Over the past few months, the steering has become very stiff on my 1989 Ovation. Everything has been lubed and maintained per the owners manual since the machine was new. I disconnected the steering linkage and found that the handle bar is easy to turn but the skis are VERY hard to rotate. I am thinking something has gone bad inside the pogos which is causing the stiff steering. Does anyone know what could be causing this problem? Also, is there anything dangerous about taking these things apart? I would imagine that there is some spring pressure contained inside the black cylinder cover???
i would not mind knowing the answer to this as well. mine does this more when it is cold out and the sled is cold as well. when it warms up mine is fine.
bushings inside can wear and start to bind you may need to rebuild them, mine would be hard to steer when it was colder out as well, due to water in there and ice buildup, i used to get arctic cat grease it was white and easy to see, now i use mobil one and its red, try pulling it apart and cleaning the insides and while its apart measure your tolerances, its not to hard of a job....good luck CP
Can you outline the procedure for me? Do you remove the bolts at the base of the cover first or do you remove the nuts on the very top of the cover first? Or doesn't it matter?
i removed the top first and then the four at the base, have the sled supported underneath, the spring will come off and you can slide the shock shaft up and down to check for freeplay, if there is not to much- clean and regrease, hopefully you won't have to change out the bushings which have to be pressed out, get on to a yamaha micro-fiche to see a exploded view and to also look at what parts are involved there is some seals there you don't want to damage....CP
Great... thanks for the tips! I will post back when I get it apart and hopefully have found where the problem is.
I pulled the shock covers off last night and found that the struts were about 1/4 full of greasy water. I am guessing that there shouldn't be any water inside of there???
I sucked out as much of the water as I could and left it to dry out over night. I am going to lube everything up and see if that helps with the stiffness. Everything seemed to fit well... nothing was slopply loose in the bushings so hopefully I don't need to replace any of that. More later...
I sucked out as much of the water as I could and left it to dry out over night. I am going to lube everything up and see if that helps with the stiffness. Everything seemed to fit well... nothing was slopply loose in the bushings so hopefully I don't need to replace any of that. More later...
any pics? might help someone else later.