This weekend was time for my first turn with the wrenches on my Cannibal. I changed the engine oil, trans. Oil, and put dielectric grease in all the wire connections I could find. I also insulated the fuel pump wire. I’d say I ended up with about 7 hours in the job when I finished at 3:00 in the morning. I’m kind of **** about things and don’t rush through anything. I strained all the oils before dropping them in the oil jug. Not much to be seen there, the filtration systems appear to be doing a good job. That became evident as I pulled the filters.
I started by going through all the electrical connections and applying liberal amounts of dielectric grease to all of them! There’s a bunch of connections on this thing! I had the tank off to get the ignition coil on the plug and make sure the zip-tie was in place. Having it half torn down turned out to be a good thing when trying to clean that rear oil filter. I didn’t find any loose connections or any corrosion in any of them. I pulled the plug to check it, looked good. When tightening it, I was nervous about hitting that 20 ft-lbs of torque and left it a little short of that. IMO, that’s pretty tight for that aluminum head.
The main oil filter(paper) appeared clean, but some fairly large shavings had gotten caught in between the pleats. I replaced the paper filter with a metal one- thanks JayBr for the hook-up with your spare. There was a good amount of smaller shavings caught in the rear oil filter. Get a 14mm stubby wrench if you want to play with that filter. I didn’t want too, but I ended up using a small Crescent wrench. A standard length Craftsman 14mm wrench was too long to do much good. I’ll have the stubby before the next oil change. That was the worst part about the engine oil change.
The trans. oil wasn’t too bad. There was a filter full of metal in there, though. Large and small shavings in there. As tight as the drain bolt was to get out, I’d definitely follow the books recommendation and use Anti-seize on that jewel.
One complaint, as you drain the oils, the oil likes to run down the motor case and between the bottom of the case and the aluminum plate in the removable frame section. There’s no way to clean that and it will slowly just drip out for the next day. Guess I could’ve sprayed a little brake cleaner in there to try to blow it out, but I didn’t and I now have my first oil stains on my new concrete garage floor. At least I earned them honestly!!
Another complaint is the torque specs provided on the manual. Who needs them? Better yet, who can use them?? I couldn’t get a torque wrench on 90% of the things that I needed to. I’m terrible about overtightening so I tried to be easy. Hope one of those spar drains don’t fall out!!
I have been having an intermittent stalling and hoped to find a loose connection to be the culprit. That wasn’t the case, it still shut’s off sporadically. I think I can now attribute it to low rpm riding. If riding just above idle and then lightly accelerating, that’s when it happens the most. Not every time, but sometime. The obvious answer is to always ride wide open, right?!?! I’m getting older(not as old as Ryanstones-baahaaahaaaa), but I like to ride a little easy now and then. I’m leaning toward needing an operating code update that I’ve read about, even though the dealer swears it has all the updates.
I guess the post was almost as long as my night working on that thing. Maintenance is not near as easy as my Yamaha, but my Yamaha isn’t near as fast!! That was my fun for a Friday night.

 

That's right. WFO like the older...faster Ryanstones! I rode tight technical trails with wicked 40-80 yard, STEEP hillclimbs and fast mine roads from 9am-7pm Saturday. Sunday it was 10-4pm, with 50-60 flying leaps over a couple of 30-50' downhills, then more wicked hills, followed by a couple of cooling 100yard river crossings with a swift 1-2' current, then 3-4 miles of WFO! to end the weekend. I must be gettin older, I didn't even wrecK! Heck, i ain't even sore!!

As for that oil change stuff, My '01'dale manual included the step of raising the front tires of the quad 14" off the ground while draining the upper right frame spar. My '02 manual says nada aabout that. I get about 100+/- ml more out with the nose up. I also tip it sideways when draining the motor/gear oil to reduce the leakage on the stock skid plate. to speed up tear down on the plastics, don't remove the upper bolt on the side plastics and leave them hangin. don't remove the back bolts on the gas tank Xbars, just rotate them out of the way. Sorry to hear about your driveway. Use cat litter [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

 

I have #885 and mine had the stalling problem to. But, I sent my computer to R&S to get the update and moto mapping, so far I have had no problem after getting it back.

 

I had the same type of stalling problem. Raise your idling alittle. You should be up above 2,000rpms. This made a huge difference.

 

I've been to one dealer with my problems. He loaded the "new" Cannibal map. I asked about the idle and he said it was just a little high and that he left it that way. I didn't ask what "a little high" was, I was hoping the remap was going to solve the problem, but it didn't. It's going to a dealer. I've spent way too much time and energy trying to make this thing right. I had hoped to hear a tip or suggestion from the Cannondale crew on what it could be. Appears they haven't been paying much attention to the forums lately- no posts in a while.

 

Yeah, I've noticed they haven't been in here in awhile....wonder what's up? Does it do it when it's only warmed up or all the time? There was an issue with the stator wire cover, and a thing with the computer telling itself the 4 wheeler was running hotter than it was...

 

It ahs only done it when it's warmed up. Of course, cold only lasts about a minute and a half, so 99% of my riding happens when it's warm. I've read about the stator thing but haven't given that much time as the problem. Mine should be corrected, but I'll see one day when I have the time.

 

rath,

If it's doing it when it's warm, then I'd look into the stator issue, and also Marums was telling me about a problem with a heat sensor. I guess the sensor was set too low, telling the quad it was over the limit for temperature.

 

I just printed the bulletin about the stator. I'll probably check it tonight. I really doubt that's it, but I want to check to make sure it's done. I've been having this problem from the very first time I rode it. Unless the wire was in tension across a sharp metal edge(which it isn't) it couldn't have cut through the insulation that quick. I'm going to call Terry today to let him know I'm still having problems and see what he says.

 

The stator does not have the extra shielding on it. I can see that much. What I can't do is get the flywheel off to add the shielding myself. I'm going to check on the price of the tool. If it's too much, I'll have to let the dealer do it.