Holz Sprague Front Differential Carrier – Another in our Boreno Build Series

Shannon Bushman | November 12, 2009 | 0 Comments

Did you ever go on a ride and hear your rig make a noise that sounds distinctly like something broke then it continues to operate fine? That happened during the maiden voyage of our RZR S to Moab. In fact if you listen very closely to this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAXZs5QOHHw you can here the sound as I come out of the second Hot tub on Hells Revenge in Moab. The sound I am referring to is a distinct popping and grinding noise. It happened when the front wheels left the ground and then contacted the way sticky sandstone while still pulling. My poor S, she only had about 5 hours on her at that point and had already been doing airborne stunts for ATV Television http://www.youtube.com/atvtvcom#p/a/380981DFD7D46B19/1/-rapazO46ZA and then this trip Moab.

So what exactly happened coming out of the Hot Tub? Well inside the front differential is something called the Sprague Carrier. It’s the ingenious device that engages all wheel drive when you need it. It depends friction, when it feels this friction, it essentially rotates just a small amount which engages the front wheels. If this happens too sudden, such as when the wheels left the ground and then suddenly hooked up on impact it cracked the carrier. The stock carrier is plastic. Yes you read that right. I have heard arguments that say it was designed that way so that the carrier would be the week point, the cheap part, the easy part to replace. All I can say is that from my experience it’s too weak. Replacing it is not cheap because the labor is high. The front diff needs to be removed from the front of the RZR which means tearing apart the front suspension just to get at it. As it turns out I was lucky in Moab. Apparently most of the time the cage simply explodes creating a real mess. The Polaris technician that installed our replacement carrier from Holz told me of the twelve he has replaced, only one other did not explode. It and our carrier simply cracked and let the axles and gears slip creating the sound I heard in Moab. The good news is generally, Polaris covers replacement under warranty. The real question is do you want the same plastic carrier back in place, ready to do the same thing again? My answer to that is no.

Holz racing products makes a really nice billet replacement sprague carrier. This is a high precision part. The carrier consists of an aluminum cage holding a series of roller bearings. It arrives with a clear plastic sleeve holding the roller bearings in place. It is important you do not remove this sleeve. If you do, you can open worms everywhere. The roller bearings are sort of spring loaded and will fly everywhere. So leave it in place. Even thought the plastic sleeve has instructions to this effect printed on it, it’s still tempting just to slide it off. Leave that for the tech. The replacement is not difficult to do but Holz and I recommend you let a Polaris Tech do the work. Hey it’s being done under warranty, why not let them do it? Just get the Holz version and give it to the tech.

The Holz Sprague carrier is made of 7075 Billet Aluminum, in short had its very strong aluminum. It comes with all new springs, completely assembled, rollers held in place by the plastic sleeve.

The Holz Sprague Carrier will give you the strength you need survive a bad news thrashing and it comes with a two year warranty.

For More info: http://www.holzracingproducts.com/shopping/utv-polaris-rzr-rzr-s-accessories-c-46_52/rzr-rzr-s-billet-roller-cage-font-diff-p-828