Since owning my 2009 Polaris Sportsman 850 it has always been hard to shift between gears,i did a google search and it said that is common.
I did notice something while changing the drive belt that upon replacing the drive belt it is still hard to shift and before putting the drive belt cover into place with the ATV rear still jacked up we started the ATV to be sure there was no issues and noticed that with ATV at idle the secondary transmission pulley was slowly spinning ,i wonder if this was always the case and is why it is always hard to shift because once we shifted gear shift engaging the transmission the pulley immediately stopped.
I did notice something while changing the drive belt that upon replacing the drive belt it is still hard to shift and before putting the drive belt cover into place with the ATV rear still jacked up we started the ATV to be sure there was no issues and noticed that with ATV at idle the secondary transmission pulley was slowly spinning ,i wonder if this was always the case and is why it is always hard to shift because once we shifted gear shift engaging the transmission the pulley immediately stopped.