Yesterday I was coming through the woods at my house and as I was powersliding around a curve in the little track I have,the back end slid too far and whacked a small tree. This caused the back to spin around the opposite direction and when it did the inside rear tire grabbed and I got tossed. Then the quad landed on me.
Anyway,I'm doing fine. Jacked up my ankle some but the O'neal ATV boots saved me. The helmet(HJC) saved my head and even though I took a hard shot to the head when I hit the ground,I've seen or felt no ill effects at all.
Good gear pays for itself!!! I can not stress this enough!
My knee is somewhat FUBAR'd but it'll heal. [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

I looked at my quad and theres no real damage except for the handlebars. They bent,but they are also crooked.
When the wheels are straight,the bars are in a pretty hard left turn position. The front suspension and tie rods seem to be in perfect shape and both wheels are pointing straight ahead so the alignment of them seems fine.
I'm guessing its something wit the steering stem? Is it possible for one to twist? It almost looks like someone disconnected it and then turned the bars and then reconnected it?
Could it have slipped out of alignment from the hard shot it took when the quad landed on its side?
I only look quickly to get a vague idea of damage,but anyone have any advice?

Thanks a lot,I appreciate the help or insight.

 

First off, glad your okay. Second, it's very possible to tweak your steering stem (depending on how how crashed) I think the ony TRUE way to tell is to pull your front plastic off and eye the stem. See if the brackets are still in line w/ each other, it's a good possiblity that you only tweaked one of those brackets. Depending on the speed of the crash of course.


Mike

 

I did something similar to mine. It's not bent, just twisted somehow. Must've twisted the handlebar mount or something. Those stems can't take much abuse. I somewhat corrected the problem by adjusting my tie rods, but now it steers sharper in one direction than the other. The good news is you can get a new steering stem for about $95 (including shipping) from powersportspro.com.

 

Unless you have bent something, you more than likely have knocked the tie-rods (that straight bar behind your a-arms) out of alignment... this happened to me and was easily fixxed, although I'm not much of a mechanic so I only know what happened, and that it was easy, because my mechanic told me [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img] It cost me $30 for labor and I'm sure I could have done it if I had the knowlege.

 

Well,It appears I twisted the steering stem when the bars got driven into the ground.
i took the tie rod bracket off just enough to relieve it of its indexed position on the splines at the bottom of the steering stem.
I then just straightened the bars and wheels and slapped it back on. Then I fine tuned it by adjusting the tie rods.

Was pretty easy....and its good as new now....
Now the bars on the other hand......they are fugged.....hahahaha