Is there any place you guys know of I can send my 06 800 sportsman front diff to for a good clean and rebuild??? I let water sit in it for too long and needs everything replaced including basket and rollers that are flattened on sides. Cant find anyone local and Polaris dealer wants to much and the other dealer wont give me a price. About $200 for just parts. I've messed with it and cannot get the side bearings out and dont want to damage the housing. Have used 2 cans of PB blaster to loosen most of the rust/dirt.


Thanks for any info.

Not to all riders that play in mud and water, $10 in oil after every hard ride in water is a heck of a lot cheaper and easier than this.

 

you may also might want to consider buying a whole another front end(used) if the damage is extensive to save money in the long run. i'm guessing the labor is going to drive the price very high. just a thought.

 

I did mine on my 04.5 400. It was not difficult at all. I replaced all bearings with much better quality from a local industrial bearing supplier (Kinecor). The originals had china and russia stamped into them, the replacements were less than half what polaris wanted, I think they were NTN or Timken. Also all the other parts are available through John Deere for much cheaper and sometime you can buy the whole diff on e-bay. They were used in many vehicles such as john deere gators. A company called Hilliard actually makes them for polaris. As for the side bearings, just warm the case near the bearings with a propane torch so the aluminum expands a bit and they should come out by tapping with a hammer on a large socket.

 

I know this link is old but do you happen to have the part numbers for the basket from john deere? I lost my 4x in reverse and suspect that basket thing is the issue, i also have a bunch of bad bearings so i am certain that will add to it.
Wouldnt the bearings be pressed into the cases?
The real issue i am having is getting the shafts out of the diff, it appears to be rusted in, you would think polaris would have used some antiseeze on these things.

 

Here are the part numbers, When i rebuilt mine all I had to do was clean everything up, the rollers were all a tiny bit rusted from water getting in, I polished them up with very fine sandpaper and while it was apart I put new bearing in from a local bearing supplier (japanese, much better quality than the polaris chinese bearings. The new bearings were sealed on both sides so I poped out the inner seals so diff fluid could get inside the bearings but I left the outter seal in place so now there are actually 2 seals that the water has to get through to enter the diff, the shaft seal and the outter bearing seal. Any local bearing sho will have seals and bearings to fit and much cheaper and better quality than OEM.




John Deere front diff parts for HPX gas gator late serial numbers
seal kit MIA10654
A-plate MIA 10656
roller kit MIA 10666 $23.99
cage kit MIA10667 $74.00

 

To get the shaft out of the diff I used a ball joint splitter. It is shaped like a forked wedge. I had strugled for weeks with the WD40 and a lot of tugging and hammering. With the ball joint splitter a couple of small taps and it came out. Use some never sieze when you put them back together.
I did a post on it about a year ago and had pictures of the ball joint splitter. I will see if I can find it and start it again.

 

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention how I got mine out, I had a 3' length of 1/2" threaded rod in my garage so I bent one end so it had a 1" 90 degree bend, I put this into the U-joint yoke at the diff and then found a heavy steel thing , anything that will slide onto the rod that is a a few pounds would work and then put a nut on the end, this ends up being a slide hammer and the axles pop out with a couple of blows. mine is an 04.5 and in 05 they switched to a different set-up I think it had a CV joint at the diff so this would not work.

 

so i tore the front end right off last night, good thing the radiator needs a real cleaning as it is a brick.
One wack with the ball joint seperated and the shaft poped right out. The plastic cage inside was broken, i hope this was the reason i had no 4x in reverse as the display and button seem to be fine.

 

They do make a billiet cage if you plan on keeping this quad for a while

 

haha...you guys really dont know me, this is the longest i have owned a off road toy, 2nd year now...when i got this apart my brothers first question was "so which new quad does the dealer have that will fix this problem"

anyway i do plan to keep it for a bit, although it would be nice to have power steering. If i go the route of metal what then becomes the weak link to break when i start hammering on it?
Not sure if i will go full boat in and get billet, but i am considering the alum one from superatv, im also considering getting some new shafts form them and keeping the old ones as a trail spare.