One thing I've noticed is that some of the cheaper Chinese quads do not use much for rubber isolation mounts. Which can cause greif with things rattling around and coming apart. I had a Baja 90 that had quite of few of them. That atv actually was put together not bad. MY 110 not so good as you can see how they mounted the Muffler at the rear. The Jet 150 they did ok on the muffler part, but as I mentioned in another post they could have done the fuel tank better.

I inlcued a picture of simple rubber sandwich mount that costs like $1.50. Can be a cheap and easy fix sometime to mount something that needs to be isolated from vibrations.

 

Man. you are really getting going on advanced topics: quality of vibration isolation materials!

I'm still at the stage from keeping all the parts from falling off. I never seen any of them rubber things - I guess they disappear when the nuts and bolts rattle off.

 

So I went out and looked at my quad after reading Sawyer's post. My muffler is hard mounted to the frame (no rubber) The engine is rubber mounted to the frame. I wonder what is giving as I drive down the trail.

My gas tank (which is all plastic) is rubber mounted and the mounting looks pretty good.

I have had a lot of trouble with rubber (neoprene or whatever it is) on my quad. A lot of it has simply disintegrated. The snorkel tube between the air cleaner and carburetor looked like it had started to crack, When I pushed it, my finger went right through. It has been replaced with a clear 1 1/2" PVC hose. I still don't know if this will work long term. The hose is rated for 155 degrees F. Those temps will never happen while the engine is running (with the air flow and all), but when I turn the engine off on a hot day who knows. So far it is working fine, but it is winter.

All the ball joint boots have cracked and fallen away. I've ignored this for now.

The fuel hoses have all been replaced because of cracks.

All the rubber bushings in the shock mount eyes cracked, got loose, and fell out. I replaced those with nylon inserts. They won't give any shock relief like rubber, but they will last a while longer I'm sure.

At least my tires haven't fallen apart yet.

My quad is two years old with roughly 1500 miles, so it has been around the block a bit.

 

The reason I post this stuff is to give people ideas on how to make their ATV more dependable and enjoyable. There is a lot of doom and gloom about these things. Yes lots of it is justified but a lot of these things with a bit of tweaking can provide many hrs. and years of use and fun!

As for your rubber shock mounts you replaced, sounds like you did good! I can show you pics. of expensive racing quads that don't even use rubber in their shock mounts. Its just metal alloy bushings ment to take a beating!!

 

The degree of decomposition of the rubber and plastic parts is greatly affected by UV. If the quad is stored outside, even under a typical tarp, it will suffer much more than if stored in a garage or barn. I know outofline had noticable fading of plastic parts on his JM quads and he had them under a tarp but it did not stop the fading. My have been always stored in the garage and the plastic still looks like new except for the self inflicted abrasions and cracks.

 

Tires and valve stems seem to be the only rubber product on these things that last.

 

Yes thats for sure the rubber in those tires they make is durable stuff.

As for rubber stuff on them its weird as the odd thing is good and other stuff doesn't last a month! The baja 90 I had had quite a few "good" rubber parts on it. Who knows how the factory that builds ATV's sources parts for these things from other factories in China.

 

Maybe there is a govt regulation on tire making?

Not much is good on any of my Jets or the Yamoto... most annoying was the electrical components that were suddenly hanging off the quad when their rubber "mounts" failed...

The Baja brand is the most confusing of all the Chinese importers to me..Sold in a auto parts store that works on cars out here in Ca.. Yet no parts or service available at the store you bought it at?

 

Yes those little rubber holders crack, nothing yet on the Jet other than the battery strap.
But the 110cc quad I have they all cracked away.... Plastic zip ties!

As for baja its the same up here, sold at a big chain store 300 plus stores across Canada and they don't sell parts or service them. However there are private shops that take on the contract or whatever to do the warrany and service work. Local shop in town does I think the service warranty work for over 8 stores. He's still doing it so I guess its working for them. The spin off with that is it brings in new customers to the pirvate shops, so they may bring their lawn mower in to get serviced or their other quad etc. Wal-mart up here is selling ATV's too some strange brand I haven't heard of. They look to be really low end ... even for chinese!

 

the 150 has really crap plastic supposed to protect the electrical - doesn't work for crap.

@Sawyer ya forgot about the gas tank crap rubber that caused the tank to crack.

@MWQ - govt rules on rubber tires? I laughed at first then thought just maybe they do have some rule on that; otherwise, we all know they would be stuffing rice hull filler and black dye into those molds and tires would be disintegrating and flying off like all the other raw materials they can make cheap.

Again, they are fully capable of producing great quality stuff if one pays up and watches like a hawk you get what you pay for.

Surprisingly, vinyl on seat seems to hold up under UV fairly well. Was expecting the seat to turn to dust by now.

Going a bit OT, where is all the slop come from in the front end? I have a hard time keeping things tightened up there. I had ongoing trouble with slop at the joint between the steering shaft and the steering rod joint. Turns out the crap metal the steering shaft is made out of is soft and the joint was creating a depression in the plate where it attaches. I added a grade 8 ish washer between the steering joint and the plate and it so far has stayed tight.