slowindown

Yeah. You can only make a very small arc before contacting the clutch cover. I have a little mini pair of vise grips somewhere but naturally, I can't find them. For right now, I think I'll continue to hit it with pb blaster although I don't think its penetrating. I'll give it another try later before going radical.

I can only get vise grips on it straight on with very little space to twist right or left. The shifter shaft and the front drive shaft are in the way. I’m afraid I’ll have to get the engine loose so I can turn it to get at the bolt.

I’m going to take a break before I screw something else up. As you can see in the pics, I broke the bolt holding the right side of the cover plate. It seemed to be turning out maybe 2-4 turns, then broke. So I'm thinking it actually turned in the threads some before it broke and the shaft wasn't just twisting. Almost felt cross threaded... recommendations on how to get that out? I was thinking I could possibly double nut the stud or maybe get some small vise grips on it? Right now I’m putting pb blaster on it. Other than that, the grease looks pretty dry. What do you think about the shift motor? pics attached

The "S" for the op's avatar and mine threw me off. Here's my thread:

I bought a tub of mobil 1 synthetic grease. I have all of the other things you mentioned, assuming my tube of ultra black hasn't hardened - it still felt ok, never been opened, just in the tool box a year or two. The original parts have never been touched. I bought the machine in 05, it had about 8 or 900 miles on it and was still basically new. It now has just over 4000 miles and 600 hours and I've never touched anything except the valves, the carb, oil/filter, the rear brakes and now this and the swing arm boot. I'm off for the next several days and all I have to do is a lot of yardwork and tinker with the honda. So I'm ready to get started. Edit: Sorry. I thought this was my thread. Mine is the 02 Rancher 4x4 ES. Mea culpa. Mine's doing almost the same thing except it doesn't do it as often or as regularly as the OP and when mine does it and the ES totally quits working I think its usually in 4th or 5th after spirited driving but maybe 3rd too. I'm still ready to get started! lol

Nice. What size socket was that?

All these pointers are great. I'm kind of glad they didn't have the part in stock yesterday. Ya'll are making it easy for me. Knock on wood.

Thanks for the pointers. The rust probably requires 7ft lbs to turn through. lol And thanks for sending me the pic of the display. Looks great.

Will do. Good advice.

I ended up getting a set of impact allen sockets at harbor freight. On the right bolt I used a cheater bar. The bolt AND the funny shaped lock nut started coming out together. I tightened it back up, working it back and forth with wd40 and pb blaster and then the bolt backed out. The lock nut stayed in place. The one on the left side would not budge with the cheater. I had to use an impact to break it free. I havent taken them all the way out yet, just got them so they would turn. The honda dealer didn't have the boot or clamps in stock. They ordered them and said they'd have them in 3-5 days.

I will definitely post back. I’m going to do my swing arm boot first. Noticed today that it had a hole in it. Made another thread about that.

You're exactly right! I went out there and pulled the plug and it was full of dirt.

Yeah, I'm particularly worried about the one that didn't have a cap on it. I go out and spray pb blaster on it occasionally.

Thanks Shadetree. I will call my not quite local dealer and see if they're open tomorrow and have the parts. . . and hope I can find a 17mm Allen wrench somewhere, maybe harbor freight.

So I was checking over my old rancher and I noticed the small end of the swing arm boot was not all the way on. On closer inspection it had a hole in it. How do you go about getting the drive shaft out of the way to change this boot? The manual says pull the rear diff and then remove the swing arm bolt. I was thinking there was an easier way? I had to cut the clamps off. There was no cap over the swing arm bolt on the right side. So it was full of dirt. There is one on the left side.

We'll try those out when the world is back to normal.

Thanks. I will do that. What grease do you recommend? I have superlube, which is a clear synthetic, which I use on various things on my Commander. Other than that, I have yamalube ultramatic grease, yamalube polyurea greas and red and tacky grease in the grease gun. I don't know if any of those are synthetic but dont think so.

The thing is it works normal for awhile. I went out just now and had to zip back and forth through the field several times before I could get the problem to recur. Seems to only do it after reaching operating temp. but we will see. Oddly i didn’t notice it doing this until I removed the lcd meter. Coincidence I assume.

Oh yeah. Not that far away. I'm in the McComb/Summit/Magnolia/Liberty area Do you ever eat at Sal and Judy's. My wife and I ate there a year or so ago and really enjoyed it. Early 50s...slows you down!

I've downloaded the manual. I can't go through much of the troubleshooting procedure as I mailed my lcd display off to be repaired yesterday. I'm guessing that it wont be back for about a week.

So I've had this machine since late 05 and I've never had a problem with the ES. But it has been parked until last weekend for about a year and a half. I decided I wanted to get it out and start using it some again so last weekend I bought a new battery for it and replaced the float and needle valve which was sticking. It fired right up and I rode it a fair amount last week and it ran and shifted just fine. But several times over the last two days after running it medium hard across the pasture, the shift buttons completely quit working, not even a click. When this happens, I can turn the key off and then back on and then I can shift back to neutral by rocking the machine and shifting with the switches (but sometimes the shifting seems a little weak and it takes it bit to get it to neutral). Or I can use the emergency shifter to get back to neutral. This afternoon I thought I would take the angle sensor, shift motor and cover off to get to the ES gears and check them and the grease. But the completely dead switches when it stops working has me questioning if that's the problem. Do these symptoms ring a bell with anyone? Thoughts? Rodney

Thanks for the welcomes guys. Forgot to mention earlier that I am in SW Mississippi.

Great. I mailed it out this morning. It has been too faded to read for at least the last several years. I'm looking forward to it working again. I'm kinda curious about how many miles/hours I have.

I was looking for someone to repair the lcd screen on my 02 rancher 4x4 ES and found AKATV and he suggested I sign up here.. I bought the rancher in late 05 and it has been super reliable. We ride our SXS much much more than the rancher but I still spray fence with it, make food plots and just ride it around sometime.