First gear is gone on my Foreman. ’07 model with 1200 hours. Engine ran fine other than first gear.

Everything has to come apart to remedy the situation. I have the shop manual, plenty of tools and experience with engines and sequential gearboxes on racecars. No experience on bike engines.

I have the engine out, the cylinder and piston off and the front case cover off.

So far the piston rings are out of limit.

My questions are:

1) What "gotchas" should I look out for.

2) I haven’t spec’d the piston. If the piston is good should I just replace the rings? Should I hone the cylinder?

Any suggestions/recommendations would be appreciated.

Thanks.