the Walnut Diary

22 December I added an update at the end of this article.  The TM did much better today on a cold start when other engines on the farm had trouble.

I posted a further update on 29 December.

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YouTube is full of film clips of  Polaris Rangers in sand and mud, but I haven’t seen much about the cold weather operation of the machines.

This week during a cold snap the shift cable froze solid, imprisoning the TM in its tent/garage until heat from the idling engine eventually thawed it out.  Requests for information from ATV forums didn’t produce anything useful, quite possibly because all of the avatars of contributors have their machines surrounded by sand or mud, not snow.

The 2004 TM is still under factory warranty, so I called the dealer and explained that this intermittent failure of a cable could be a real safety issue for me if I’m out on a frozen lake in mid-winter, so he ordered a replacement cable.

The Subaru 653 twin didn’t start all that well on the cold morning, either, picking up on one cylinder and the choke, and only gradually getting #2 into the act.  I bought the machine as a demonstrator last fall with almost 100 hours on the engine (now 130), and I’ll bet it has never had a plug, though, so I’ll hold off on complaints about cold-weather starting until I have fresh spark in it.

This morning I took the TM for a drive to follow the tracks of the coyote who had scurried out of the barn as I approached.  I had a pleasant morning wandering around a hundred acres of fields and pine, spruce and walnut seedlings.  The coyote is clearly doing her job, foraging for mice almost exclusively around my young seedlings, so I guess her Christmas bonus is assured, and I’ll try to forgive her persistent use of the miscellaneous piles of shavings in my barn as her personal litter box.  What’s with that anyway?

Most of the footing was frozen grass under about four inches of powdery snow.  As a test I drove the TM at low speed as far as it would go into a field with a gradually thickening pack of snow and ice left over from an earlier storm.  With no load in the back the traction failed before it dragged bottom.  Fine.  I backed up, interested to see whether the thing would get itself out of a situation on the flat, or if with the differential locked it would skid off the the side and compound the problem.  I was quite pleased to find that in reverse it follows its track quite faithfully, and seems able to back out of whatever situation I create for it while driving forward — on the level.  It would be foolish to expect to back uphill to get unstuck with a 2WD machine.

All in all, the Ranger TM is quite a pleasant machine in cold weather.  So far I have only had one morning when it wouldn’t work, and this may be easy to fix.

A month ago the dealer offered me a used cab frame, windshield, cab enclosure and plastic roof, but I declined after considerable thought.  A small cab like this would frost up quickly from one or more persons’ breath on a cold morning.  There’s no defroster.  Further, if I towed the machine to a lake over sanded highways, I’d have to clean the windshield before starting out.  That would be rough on the plastic.  The doors would have to be removed for safety when traveling on the ice.  What’s more, I have a perfectly good 4X4 pickup which is most capable off-road.  Why would I create another, inferior copy of it?

The advantage of the Ranger is that I can look up and enjoy the tall trees when driving through my woodlot.  In buildings and around obstructions it’s the easy visibility and lack of fragility of the body which give it an advantage over the truck. A cab would reduce these benefits.

So instead of a cab I have opted for a snowmobile suit and helmet with full face shield and a scarf for the chin area under the helmet which freezes instantly without it.  Feet don’t seem to get all that cold, but very heavy mitts are a necessity, as well.

My first cold-weather run nearly froze me before I adapted to snowmobile attire.  That time I had some carburetor icing or governor issues:  at full speed the engine would bog down to medium revs for a while, then speed up again.  It continued to fire well throughout the slowdown, though.  Surprisingly, the problem has not recurred.  Perhaps there was moisture in the crankcase which frosted the carburetor, but once it had cleared the problem resolved itself.

I haven’t started my 1976 Ski Doo Alpine yet this winter, and we have had lots of snow.  That says something about the appeal of the Ranger TM.

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UPDATE  22 DECEMBER, 2008:  Today was so cold my Toyota groaned when starting, but the Polaris lit right up, and the shifter hasn’t whimpered since that one tantrum a week ago.  The snow was too deep for the TM, but I had work for it to do, so I cleared a trail back to the woods with my tractor and 5′ snowblower.  It was able to bull around enough in the deep snow to turn around at the ends of the road, though more weight in the bed might help.  Inexplicably, the left dog on the tailgate release stuck in the on position late this afternoon.  (Turns out the right cable had doubled inside the gate, jamming it to the left.  No biggie.)

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that the reason I needed the Ranger was that my faithful old Massey Harris 30 gas tractor wouldn’t start.  Those things always go, but it was too cold today or else it was feeling neglected because of all the attention the Ranger gets.

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UPDATE 29 DECEMBER, 2008:  Yesterday’s high temperatures and gale-force winds swept the snow away in our area, so I took the Ranger for a tour of the property to check for damage.  No doubt because of the improvement cut in the winter of 2006, the woodlot held up well to the onslaught.  Traveling on the trails was easy because the snow was all gone from beneath the maple crown.  Then I emerged onto the butternut plantation, which is sheltered from the wind on the eastern side of the woodlot.  The far side of the field sported a band of green, but the corn snow (crystalized from freeze/thaw cycles) lay a little deeper than I would have liked in the 150 yards separating me from an easy drive back to the house.  Do I back up and go around, or try to get through the deep snow?

I hit the snow at about 3/4 throttle, acceleration limited by some ice on the trail.  The Subaru engine sounded as though it was working for once, as I kept the revs up and let the locked differential chew its way through about a foot of soft, heavy snow.  It seems the way to get through deep snow with the two wheel-drive Ranger is to keep the rev’s up and let it paw away, because as it passed the point where I thought it would lose momentum and stick (necessitating a rescue with my truck), it just kept going at about jogging speed.  It carried on through snow that was quite a bit deeper and harder than I expected, and we gratefully reached the grass on the sunny side of the field.  What impressed me was the lack of axle-bouncing of the sort I get in my Toyota when spinning in deep snow.  The TM’s axle stays in place well while spinning.

Family members accuse me of deliberately trying to get stuck with my toy.  But how can you trust a machine if you don’t know its limits?