BuggyMasters

If I remember right that’s the compression release and possibly what keeps the engine from rotating the wrong way.

Turning it over should not fill your crankcase. Believe it or not that seems like a hell of a lot of compression. Cam timing verified?

Did you put on a cheap China carb from EBay?

Might be one of those deals where it must be in 1st in order to go into reserve. Otherwise, sometimes you gotta rock the machine slightly while putting it in reverse to find the sweet spot. Those are great for wheelers BTW. They still use that engine design today and the fact that the machine is 30 years old and still running is the reason why!

For the first item: if you are running that high an RPM at 20 mph, you most certainly have a clutch problem.

look at the video below. Your Polaris works very similar. The front part is a variator the 2nd part is the secondary. One of them is not working correctly.

for the 2nd: you are either fuel injected or you are carbureted. If you have a carburetor, you don’t have a TPS. If you are fuel injected, you have a TPS attached to a throttle body. What is your current setup?

for the throttle switch, take the throttle cover off and look at the setup and what happens with the contacts as you add slack to the cable. Then adjust the cable to just past where the contacts separate. 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pptnRGTH_XA

Either on the positive battery terminal itself or the side of the solenoid that the battery terminal goes to, there will be a red wire (standard sized wire vs big battery cable size). That wire will lead to a fuse. I suspect that fuse is popped. To the original poster, could be the same for you. Just jumping to the ignition switch doesn’t guarantee that you provided power to the start push button. Also, could be a safety switch as in won’t start in gear without the brake handle squeezed kinda thing. Start with locating and checking the main fuse.

Yeah what doesn’t it do?

Can you jump the solenoid and it start?

Does it shift easy with the engine off?

Get a can of carb cleaner. As you give it gas, give it a little shot of carb cleaner through the intake hole and see this extra fuel makes it rev. If it does, then you know you have a fuel starvation problem.

Define idle not to high an idle? Your description is spot on for too high of an idle. Do you have gauges on it for RPM?

Have seen this a few times. Good catch.

If the crankcase is full of oil ang gas, your float needle is stuck open.

Great write up!

These are great machines! I’ve got an 850 now.

Rode my first in 1990 and it was a Suzuki lt230! Great ATV.