It didn't sound like this from what u describe , but I had to re- weld the tab on the end of the shaft that works the shift star. It acted like the shift lever was spinning on the shaft, but I could see that it wasn't so I looked inside and found the weld had broke. It would only shift into 1,2,3rd before I fixed it, trying for 4th is when it would just spin inside the tab until the shift lever came up so high it hit the chain. Very odd that it broke like that. Good luck, hope u figure it out soon.

 

I looked at that and it appears to be working properly. I have never had an ATV engine apart before but I think whatever is wrong is on the other end of the shaft that the star wheel is attached to.

 

Ya, not sure what exactly would cause what u describe. The shift star attaches to the shift drum, that has a series of grooves in it that move the shift forks as it turns. If the problem is in that far u have a pretty big job ahead unfortunately. My guess is u will find a broken tab on one of the gears or something. I haven't heard of to many failures on these transmissions though. I had mine apart 3 times during my rebuild. Once because I installed the reverse gear shaft wrong, there is a little grove that the pin lines up with I missed. Then I had to take it down again to get the crank end play right. I got pretty good at it by the last time I put it back together. Again, good luck, hope u get some answers soon.

 

I finally disassembled my engine and figured I should update this thread. The only thing that ended up being wrong was a loose screw between the shift wheel and shift drum. It looks like it wobbled around a bit and allowed a shift fork to come free. Nothing damaged and all I need is to clean everything up and put it all back together.

 

How hard was this to fix? Just got my engine rebuilt and it has 6 hours and I'm getting the same thing s90yam was talking about. I thought the shift lever was spinning on the shaft but the whole shaft is spinning.

 

Pull the entire clutch side engine cover and the shift shaft will slide out that side (after you take the shift lever off of course). Then you can replace it or weld up the one you have. Might have to remove the clutch assembly before the shaft will slide out.

 

Great news. I was gonna be pissed if I had to pull a brand new engine and send it back to Cali. Thanks.

 

Yep, pulled it out last night and the weld on the shifter mechanism was cracked all the way around the shaft. My friend took it to tig weld it today.