I am working on a Bayou 400 4x4 and am the second person attempting to fix this problem. It is a 1996 model and a friend of mine has owned it for a year. The starter clutch slips badly while attempting to crank it. The previous person working on it changed the starter and the starter clutch to no avail. I had figured there was some type of compression release on this engine so I bought a manual and found that there was a decompressor built onto the end of the camshaft. I took it down and saw that it was worn and not holding the exhaust valve open while cranking and you could override it with the pressure from a screwdriver. I replaced the decompressor and that solved part of the problem. I found out from my friend that since he has had this machine that it would start resonably when cold, but once it warmed up and he cut it off for a moment and tried to restart it, the starter would slip and he would have to wait for it to cool off. Has anyone ran into this problem before? Why would the decompressor not reset while the engine is warm? This is the case since I have taken valve covers off and checked that the valve wasn't moving on the off side when the engine was warm. I also found that he was running 10W40 viscosity oil which is withing recommendations of the manual, trying to rule out that it wasn't thickening up when the engine got hot and sticking the decompressor since it has such a tiny spring to retract it. Thanks for any help in advance especially since I am beating my head against a wall on this one...LOL.[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-confused.gif[/img]

 

I think I would start with a compression test, I only would start from here do to you've looked into the others.
Your problem is not the starter but possibly top end problems but most likely you may be looking at a bearing issue, maybe on the starter gear or crank shaft.
As you sit on the quad, on the right side of the crank thier is two auxillary gears other than the drive gear, one is for theoil pump the other is for the starter.
A worn bearing or bushing will give you an Identical cenario.
My first would be the compression test cold and warm to rule out top end problems, then turn to the interior starting system.
Sorry I can't be more help, as it is very hard to trouble shoot over the internet, but I hope I helped in whats there.
you can go to the kawi web site and look at schamatics to get a better view.

 

Thanks for the advice, I know what you mean about the long distance diagnostics. I am currently tearing down to the starter clutch to see what the last guy did, it is slipping so badly I can't do a compression check, won't turn the motor over. Thanks again.

 

I ment left side last post.
I'm going riding, but check out the gears and any play they may have.
Some things wrong here, it must be within the gears as a bayou doesn't need all that much to start.
Well good luck.

 

I have traced down the starting problem to the starter limiter which is slipping badly, waiting for part to come in, will keep ya posted on whether or not this fixes it.

 

Thanks for all the advice folks, just for informational purposes so that maybe this will help someone else, the problem was in the starter limiter aka torque limiter for the starter. I figure that the decompressor went bad first putting a strain on the starter limiter and wearing it out so that it would not be able to turn the motor enough without slipping to crank it. Replaced the limiter and it starts great now.
Take care[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif[/img]

 

graet job.
Thanks for the come back!!!

 

Yes, thanks for letting us know the final outcome. All too often people take the advice and never let everyone know how they fixed the problem.