Three miles into my ride yesterday the speedo stopped working. About twenty miles later after a break I start the sled up and as i'm accelerating i hear a metal grinding noise. Sounds like the clutch or something on the drive shaft. Should i pull the housing off where the cable goes in? Just wondering what it could be don't have much time this week to dive into it.

Drive shaft bearing shit the bed. Jesus Christ I have replaced 3 of these little bastards for my friends in the last week. What the hells up, the bearings I took apart were all dry and rusty like they weren't taking grease. Ate up a lot of riding time, but fattened my bottom line quite nicely.

Your bearing is shot.Take off the drivin clutch and then remove the flanges(speedo cover).Then you will see what happened.Hopefully the shaft is ok,make sure you grease those after every other ride.Some think it is overboard,but they will last alot longer.Not bad to replace,you will have to remove the track and suspension to get the shaft out.Good luck.

exactly what those guys said. my pro x did the same thing. order up your bearing. have everything off for when you get it. i dont remember how we got my bearing off, but they are pressed on....

Well what the heck, six hundred miles ago I swapped the track and greased the bearings everything looked good. So for sure do i have to pull the skid to do this or can the shaft stay in place?

greasing that bearing once a year dosnt cut it,
my 97 xlt 12000 miles
00 gen 700 11000
my 03 edge 10000
have yet to change that lower bearing on any of them, keep it greased,it helps if you can thaw the sled out though,
i grease that bearing probably 10 times a year or more, water drips out of it everytime

A friend just had the same thing happen to his Pro-X 800, but he has close to 5,000 miles on it. He removed the whole shaft and then hit the bearing with a hammer. (A snowmobile mechanic told him about the hammer trick.) I think he carefully put the shaft in a vise first... The bearing snapped into two pieces and fell off.

When the bearing gave out (while my friend was riding, not when he was hitting it with a hammer) the shaft was damaged on the end. He said it was easy to repair. He used some kind of machine that "threw" molten metal on the shaft, then he used a lathe to bring everything back to spec.

You'll get all the information you need from the guys on this site, but you can still PM me if you want specific details from my friend.

the repair is called spray welding, just had a pto end spray welded, will see how good it holds up ???

Your speedo has a square drive pin in it. It is designed to sheer off as soon as the bearing starts to fail. Your first clue was when the speedo quit working. Next time you will know in advance. It will give you enough of a warning so you don't get stuck out in the woods at 3 am.