I had just purchased a 2004 650 with 125 miles on it. It had been dumped in water and does not run. I believe water has gone into the engine. I don't know how long it has been sitting as it was an insurance settlement. What steps do I need to take to get this baby running?? I know it does have spark! Fuel is old and am in the process of draining. Is it possible that the atv could have changed engine timing?? Any and all help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

 

if the oil is milky white there is water in the engine. remove the spark plug and pull start it untill water stops pushing out. that will empty the combustion chamber if any water is in it.(you can use start button but it will run your battery down). if the start button doesnt work there may be an electical problem some where. check air filter if its dirty or wet clean/replace it. 2nd,,drain the oil and replace with new oil(this may take 6-9 or more changes) ,run the bike for about 10 minutes to warm then drain it each time. i recomend not putting the new oil filter on until ist completly cleaned out. you may want to pull off the old oil filter and let it drain over night then put it back on before changing the oil that way if any water is in the filter it will drain out of the filter. i just did all this a few weeks ago. it took me 9 oil changes and i used cheep 10-40 oil from walmart. after the 9th oil change there was a slight whiteness to the oil but i took it out and rode it for one day and im assuming the warm engine cleaned the rest out cuz its very clean now. im sure someone else will pick up the slack i may have left. good luck! oh yeah change the gas too.

 

Your in luck, I just sunk mine though It was only it water for about 10 minutes and it did hydrolock.
First off, is it frozen or cold where your at? If so get it in a heated garage somehow and let it thaw out. I had to buy a heater. get the quad warm before you start working on it. IT will help with the fluids draining and make it easier to start. Get the battery on the a charger also.

Heres the steps I took and I am sure there is multiple ways of doing it and other people will chime in.

1. Get all of the fluids out and air filter. you will need a new one. Drain the oil, gas and antifreeze since you dont know how long it may have sat in water.
2. Drain the carb bowl and run some type of carb cleaner in it. I have found and been told SeaFoam works good for this and the engine to dry up the water.
3. by some cheap 10w40 oil and filter and fill crank case and add some sea foam to it. (you will have to change it 3 times) so get a lot of if. (4 quarts per fill)
4. drain and fill antifreeze. Almost forgot, take out the exhaust plug and jack front end of the quad up as high as you can to drain the water out.
5. take out the spark plug and crank the engine over without the spark plug to get the water out of the piston. then dump some sea foam or fogging oil into plug hole.
6. Replace the spark plug making sure all the wires are dried out. *you may want to get some silicone spray for electric wires afterwards.
7. Get some good gas and add Sea foam or some good stabolizer to the gas tank to dry out the water in case there is some in there.
8. Start the quad and let it run for about 15 to 20 minutes. Enough that your cooling fan turns on so you know the engine is hot. it will run like garbage at first and stink and it will blow all types of garbage out of the engine.
9. Drain the oil immediately and change the filter and refill it again adding seafoam to it and let run for another 30 minutes and drain again.
10. I would then put some good arctic cat oil in it and drive it around a few hours and change one more time and you should be good to go. It wil cost you about 120 bucks put thats cheap insurance.

There could be some snags along the way like you may have to take apart the carb to clean it if dirt got in the jets. Hopefully it wasnt hydrolocked and the piston broke.
You may want to change your differential fluid.

Some people recomend mixing oil with deisel fuel and running the quad a minute to clean the engine or just using pure diesel fuel. I never have done that so I dont know. I would imagine it would clean it good that way.

I hope this helps

 

I did what you have suggested and still no fire. I am still woundering if the timing has jumped??? Any suggestion would be appreciated.

 

i dont know much about the timing but all i can think of would be the autochoke not working. Turn the idle up and use the primer. pump the primer 3 times. If all esle fails i would spray some starter fluid in the spark plug hole just to check to see if it starts real quick. dont do this constantly. its a new spark plug? check to make sure you got spark by grounding the plug to the side of the engine and then starting it. dont hold on to it though! also make sure you got all the garbage out of the exhaust. Oh yeah, sorry Im an idiot! change all of your fuses under the seat. the kill switch may not be working.

 

Timing is not adjustable and unless you sheared flywheel key should not have changed. When you check spark don't go through sparkplug. If you don't have a spark tester put a screwdriver in boot and hold approx 3/16 to a 1/4 inch away from the engine. If spark won't jump gap you have no or weak spark. If you cranked unit and it had a hydralic lock you could have sheared key.

 

wow thats bad that you got an atv with water in the crank if it has sat in there to long it could have started pitting your crank bearings and you may be in trouble later on. and one thing i found out when i drowned mine out is instead of doing the 3-9 oil changes i took the oil filter off rinsed it out with keroseane. then i filled up the crank to specs with keroseane and started it up and let it run for approximately 45 seconds to 1 min putting it in forward and reverse and just let it idle forwards and backwards a couple feet. do not hit the throttle or rev up at all. then shut it down and drain out the keroseane, it will pull all the water out of all the crevases and everywhere. all keroseane is i guess is a very fine oil. and well with your situation do you think that they could have hydrolocked it and tried cranking it over and bent a connecting rod????