Hello, I came to this Foreman when my TRX500 first drowned in the Creek rising and thought I had it fixed. More problems and would like to run the path by some experienced people before I take this thing to an $80/hour shop.

1. Fresh water creek came up 4+ feet in the barn flipping unit upside down and floating.....devastating to look at as I tried to rescue my expedition.

2. Brought ATV home; did 6-7 oil/filter changes after draining all gas and water from everywhere I could find. Replaced spark plug. Each oil change brought the engine to life a little bit more. Initially, after running it, it would quit when the oil had brought all the water down and eventually no milky color and it was reving and running good except for the electronics. Electric shift still worked with an occasional refusal.

3. Engine just died one day after reasonable, but not over use. This all started the end of February. Engine died end of May.

4. Last weekend, did another oil/filter change and it cranked, but will not rev up. We have to continuously hold the accelerater to keep the engine on. Oil is clean.

5. After talking with friends, they feel like there is a fuel problem, possibly debris in the line clogging the flow. If it had a fuel filter, that would be first check.

6. Man at shop wants $240 to clean carb and that is if there are no parts to replace and he doesn't think it's a clogged jet, etc..

Thoughts anyone? It's just me and my son and we are trying to save this thing, but I don't have hundreds of dollars to spend especially if this isn't the problem.

Thanks
Jenn

 

That's odd, we went on a fishing trip and two guys both with 2005 500 Foremans E.S drown there ATV at a crazy crossing both ATVs were up side down in water.

We fixed them right on the side of the road (sent a guy to town for stuff).
1 .We did two oil changes.
2 drain carb float bowl
3 drain air box clean air filter.
4 Changed front and rear diff gear oil.
And the running great to this day 2 years later.
No water got in gas maybe we got them out off the water fast enough.
Spark plug was fine.
Forgot to mention we stood the ATVs on end to let water get out of the exhaust pipe first.

All I can think of is clean the carb which is not hard just take the float bowl off and use a wire to clean the hole in the jets.
Here is video on how its done on youtube but there are many more(side column). To save money you can get someone you know to take the carb off and bring the carb to a shop. Most of there price is the taking the carb off and putting it back on ,not the actual carb cleaning its self.
In this vid some guy had to change the fuel shut off valve,Float inside gas tank?(never knew that), two other things to look at if all else fails. Sorry about you luck,we even lost a 300KQ at the bottom of a lake and a straight forward water drain and oil change was all it needed.

 

Thank you so much! Great information in one posting. We have not changed the oil in the gear differentials.....have I really messed something up by not doing so?

I am reviewing the videos and will see if we can do these things first. We are also trying to get a generator running and took the carb off to have it cleaned because the screws wouldn't come out and were trying to strip the longer we messed with it.

The creek water was very muddy so my thought is there is some debris in the fuel line or carb jet. It cranks, just won't take the gas.

Thanks again!

 

If either the intake or exhaust valve happened to be open at the time of the drowning, there's a good chance you got muddy water in the cylinder. Then if you started it, regardless of your oil changes, you would have scratched the bore. I hope that didn't happen but the chances of neither valve being open is only about 25%, so there's a 75% chance one of them was open. If nothing else works, take the jug off and have a look at the piston & bore. If either is scratched, you will need a new piston, rings and a bore job. Probably $200 or so.

 

That would not have anything to do with the motor.
Its defiantly worth putting money into the ATV to get it going. A 500 Honda 4x4 is not a cheap ATV.
Good luck.

 

Checked into everyone's thoughts on the subject and was being told up to $1,500 depending on the problem. So, I told my 16 year old son that if he wanted to bring it home and work on it in the garage he could. We brought it home this weekend and thanks to the utube videos that people linked us to and a few others he found, he was able to pull the carb off and it was NASTY! He thoroughly cleaned emptied the gas tank again and now it is running beautifully. We hope this continues and we didn't have to pay anyone a dime!

I guess as we continue to drive it, more stuff might flush out hiding places, but we have salvaged it thanks to the help and suggestions of others on this site.

Now, can anyone link us to a good video of how to change the differential fluids?

 

Glad to hear we helped. I don't have a link but if you're going to keep the thing, I suggest you get a service manual for it. Either Honda or Clymer.

 

Thanks! We have the manual, but videos help us to understand more clearly. :-)