Buddy of mine took his bayou 250 for a light swim the other day. Was completely submerged for just a few seconds. Once out, tilted it upright to drain the water. Cleaned the air filter and dried it off. Took out the spark plug and pull started it a few times. Put back together and took a little while to start. Once started ran fine for a little while and then started making a loud ticking sound from the engine.
Once we got it back drained all fluids and replaced. Noise goes away once restarted for about 20 seconds then comes back.

Seems like the noise is coming from the middle of engine, but cant really tell.

Any ideas of what we should check first?

 

check that the oil is not milky color. it normally takes more than one oil change to get all the water out of the oil. also replace the oil filter. i dont know if you ever adjusted the valves but you may want to check them.