My 450 ES will not shift with the handle bar shifter. It is stuck in 5th gear. I've had it to the Honda dealer. They cleaned, powerwashed and dilectric greased everything. Gave it back to me and it worked. I rode it 30 mins and same old problem Had it back to them and they could not get it to reproduce the problem. "It works for us" they said. Picked it up and it worked fine. Took it home and tried to take it off the trailer. Can't get into neutral. It will shift with the manual shift bar but the electric shift just makes a clicking sound like it wants to go into gear but won't. Any advice.

Thanx guys

 

 

Give it a rest. Youre the kind of guy who kicks someone when theyre down...way to go, making a newbe feel welcome. I hope the little dig made your day.

techie, dont pay any attention to reconranger...hes on a rant about es machines.

Welcome to the forum, were not all like he is.
If you rock the quad for and aft while shifting...does that make it shift? Has the clutch adjustment been done on it? Does it seem better warmed up , rather than when its cold?

 

Hondabuster....thanx for the reply. The clutch has not been adjusted. I tried rocking it but the same thing happens. It makes no difference whether it's warm or cold. It would shift fine after riding it for hours. I'd shut it down to take a rest while riding and it'd be stuck.

techie

 

techie-Welcome, and nothing personal.

There are a flood of posts in here from folks with problems with their ES! Honda will never fix this flawed system, until they get so much bad press that nobody will buy one ever again. When one of these posts comes up, I try to point this out so any prospective buyers of an ES system, won't miss that fact. But, lots of folks pick a machine without doing their homework first...............

Honda built its reputation on the reliability of its machines. They needs to RECALL these defective machines, fix them, or change them over to foot shiftes for those owners that might select that option. The best thing you can do for yourself is call Honda's corporate office, and complain..........and complain here in the forum so lots of folks see your posts.

There have been several generations of ES shifters. On test bikes, one of the magazines had 5 of the early ones fail in a row (why can't anybody seem to remember this???). Your's is an early one, and probably the most troublesome of them all. You're lucky it went so long before it finally failed.

 

Just posted this morning...............

http://forums.atvconnection.com/mess...did/467022.cfm

 

Reconranger, you should be banned from this forum.

You offer nothing to this forum and you are a complete waste of time.

I know what you're going to say. "I'm just looking out for prospective buyers who don't know what they're getting into."

I call BS. You are just doing this to start a bashfest and to get attention. Period.

 

Ive had the same problem on every one of my families 01' honda 3504x4ES. Normally if it gets stuck out on the trail take a bottle of water and pour it over the ES buttons while pressing them at the same time. If it still doesnt work shut it off and try it. Weve never had any instances of having to use the footshifter but we have had to either shut if off and use water at least a dozen times. Something for the honda engineers to fix.

 

Techie, start on the clutch adjustment, this is the most frequent cause of intermitent shifting.
Its not really a clutch pack adjustment but a linkage adjustment from the shift motor to the clutch pack.
Theres a nut and slotted screw on the forward side of the motor, toward the left(shifter)side. Loosen the nut a couple of turns, then turn the screw ccw until you feel resistance. Go back cw, 1/4 turn. Hold the screw still, while snugging up the nut.
Other things could be a bad battery, check for corroded terminals, and have the battery load tested.
Let us know how it goes.

 

thanx for all of the responses. Seems l;ike there are a million ways to troubleshoot this situation. I will post back occasionally to update the problem/fix. I'n enjoying this forum already. By the way, does anybody know what happened to the "Ride the Red Forum"?

techie