like it does it without me even hitting water?
coat it with electrical grease?
im not much of a mech as you can see!
all electrical connections?
wat do u mean?

 

It could be possible that you have water trapped in a connector, that only acts up some of the time, but from your first post I still think it is most likely you have a fuel system problem.

Just as a preventative, it might not be a bad idea to do all the connectors.

I'd suggest unhooking the battery, then take apart each connector (many have a release tab), if it's dirty you may want to hit it with some spray contact cleaner, followed by compressed air, then diaelectric grease. If things look clean and the contacts are bright, you could just blow any dust out and grease them.

Do the spark plug wire on both sides, too.

The thing about it idling fine, then bogging or dying when you try to give it throttle still suggests to me a problem in the fuel system. Most likely still some garbage in the carb, but it could be water or crud in the tank, clogged screen in the tank, or it isn't venting properly. Make sure the float level is also correct.

If you have someone experienced in your area, it would be easier to nail down what the problem is if a person could hear and see how it acts when it has problems....

 

It could very well be electircal to include a bad CDI. The manufacturers want you to believe when you buy a quad tha thtey can go though water and mud up to a couple foot deep, but I am hear to tell you that if you are going ot do a lot of water crossing and mud bogging, you need to completely take the cases and electical connections apart and use a LOT of RTV to seal them up. Even then, you are bound ot get water and crud in there somewhere. All that carodes. You can't just play with it and put it away dirty and expect it to be ready to go for next time. Even using the trusty power washer isn't going to cure all the problems. Problems like this are extremely difficult to diagnose without having the machine in our hands.

Go back to teh basics and do what is cheap first. 1) Pull the tank, and turn it upside down and rinse it out to make sure you don't have crap floating around in there that eventually gets sucked into the screen. (If you have one). 2) replace the fuel filter and while you are at it, clean or replace the air filter. Maybe even use a clear fuel filter so you can see the flow. 3) Make sure your gas cap will vent. It should pass some air. 4) Check and recheck all your electical connections, especially the grounds. Pay close attention to any kinked wires, and coroded wires should be replaced, and cover your connecitons in grease. Dialectic grease is available at the local auto parts place. Just goop it on, nothing fancy. While you have everything apart, grease every zerk fitting you find. This should be done at least once when you take it out of storage, and once before you put it in. NOW you are ready to measure fuel flow.. and spark. If you have a meter, check the amount of power the CDI is putting out. They go bad. If you have any question, go to the experts. If you have fuel flow, and good spark, it should run. The rest is good preventative maintenence that keeps the bike out of the shop and on the trails. Speaking of storage... AI have seen mice make nests in places you would never think of, and they like to chew on wires. If you have a chewed wire and it gets wet... bingo.. And last but not least.. check the kill switches... they are notorious on some models for bad grounds. Enough to cause a lot of loss of spark power when it is needed under load or revving...

 

Sorry to hear your still having the same trouble. My brother's Recon will still occasionally do the same thing, though not as often as you seem to be having trouble with it. We've tried most of the above and it had no effect at all. Last time was after riding most of the day it wouldn't rev and couldn't get past second gear. We figured it was overheating but my air cooled Fourtrax was having no trouble. Ten miles from camp and getting dark the last thing you need is to tow a bike home. After about ten minutes of puttering along it came back to life, made it home no problem.

In an aside, there was alot of puddles we were going through on the trail we were on. But we had gone through much worse earlier in the day.


Check the choke. I've heard of choke cables coming loose or breaking and the choke valve getting stuck in a halfway position, or worse, just bouncing open and closed inside the carb.

 

I know it sounds strange, but I had my son get on his quad and shift his weight back and forth to shlosh the gas in the tank.. and it cleared up his problems once. That is what pointed us at the internal screen on the petcock.

 

That or water or some other contaminant in the tank, or in the float bowl...

Definately dump out the contents of the tank, rinse and dump it with some fresh gas, and remove and clean or replace the screen on the petcock...

 

yup and it is all free...

 

Well, fresh gas is kind of pricy, but yeah, it should be more of time investment than big money...