I have a 01 sportsman 500ho, starter went bad I pulled the plastic belt cover off looks like the pulley need to come off?

I was wondering how do they come off. do i need a special tool or not.

 

you can get away with using a piece of 3/4" fine all thread with a couple of nuts on the end to pop the primary off. The secondary should just slide off once you remove the bolt. On a side note: Your clutch's look pretty dirty from the pic. Make sure you clean them up good and inspect them before you put it all back together. And did you remove the bolt from the primary? If not there should be one there.

 

The starter is on the top of motor, connect to the other side , not on the side pictured

 

You take the starter out from the top by removing the air box under the seat, Thats how I did mine,100X faster and easier. The botom starter bolt will disconnect but not pull out.you just turn the starter,untill the bottom bolt is on top and pull out the whole starter. My Clymer Manual also said to remove the pullies and back plate but you don,t need to. Put the cover back on.

Turn out to be just a sticking bush when I took the starter apart, I cleaned and freed it up and its been working great for 3 years now.

 

Yep it will come out as mentioned without removing the clutch

 

it works thank dam i wish i ask before i pulled everything else apart