Look very very close at it, as the spread on the forks will be very little. May want to take it to your local Honda shop and let them look at it after you get it off. Let me know what you find out.

 

Remove the front of the engine where the ECM is located, It will be the part that is at the very front on the inside of the engine cover. It is the part that controls the shift drum. Go by the Honda shop and ask to look at their service manual to know for sure what it looks like.

 

Arrows point at the shift lugs that will crack and spread causing no shift condition ..

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I have a 98 450 Foreman ES it had that shifting problem mainly when you let the engine build up high rpm's it would mess up almost everytime you tried to shift from first to second then once you got to fifth and if road riding where you run 3/4 throttle plus it would stuck in fifth gear had to shut it off turn the key back on and hopeully it would shift back to neutral but most of the time I had to grab the ol 12mm wrench and shift it back to neutral by hand! the angle sensor assy that goes there by the shift motor was bad its simply called "ANGLE SENSOR ASSY" and is Honda part number "38800-HN0-A11" and lists for 57.00 another good trick is www.yamahaoftroy.com go to the OEM Parts Finder enter you bike and it breaks it down piece by piece! We thought our shift motor was bad but with that sensor it shifts like a new bike that and a new muffler complete new rearend and swingarm and new frontend from frame out new steering shaft. the ol 98 Foreman with 8,675 miles runs as good as the new ones at Honda of Rarden and any used bikes they have their does not even compare