My Artic Cat 500 automatic goes into gear just fine. If you start out slowly, it will move for awhile and them stop. If you punch the gas, it won't move at all. The same thing happens in Lo, Hi and Reverse in both 4 wheel and 2 wheel drive. The differential fluid is at the proper level. Do I have a stripped gear? Is there something I can adjust.

 

I believe there is an adjustment but on the shift lever. It is easiest to see if you remove the left hand side panel if you are sitting on the machine.

The small shift lever connects to a rad that parallels the engine and connect to a shift rod and goes into the engine. Right up where the shift lever first connects to that rod is an ball joint type connection and an adjustment nut.

Try lengthening it to see if it help it stay in gear. Also, from new to about 1000mi they are pretty picky about going into and out of any gear until it gets broke in.

Hope this helps.
Swampy

 

Thanks, Swampy. Easy enough to check, but no joy. It goes into gear just fine. After it stops and I let up off of the throttle. I can accelerate slowly and it starts to move again. I assume that means it isn't going out of gear.

It's a 2003, so there isn't an issue with breakin.

 

Try removing the belt cover, then try moving while watching the sheave and belt to make sure it is grabbing the belt and driving the secondary. could be as simple as a gummed up primary clutch or totally smoked belt. If the primary seems to grab the belt and ramp up, and the secondary spins up, then either there is a problem with the secondary driving the transmission, or you have an internal tranny problem. Any noises? grinding, knocking? does it feel like it grabs and slips? or does it just rev up and not do anything? Will the back wheels turn if you jack up the back end? I dont know if Arctic Cat runs a wet clutch that drives the primary sheave like Yamaha's belt drive, I have heard of a few of those failing, then it just revs and barely moves or not at all.

 

Thanks, Wolv,
I took out all the bolts holding the cover on. There was one more bolt on the bottom that I thought might be attched to something on the inside. When I took it off, I realized two things that I'm sure you already know: 1) it was a drain plug; 2) I should have been taking it out on a regular basis, or at least when I got the ATV wet. The housing was full of water. I guess belts don't grab too well when they're soaking wet. Who knew?

 

Ya, water lets the belt just slide on the sheave, the only downfall of the belt drive quad, a little water will stop you dead !! Usually, you can put it in neutral, and rev it up to blow out the water from the vent, but best to pull the drain plug, then rev it up in neut. to dry out the belt and sheaves.
I'm glad you found the problem, and it wasnt a major one, make sure the parts are cleaned up while you got it apart.