1996 300 Honda Fourtrax

[coolpool]

A bit of history, I bought two used 1998 Honda 300 Fourtrax in 1999 with factory speedos, horns, hour meters and cooling fans on them from a farmer with less than 400 km on them. I still have one and samjp22 has one. Mine currently has 11,000kms on it and is still solid with regular maintenance.

Fast forward to a month ago. I was having a few wobbly pops and a friend sends me an add for a 1996 300 fourtrax for sale 5 mins from the house for $1900.00. For that price I was interested so I grabbed some coin and a DD took me over. It looked OK and ran good, felt tight everywhere and stops on a dime. There were a few questionable items (remember I was drinking) but I brought it home for $1800.00. I've been through this thing thoroughly, changed all the fluids and ended up having to replace:

1. Steering stem bent. ebay.ca for $86.00
2. Right side cover. New from Honda $50.00
3. Left Handlebar control (choke lever was broken). ebay.ca for &75.00
4. Battery hold down plate. ebay.ca for $10.00
5. Air filter hardware and foam. $35.00
6. Hand grips. New from Honda $25.00
7. Rear splash guard foot plates and hardware. New from Honda $50.00
8. Carb gasket kit. New from Honda $30.00

It does need a new CDI (which I knew at the time but didn't comprehend=beer) because it will only catch once you let off the starter button. It starts so well that I'm not too worried about as they are pricey to replace. Anyone have one laying around?

What I was really amazed about is that the brakes appear to have never been in water or even opened up in 24 years. I'm doing seals since I'm in there which is regular maintenance in my books.

I'll be upgrading tires to 26 x 12 x 12 rears and 25 x 10 x 12 fronts DNA Dirt Diggers with ITP steel rims.

[shortline10]

Very nice , the front disk brake conversions are a great upgrade when the old drum stuff craps out

[big specht]

They don’t like 26’s if you like to get down in the woods and crawl. Or at least mine don’t lol

[coolpool]

They don’t like 26’s if you like to get down in the woods and crawl. Or at least mine don’t lol

I've got that tire size combo on mine now with swamp lites on it. Luckily I'm a small guy so the machine seems to do very well. What we don't have here is heavy clay which I'm sure would stop those boots from spinning; we're more of a muskeg, boggy type environment.

[coolpool]

After buttoning everything back together and riding it a bit I see that I need to adjust the alignment on the front end and maybe replace the handlebars. I also need to fix up the front fender hardware as the PO cobbled something together there. On the plus side, this thing fees very tight and runs and shifts beautifully. It will be a 3K machine with new boots but not too bad considering. Anyone ever try one of them cheap Chinese CDI's from ebay?

[big specht]

They have a lot of problems with the cdi’s on those?

[ATC King]

Arguably the best 300cc 4x4 ever made.


I got to ride a neighbor's 300 a lot as a teen. The one thing I never thought about was them being hard to turn because of full time four wheel drive, and that as a fairly scrawny teen. Later, I was seeing adults putting the add-on selective 4x4 kits. The ones with the cable that deactivated the front driveshaft. The people who done it said it was to make steering easier, which I never understood.

They rode so smooth too!