the Walnut Diary

My friend Tony ran across an elderly Ranger 500, a recent trade-in at the dealership where I bought my Ranger TM some years ago.  He asked me to have a look if I got the chance.

We drove to Carleton Place today to see how much worse (or better) the vehicle in question was than our 2004 two-wheel drive TM.  My first impression wasn’t good.  The solenoid wouldn’t even click when I tried to start it.  The booster battery didn’t work either.  Then the sales guy remembered to touch the brake while starting, and it purred to life.  Polaris put on a safety interlink which allows starting in gear.  Once started, the engine ran very well.  Bet was impressed by its smoothness and its quiet.

Two different guys at the dealership told me about the two Ranger 500’s at the Carp landfill which have run all day, every working day, since they were bought in the early 2000’s.  I don’t know how they’d measure such a high number on an hour meter, but one’s supposed to have almost 17,000 hours on it.  No motor job on either yet.

This test vehicle’s a trade-in from a farm with a maple sugar operation.  From where the mud is caked underneath, mixed with bits of hay and bark, that makes sense.  The clutch take-up is still smooth, so I don’t think it has ever towed a heavy trailer.  On a farm there’s a tractor (or four) to do most heavy jobs.  A large dent in the front plate indicates that somebody hit a rock or solid stump up front.  That can happen.  The radiator is untouched after a considerable impact from the front and below.  The choke cable hangs out of the dash.  It’s stiff and needs to be replaced.  The torn seat bottom has been replaced by a borrowed one, but it still needs the heavy rubber grommets which allow the front of the seat to snap into the frame.

I didn’t check the oil or the air filter, but the machine looks to me as though it has had normal use around a farm over a long period of time.  Farmers take care of stuff.  Possible trouble spots?  Old cable and leaking tires, upholstery.  It needs new wiper blades.  As nearly as I could tell the drive train works properly, as do the brakes and suspension.

I understand the engine received a rebuild a few years ago.  The 500 cc single is smooth, quiet, and powerful in comparison to the detuned 650 cc twin in my Ranger TM.

The cuts/scratches on the right side of the plastic box likely came from an encounter with a barbed wire fence.  The box is in better condition than the one on our TM.  This one’s nice and straight.  Ours droops over the axle a bit due to what I assume was an outrageous load before we bought it.  Similarly, this roll cage is still solid.  Mine needs a bit of welding.  The TM’s “roll bar” is much less sturdy than the 500’s.

One reason why the 500 is set up to start in gear with the brake on no doubt is because of the involved procedure to get the thing into road gear.  Shift from N to L to another N to H.  Or shut it off in H and drive it that way until you need to back up.  The separate shift for differential lock is the same as on the TM.  AWD engages with a rocker switch on the dash.

The roof and glass windshield (with wipers) are desirable features, but I expected dust and exhaust fumes to make their way up around the box and into the cabin.  I wasn’t disappointed.  I understand a second windshield to close off the rear of the cabin is necessary for proper protection against weather and fumes.  That said, I could likely get by with the slightly smelly air as the exhaust from the little engine wasn’t that bad.

After fifteen minutes of driving in a large flat lot I didn’t see or feel anything about the Ranger to ring any warning bells.  I think this 2002 Ranger 500 is exactly what it appears to be, a solid machine traded in on a new one of the same model after 10 years of service.

I would own it.

UPDATE: 4 MARCH, 2013

The dealer replaced the choke cable and the front ball joints before he released it for sale. Turned out the joints were very bad. A session with the mechanic taught me the trick with the oil changes on a dry sump engine: after the sump is drained there is still a cup of oil in the engine block. Remove the spark plug and flip the engine over a couple of times to allow the pump to empty this residual oil out. Then add two litres and start. If the dip stick still reads high there’s a vapour lock, so squeeze the soft rubber vent tube from the sump to the engine and try again. This will usually allow the oil to pump through. When the dip stick reads properly, the job is done.

I put the 500 into my shop and went to work on the little things. The rear lights needed bulbs, but the wiring was intact. The wiper motor’s connection was weak. Tire pressures needed adjustment. When I retired my sedan cruiser to the corner of the back field I removed the vinyl side curtains from the expensive stern cover. They had sat for years in an equipment bag. It was the work of a couple of minutes, two spring clamps and a couple of feet of red duct tape to put a temporary rear windshield on the 500’s cab. It has served so well in that application — even with a couple of trailer rides on the highway, that it’s likely to stay there. The cab/windshield/rear screen is surprisingly comfortable against winter’s blasts.

AWD makes a huge difference with the Ranger in winter. While I wouldn’t take it out on the lake in 10″ of snow, it can go very well in six inches with occasional drifts deeper than that. The 500 has proven amazingly agile when climbing over obstacles, powerful enough to push through heavy snow and slush, and capable of sustained, 30 mph speeds over distances.

The 500’s engine starts very well in winter. There was a phantom electrical fault which drained its battery a couple of times, but we have traced that to a sticky light switch. The thing always smelled strongly of gasoline. Replacing the gas cap didn’t help. After a couple of weekends it quit starting and dumped the contents of its fuel tank onto the ground by way of the carburetor overflow whenever we operated the starter.

A call to the dealer revealed that it was a needle valve plugged with dirt in the carburetor, so off it came — a simple job except for the cables, which were tricky. It went back on minus one of the two screws which hold it in place. We’ll find the screw in the spring, with any luck. The engine runs very well once more.

The odd electrical glitch and crud in the gas line are to be expected from an old machine. Apart from that, it’s a surprisingly capable and pleasant UTV.

A reader confronted me:  “I tried to find my way around your blog and couldn’t make any headway.  I was looking for your series of reviews of the Princecraft.  Where are #2 and #3?”

Blushingly I admitted that I hadn’t written them.

“You shouldn’t do that.”

“I guess I’ve been more interested in producing content than curating a library.”

So here goes Review #2, wildly out of chronological order.  Call it a flash forward or something.

The boat’s currently in the yard, hauled in advance of a promised storm which turned out to be a shower.  But therein lies a tale.  A couple of weeks ago I pulled a muscle in my leg and it grew steadily more painful until I took to bed for a week or so to let it heal.  Calling upon his immense experience but little actual observation, my Portland G.P. insisted it was a hamstring pull.  Paul, a physiotherapist at the Athens clinic, explained it was an adductor tear, and quite a nasty one with a lot of bruising.

Adductors enable one to raise the leg for steps over objects.  I wasn’t looking forward to hauling a boat with limited mobility.  Bet agreed to crew, so I backed the trailer down the ramp beside the slip, set the brake, and limped over to the dock.  Stepping down into the boat wasn’t all that bad.  I had the tall seat and a dock post for balance, and the wide step on the starboard side provided a good target for my lurch down into the boat.  One more weight shift over the stiff leg and I stood on the floor of the boat at the stern, still balanced by the seat.

I released the stern safety rope which snaps into a towing eye, then reached over and twisted the key as I sat down.  The engine purred to life.  Bet tossed the two bow lines into the cockpit.  The boat gently eased backward to where I could release the final stern line and I was away.

Did I mention it was blowing whitecaps in the bay?  I realized I would have to run onto the trailer with a strong cross wind and occasional drifting patches of weeds.  Oh well.  Normally hauling a 16′ boat just involves taking aim and shutting off when it gets to the trailer.  This would be a little more difficult.

I remembered a time-honoured boating adage:  Good seamanship is never getting into a situation where you need to use it.  Well I had a bum leg, an audience, and a strong cross wind, so I guessed I’d better raise my game a bit, anyway.  Early on I’d installed a couple of tall PVC tubes at the corners of the trailer to protect the hull during capers like this.  I decided to use the wind, so I raised the motor a bit to clear the silt along the shore and began to drift toward the trailer.  This seemed controllable at low speed, so I slid the nose in quite close to the upwind post, just touching it, then gently nudged forward into the gap between the posts until the boat stopped.  Bet hooked the winch into its ring and started to crank.  I shut off and reached across to hold the upwind post to centre the hull on the trailer.  That worked, so after she’d attached the safety chain at the bow I raised the engine a bit and asked Bet to drive ahead.

The part of this I had dreaded most was my departure from the boat on the trailer.  No way was I going to jump today.  But the step up out of the cockpit floor and the wide port gunwale allowed me to drop the bum leg over onto the trailer fender.  The handhold on the cockpit bulkhead turned out to be ideally placed for this.  Another step down the side of the fender and I was on the ground.

I’d always detested climbing over the side of the old Springbok when it was on its narrow trailer.  The new trailer allowed me to make the climb with an injured leg.  Bet and I realized right then that the Starfish and its matching trailer have a few ergonomic touches worth their weight in gold for someone with restricted mobility.   It’s a great geezer boat.

Like many others, no doubt, I watched online while the balloon inflated and the flight got underway.

The streamed transmission in HD worked splendidly on my MacBook Pro.  During the time that not much was happening, I kept watching for the occasional bits of movement:  what’s that guy doing with the lift truck by the crane’s back wheels?  Those guys holding that big air hose must be getting tired.  Are they ever going to set it down?

My immediate praise went out to the crane operator for his flawless handling of the launch. Everything rode on his timing and control. As the massive bag of gas swept up he drove the capsule down the runway underneath until the tether was vertical, and released it without stressing the thing in any way I could see.

From there Red Bull and Felix set up the story line as a legitimate piece of space travel/research, complete with Old Joe on the microphone.  The subtext was that Joe, who set the records in 1960, was bringing along a successor.  His kindly mentoring was flawless throughout the script. His voice was a welcome and unifying substitute for the babble of radio traffic and static I remember from radio broadcasts of early launches from Cape Canaveral.

Photography took quite a leap with clear images from over 40 miles away as the ground crew followed the craft.  The jet stream now makes sense to those of us who were along in that capsule.  We watched the displays:  interesting how it gets cold, and then warmer as the balloon goes higher.  It hovered, then took off again, no doubt due to the sun’s action on the bag.  How much can it inflate before it bursts?

The jump was flat-out terrifying when we saw the image start to spin as Felix hit the sound barrier.  Then after a beat, magically, he was stable again and we were back into our space-fantasy storyline.

Perhaps the classiest part of a very well done Internet show was the decision to open the parachute seconds before breaking the longest-freefall record.  Nothing was said of it (classy again) but Old Joe will go to his grave with his record intact.

Red Bull has pulled off a major coup in sponsoring this event and telling the story the way they did, and  I’ll never look at a Glad sandwich bag in quite the same way again.

Yesterday I resolved to fix the left front tire on the Simplicity lawn mower, so after an extended session with a pitcher of water I located and marked a crack in the sidewall of the offending tire. Trouble was I marked it with a lumber crayon and the tire was wet at the time. It proved an imprecise indicator of the actual leak location, for when I probed with the sticking tool I almost found the hole. No matter, now there were two leaks to patch. More practice. It was such a small tire that I decided to cut the sticky string in the kit into half to get twice as much. Learned why those gooey strings are that long. Used two more. Added some goo outside, just in case. Ate supper while it set.

Added air. Whoosh! It sounded more like a deflating balloon than a working tire. I resolved to make a proper repair. Googled for a while, not finding any 15 X 6 turf tires without four-hole rims attached. The Simplicity uses a bronze bearing surrounding a ¾” axle, secured by a clip hidden under an impossible vinyl thing which sorta holds grease.

Eventually found the correct rig at Canadian Tire, of all places, a universal kit which promises to fit almost all lawn mowers. $59.99 plus taxes. But comments warned about the vinyl centre of the wheel, so I questioned the replacement wheel’s suitability. Tried the same phrase in Google and found that Home Depot has them for $35. In Watertown. Tried Kingston. Frustrating process here, but basically Canadian stores don’t stock them at any price.

Oh yeah, there was a place in Texas which sells the tires for 21 dollars, with free shipping within the U.S.

Under the circumstances I decided to try the CTC model, but on the way to spending 60 dollars plus taxes I stopped at TSC and asked if they had any tires. Surely enough, the guy had two at 35 dollars, but they were on sale for $20.50. I took them both and went home happy at the deal, but a bit apprehensive about the task the guy at the counter assured me I had in store. He said it would take an hour to change one wheel. He further suggested that I soak the things in warm sunlight and then sock the soapy water to them.

The old one wasn’t all that bad to take off: I used a 1/2″ socket extension down through the wheel to anchor it to my woodworking vice. Then I had at it with anything that would pry. Eventually it gave up before I got out the reciprocating saw to cut the bead.

For the new tire I decided that water would make a mess, so I sprayed everything with lithium grease. That made things slippery, all right. The first side went on not too badly. I hoped the various slips with a wrecking bar wouldn’t wreck the seal. Then came the hard side. It didn’t want to go on. Nothing was working so I squeezed the two sides of the tire body together with woodworking clamps to make a bit more room inside the wheel for fitting. Then I held the tire in place with my gut and pried with both bars at the same time. It eventually reached the point where the bead was so jammed on it didn’t want to slide away from the rim any more, and after another couple of pries it slid into shape.

Then it blew up fine and held air.

The guy wasn’t kidding about the hour of hard work, but the time wasn’t wasted.

Oh yeah: I used one corner of the hoist in the new garage to lift the front of the mower up on its hind wheels. Solid.