ATV issues

AdamH

Well-Known Member
Joined
Mar 17, 2009
Location
Mt. Holly
2001 Yamaha Kodiak 4x4

Parents bought it new and it has been a great quad up until a month ago. Quit running, carb was leaking, etc.. Brother in law decided to have a go at fixing it.

He applied the shotgun approach: replace everything versus finding what could be wrong. Still doesn't work, so my parents brought it to me. I went over the work he did and everything looks good. All connections are tight, no corrosion, etc..

Work done by bro-n-law:
  1. new battery
  2. new coil
  3. new spark plug
  4. new starter relay
  5. replaced the other two relays (pink and white ones)
  6. had Yamaha dealership rebuild the carb and they say it is tuned to factory specs
  7. new air filter
  8. fresh gas
As it sits, 9 out of 10 times you try and start it electrically, it will just sit there and click. I cannot for the life of me get it to pull start. Funny thing is though, that after I try to pull start it you can bet $ it will start with the electric start. Could this be the starter going bad? When I try to pull start it could that be spinning the starter out of a bad spot?

And it gets better.... when it does start and run, it is idling as if it is at half throttle. No matter what adjustments I try with the idle screw, air screw on the carb, it stays idling that high. So high that it wont go into gear.

Thoughts?
 
Sounds like starter is corroded. Take it off and have it tested. As far as the high idling is concerned, you probably have an air leak around your intake/carb connections. Sucking in air will cause high idle. If not make sure that when they installed the throttle cable back in it is not to tight where it has the linkage partially opened.
 
I took the starter off and it bench tests just fine. I hooked it up to a battery and it just runs and runs. Is there a better way to test it for dead spots / corrosion? I called the local Advance Auto and they said they couldnt test it.

Thanks for the heads up on the carb. I will try and look at those options tonight or tomorrow.
 
You can take a piece of wood and apply resistance to the starter gear to simulate the resistance of it being installed. Be careful it can be a little dangerous. If it still turns over good bench testing then I would think it is not getting enough voltage. Put a volt meter on the battery record your reading. Then check with voltage at the starter (installed) when trying to crank it. It should be a little lower but not drastic. You could have a bad battery even though it is new. Did he charge it when he first got it? It seems like a lot of atv batteries are poorly made these days. I won't buy anything other than gel batteries anymore for my atvs.
 
I wondered if it were a bad new battery so I replaced it with one of my jet ski batteries that I know is good and I still had the same result.

I have not had a chance to mess with it again since your response above - I hope to have time this weekend.
 
check the resistance of the battery cables & make sure they are good
 
Turns out I had massive corrosion inside the switch. It was taken apart, cleaned up/fixed, and that solved the starting issues. As far as the carb issues, it was a simple adjustment. thanks!
 
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