I seem to have picked up a small but noticeable amount of play in my steering with a slight but intermmittent pop. It isnt a tiny bit of play that bothers me but the slight pop I feel every so often.

I just passed 1400 miles (thats like 3000 Canadian or something, right?  ) and havent rolled it, slammed anything or gotten more than a foot or so in the air off of unexpected drops.

I have yet to really hit anything hard and other than the occasional random drop don't really jump it either.

It just showed up the other day. sort of 'just there'.

I have had the front off the ground and checked for damaged ball joints as well as tie rod ends but can't really feel anything of concern in the joints themselves.

I'm going to pull the wheels and inner plastic so I can get a good look at the mounting bolts for the EPS tomorrow with all the tension off the steering and suspension.

There doesn't seem to be any real delay in steering actuation either.

I expect some wear in factors of course, but its that pop that has me disturbed.

[2015 Z Force 800 53/Trail EPS]

Check the steering shaft's u-joints and the yoke pinch bolts. Mine were loose and in time started to gain enough play on the splines it would almost jump but make a popping sound when kicking back.

Right, will do that.
Got the tie rod ends and suspension joints checked this evening.

Alright.
Found the problem.
Another minor one too.

So I went in for a close inspection on the yokes and such.

I couldn't find anything at first. The slip joint bolt was a tenny bit loose but that was all I found at first.

Just on a whim I put my 13mm on one of the EPS mounting bolts . . (4 of them) . . and damnd if I didn't get a quarter turn on it.
I checked the other three and the diagonally opposed bolt I got almost a turn out of it.

the other two were fairly snug.

I waggled the bars back and forth and it felt tighter and I couldnt get it to do the soft pop Id been feeling.

Mounted the wheels back on and still couldn't feel the soft popping and my steering seemed tighter.

Ran it around the yard throwing gravel and sliding into corners and . . well, It felt right.

So I took the dog for a run up the back yard and around the hillside and steering absolutely back 100% and the intemittent soft popping is gone.

I knew something wasn't quite right.

the loosest bolt did NOT have a paint check on it.

thats the second one I found so far.

I'm guessing it got snugged but not tight and worked loose enough for the countering bolt to start working loose.

The slight shift in the EPS unit was what I was feeling.

[2015 Z Force 800 53/Trail EPS]

Good...well...add those to the ever-growing list of bolts to check on a CFM....lol

Right?
I'm just glad I trusted my gut and kept looking.
That coulda been bad on any machine from any manufacturer.
Maybe not Polaris recall bad, but bad . . .

Now if I can just figure out why my MSC tuner doesnt want to mesh my ECM . . . grrr.
theres a few mods I really want to do from the efficiency/power perspective that I need to be able to retune to properly implement.