A friend of mne tried to cross a narrow arm of a pond this weekend with his Prairie. He thought it was only a foot deep, turns out it was about 3-4 feet deep and he submerged the entire bike. He rode through it, got the front tires up on the far bank, but it could not pull out the rear wheels.

The question he has is what should he make sure to do besides drain all oil and replace a few times? We did this on Saturday, and the engine oil and rear diff oil were both milky, is this normal to get water in the engine and diff when being submerged for a while? Any help would be appreciated!

Thanks, Dan

 

Yeah, that's all there is to it. Just drain the oil and rear differential fluid until the water is out. I drown my Prairie 300 all the time and that's all I do. Make sure all of the water is out of the muffler, too. I usually stand the wheeler up on the rear rack and let the pipe drain. I have sunk mine 4 times (a lot of water around here) so it isn't something to really worry about, just don't run the machine with that water in the oil. A trick I employ when having trouble climbing out on the bank, is to sit on the front rack while giving it throttle. This puts some weight directly over the front tires allowing for more traction. This works for me all the time, I just wouldn't recommend trying this on the side of a cliff or something dangerous.

 

You might also need to drain the carburator float bowl as well. I sunk my Bayou a couple years ago and found the engine would not throttle up until I did so. Water is a non-compressible liquid and can cause major damage in the combustion chamber if not removed. Also, you can expect to see some milky residue on the underside of your oil filler cap for a month of two even though you might change the oil several times. This is no reason for alarm.

As for my Bayou, it continues to run as good as the day I bought it.

 

Yeah, I forgot about that. My carb. was full of water, too.

 

Thanks for the help! I'll pass along the info.

 

Is there an easy way to get to the carb? Does all of the plastic and gas tank need to be removed first?

 

No, there's one of those torx-head screws in the bottom that drain the bowl. Just look at the bottom side of the carburetor from the recoil starter side and you'll see it.

 

OK, thanks for the help. He got it running last night after cleaning all the mud out of the belt case and flushing the oil.