96 mxz 440 - the oil in the reservoir is not clear dark brown in color, it is a foggy tan color. I am guessing a bad rotary shaft seal, allowing coolant into the oil cavity, then it returns to the oil reservoir. The coolant level does not seem to have dropped any. Any thoughts?

The same thing happened to my sled last year. Sounds dead on....

same thing happened to our 96 583. its the seal

Yep...my 670 did that last year...if the oil is turning milky in the RV line, then unfortunately your rv seal is toasted

Would it be ok to run the rest of the season with the bad seal or should I fix before I ride? Also how do you replace the seal? Thanks.

You should fix it ASAP
Coolant instead of oil is a bad thing to have happening ;)
To fix it properly you have to split the cases and replace the seal. :nervous:

Just had to do this at the start of the season.It sucks :( Do not run it like this get it fixed right away before you take out all your bearings.

NO!

cant lube the motor with water. if you ride more it will cost you more a lot more. that is if theres no damsge done allready.

Had same problem on my old cats. HOWEVER, here is something that many dont think about. IF you ride hard and for a long time and stop for the night, the air that is trapped in the chaincase has moisture and condenses causing ice and water to form when the chaincase cools, no it is not the cause of your problem overall, but worth changing the oil every year to avoid furutre problems. As for the seal, yep thats it, replace them with NTN bearings. best move I ever made, we had 2 chaincase bearings go on my ZRT 600 in 2 season, yes hard on sled, but shouldnt of happened. Replaced the 3rd time with NTN and still have the old gal with 11767 miles on her, as she is riden just as hard now as she was in 1996 and no more failures since 1998.

bearings?