[MViking]

So a buddy of mine asked me to look at his Polaris Ranger.

It runs great. I believe it's a 500cc, and when I first picked it up, it was stuck in Hi gear.

I found CommanderJones videos and pulled the shifting mechanism apart, cleaned it and put it back together correctly and got it to run the gear level through the gears.

I believe this model has a governor on it which sadly doesn't allow the machine to go much faster in high than it does in low. It doesn't have a speedo, but I would guess it goes 25 mph in low and about 30-35 in high. Plenty of power either way.

When I put this model in reverse though it appears to act like it's in neutral. No sounds, nothing, except the back up beeper.

Looking up the transmission breakdown online makes this transmission look different from the ones CommanderJones described....Where is the decal on these to see what model year it really is?

Owner doesn't want to spend much on it and I'd rather not kill a weekend fixing it.

I was going to pull the shift cable back off and try to engage it without and see if the cable is just a bit off. The shifter seems a bit too far from the top of the shifter hole in High and seems like it may be on the lower limit when I try to go to reverse. I'll play with it more, but thought I'd ask.

Been searching this forum for the last few weeks, big thanks to all those that contribute here and help others.

 

[commanderjjones]

Not sure if the 2002 tranny is the same, but if reverse isn't working at all (not even any grinding noise), I have to think that the reverse chain is either broken or not in the proper location. Did reverse work okay before you disassembled the tranny?

 

[MViking]

No, my buddy got it a couple years ago and has never gotten the shifter to move out of High until I did yesterday.

The only part I disassembled was the shifter lever on the side of the transmission. That's just like the one in your video.

 

[commanderjjones]

Gotcha.

When you had the cover off of the shift linkage, did the shaft appear to be rotating into the correct position for reverse? You definitely need to try shifting it into reverse without the shift cable attached to the lever......that could be the entire problem.

The problem with my theory about the reverse chain being broken is that there is a VERY high chance that it wouldn't run long that way. The chain would probably get hung up in the other gears and cause a serious malfunction. Other possibilities would be a broken shift drum (never seen that happen, but anything is "possible") or a shift fork out of position. There's really no telling what the previous owner may or may not have done to it. Unfortunately, you'll probably have to split the tranny open to fix that issue.