I'm at a bit of a lose here, so maybe somebody else can come up with an idea. I left my Arctic cat at my dad's place for the last year+ with the agreement that he would start it once a week and let it run for a while. Long story short - he didn't run it. I added some water to the battery and put a good charge on it and the engine cranks with no trouble, but won't start. The fuel was very low, so I topped the tank off with a full tank and added some gas line anti-freeze in case there was some moisture in the line. Now it will start and run for about 5-7 seconds then it will stall. Once it stalls I have to wait about 30 minutes before trying again. If I throttle it, it'll run a little rough for about 30 seconds before it starts running like crap and stalls. I've opened up the air intake area to make sure there are no obstructions and everything was clean. I noticed that when it wouldn't start, after trying to start it for 20 seconds or so, some fuel comes out of a small port undert the carb. I'm assumming this is some sort of an overflow so that the fuel doesn't just sit in the carb. Seems strange to me, but I really don't know. I've considered emptying the tank completely and starting over, but I wanted to make sure I'm not over-looking something simpler. Although I've done a lot of work on my Jeep, I know very little about ATVs. Any suggestions or thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks

 

Sounds like bad gas and gunk.

Try spraying some carb/injector cleaner in the carb and let it sit for awhile, also add some to your gas. Make sure you switch between on/off/reserve as the valve may be gummed up also.

Try running your engine without the gas cap on, if it runs better then the vent is obstructed or the hose is crimped.

If the above fails then you will need to clean the gas tank out and take the carb off and clean it good. You may have to take it apart and remove the plastic parts (float) and boil it in hot water.

Be sure to use 87 octane, it burns hotter and explodes, higher octane only has additives to slow the burning process down and not to pre-ignite under higher compression, and may cause your engine to carbon up, higher octane does not have extra cleaning properties. Regular 87 octane is the best to use.

 

I'll give it a shot this weekend and see what happens. I haven't tried to gain access to the carb. Is that a pretty straight forward disassembly? I think I need to find a shop manual for this ATV. I'm sure somebody makes one. Thanks for the tips.

 

Getting to the carb is not hard.
Take the seat off
Take the gas tank off
Take the side panels off
That is it.

You can download a manual here:
It might not be the same year but it will be close enough to help.

http://silentfall.com/files/manual.zip

 

Great, thanks!