I was out riding yesterday a '11 500 sportsman H.O. and luckily I was putting along waiting for the other guys to catch up when all of the sudden my steering felt really loose, I thought a front tire had come off the bead, so I slowed down further and just lost control and the whole thing dropped to one side I look to that side and my front tire is dragging along as I'm kidding to a stop. After looking at everything I realize that the front lower bolt had come out of the A-arm and then the axle on that side had come out of the front diff. and when it came out it bent the back lower bracket almost 90 degrees. So we put tipped the Atv on its side and got everything put back together and luckily a local farmer had a bolt and washers that were the same so I was able to fix it and ride back to the truck, but when I checked the other 3 bolts on the front A-arms both sides they were all really loose. So my ? Is does this happen often, are these bolts something I should have been checking and is there anything else I should do/check since this happened and the front came apart?

 

Wouldn't hurt to check them occasionally,but normally these bolts are tight and secured with blue loctite from the factory. The ones that I had problems with were the bolts on the rear hub carriers working loose and falling out.I had plenty of those do that. If both sides were loose I'd take em out one at a time and loctite them some more.Replace the lock washers if you want and tighten up securely. Just a good idea to periodically go over all the bolts,nuts on any machine,especially when you're doing a full maintenance. You must have caught one made on a Monday or Friday

 

Yeah I think I will now on, and I didn't think about replacing lock washers but I defiantly will, but I need to replace my underwear first