I rolled my daugter's quad when I was just riding it for fun. It didn't fall very hard, but now I'm having some problems. First, the starter was toast, so I replaced that.

Now, I'm having problems running the mini quad. It starts up just fine, but the idle seems very slow and stalls a lot of the time. Then, I got on to ride it and it was sputtering and losing power and suddenly gaining power again. It kept doing it over and over, so I quickly took it back and turned it off. It didn't stall when riding, but sounded like it would if I let go of the throttle. As soon as I got back, I let go of the throttle and it stalled immediately.

I don't know where to start looking for problems. I'm guessing either the air or fuel, but I'm not sure. Could it be the spark plug? Should I be cleaning and/or tuning the carb (hehe, never done that before, so that should be interesting)? How can I tell if their is an air leak?

Thanks,

OffRoadNoob

 

OK, I guess we lost a day's worth of posts here. lol.

Anyway, I cleaned the carb, jets and air filter the other night. Everything seemed very clean except perhaps the smaller jet may have had some sort of crud in it because I could only see a tiny bit of light coming through when I held it to a light, but after cleaning the hole looked larger. So, perhaps that was my problem.

However, after putting the carb back on, I'm having another problem. It won't start at all. It keeps cranking and the plug is sparking, but it won't start. I tried with the choke on and off without luck (except it sort of started for a half second with the choke on). I don't know what I did wrong. At first after putting the carb on, I noticed my throttle was totally loose. So, I unscrewed the throttle cable from the top of the carb and put it back in and now the throttle seems to be working. I don't know if that has anything to do with my problem now. There is fuel in the carb because when I turn the drain screw, fuel comes out.

I know LT80 and SilveradoSS already replied, but now those posts are gone and I didn't get a chance to read them.

Help please!

OffRoadNoob

 

My post basically was to check what you already figured out. That the slide was probably in the carb wrong, causing the throttle cable to be loose and the throttle to be wide open. Looks like you may have got that fixed. I was figuring that with the slide in wrong (WOT), that the engine wasn't making enough vacuum during starting to pull the fuel out of the carb bowl and into the engine.

 

When you rolled the quad, what parts of the machine hit the ground? Did the handlebars hit the dirt? Maybe the kill switch was damaged. Or maybe a part of the wiring harness got pinched or disconnected. What color is the spark from the plug?

 

OK, after holding the throttle with the choke on for a while, I got the quad started. Since then, it's been starting again easily.

It seems to be running quite a bit smoother now that I cleaned out the jets and carb. I bet a speck of dirt got in the idle jet when I rolled it. However, it still wasn't running perfectly. So, I have been attempting to tune the carb. So far, I have got it to idle and run quite smoothly. Still, once and a while when I hit the throttle very quickly, it almost cuts out. Most of the time it's fine, but just if I hammer on it hard it comes close to stalling. Is that normal, or do I have more carb tuning to do?

Oh yeah, the spark looks blue. I don't know if that is good or not, but I was expecting a blue spark. The one thing I noticed is the end of the plug was black. I guess that means I was running rich before. After adjusting the carb, I don't know if I still am. I cleaned off the plug and put it back on. I'll check in a while to see if it gets black again or not.

Alright thanks,

OffRoadNoob