Important reminder to keep an eye on your factory skid plates on all sportsman models.
Buddie who bought my old 850 sprung an oil leak, got it in my shop n thought maybe the oil filter loosened off or pinched the seal. No oil came out of the engine.. changed filter an added oil and changed the fikter but continued to leak.
The skid plate was pushed up onto the block, i cut the plate off and noticed it had been chaffing on the engine block, probley for last 2 years? It wore a small pin hole into the block by the oil filter. There is a groove in the block by the filter and the skid plate has the exact *male* groove on it. Once the plate got pushed up the groove's enlocked and wore a pin hole not noticeable by eye. The entire bottom of the engine block was wore down.
I jb welded the block, made a new skid plate an welded it on. Engine sounded fine?
He Started up the road, w.o.t 7500 and the old 850 exploded. One rod flew out behind the bike and the second almost blew his foot off !
His brother owns a 1 year old 850 n our friend has a 2 year old 850. We inspected both of those bike and seen the skid plate was up a bit on those to so we pryed them down. I welded a secondary plate on the 1 year old machine.
Just a friendly important reminder. A lot of people likely dont ride as hard in tough terrain as us but we have all bottomed out these bike's one way or another. We learned the hard way so I'm leaving this here so you guys don't have to !!
