99 kodiak hard to shift out of reverse

[Dwight Williams]

I have a 99 Kodiak 400 4X4 that I picked up for $300.  The previous owner had modified the foot shifter by welding a piece of rebar to it so he could hand shift while plowing.  As you can imagine, the allows for much more torque on the shifter than it was designed to have, and he broke the stopper off of the the shift mechanism.  No big deal, I ordered the part and put it back together, went through the carburetor and off we go, it runs pretty good.  

The first thing I noticed is that when I put the shifter all the way down it goes into reverse, I'm supposed to twist a knob to get it to reverse but this seems to be disabled.  Also, once in reverse, it's a bugger to get back out.  I have to hold the shifter up, then quickly back down and up again to get it to come out.  All forward gears work fine, clutch is tight, no problems.

The reverse cable and lever are in tact and seem to move freely.  

My question is this:  What does one normally have to do to get this thing into reverse?  I assume put it in neutral, twist the knob, kick the shifter down.  Does the brake need to be applied?  I'm not sure what's going on here, I suspect it's been 'modified' as it goes into reverse without the proper precautions, just not sure if the mods were external on internal.

 

thanks

[Frank Angerano]

The reverse knob goes to a cable thats connected to the lever on the engine obviously however inside that engine cover under the lever  is called a reverse cam stopper. There is a spring inside thats not returning the cam  or the small cam lost  its lobe.  
This is obviously designed to prevent you from downshifting all the way, bypassing neutral  and into reverse while the atv is moving forward. This would result in a catastrophic failure on the drive train.   
 

As far as how it works its simple, you downshift all the way to neutral and turn the knob and downshift into reverse and let the knob go. In order to get out its a simple upshift. 
You should have indicator light on the dash as well for reverse and neutral?

[Dwight Williams]

I adjusted the idle today and it is MUCH better.  Thanks Frank, I'll have to look into that reverse cam stopper, maybe that's the issue.

[Frank Angerano]

No worries. Nice work. 

[Dwight Williams]

Ok, so it still went into reverse without the lever so I took the right side cover off and found the cam stopper was worn so bad that it would roll off the edge and go into reverse all by itself.  I welded the worn spot on the cam and ground it back down to a shape somewhat resembling square and put it back together - all good now.  I noticed the clutch disks were pretty worn as well so I just ordered a new set, as soon as they come in I'll get it put back together.

 

thanks

[Frank Angerano]

As i thought!  Nice work.  

[Kodiak1]

A very informative fix for my reverse issue. The pictures are excellent.