hey everyone,
can anyone tell me why the heck my 4 wheel drive kicked in while I had the switched turned off. I have an 03 sp 500 and have had a year and a half so I know alot about how the system works but I am stumped on this one. I was on some ice doing dounuts and the last one i was going to do before we left for the day I got to really spinning and then bammmm the 4wd came on for a short second and luckily all that got broke was a front u joint. Now i only got about 250 miles on it so I know the ujoint was not wore, but could have been worse. maybe fornt diff or something. any news on this or explanations would be great

Thanks in advance Rick

 

Hello,

There are two reasons that I know of why this happens.

1) You have got a bad coil on the side that ingauged. About 90.00 dollars if you change it yourself.

2) You could have a bent front drive shaft. When a drive shaft is bent thoughs everything off and is really hard on the u-joints. Look at all three drive shafts. Tranny to diff and dff to eack front wheel.

snowman

 

Start with the simple stuff, check the hub oil. Is it low or dirty?

 

When you do donuts you spin the rear tires very fast, This spins the drive shaft to the front wheels very fast as well, the Centrifugal force is too high for the spring that hold the rollers away from the hub, The rollers fly out and engage the front wheels (or one front wheel because that spring is not as strong as the other) and wham the drive shaft breaks, there may be nothing wrong with the front wheel drive just spinning too fast.

 

If the U-joint let loose, the front shaft may have gotten bent or twisted. The vibration from this will cause the front tire to engage without the button being pushed. If it's the same tire as the side where the tire kicks in, you may just need a new shaft! I had that problem on a scrambler...couldn't get it to stop kicking in...ended up being the concentric shaft from the tranny had just enough give, it would shake the system under fast spinning and kick in the front tires!

 

WJW, I think you got it right. I went to get the u-joint at the dealer today and he told me the same exact thing. He said that the excess speed caused the front to engauge from centrifical force just like you had said. apparently the springs cannot keep them form engauging and I was not aware that the drive shafts all the way out to the hubs turned at all times till now. makes sence though. thanks I just wanted to make sure that it wasnt going to do it again. No more whell spinning unless its in 4wheel drive for me. Thanks everyone and I will take a close look at the shaft to check for damage. Also hub oil is right up there full at 3 oclock

Thanks

 

The same thing happened to me....
My scrambler is pretty much new and i change all the fluids way before they are due...
I was riding on a lake in 4wd for about an hour then i turned off the 4wd to do some donuts, it starts to spin then the 4wd kicks in! I was pissed that engaging like that can screw up the 4wd system.. It did it about 4 more times i drove in reverse for a while, did anther donut and it was fine..

My hud oil is clean and full, nothing bent etc.. So if it happened on my all most new quad it cant be something going bad or yours just guessing though..

I think the hubs don't disengage all the way after being used for a long period of time and from the spinning around they reengage...

 

the dealer was saying that the reason that they do not disengage all the time is that the hubs sometimes get lock in very tight and they dont unlock at first. He said to just ride in reverse for a second, which I already knew. I heard it told like this, ( the sys uses a part called hillard clutch, picture a simple 6-sided oct shape[ nut ], take a rather large dia nut place a pencil on all 6-sides grasp around the outside of all 6-pencils with one hand Reach in the nut with one finger of opp.hand and twist nut you will see how polaris hillard clutch sys works). The pencils are pushed further out against the hub and sometimes are wedged in there pretty good. OOOOPPPPSSSS my bad. I was asking him about why there isnt a caution sticker for this since he told me this is very common and he had no answer. oh well live and learn huh.