Please Help New Member Sport 400 Gears Grinding

mrfixit68 · #1 (**permalink**) 07-26-2004, 12:49 AM

First of all, I want to say that I am new here my name is Kenny, Hello to all.
Hopefully someone can help me with my problem. I have a 96 Polaris Sport 400 When I shift the lever into drive I can hear it "appear" to click into gear but, as I give it gas.....I see the shifter pop back up towards neutral a little and the gears start grinding. When I go into reverse its the same thing...I hear it pop into gear and the reverse light comes on....but it just revs....wont move. I have adjusted the idle so low that it barely runs.....I tried to adjust the linkage to hold it into drive further....same problem. Please help me before I really screw this bike up. Thanks in advance And its nice to meet all of you.
Kenny

rollindeep22 · #2 (**permalink**) 07-26-2004, 01:01 AM

WELCOME TO THE WEBSITE IM NOT SURE ABOUT POLARIS ALOT FO OTHER GUYS IN THE CLUB DO RIDE THEM IM SURE THEY WILL HELP YOU OUT IN ANY WAY THEY CAN

mrfixit68 · #3 (**permalink**) 07-26-2004, 02:27 AM

rollindeep22,
Thanks for the welcome.....I'll keep checkin back.
Kenny

permalink · #4 (**permalink**) 07-26-2004, 05:50 AM

Dont have much experience with that model but have heard of weird noises happening when the belt would be going bad on some of the auto tranny quads.

Also couldnt be a bad idea to check the tranny oil (or what ever set up it has) and maybe even think about changing it to see if there are any signs of problems in the oil (metal shavings etc) as that can help give ideas on places to start looking etc.

Hopefully you will get a better answer etc but if you are going to try and do the work yourself try to pick up a manual ASAP as they can save you a lot of time, trouble and $$$.

Hope it works out as having a quad you cant ride is no fun at all.

PS welcome to the site.

mrfixit68 · #5 (**permalink**) 07-26-2004, 10:20 PM

I checked out the bell cranks for play. There is none what so ever....slightest movement of the shifter moves the arm on the gear box. I can watch it click into forward, neutral and reverse. From the outside everything appears to be working just fine. The oil was fine. Im guessing that this is not good.
Thanks for the replies guys.....Any other suggestions out there?

David · #6 (**permalink**) 07-26-2004, 11:32 PM

Kenny, again, welcome to the site. I am far from a quad mechanic so I really would be no help on this. But, I know someone who could help you, not to mention any names (FreAk), and I will let him know about this post to see if he can help

mrfixit68 · #7 (**permalink**) 07-27-2004, 01:43 AM

David,
thanks for the welcome....I'll keep checking back.
Kenny

permalink · #8 (**permalink**) 07-27-2004, 02:41 AM

The oil not being contaminated with a whole lot of little pieces of metal is a good sign.

Not sure if you have a manual but one would deff be helpfull.

My issue here is that I have only worked with sport models and not any autos so all I can do is help "guess" whats happening and thats not something I like to do.

I have to think from what your saying so far that something is keeping or stopping the lever from moving freely etc so my first area to check out would be any linkage(s) that are associated with the lever and engaging fwd and rev etc.

Hopefully freak will have better info for ya.

mrfixit68 · #9 (**permalink**) 07-28-2004, 02:32 AM

Some things I noticed.......Some times If I keep alot of pressure forward on the shifter the quad will start to move then "pop" out and gears start grinding. Whats odd is that I dont know what caused this. My wife ran it out of gas up on a hill behind the house she coasted it down the hill. After fueling it was missing bad. I took the carb off, cleaned it up, installed a new plug and it started and sounded good....then it would not move.....Hope the history helps....I gotta get this thing running.

satrnfreak · #10 (**permalink**) 07-28-2004, 08:59 PM

Wow, im late to this one.......

Hola fixit and welcome.

First, i really hate to say this, but i think you're screwed. What it sounds like to me is the transfercase is beat. The transmission and the shifter are not the same thing. The belt drive is in the big plastic housing in the side of the quad, the tranfer case provides you with forward/reverse travel. It sounds to me, that th blocker ring that engages the gear pack is worn out(my opinion). Did you drain the oil from the engine or transfer case?? They have different plugs... also, is this a 3 chain drive or a shaft front drive? If its a 3 chain, you may have stipped out the output splines(but i dont think so, it wouldn't cause the shifter to actually 'POP' out.

Where on this planet are you located? If it is close by, im always happy to give a fellow atv'r a hand....

FreAK