I have a 96 sportsman 500. I think polaris redesigned the axles the next year to go around this problem, but I have two u joints on my rear axles. I broke the outer one with about 6 miles back to the truck. I tried to remove the u joint, but I just couldn't do it in the field w/o a hammer. The rocks in the area were all breaking when I'd use them as a hammer. I ended up taking the bungee chord that was on my backpack and making a "sling" for it to keep it centered in the hub. It kinda worked, but still messed up the hub a little. I couldn't just remove the whole axle because then the other side wanted to fall out.

How do people usually handle a broken u joint?

are the CV joints harder to mess up? I got thinking about how much stress the u joints on my driveshaft take on my jeep with 4x the hp, and thought u joints aren't weak... I guess I need to just change the ones I don't trust right now. I had checked that joint before we left. I guess the small "trail jumps" were just too much for it and it popped after about 30 miles.

Any advice?

 

man, there isn't many easy ways around that. i broke a front spindle last yr at a race at the very bottom of a steep up hill. glad it broke at the bottom, not going up. after it was over we got a mag 500 and strapped my bike up to the back rack and a really big boy sat on the front of the mag and another drove. i even had to run mine to help get out. like i said it was STEEP!
also, make sure to use the right grease in those joints, they will last longer than with regular chassis grease.