So I was looking at the front of the bike the other day and noticed that the right wheel (when looking at the front) looks to be leaning. the top looks closer to the bike. the other (left) tire look straight up and down. I know the dealer put new tie rod ends on it so could it be that they are not adjusted right?

It's a 2004.5 Sportman 500HO.

 

Jack the front end up and check for any wheel bearing,ball joint or a-arm play along with any slack in the strut mounting. If the upper and lower plastic pivots wear out,crack or missing it can cause this to happen also.Weak springs can do the same thing.

 

Thanks for the tips, I will check it out as soon as I can. Would I be hurting anything by still using it around the yard?

Thanks

 

Nope. I've seen a bunch of these over the years do the same thing.

 

My 2012 was like that from new. The springs are so soft that it affects camber. HD coils fixed the camber and nose dive issues.

Check the things OPT mentioned, if all is tight then that's the nature of the beast.

 

Well I jacked it up and looked around a bit and here is what I found. When looking at the ATV, the left tire when rocked from the 12 and 6 position it has the slightest play and the drive shaft has around a 1/6" play in it. Everything else looked ok. On the right side when rocking the wheel from the 12 and 6 position it is solid and the drive shaft has a little more then a 1/6" of play. I looked for plastic bushings but it was hard to see them. I also noticed that when turning the handle bars while it was on the jack the whole strut would turn, I guess that's got to happen.

Now I'm no tech but I didn't see anything glaringly wrong. Would it be worth doing a front end alignment on it?

Thanks

 

Tad bit of play is acceptable as if everything was rock solid you'd be snapping drive shafts,etc. Yes the strut turns when you turn the bars. If it tracks straight,doesn't pull to one side or the other,plus you can be on a level surface and at low speed let go of the bars and they don't turn,then alignment is good. If the tire lean is bugging you can try spring spacers to stiffen up the front end or heavy duty springs.Plenty of these such as Epi are on ebay.

 

That's good news. I will run the other tests tonight. The lean doesn't bother me I just didn't want to damage anything.

Thanks for all the help with this!

 

Ok, I took it down my driveway with hands off and rolling in high at a coasting speed and she tracked straight so I think things should be ok.

One other question, I have read that you don't want to be in gear and stopped for any amount of time because the belt is engaged and slipping I guess. So if I'm riding around the yard looking at fences and other stuff with a lot of stop and go should I be shifting into neutral or park? and does neutral have the same effect as park when it comes to the belt?

Hope that makes sense.

Thanks

 

Shouldn't matter in gear or out of gear if the clutches are working right as the one way bearing is working constantly in or out of gear. That's where the one way bearing is spinning/free wheeling along with the belt, drive sheaths are away from the belt,the belt has slack and doesn't have pressure on the rear clutch. Over time though ebs clutches need to have service,mainly new fiber washer behind the one way bearing and brass washer wears in the cup in front of the one way. Usually when they wear down far enough is when people have creeping and gear shifting problems whe belts drift over and touch the inner clutch sheath.This puts pressure on the belt and rear clutch when at an idle. Just more maintenance on ebs clutches than on the simpler non ebs systems.