New to the board here so hope someone can help me out. I have a 2000 honda forman 450 es. I plow with it in the winter and find the safety mechanism for reverse is a real pain. I have to constantly adjust the cable to keep it working smooth, but very akward for quick forward and reverse action. Does anyone know a way to disable this feature at least during plowing time? Any help would be greatly appreicated.

 

The blocker is on there to prevent very expensive tranny damage, its posible to cause some damage, if the quad was rolling, and reverse is selected. Thats why the button is tied into the brake lever...so the quad gets totally stopped before going into reverse.
If you want to do it anyway, just follow the cable back, and zip tie it . But remember, to come to a complete stop, before selecting reverse...and hope you dont accidentally select it while wanting neutral. thats another reason the procedure is there...to prevent unintended selecting of reverse.
I find that it isnt much of a pain to get into reverse, using just the left hand. Press and hold the red button, start pulling the brake handle...and once it moves, you can release the red button, because its captured. Bop the down button.
If you do wire it up, make sure you let the other drivers know about it too....it as much for their saftey as for your wallet.

 

Hey, thank you for the promt reply. I've been concerned that overriding it may cause more issues than good. It's not that bad, just gets frustrating at times. Is there a way on this model to use the manual shift lever to override the ES during plowing?

Thanks again

 

You could also just tie wrap the button so its down all the time. To shift to reverse you'd only have to pull the brake lever. Some of your safety feature is still there this way.

 

that's not a bad idea either.. Might give that a go.. Thanks again for your input.

 

That is a good idea, to just tie up the red button. It does provide for a lockout, that prevents accidental reverse, and makes the machine stop before shifting.

Youd find that using the handle to do the shifting would be even a bigger pain in the butt. The handle doesnt stay on by itself, and when ever you use it...even once, the es would go into a defalt mode, and the buttons wouldnt work again, until you shut the key off, and then go back on.