Newb looking at a 98 powder special

STANG302 · Dec 8, 2009

I've been looking for a crossover type of sled that I can learn and beat on in deep snow and ride the flat groomed trails along with the ocasional ice fishing trip. I found a 1998 artic cat 600 efi powder special. It looks to be in good shape and has a fresh motor. I'm going to have a look at it tonight. Any thing I should look for? Any reason I shouldn't buy a powder special?

longtrack156 · Dec 8, 2009

Had one for 8 years, they had a problem with the crank, also they had stator problems. Should all be fixed by now if it has a new motor.

STANG302 · Dec 8, 2009

Well thanks to a bit of research on this forum. I took the plunge and picked up the 98 AC powder special 600 efi. Will be tearing into it this weekend and doing some maintenance from top to bottom. And hope we get some snow in the next few weeks. Or we just might have to take a short trip up to the U.P. I'll try to get some pics up this weekend.

RockyMtn.Kris · Dec 8, 2009

:beer;

STANG302 · Dec 13, 2009

Well this weekend was busy. Picked up that 98 PS and droped it off at a friends house that knows alot more about sleds than I do. He looked it over called a couple his budy's over tht are artic cat guys to stop over. Being my first sled I had no clue if I was getting ripped off or baught a piece of crap. I felt better when they gave me the thumbs up on the purchase. Now I didn't feel so bad for parting with a grand.

The cat guys gave us some pointers on what we needed to attend too and what to look out for. For the most part they were extremely impressed with my find and didn't find much. First off we found a bolt missing from one of the main rear rollers in the skid. Found some hack job wireing fix on the harness running up to the gage pod. And agreed that the hood that was used as a replacement, from what we don't know. Needs to be held in place better and a gap on the clutch side that needs to be closed up. We replaced that and tryed to fire it up. And managed to flood her pretty good. Noticed that it had the wrong plugs in for an artic cat, who knew? Cleaned up the plugs and managed to fire it up after the cat guys left. And I took it for a test ride in the back field. Everything felt good and smooth. And boy does she scoot along. Came back parked her in the garage. And made a game plan for sunday to tear the rear skid and jack shaft out. To double check bearings and change the chain case oil.

Got over there sunday after noon and percided to tear into her. Soon we realize that the boot on the rear wheel on the skid has been missing for some time. The bearing and plastic bushing are shot. Continue on and find the rest of the skid to be in great shape. Track is still the original and has seen better day's. Pull the clutch and chain case apart and right away we sense a bad bearing some where. Procide to pull the shaft out and find two issues. One, the pin that connects the speedo cable to the shaft is missing

(we didn't realize this till latter). I learned along time ago not to trust the odomiters on my atv's and such. Chances of them being legit are slim. Second one bearing on the shaft is well not completely shot. But is on its way out.

Since dennis kirk is a short drive away. We decide since we got it apart might as well replace the two bearings on the shaft and the upper bearing in the chain case. Along with the bearings in both rear wheels on the skid along with the one bad bushing. Well that turned into two bushings along the way as my buddy some how managed to bust the only good one. We were in and out of dennis kirk with in minutes. With everything we needed and a four "correct" spark plugs (still don't understand that one). And were back to the garage in an hour and a half.

Why is tearing down alway's the easy part. Shouldn't it be the assembly? Any way we managed to put the skid and track back together with a little kicking and swearing. And to have a suprise when a zert on the skid pulls out stuck to the grease gun. We replaced that with a self tapper. Put the shaft in, buttoned up the chain case with new oil. And as we were going to put the clutch back on. One of guys said were's the little pin for the speedometer. After a failed search we figure t couldn't have been in there or we wouldn't have missed it. But continue to install the clutch and button everything up. I'll have to pick up a new pin and install it latter.

Fired her up and let the two that did all the work take the her out for a few more shake down test runs. Come back and give me there impressions of the PS. And they agree she's got some balls and is pretty fast. At least to 80 or so. A few things still need to be attended to. But no atleast I know now that everythings up to snuff and ready for this season. And for a 1K dollar sled that only requred $70 worth of parts. I'm extremely happy with my purchase. Don't think I would have found a better deal any where!

Which brings up a couple questions.

What does the stock clutching engage at?
Mine was jumping in at 5K or so.

Also what is the stock gearing for the PS?
We found my sled to have 18/19 (can't remember) to 42.

I'll get a pic up tommorow.

STANG302 · Dec 14, 2009

RockyMtn.Kris · Dec 14, 2009

Looks and sounds like a hell of a deal. You cant go wrong for a grand, Ive spent that much on pipes

dougdiggler · Dec 14, 2009

I have had one 6 years and 3500 miles (one stator and drive clutch) I have had problems w/ the grounds on the motor coming loose and it won't run right. 5 thousand rpms for the clutch sounds about right. Watch the spring on the drive clutch, they will break and still look good. Grease the spedo jack shaft bearing ( I have replaced mine 3 times, easier in the garage than 400 miles from home). This was my first sled learned a bunch, has been very reliable. And one last thing the factory arctic cat repair manul is awesome!

STANG302 · Dec 15, 2009

dougdiggler said:
Grease the spedo jack shaft bearing ( I have replaced mine 3 times, easier in the garage than 400 miles from home).

Yup. we found that bearing to be on its way out. Not completely shot but we replaced all bearings on the jack shaft and in the chain case. Don't need breakdowns out on the trail. I'll keep an eye on the clutch. Thanks

STANG302 · Dec 15, 2009

Here is a couple stoopid questions.

Is there any easy way to drop weight on this beast?

Also I plan to put a 1.25 track on it for riding around WI. But I've heard of track porting. What is it and would it benifit my sled to do it to my 2" for heading to wyoming and the UP of MI.?

crazy_81 · Dec 21, 2009

An easy way to loose weight, yes and no. A boss seat will drop a few, oil injection delete is another. Here is a link to mine I dont know if you want to go as far as I did, but mine dosent see any trails except for to the powder...

http://www.snowestonline.com/forum/showthread.php?t=189117

Track porting is another way of loosing a little bit of weight but the more noticeable thing is there wont be as much snow build up in the skid.

On your sled I would probably widen the ski stance out a little since you have more trails then powder.

WAmtnsledr · Dec 22, 2009

STANG302 said:
Is there any easy way to drop weight on this beast?

i don't know about easy, but you can drop a lot of weight off these sleds. you can drop at least 10 lbs. with a new can, it would cost a lot but if you want to an EZ-Ryde rear skid on that sled would be bada$$ and you would save at least 20 lbs. pipe, intake, y-pipe, headlight delete, venting, track porting, boss seat, and oil injection delete like crazy_81 said would save a lot of weight. VE tunnel, lightweight a-arms, lexan hood, etc. there is lots of things you can do to lose some weight if you're willing to spend some money. everything above would save at least 40 lbs. and i'm not sure how much a VE tunnel weighs but i'm sure it saves a lot of weight.

STANG302 · Dec 24, 2009

Were finaly getting some snow here in WI over the next few days. Trails should finaly be opening. So I'll finaly get to try this ol' beast out. I may wait till next summer to tear her down and get dramatic with the weight reducing.

I have picked up a different set of gears for riding around my area. Gears that came with it were set up for out west. So I'll swap them back in when we head to dubois in Feb. Also have a d&d pipe, can, chip coming. That should shave a bit of weight off the front end.

One question with the chip and exhaust. Will I need to reclutch it?
Also what year/model of sled has the wider a-arms to swap over to the PS?

rdr99 · Dec 24, 2009

Think the ZRs may have had wider arms. I had one of those Powder Specials for awhile, put way too much into it. Stay with the stock reeds, the V-Force I had were always breaking. Keep it long enough and you will have to rebuild the stator. If the sled starts to run funky, it might be the safety switch inside the throttle control, you can unplug it or cut the wire. If you are going to do alot of powder riding and want an adventure, swap the tunnel from a 2001 or newer, they have more taper.

clutch · Dec 24, 2009

looking at your pics you have an LE model. It already has the wide a arms and ski stance like the zr's did.

STANG302 · Dec 25, 2009

I never thought of it but I think your right. Last time i had a chance to ride. It felt very stable especialy compared to the 800 xcsp that a friend has. I'll have to measure the width tomorrow when i bring er home. Was suposed to hit the trails but we got skunked once again. got about 6" of snow fallowed by rain. Was supossed to get around 14-20 inches.

STANG302 · Dec 27, 2009

Measured the ski stance and it is roughly 41-42 inches. Plus it has a swaybar. Did powder specials come with sway bars? Fixed a few more things this weekend. Steering was all out of wack with the ski's pointing right and the handle bar poiting left. Replaced the harness on the hood. And a few more little items. And now she's ready for the trail as soon as we get some snow!

Here's a few pics of this weekend:

rmkrazi · Dec 28, 2009

I just sold my '98 2 weeks ago along with a mostly complete parts sled and bad motor. Wasn't to bad of a sled, but was dang heavy. Black hood makes 'em look bad ***. I may have been more inclined to keep mine if the hood wasn't pearly white.

I only had a few problems with mine for the short period that I owned it. The wood ruff key started to shear and messed the timing up enough to where it would run but would be hard to start sometimes. Finally got so bad that it would hardly run one day on the trail. Took it home and popped off the mag to find the key just barely in one piece. Two dollars and a trip to the dealership and I was back in business. Had the o-rings in the head go out another time riding down the trail and had to tow it back 25 miles through the hills with the other ps (now the parts sled), which probably contributed to the crank snapping 2 weeks later. O-rings were kinda spendy, but I think they fried because of the twin pipes I was runnin' Any way good luck with yours and try to get it on diet...

jmoyer · Feb 10, 2010

STANG302 said:
Well this weekend was busy. Picked up that 98 PS and droped it off at a friends house that knows alot more about sleds than I do. He looked it over called a couple his budy's over tht are artic cat guys to stop over. Being my first sled I had no clue if I was getting ripped off or baught a piece of crap. I felt better when they gave me the thumbs up on the purchase. Now I didn't feel so bad for parting with a grand.

The cat guys gave us some pointers on what we needed to attend too and what to look out for. For the most part they were extremely impressed with my find and didn't find much. First off we found a bolt missing from one of the main rear rollers in the skid. Found some hack job wireing fix on the harness running up to the gage pod. And agreed that the hood that was used as a replacement, from what we don't know. Needs to be held in place better and a gap on the clutch side that needs to be closed up. We replaced that and tryed to fire it up. And managed to flood her pretty good. Noticed that it had the wrong plugs in for an artic cat, who knew? Cleaned up the plugs and managed to fire it up after the cat guys left. And I took it for a test ride in the back field. Everything felt good and smooth. And boy does she scoot along. Came back parked her in the garage. And made a game plan for sunday to tear the rear skid and jack shaft out. To double check bearings and change the chain case oil.

Got over there sunday after noon and percided to tear into her. Soon we realize that the boot on the rear wheel on the skid has been missing for some time. The bearing and plastic bushing are shot. Continue on and find the rest of the skid to be in great shape. Track is still the original and has seen better day's. Pull the clutch and chain case apart and right away we sense a bad bearing some where. Procide to pull the shaft out and find two issues. One, the pin that connects the speedo cable to the shaft is missing (we didn't realize this till latter). I learned along time ago not to trust the odomiters on my atv's and such. Chances of them being legit are slim. Second one bearing on the shaft is well not completely shot. But is on its way out.

Since dennis kirk is a short drive away. We decide since we got it apart might as well replace the two bearings on the shaft and the upper bearing in the chain case. Along with the bearings in both rear wheels on the skid along with the one bad bushing. Well that turned into two bushings along the way as my buddy some how managed to bust the only good one. We were in and out of dennis kirk with in minutes. With everything we needed and a four "correct" spark plugs (still don't understand that one). And were back to the garage in an hour and a half.

Why is tearing down alway's the easy part. Shouldn't it be the assembly? Any way we managed to put the skid and track back together with a little kicking and swearing. And to have a suprise when a zert on the skid pulls out stuck to the grease gun. We replaced that with a self tapper. Put the shaft in, buttoned up the chain case with new oil. And as we were going to put the clutch back on. One of guys said were's the little pin for the speedometer. After a failed search we figure t couldn't have been in there or we wouldn't have missed it. But continue to install the clutch and button everything up. I'll have to pick up a new pin and install it latter.

Fired her up and let the two that did all the work take the her out for a few more shake down test runs. Come back and give me there impressions of the PS. And they agree she's got some balls and is pretty fast. At least to 80 or so. A few things still need to be attended to. But no atleast I know now that everythings up to snuff and ready for this season. And for a 1K dollar sled that only requred $70 worth of parts. I'm extremely happy with my purchase. Don't think I would have found a better deal any where!

Which brings up a couple questions.

What does the stock clutching engage at?
Mine was jumping in at 5K or so.

Also what is the stock gearing for the PS?
We found my sled to have 18/19 (can't remember) to 42.

I'll get a pic up tommorow.

I bought the exact same sled this year as a test sled to see how I liked it. Picked it up for $500 and just had to replace the chain and tensioner in the chain case.
I noticed when I took it out it was engaging really late (4500-5000) and went through 2 belts in 45kms. We brought it into our shop and found the bolt to stabalize the motor was gone (95% of the problem) and the clutches were REALLY gummed up. We cleaned the clutches up to get all the old belt dust out and now it engages around 3000-3500.

DCAMPBELL · Feb 11, 2010

i have a similar sled a 98 zl that i long tracked and ported the track which i feel is a must! it has a psi680 big bore, pipe, v force, ufos in the carbs also a must, and a power breather< runs amazing! somethin i did that makes it real nice to ride is i put a king cat fuel tank and new style boss seat, as well as a set of king cat handlebars!! this sled is a blast to ride and is a real good all around sled good power and is lighter than a 1m sled and still has plenty of power

Newb looking at a 98 powder special

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