My Honda lately won't idle at all. It runs fine when you are giving it throttle, it doesn't sputter or backfire or sound strange, but as soon as I let off the gas, it stalls. I adjusted the idle speed, and it makes no difference. This only started happening within the last few weeks.

Also, when driving, it will easily shift up through the gears, but has a hard time shifting down, especially from First to Neutral. When plowing snow, and trying to go from 1 to N (and with the idle messed up) it will keep stalling out in first gear. Then I can't restart it because I can't get it into N. Even the limp-home lever will not make it shift into N. I can hear the gears change, but the display shows ---. Then I push the ATV backward about 5 feet, and turn the key back on and it is in N.

Any ideas about either one of my problems?

 

sounds like the carb needs taken off and cleaned out good, i have a 01 foreman es, sometimes it has a problem going into neutral i just rock it back and fourth while on it and it will usually shift to neutral

 

Definately sounds like the the pilot circuit inside the carb needs attention. Another issue could be the primer diaphram bad and leaking fuel past causing it to be too rich. What color is your spark plug tip whith the plug removed ? Could also simply be a fouled plug.
The shifting may be a number of issues. If you have problems shifting with the manual shifter I would have to say the shifter arm assembly inside the front cover is cracked and spread apart. This would explain why the display reads --. With the shift arm broken it will not complete a shift, hence not moving the gear position sensor all the way to read a gear position.

Hope this helps

----- Gimpster -----

 

I had the carb apart this weekend. Found out that the choke cable was stuck in the On position, and was running really rich. That also would explain the occasional backfireing that it would do. So this problem is fixed now, but still have trouble every so often with the shifting. I'll check into that Shift Arm that you mentioned.