This may be long'ish but I'm going to try and be detailed. I bought a used Recon '04 back in May. I posted in this section right after I bought it.

Turkey season ran right to the end of May and it got used every weekend. Since hunting season has ended it has still found use almost every weekend. Put it on one of my trickle chargers and have now found out the charger was bad and was not charging the battery at all. Three weeks ago I needed to use it and it was dead as a hammer. Lights wouldn't even come on. Brand new battery and charger.

Now for some reason it will start but I can't keep it running. It has been cold natured since I bought it, even in 100 deg temps, but now I can't keep it running long enough to get thru the warm up period. After it dies a time or two it will basically run the battery down trying to start it that 3rd or 4th time. If I pull start, it will start right up and do the same thing. Messing with the choke is no help and from feather to full throttle, it dies.

Here's what I've tried so far:

Started over with a brand new, fresh battery.
I have the gadget to check the load and CCA of the battery - fine
I have a gadget to check the charging system - fine
Been on the same tank of gas for a bit but drained tank and put in new
Took carb apart, let it soak 2 days in carb cleaner (It looked clean as a whistle to begin with)
Cleaned carb with toothbrush, air brushes and blew compressed air thru all orifices
New NGK spark plug
Did a spark test, nice spark
Marked starting point of carb screw and played with it, no help, went back to starting spot
Checked air intake for varmints and replaced air filter.
Fuel filter fine
Adjusted valves to spec (Had the plastic off anyway)
Changed the oil first week of June

What am I missing? I need a proofreader just in case my mind is correcting something I'm not physically correcting. LOL! I'm getting fed up with it. We have a work day at the lease 9/11 and deer season starts 9/25. I don't want to get far out from truck and get stranded over 635 acres. I'm not faulting Honda, I'm faulting buying used. I'm pretty mechanically saavy and try to save a few bucks working on stuff myself and buying used. I'm starting to see that between parts and my time I'm losing the battle. You can never truly know just how a previous owner treated a machine.

 

Did you try raising the idle speed abit, part # 9? May need a good carb cleaning,just soaking it will not do the trick, here is how
to clean them right. Disassembly and Cleaning of a Mikuni Round slide Carburetor

My friends 500 foreman was cold blooded to start but after a good carb cleaning it starts better then it ever did now.

 

Yeah, after soaking in carb cleaner I took a toothbrush and air brushes to it. Then blew compressed air thru it.

Part #9 is the carb screw I referenced above.

 

do you have decent flow up to and through your fuel filter? i.e. no trash in petcock valve. is fuel cap vented and not plugged? sounds like it starves for fuel. when you cleaned the jets, could you see through them?

 

Starved for fuel is what it sounds like to me too. I got the jets clean. Blew 'em out an poked small gauge copper wire thru them.

I'm thinking something is wrong with my choke and the choke is needed for warm up. Before this all happened, when I used to start it I had to feather the throttle since the choke was useless. If I pulled it all the way up it killed it but anything in between was of no service. I'm thinking that if the choke was functional with it pulled up just a bit, it would idle after it pull started.

 

i presume you've verified proper choke operation?i.e. it actually closes off as it's supposed to/then returns to normal position. my choke on my machines may stay on for 10 secs, after that, i release the choke and let them idle. when you say "feather" in the throttle, if it bogs down, i'd say that is still fuel delivery, whether the float bowl can't keep up with demand or a dirty jet. hmmmmmmm, must ponder this some more. your gas cap is vented, right? it don't need to pull a vacuum on the tank. all of mine are vented with a hose right off of the cap. hmmm, still pondering.

 

Well, it seems to be fixed. Those two last batteries I bought were big box store Die Hards, they were the kind you pour the acid or water in yourself. Just for grins and giggles I stopped by the Honda dealer on my way home and bought an atv battery that was already ready. Presto, ran like a champ.

This really befuzzles me since all the tests on the battery came back good. I used my tester on a known bad battery and it read that it was a bad battery. I think the battery in the Recon was the original when I bought it, given it was 5-6 years old it was due. Also, none of the signs lead to a bad battery since it did the same when pull starting.

Put the Die Hard back in and the same problem came up.

Called the store and they said nay on a return of the two batteries. Said they couldn't take them back since I'd opened the thing and poured the liquid in it. I might fight it a bit but I'm so happy I'm back up and running, I'm not caring too much. Coulda been a lot more expensive.

Really hope this isn't an anomoly and it really fixed the problem.

 

Did you check charging system? I have had bad reg\recfi. makes one misfire at very low RPM...

 

please describe the misfiring for me when batteries are way low. i'm not fully understanding what you're saying. i'm trying to learn some more.
is it an intermittent problem because of a bad reg/rectifier? random firing or what? thanks........as you can tell, i haven't had any experience with a bad reg/rectifier.