OK, bear with me through a long story to explain what I was doing when I had the problems..........

This weekend I was able to go out and play for the first time in some decent (8") snow on my new machine. I ran into the same problem that I always had on my 00 SP500, having the machine overheat because snow packs into the fan, keeping the fan from running, causing the machine to overheat. I kept clearing snow away and keeping a close eye on the speedo to make sure the temp gauge didn't come on, but eventually I waited too long to clear the snow away, and the overheat light came on. I let it cool down for a good 20 minutes, but then had to limp home (10 miles)at 20 MPH with no coolant in the overflow container because it all boiled off. I didn't know if I was hurting the engine or not, but didn't have a choice either way. When I got home and got it really cooled down, I popped the radiator cap, and there was still coolant in there, so at least the radiator wasn't completely dry. I also popped off the airbox to check and see if I had snow in there, and it had water all the way to the bottom of the airfilter in the box. I drained it out, but am afraid that I may have sucked some water, or at least moisture, into the inlet. I also took the air filter inside for the night so it would dry out instead of freezing into a block of ice.
Sunday when I went riding with my buddy, I noticed that after I ran it hard for awhile, when we would stop to clear the fan, it would die right away. It would fire up again, but only with the throttle engaged a little, and it would die again if you weren't giving it gas. I would let it cool down a little again, and then it would run fine. I never had the temp light come on yesterday, and I know the fan worked, because I could hear it running. I rode all day like that, running for 10-15 minutes, then letting it cool down for a few when it wouldn't idle, then running it again. In all, I rode 30 miles on sunday like that. When I got home, my wife wanted me to plow the 3 mile running path in the park, since the city hadn't done it. So I hooked up the blade and drove another 10 miles plowing very heavy and deep snow until I had the path cleared. I noticed that when I was plowing, I never had any problem with it not idleing when I stopped, even though I was really working the engine. I spent easily an hour in low range constantly pushing snow, so the engine was definately getting a workout.
So, after that long story, here is my question (or theory). I think that I may have sucked a little water into the engine on Saturday, when I was running with water in the airbox. That explains why it ran like crap on Sunday, and wouldn't idle when I ran it too hard. And after a full day of really working the engine, I think maybe I evaporated all the water off, which explains why it ran just fine when I was plowing snow at the end of the day. If that theory is correct, I need to change my engine oil and check my sparkplugs, right? Does anyone else have any ideas as to what happened, and what I should do? TIA

Arcosanti

 

Sounds logical. Usually the first thing that will freeze up is the idle jet on a carb, and it doesn't have to be all that cold to do it. It could also have been just a tiny fragment of something that was in the fuel system all the time, and it just finally dissolved. Either way, if it works, you don't need to fix it.

If any water got into the oil, it is easy to check for. Pull the dipstick, and if it looks like anything but pure oil, it likely did. Moisture will show itself as thin white streaks on the dipstick (a little water in the system) to goop about the color and consistency of a vanilla milkshake (quite a bit of water in the oil).
If there IS evidence of water in the oil, drain and change the oil not once, but twice, to be sure to get it all out.

Farmr