I had a problem with my bike today, I shifted into reverse and went to take off but as I revved up nothing happened, then it did happen all at once - GRZZZZT!, gearbox made an awful noise. I thought I had somehow shagged out the gearbox but what I found was a large tree branch wedged from the chassis to the shift linkage cable shaft. I removed the branch using a hammer and drift as it was seriously wedged in there, the bike now shifts easily and the gearbox sounds fine, my question is, how tolerant are these gears to the occasional grind, a bit of a severe sounding one at that.......

Regards - MM

You should be fine, they will take some abuse without harm.

Thanks TooDeep, I'll keep an eye on it and make sure it dosen't get noisy or jump out of gear, I think I need to take it for a looong ride, just to check and make sure....

Best Regards - MM

I went for a long ride with plenty or reversing back and forth in the tight tracks and it was faultless so I would say the dogs on the gears weren't damaged to any great extent (This time!!) so I have indeed been lucky.....
A fellow rider isn't so lucky though, whilst attempting a dune climb on his Foreman 450 a loud "bang" occurred and no rear drive as a result, no "crunchy" noises either so until he tears it down we have no idea as to what let go.

Best Regards - MM

Pull the boot back between the swing arm and the motor and with the machine jacked off the ground turn the tires over by hand. I would guess the u-joint broke from the "bang" and you should be able to inspect it with the boot just being loose.