

They have microfitches online and you can get actual OEM part numbers to search for price comparison.
Edit: I've been using them for years and their parts are always top quality.

While I've worked on enough Polaris stuff to know I don't want any, those particular models are pretty cool!

I have not, thanks for the heads up!

Looking at all those tools and torn down machine makes my neck hurt. Hats off to you.

Trust me, its not me. I haven't found anything my brother in law hasn't been able to fix. All I have to do is tell him I don't think he can do it and it will get done eventually. This one did take him a little longer than usual, but I think we've got it whooped now. I'll know this weekend.

I have owned 3 6x6's. Good machines. Only issues I had was with the boots tearing. Enjoy

Well, we got her put back together and seems to be running well. New cylinder, rings, piston, valves, spark plug, gaskets, rebuilt carb, fuel pump and filter and new seats. All in, I’ve got less than $1k in it. Small leak in the drain for the carb I’ll have to deal with, but other than that, everything went together smoothly. Put on a new light bar and I think she’s ready to go to work. A high seat and roof of some sort in the near future.

I haven’t kept up with this thread!

Congrats!

You did good, real good!

looks great! keep an eye on those boots

Gotta love that reverse psychology... congrats on getting it running. Good luck!

UPDATE....We used it all weekend 2 weeks ago and it ran well. Still having fuel issues, we think the pump I bought has too much pressure and fuel is pushing past the seat. I bought a simple fuel regulator to see if that fixes it. It also started a jerking/sluggish takeoff in high gear. It was also noticeable in low, but not as bad. I ordered a new drive belt and primary clutch, same issue. We decided there was a noise in the secondary that shouldn't be there. We tore it apart and there are 3 plastic "buttons" that are on the inside of the outer piece of the clutch that were no longer there. Also, the bolts had broken off. The brother in law is going to attempt to get those out and we should be back in business once again. If that doesn't work, we may have bigger issues.