AidanJude1876

Hello, my polaris xlt special's headlight burned out so I replaced it and now it's beginning to flicker and all I have is low beam no high beam, but the dash light says that high beam is on when it is switched to hi beam so it is not the switch, and I have no rpm or spedometer lights. That's problem 1, problem 2 is I just took the sled out and the spedometer no longer works. Are these problems connected or not? I believe the first problem is a voltage regulator but I'm not sure. Any input is greatly appreciated, thanks guys

aduck

The speedo is mechanical. But your heading in the right direction with the regulator.

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meburdick

Speedometer malfunction is most likely the result of a bad driveshaft bearing on the PTO side. The quick check / fix is to remove the secondary clutch, remove the three bolts from the housing that the speedo cable is connected to, remove the housing (carefully, preserve the gasket), and you will most likely find a broken speedo key. Replace the key, reverse the dis-assembly process, go ride.

If the speedo goes out again, you have a bad driveshaft bearing. Fix it now before it becomes a huge problem.

As aduck says - voltage regulator seems a good place to start for the lighting issue. Replace it, then all of the burnt bulbs, and see what happens from there.

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AidanJude1876

Thanks for the replies guys, I have a friend that is going to look into it, I rode the sled for 20 miles after I noticed the speedo out, did I do any damage in that span of miles?

meburdick

Hard to say... The speedo key behind the secondary is an excellent early warning indicator of bearing troubles because it breaks when the bearing develops a little play in it. If you "shut it down" and do the bearing work, you should not do any additional damage. If you ignore a bad bearing, however, it will eventually wear through the jacket and wear into the chassis. Then you have problems.

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steepndeep

If it is just the light in the tach along with the other lights that you mentioned them your problem is as mentioned the regulator. You've undoubtedly burned out your high beam filament in your replacement buld. regulator is just inside the console on the righthand side below ignition, handwarmer and choke systems.

AidanJude1876

Does the speedo and rpm dials have their own backlight bulbs? Or are they lit by the headlight

meburdick

Separate bulbs

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AidanJude1876

Can a bad bearing cause the track to seize up? I'm just asking cause I just read someone point this out on snowmobile fanatics

meburdick

Absolutely. The driveshaft bearing is what allows the driveshaft to spin smoothly, if at all. If it doesn't spin because of a bad bearing, nothing attached to it will spin either - including the track, chain, jackshaft, and secondary clutch.

What did they "point out"?

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AidanJude1876

He pointed out that a bearing like this can cause the track to seize up, be ause it seemed that my snowmobile spurting a lot of white smoke just to get going in the morning, and it idled at like 3700 rpms until I got going, then it idled at 1800 rpms

BC_Dan

A buddy had a ZR that ignored the speedometer going out for a while. He was going across a meadow at speed and the driveline fell out because the bearing had completely come apart and the driveline no longer had anything on that end to secure it. That really makes a mess of a lot of stuff. Lucky the snow was deep, it launched him over the handlebars and into the snow. Pretty spendy fix. Don't ignore the speedometer.

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meburdick

Idle and the bearing are not related. Even when your sled is cold, it shouldn't idle that high, though.

Put the rear of the sled up in the air, loosen the track adjusters at the rear and push the idler wheels forward (you may have to set a 2x4 or something on the outside of the track and tap them forward with a hammer) to loosen the track. Get under the sled on the left side (where the jackshaft attaches to the secondary) and reach up into the tunnel. Grab the driveshaft and rotate it. Try and move it side-to-side. The driveshaft should be completely immovable in any direction or manner except rotationally. If you can move the shaft in a circle like you're stirring your hot cocoa (without any rotation of the shaft), you definitely have a bearing problem. There needs to be ZERO slop.

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Polaris7984

I have a '97 XLT and my speedometer backlight bulb burned out (I assume since everything else electrical is fine including the tach light). I cannot figure out how to get into the speedometer to change it! Pulled the console apart and nothing on the back of the speedometer is obvious to opening it up. Is the bulb accessed from the front of the speedometer?

Thanks!


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Polaris7984

NM got my issue figured out - I was way overthinking how to change the bulb. If it took me 3 days to figure that out, I sure as hell can't figure out how to edit/delete my original post!