Me and my kids ( 2 teenage girls) are from Perth ,Western Australia, and love the great outdoors and all that it brings.
We own a Kymco mxu400 4×4 , that’s served us faithfully for 4 years, exploring and fishing in our great state.
However 3 people and 1 quad don’t mix, so we have been on the lookout for another for a while.I have heard of canams before of course , but never guessed I would get one next. I just happened to see a 4×4 quad bike listed at a local police recovered auction and went for a look, finding a almost new , but partly stripped monster that needed further research. All decals were missing as was side panels , seats, handlebar guards, rear lid, no key , stuffed ignition, etc etc.The wheels had been oversprayed with some crappy silver paint , and it was filthy.
However I spotted a rotax engine, a max frame , and some goodies , winch etc , that made me interested enough to buy it .( not cheap but still reasonable).I had already priced the gold plated spares I would need to make her purr again from our local dealer, and factored this in to my bid price.( not knowing what it was , I guessed a 2011 max xt maybe a 650)
This also presented the next problem of having no-where to store it or to transport it , as the Kymco trailer was to small. So I talked a mate into babysitting it , whilst I just quickly whipped up a double quad trailer in our single width garage.haha. Never again , I was actually crawling along the floor under it to finish it off!
The spares arrived , and we got stuck into it , washing , cleaning paint off wheels , fitting parts and decals, but doing it our way , so there’s not another like it.
Its actually a 2012 xt-p 800, g1 with less than 10hrs , so there’s all the fruit, fox shocks, winch,and enough power to keep me honest.
Last problem was a rear seat as there’s no way I’m paying $1000 ozzy dollars for a rear seat, so always up for a challenge , I bought a , wait for it, arctic cat trv rear seat!. n.o.s so Ive saved about $700 on the seat.
Purists can cry now, and stop reading any further, interested parties continue. The pictures tell the story , its a real big , horrible job, that I wont be doing again. Basically you have to cut away 3/4 of the steel base frame, and then start modifying everything else from there, while throwing half the kit in the bin. The only good bit is I think it suits the bike well , and is slightly more aerodynamic looking than the can-am one.
So thats our story , we have only had one ride so far , and I am just blown away with the handling and power, this thing is awesome! can-ams rock!
cheers , and look forward to more updates to come, Quad-fisher.
Bought , stolen, lost , recovered , bought, rebuilt!
Hello all, first post, and its a epic tale, but you be the judge!
