Suzuki LT-A500F 4x4 - looks like the tranny is gonna have to come apart....

[TheBAD1]

I think you have nailed it Blitz, that makes total sense other than the three allen head capscrews that hold that cast peice in place there are only the 2 bearing retainers held with 2 phillups screws on the inside which you should tighten with a impact screw driver. I screwed up on the price of the cases the other day they are $1350.00 canadian funds glad you have a good machine shop nearby also. As for any weak points the only thing that has been fairly common is the bearings in the outer drivebelt cover $6.00 apiece at a local bearing supply shop the screws that hold the retainers on these bearings are aluminum so use the impact driver on them also if not you will have to drill them out. Hope you get it back together soon and enjoy riding. Most of the repairs that I have done have all been because of driver abuse, what most people think of as driver abuse, might as well multiply it by a 100 times , some of thes guys around here are unbelieveablly hard on their stuff, but what the heck I'll take their money because I'mm cheaper than the dealer and the local shops. [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-cool.gif[/img]

[Blitzkrieg]

Well, the mystery has been solved as to the cause. Bad1 (and any other lt-a500f owners) you will definitely want to read about it!

I updated the thread over on my motorcycle website, you can view it here:

Link

If you own one of these machines, you definitely should be aware of this, because while the broken gear is not that big of a deal, the broken crankcase is (very expensive), I got really lucky in that my crankcase was repairable by a good machine shop, if not you are looking at $1700-$1900 by the time parts and labor are all tallied. I do my own work, but even still the crankcase halves are almost $1000 U.S. (yes, you HAVE to buy both).

Knowing what I know now about this, if I bought another of these machines I would make it a winter project to pull the motor, split the cases and replace this gear. If it does go, it can do alot of damage in a short amount of time.

[TheBAD1]

This may be good news to some of you, but my 2000 quadmaster already had the solid cast gear in the tranny when I had to split it apart recently. Something is real fishy here I bought mine new off the show room so why does it have the new gear? The service dept at the dealership has never seen my machine since I picked it up and has no record of any updates on it before I purchased it.[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-confused.gif[/img]

[Blitzkrieg]

Hmmmmm very interesting!

I also noticed that the Suzuki manual shows the gear as solid, not drilled.

My guess is that Suzuki made a mid year change - my ATV is probably an earlier build date than yours?

I agree - very fishy....