Help! What do I do to get snowmobile ready?

[Wild Thing]

Hey, folks, I bought a used snowomobile last year to use for ice fishing. Now I need to know what I should do to get it ready for the coming winter. It's a 1996 Arctic Cat 2-up. It has 1,600 miles on it and is in good shape. I only used it a few times last year, less than 200 miles total. What can I do myself and what should I expect if I bring it to a dealer? What really needs to be done as opposed to costly, unecessary work? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[gjk1970]

It is simple for you to do if there is no major problems with sled and you are just looking to get it ready for the coming up season. Mainly since you just bought it replace the plugs so you know when they were last changed for your records. If it was stored with fuel which is old drain out what you can and replace with fresh fuel there is additives you can add to the fuel but I recommend replacing the fuel with new. Then move onto greasing the zerts. Check your belt for tension and wear check your clutch for rust or flaws on the pullys themselves. Then make sure you have a spare belt on you at all times. Check your tools kit and try and keep yourself an extra pair of plugs. Some sleds have plug holders and some don't you can either keep them in your tool kit or in back hatch. Just make sure they are secure and not being lose bouncing around and changing gaps, or crcking. Those plugs would be useless in a time of need. Then check your lights make sure your headlight works including highbeam, Make sure it is adjusted correctly. Then check tail light make sure you have a running light along with a brake light. Then check your track for cracks or tears you don't want to blow a track on a good day for riding. Then check ski's and wear rods. If the sled has been used crossing alot of roads you may want to replace your ski wear rods so you get the best steering available to you. Now if you do not know when the crankcase oil was changed which should be done every year then you may want to drain and fill that too. Now remember there is a inline oil filter on sleds that should be replaced every year too. Couple more things to check is your coolant and oil then you should be set to ride..

[Steve Bakken]

One thing I'll add is that it might not hurt to disassemble your carbs and inspect and clean them, especially if the gas was not stabilized. I've seen cylinders completely burned down due to just one chunk of junk that was lodged in the jet. It's fairly simple if you take your time. Do one carb at a time so that you always have the other one to reference if you're not sure about something.

[wally-eye]

It's very important to clean the carbs, unless it's an efi sled.

[MikeYager - Suzuki]

Proper storage preparation last spring was the most important thing to having it ready this winter. At a bare minumum I hope you treated the gas, ran it dry and fogged the motor.