I'm having a hard time trying to take the plastic casing off which protects the belt. Has anyone ever replaced a belt before? if so, How?

 

Plastic Casing
Do you mean the CVT cover housing? If it is, I don't get it why you are having a difficulty removing those 10 mm head bolts, 7 of them? I must be missing something here...

Belt Removal
While rotating the Driven converter counter-clockwise (backwards), shift the gear from N to any gear. Then, press the fixed/inner sheave of the driven converter toward the quad (away from you). There will be enough slack in the belt and you can yank it out. Yes, if your buddy can give a hand, it would be great.

 

Yah the nuts were'nt a problem taking out but, I resolved that problem and I now have another question regarding the belt. I took the CVT cover off and put the belt on and I now notice what seems to be a loud clunking noise while I drive, sounds like the belt isn't catching. I was sure I put the belt on correctly but I may be wrong, what is the proper way to put the belt on? I have the belt around the largest Driven Converter and attached through the middle of the small converter, which the belt is wraped around a stainless steel cylyndrical shaped pulley or whatever you want to call it. When I put the belt on it went on without a problem but, I just cant see how this would work although it was the only way that seemed simple and looked right. As we all know though, nothing goes on that simple without a problem.. well for me anyways.

 

My guess is that you did not set the belt deflection to the spec which should be around 25-30 mm. The belt with too much deflection (too loose) will just flop up and down and make that clunking noise as it just bangs around. The adjusting the belt deflection is done by removing the shims in the driven converter between the two sheaves (fixed and the movable). When the shim(s) is removed the effective diameter of the driven converter increases and it takes up the slack in the belt.

 

Thanks for the advice, I tryed that and still a large clunk; so what I did was I took the CVT cover off to see if I could notice anything at idle or while I drive. I also got a buddy of mine to drive it while I walked beside and there's no problem with the belt or the driven converter, what seems to be the problem now is the large clunking noise is coming from the rear or center of the bike, hard to tell. So what I was thinking, it might be is the drive shaft b/c even when I turn the bike off and push it while its in neutral it will either lock up or make a clunking noise. Is it possible that the drive shaft could have caused the belt to snap off like it did? Do you think it could be something else? and is this a big job if it is the drive shaft $$$?