I had my 2001 raptor for a long time now. 17 months. I ride with a lot of raptors from serial number 200 to 21000. One of my main quad buddies has a tranny failure. Raptorrrc made many calls last week to see what could be done about it. Yamaha was of no real help.CPSC is not moving to fast. RRC decided to tear it down himself. After the tear down we examined the parts. Nothing looked to bad. Everything speced good. The main problem with the 01 tranny is a MIS ADJUSTED clutch. Jim Moore at yamaha was saying the same thing. After looking at it i too believe the clutch to be the culprit. Make sure those clutches are right! I know that Chris style of riding led to this. I also believe that is why there is no rhyme or reason for the serial numbers. It can happen to anyone.

Now part 2- According to yamaha some 02 trannies are failing.

 

So mis-adjusted clutch and riding style....What style of riding is the culprit?

 

...and what is the proper adjustment?

What do we need to do?

 

I disagree with that issue.
So why they update the tranny on 2002 model?

So what that tell you?

 

desracers- why did they upgrade the 2002? I don't know. I think that was probably already in the works. There is no magic cut off of tranny problems. But after looking at the parts in person i can see how a mis adjusted clutch could cause the problems. Why have 2002 trannies failed that are upgraded desracers? Have you looked at the actual tranny pieces? The parts looked beefy enough to handle the power. After seeing this i understand why Yamaha does not want to pay for these fixes. You can always make something better/stronger.

Eraptoid- maintain the minimun clutch freeplay.

 

14 mins.

I might agree with you of the clutch misajustment might cause tranny gear fail, but I doubt it.
If you look in the mag of Dirtwheel of March 2002 page 140. It will tell you about the tranny issue. (The early stock gears are cast parts and tend to come apart under the tremendous troque loads the gearbox comes under.) This quote from the dirtwheel article.

If you take your Bayou bike and misadjustment the clutch would that bike gear come apart? I doubt it one bit at all. or take any bike at all.

As you know now day any big corporation don't want to take the responsibility at all. They alway blame on somebody else This would be the rider fault! Don't this so.!!!

I have been riding bike for 20 plus yrs and this been a few time so call misadjustment of the clutch of bikes I used to and no gears ever fail! but to short the life of the clutch. lol

So Jim Moore is protecting his company even they know it is a minor problem of the tranny issue but they don't want to be responsibility for what they designed. Even though I like the Raptor alot and going to upgrade to Fortin gears set to solve the tranny problem.

I am not bashing you whatsoever.

Just my thought to Yamaha corporation.

 

Ds- i am not arguing at all. It clearly should be better than it is. People are trying to say that from vin numberxxx there are no problems. I say bs. The raptor with the problem had 250 hrs or more on it. The clutches speced out fine. This quad has seen 100's of 1/8 mile drags, trails and dunes. All i am saying is keep the freeplay to spec, ride hard and don'tworry. If it goes it goes, and the fun you had should be worth the fix, since yamaha will not do it. If my tranny goes tomorrow i had 18 months on it. No big deal. In my devios mind i will figure out how to get even with yamaha when the day comes. lol

 

Your right on the get even party, like a brick into the window J/K. They better hpoe that the DS doesn't lose 100 lbs. Speaking of 1/8 mile drag do you know any times?

 

Ward- last year before the modds, timed 1/8 were 9.02 to 9.50 for the 3 raptors and 9.2 to 9.5 for the shee. We need to go again and see what improvents have been made.

 

I agree with "air" regarding the problem stemming from the reverse gear. I had my tranny go within 7 months being new, under 250 hours. I did get yamaha to step up, but only because I made friends with the head mechanic at a nearby dealer (not the dealer I purchased it from. My rap had a slip-on for the last 3 weeks before either second gear or the toothed washer failed and destroyed the rest. Since the cases were split, I went ahead with the Trinity 686. Every trans part was replaced with the same stock parts that failed in the first place. Crazy as it may sound, the stock tranny held up, well, until I had the rod fail. Again, another 250 hours and probably closer to 200hrs. I did not use the reverse the whole entire time!

The reason "I think" and also the "head dealer mechanic thoughts" were, reverse gear is causing these tranny failures. Specifically, 2nd gear, it is in contact with the reverse gear.
Just my two cents, but I will never use reverse again.

Just for good measure, since I now have the 727, I had the 2002 gears installed. So we'll see if the 02 trans will hold up. Again, I will NEVER use reverse. I'd rather pick the f'n thing up to turn it around if I have to!