Hey all, I have a honda recon that has been sitting for a few years. Took the carb apart and cleaned it and put it back on the other day and it's having the same problem that it had before I took it apart a few years back...

A few years back I was riding a rather bumpy trail (hitting gulleys at high speed) when all of a sudden the quad stalled. After that, I couldn't get it to run right. It'll start up, idle on it's own and even drive ok if only given very slight throttle but anything more and it'll break up or stall.

I put a new spark plug on and I cleaned the carb, but the problem is still there. What can be wrong??!! thanks in advance!

 

maybe the spark timing is out of whack? i'm not sure on how to check that, though.

 

Not taking throttle off idle would to me mean you missed one of the passages when you cleaned the carb, or the carb is not getting sufficient fuel flow.

I'd say dump the tank and flush it out, take the fuel strainer out of the tank and clean it, and pull the carb apart again.

Take all the jets out and blow through every passage with some good spray cleaner (Chemtool B12 is my favorite). Don't miss any little holes inside the throat of the carb.

Also carefully check the float to make sure it moves smoothly and doesn't hang up. Take the float off and look at the valve. The V should not have any grooves in it. Clean the valve seat.

Put it back together, and put in fresh gas.

Do that and I'd just about bet it solves the problem.

 

Also check the vent for the tank. On my Foreman there's a hose in the gas cap that goes into the handle bar stem. On occasion this stem has filled with water, which effectivly plugs this hose not letting air into the tank as gas is used. This can cause problems. So I'd also check that.

Definantly sounds like a dirty carb, I completly dissasembled mine this year, I even found dirt/water in behind the primer button on the bottom of the carb. Id doesnt take much dirt to make a carb run bad, the amount needed may not even be visable to the naked eye.

 

Thanks! When I cleaned the carb took the bowl off, needle assembly on top off and sprayed the crap out of everything with carb cleaner. I hosed my gas tank out, then sprayed carb cleaner in it and sloshed it around and dumped it out. I have been running it with the gas cap off so I know it's not the tank vent line. I will try cleaning the carb again, my friend has a jug of carb cleaning solution that you can soak the carb in overnight. I might try that. I needed a new spring for my choke assembly and it only came with the whole assembly which was 20 dollars so I ended up finding a rebuilt, bolt on carb on E bay for $48 that came with the choke assembly. I went for it figuring if it's a carb problem, the new carb should solve it but it would be nice to fix the old one to keep as a spare or sell for some money back.

If none of the carb stuff works, given the nature of the problem (happening after hitting hard bumps) i'm thinking I should check for broken grounds or a loose connection on the coil?

Oh, I should also mention, when I rev it a slight amount of black smoke comes out and it smells REALLY rich. The old plug I had in there was fouled with black fuel soot, giving me the impression that it's running too rich..