yeah, kinda what I was thinking...It will have a plate shortly!
Just want everyone with a 400 HO or a Hawkeye/SP 300 for that matter to be aware of this!

 

Good fix!

<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Now to figure out what caused it. </end quote></div>

That's a joke right? LOL

Maybe the extreme riding style as shown in his pick. No offense jokout. I enjoy the mud at times myself. But, riding like that puts strain on the bike...you don't know what's buried...a submerged rock on the edge of a rut or stump when blasting through the mud will do it. Judging from the bottom side of bike, being an 08...that thing has seen some extreme use. Again, no offense. Ride hard, play hard...things break is all.

I do agree, there should be a plate(factory) along the bottom.

 

i can understand it being bent from the underneth pushing up, but that bend looks like a side impact? god job straighting by the way. a plate welded to the bottom would give 100% more strenght to it for sure.

 

Wenty, I will admit that I don't baby this bike, but as Stendori pointed out, this is a lateral bent on the horizontal plane of the frame which I would think required a side impact! For the life of me I can't recall any such incident and I'm puzzled just how this happened...Adding a steel skid plate welded or securely bolted on to the frame should elliminate the posibility of this happening again...I did have a custom aluminum skid plate CLAMPED to the frame so I didn't have to drill any holes in the frame so as not to weaken the frame...this thinking may have been flawed since the plate BOLTED securely to the frame may have been enough reinforcement to stop this from happening...

 

Another point Wenty, even though the bike is still under warantee, I didn't go running after Polaris to fix this, I took care of it myself! I did give some pics of the problem to my dealer to pass on to Polaris for their consideration and posted this thread as a heads up for other 400HO owners...Maybe a good idea to add a skid plate!

AND,
As to "Judging from the bottom side of bike", this is simple mud that was left under the skid plates and boot guards after the bike was washed...next time I'll wash the frame for you before I take pics!

 

Thats really an odd bend in an odd area. Can't see any signs of a front to rear compression like a hit on the front end and the opposite side rail looks ok. Pretty strange!

Kudos to you jokout for biting the bullet on the repair.

 

Relax! Like I said...no offense, obviously that didn't get through. Thought I sugar coated my response enough...guess not. Never said you were going after polaris to fix it...why would you even bring that up? We can all see your doing it yourself and should be as that is no problem or weakness of polaris's frame. It's from abuse.

Yes...your bike has this issue because of the way you ride it, beat them, they break. No reason to wash the frame for me, but if you'd like to do so to make yourself feel better...have at it.


The bottom line...the cause of the bent frame is from abuse...no question about it. More than likely, judging from the point it's bent, the front left took an impact...be it rut, rock, stump...it took an impact and forced the frame right behind the A arm support to bend.

Everyone can question how and why it happened...I was only pointing out the obvious. Drive them like that and they break. I've been there, and they didn't break from driving them like they're meant to be driven.

 

Well Wenty, obviously you know more about me then I do and you can look at a couple pictures and make judgments! Funny thing about this is I had no trouble at all on the days that any of my pics were taken, but this showed up after an easy day trip ride where I wasn't pushing the machine! If that would have been the case I would understand that maybe I caught a rock or stump, but as I stated earlier, I didn't experience anything that would obviously have caused this and that is why I am a bit puzzled as to what actually happened!
A square blow to the front tire of the nature you are talking about would definitely have at least been noticed and probably sent me over the handle bars!

But then again, you were only pointing out the obvious!

 

^^^ [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif[/img]

Great repair job Jokout. If I owned a body shop I'd hire you on the spot. I thought maybe you hit a stump or something and the A-arm didn't bend but the frame did. Since you don't recall anything like that, I've come to my own conclusion. Either you <u>didn't</u> hit anything, OR... you hit something <u>so hard</u> that you don't remember. [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

I remembered all of my crashes afterward. The funny one was when I rolled it and landed on my head. I got up and saw four of my friends standing there but there were really only two of them. Then I dumped the sand out of my helmet and jacket, and started riding as soon I started to have single-vision again. I distictly remember the wipeout, and two Mikes and two Jerrys LOLing.

 

ive seen mud that would do a bend like that. where can i find some so i can try it lol.