Hey Folks new to this,so bear with me. I have an 02 P650 and a hardheaded Son..He was rideing and said it seemed to lose power.He shut it down and restarted ,it smoked alittle when he did.I noticed the water level was low and the oil is not looking good. Sound like head gasket? I have 450 miles on it

 

Not a common item to go on the 650. Change the oil so you can get a good look at it. Does it smell like or look like it's contaminated with anti-freeze? Pull both sparkplugs - if it was burning coolant, one plug will have a very different color from the other.

 

Did he swamp it or roll it?
Any oil in the air box?( happened to me when I rolled mine)

 

Novakaw the oil looks a little milky to me .There is also a bead of oil around the rubber seal in the radiator. Steelhead ,when he rides it he rolls it ... ha ha he has rolled it 2 times that i know of and the last time he rode it it took 3 hours to get all the mud off and i do belive it went submarine. it had some oil in the breather.

 

My machine sucked oil into the air filter and it smoked, sputtered and lost power. I do not know why it did this, but it hasn't done it since. Hopefully this is your only problem. Good luck and keep it on four wheels[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif[/img]

 

Thanks Beardog Do the k&n filters do a good job? My partner was into dirt track raceing. He said he tried them on his car and had trouble with them letting drit in.He even tried silicon around the carb horn to seal the filter better. He noticed a couple of tell-tell dirt trails in the carb body.Keep an eye out .

 

I think you are correct about the K&N filter. It doesn't seem to fit as well as stock. I think nyroc has mentioned sealing it up with grease. I will just have to keep an eye on it. I just installed it so I cannot speak for its filtering capabilities. I did not notice any performance difference untill I added the snorkle. It just seems to run better, maybe a little more top end. I did not actually check the top speed before and after.

 

Gold,

A milky color would indicate water in the oil. This may have happened if he swamped the bike and took in water throught the carbs. Water in the oil doesn't lubricate as well and may have caused the bike to overheat, loosing power. You should change the oil, run the bike for a short time, then change it again. This should rid the engine of the water contamination. Don't forget to change the oil filter, clean the air filter and top off the rad with coolant.

 

Make sure your crankcase vents are open. I had smoking and severe power loss problems, took my bike back to the dealer and he took the mud out of the breather and cleaned the air filter. He explained to me that with the vent plugged the crankcase vents into the airbox pushing iol into the box. The carbs suck some of this oil up and the engine burns it causing the smoke, the extra oil in the airbox plugs the air filter causing the power loss. Hope this helps.

 

Hey Fellers Sorry about all the questions but i am not real savy ATV. But isnt the air intake horn under the rad cover up betweeb the handle bars? I know the air filter is under the cover between riders legs. The reason i ask is the little cover ( the one covering the rad cap) has come up missing and i belive there has been water shot in there while cleaning the mud off.Found some water in the filter housing and a good 1/2 oz of oil. Just how hard is it to adjust the valves on the 650?Worked on cars a fare amount but never on cycles.