My Raptor's tranny went about 3 months ago, and it has been at my stupid dealer ever since, now they took it apart and say that the shift fork is bent, and 2nd and 4th gear are gone/ does anyone have info/pics on what exactly happens withh the raptor's known 2nd gear tranny problem?

 

my trans went and i fixed it myself this is what i found.first off the gear dogs on all the gears are not machined,they are left as cast and have a slightly round profile,for example if you hold the gear set in you hand and engage second gear,then twist the gears(without pushing them together or pulling them apart) they will disengage,almost like they try to screw apart,this is what was happing to mine.in 2nd under load it would jump in and out of gear.to cure this i put a slight back cut on all the gear dogs and trued the edges so they where as close to square as i could get them.some of this was done with a mill and some by hand.also trued up the slots the dogs engage,that needed it.mine also bent the fork,also my shift drum was worn were the fork rides when the trans is in 2nd,the fork was locked into the shift drum and the load from the gear jumping out bent it.the fork had no where to move so it bent, witch only made matters worse from there.during reassembly i noticed that aprox. only a third of the gear dog engages the slots in the companion gear,it looked to me like the dogs should engage at least 80 thousands more witch would put them in about half way.i could not shim the gears any more to do this because they would hit other gears when the trans was shifted,to get the gears to engage deeper the shift drum would have to be redesigned.all in all mine is a little notchier than before but the only time i notice it is when im trying to find nuetral.i added a 11.5-1 piston,cam,head porting,ect when i fixed the trans and have ridin it harder than before with no problems to date.i have herd of gear dogs breaking off the gears also.i may have weakend the gears by back cuting them,but i removed only enough material to get the desired effect i was looking for.if it breaks again i will install a set of aftermarket gears that are currently available.at the time mine failed there were no other options other than putting it back together stock.we also did this to another raptor that had the same problem and it is still working fine.by back cutting the gear dogs the more torque you applie to the gears the more they seem to try to engage,i was worried that this might cause the trans not to want to shift under power but i havent noticed any problems at all.also i did all the gear dogs on all the gears,and i dont think it was needed.if i did it again i would only do the gears that effect 2nd.hope this helps.if you look at what yamaha changed for 02 they seemed to have tried to take care of all these problems,time will tell.

 

I have had this problem twice and have had a big go around with my dealer about it. This IS a big problem, the gears are cast and DO NOT lock together as they should! ATV Sport magazine mentions this problem twice in there December issue. They also show some Fortin forged gears and SHIFT FORKS! If I have another problem I'm just going to get these and save myself a big headache of not arguing with my dealer and telling me im jumping on the sifter too hard.