[basfnb]

I have a 2012 Honda 420 with all the bells and whistles, EPS, IRS, Auto, it hit a telephone pole with the right front tire, wheel is shot, and it will turn hard to the left and barely to the right (I think or vice-versa) and the EPS light is on now. I did some measuring last nite from wheel to wheel and each front wheel to the same spot. I think I have a bent frame.

Any ideas at all on this? this bike has about 500 miles on it. would the easiest thing to do is just adjust the tie rods to count for how much its bent or what.

thanks in advance for any help yall can do.

 

[mrbb]

first welcome to the site, the best thing to do is turn it into your insurance , IMO
second I doubt adjusting the tie rods will solve much here, your going to have more than them needed to correct things,m as there not going to correct anything that is bent
you could have drive live issue's and other things wrong
its hard to say from just your above, Id get it all up off the ground and look a lot closer at things and see for sure
and if you DON"T have insurance, this is a good example to others why you should (sorry sure not what you want to hear)

 

[Jeepwm69]

first welcome to the site, the best thing to do is turn it into your insurance , IMO
second I doubt adjusting the tie rods will solve much here, your going to have more than them needed to correct things,m as there not going to correct anything that is bent
you could have drive live issue's and other things wrong
its hard to say from just your above, Id get it all up off the ground and look a lot closer at things and see for sure
and if you DON"T have insurance, this is a good example to others why you should (sorry sure not what you want to hear)

Hey, he made it!

This is my buddy who lives a little north of me.

I had him measure yesterday and center of rear wheel to center of front wheel on the left is 51 inches. Center of rear wheel to center of front wheel on the right is 48 inches (kid hit the pole with the right front wheel).

Lower a-arm rear mounting point on the right side is about 1.5 inches further back as well.

If I had to guess, it's going to be like my Foreman that my sister wrecked. Frame was pushed to the left and up a little.

I was able to get it to track straight and it worked fine, but I eventually swapped frames because the crooked front bumper and rack irritated my OCD.

Anyone here have any luck tweaking a frame back in place by strapping it down and using a winch or big pry bar? I've got a heavy (probably weighs 50lbs) solid steel prybar that's about 6 feel long. If I had to guess it's an old railroad tool. I wondered if we couldn't wedge that in there and get it back closer to straight. It will never be perfect again for sure without swapping the frame out.

 

[Jeepwm69]

FYI, this is the guy who talked me into buying my first Foreman. I'm not sure if I should be thankful for that or blame him for my poverty and frustration.

 

[SamUK]

I have the same issue with a 450 foreman, your damage sound very much like mine. If you look and measure carefully you’ll notice the frame may be twisted. The differences are quite noticeable between the lower main frame tubes (longitudinally) and the frame tubes that house your lower steering stem bearing. Unfortunately for me my steering stem is also twisted just above the splines/pitman arm.

 

[shadetree]

jeep, when I started reading the OP's post ?, I knew right off the bat who this was !..lol. you just brought this up a day or so ago..lol. OP, getting the frame right will be tough, unless you have a machine large enough like they do cars and trucks with ?, your going to have a hard time getting the frame straight. it can be done, but it won't be easy !. if I was you ?, i'd be looking for another frame.

 

[mrbb]

I don't think a pry bar is the way to go, maybe some body shop can use some hydraulic's to un bend as it will work better IMO
as for framed being straightened out, they can, and on an atv maybe not as critical as other things, but you do run the risk of having weakened sections as once things bend they are never as strong and more you bend them weaker things get
many times the better way to fix is cut off bad section/s and replace with good sections, but would need a donor frame
and well if you have that , maybe less work to just sway whole frame to have it RIGHT again!
or again, back to Insurance, odds are they will total it out, get the cash, maybe buy it back and then fix(part it out or keep as a parts machine, if deal works out,
or use cash to just get a new atv's, or one like it and have the old for a parts machine

I know its not a great call, but bent frames, can be very annoying in my experience and things never tracking right again, and my silly simple mind always worry's about what else got damaged that I didn;t notice? peace of mind has its own value to me, but its everyone's own call on what there comfortable with!

 

[shadetree]

I don't think a pry bar is the way to go, maybe some body shop can use some hydraulic's to un bend as it will work better IMO
as for framed being straightened out, they can, and on an atv maybe not as critical as other things, but you do run the risk of having weakened sections as once things bend they are never as strong and more you bend them weaker things get
many times the better way to fix is cut off bad section/s and replace with good sections, but would need a donor frame
and well if you have that , maybe less work to just sway whole frame to have it RIGHT again!
or again, back to Insurance, odds are they will total it out, get the cash, maybe buy it back and then fix(part it out or keep as a parts machine, if deal works out,
or use cash to just get a new atv's, or one like it and have the old for a parts machine

I know its not a great call, but bent frames, can be very annoying in my experience and things never tracking right again, and my silly simple mind always worry's about what else got damaged that I didn;t notice? peace of mind has its own value to me, but its everyone's own call on what there comfortable with!

I would not waste my time on it, I would just look for another frame, swap it over, call it a done deal. used frame prices have dropped down a lot lately !!

 

[mrbb]

I agree the time and effort to try and fix a bent frame seldom pays off, I just threw out the suggestion as food for thought
I insurance claim the sucks, take what I get and go from there, but gathering the fellow didn;t have any on it, so? he is trying to resolve things as cheap and easy as he can (not bashing here saying this either )
swapping over to a whole new frame is not a small task many want to do, thus why I said, maybe better to buy a like model and keep this one for parts
might be an easier deal overall, not maybe better, but easier!
sunk atv's are common and he has a good motor and trans now so LOL and sunk atv's seldom have bent frames, some even be almost like new when they go swimming HAHA!

 

[M_Quick]

Just wondering how you hit a poll so hard it bent the frame, without bending the tie-rod as well?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G870A using Tapatalk

 

[shadetree]

Just wondering how you hit a poll so hard it bent the frame, without bending the tie-rod as well?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G870A using Tapatalk

from what I have seen ?, those trx420's have a very weak front a-arms where they attach to the frame area for bolts. its not hard to hit anything with the front wheels, and push the a-arms inwards or sideways..and not bend the frame. honda made these frames very badly.

 

[SamUK]

Just wondering how you hit a poll so hard it bent the frame, without bending the tie-rod as well?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G870A using Tapatalk

from what I have seen ?, those trx420's have a very weak front a-arms where they attach to the frame area for bolts. its not hard to hit anything with the front wheels, and push the a-arms inwards or sideways..and not bend the frame. honda made these frames very badly.

It seems the 450’s share the same design fault too!

 

[_Wilson_]

That's nice to know ^^^^

 

[shadetree]

Just wondering how you hit a poll so hard it bent the frame, without bending the tie-rod as well?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G870A using Tapatalk

from what I have seen ?, those trx420's have a very weak front a-arms where they attach to the frame area for bolts. its not hard to hit anything with the front wheels, and push the a-arms inwards or sideways..and not bend the frame. honda made these frames very badly.

It seems the 450’s share the same design fault too!

lol..ummmmmmm..don't hit nuff'n ??!!..lol.

 

[Jeepwm69]

My 500 was the same way. A arms were fine, tie rod was bent, but the frame was twisted up and to the left (right front hit a tree at about 30mph).

I lived with it for a couple of years until I found a cheap good frame.

Basfnb has a customer who has a body shop and said he could straighten it out for a couple hundred bucks, so he's going to do that.

Then he'll be back on here trying to figure out why the power steering light won't go off. LOL

 

[retro]

I'm late to the party... but I fixed a 350 Rancher frame a couple years ago that had been in a bad wreck. The upper and lower A-arms on the left side got bent so I replaced both of them with a used set. I put all four new ball joints in as well, because I figured they might be bent on the left side too.

The left side upper a-arm bracket on the frame (rear one) was wrapped around the frame tubing where it was welded on, so I disassembled the right side completely, then tied the frame down to a big 1/2" plate of steel that I had in my scrap metal pile, using ratchet straps. Then I put a small hydraulic bottle jack between the frame rails, slid a scrap length of rod into the twisted bracket holes and started pushing on that bracket with the jack. Within 15 minutes (jacking just a bit at a time and pausing to measure) I had it back in perfect alignment. I used an old caster/camber gauge (from the early 1960's) to compare the left & right knuckle angles after the a-arms were put back on (no shocks yet) and both sides were perfect matches to the service manual specs.

It can be done, just takes a lot of prep time, an assortment of scrap metal to scrounge through and lots of careful measurements.

 

[shadetree]

My 500 was the same way. A arms were fine, tie rod was bent, but the frame was twisted up and to the left (right front hit a tree at about 30mph).

I lived with it for a couple of years until I found a cheap good frame.

Basfnb has a customer who has a body shop and said he could straighten it out for a couple hundred bucks, so he's going to do that.

Then he'll be back on here trying to figure out why the power steering light won't go off. LOL

its posb the power steering motor got whacked up ?. just another dumb idea honda had..power steering on an off road machine !..lol.

 

[retro]

Yeah, the EPS has a torque sensor on the stem and if it gets twisted by an impact its spun out of time permanently and its completely junk. Gotta replace the shaft in those at a minimum. And it usually hammers out more than the shaft, cause those EPS units are built chintzy. I'd replace with used before I'd waste any money on trying to fix one that took an impact.

 

[Jeepwm69]

Yeah, the EPS has a torque sensor on the stem and if it gets twisted by an impact its spun out of time permanently and its completely junk. Gotta replace the shaft in those at a minimum. And it usually hammers out more than the shaft, cause those EPS units are built chintzy. I'd replace with used before I'd waste any money on trying to fix one that took an impact.

I told him not to get EPS!

But this is supposed to be his wife's rig, so he got PS.

My wife didnt want it. She wrecked one with PS and said she didn't want to drive another one with PS because you can't feel the trail through the bars.

 

[retro]

I hope he gets lucky and its easy to correct. He probably won't know much more about it until the tie rods are adjusted (bars straight) for proper toe. Then if the stem is twisted internally he won't be able to reinitialize the torque sensor per the manual... it'll throw a code and disable itself. They work great while they work, but take way too much $$$ to fix IMO.