Hey all,

I'm new around these parts and am glad to have found a refuge here. I've been riding 2 stroke quads and bikes most of my life...have kinda given it up since the boy was born which is almost 6 years now. I do still have my 650 thumper that I love to mod and ride in the woods on so all is not lost.

So I have a question that I hope can be answered here. I bought my son an Eton quad, 90cc, from my brother in law when my son was born. I think it's called a Thunder, but since there are no model name stickers on the quad, I'm assuming this after doing some online research.

Regardless, It has an electric start and a kickstart. I dropped a few batteries in it already since the long winter kills them fast. Up until this year we would ride the quad around the backyard year round on a little track that I would make. And as of this year he is finally big enough to drive it himself! (I'm quite proud the riding tradition will live on!) Don't worry, the throttle is limited so he can only go 12-15 mph, and I've taught him how to ride smart. We're in this for the long haul.

The battery is dead again, and since this Eton has an electric choke, I can't get it to run when the temps drop. So I am wondering where I could find a manual choke kit for it? I believe (from memory as I'm not running to the garage, it's super cold tonight) it's a mikuni carb.

I jet it for cold weather during winter and again in the spring for warm, so it usually runs great, but this battery deal is a real bummer especially when we want to go have some fun in the snow.

I'm not against buying a new battery, I just dislike having to depend on it for this bike to run.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Why don't you get a battery tender and trickle charge through the cold months?

 

My chinese quad electric choke (bystarter valve) runs on AC power from the battery charge winding in the stator. According to the wiring diagram for the eton thunder yours does too. The battery has nothing to do with it.

It makes sense for the choke to be powered off AC directly from the stator. If you rev up the engine it warms up faster, and at the same time the AC output voltage will be higher which will open up the choke faster. If you start up the quad and let it idle the engine warms up slowly, and at the same time the stator AC output voltage will be much lower so the choke stays on longer. If the choke ran off battery voltage (which is more or less constant) it would always stay on the same amount of time regardless of how fast the engine is warming up.

Batteries should last the winter just fine if kept charged up.

I'm wondering if your real problem is that the battery charge winding in your stator isn't working. The symptom for this would be lots of dead batteries and the choke won't work. Do your headlights work (engine running and dead battery installed)?

I've seen posts from people who have modified their bystarter valve so that the plunger is driven in and out with a bolt which is turned manually. That's not quite the same as flipping a lever but it works. I could dig up that link if you want it.

Link to Eton Thunder wiring diagram:

http://www.anythingatv.com/Technical...s/WD_AXL90.gif

 

Theres no headlight on this particular model. I have gone through3 batteries in 5 years, which seems like alot to me. I would be interested in seeing the bolt method, but I am now wondering if the stator is doing it's job.

Thinking about this a little more in depth, last winter I bought the third battery, charged it and put it in, it worked fine for a couple of runs, then lost power. I was thinking it may have been a cheapo battery or some type of internal battery malfunction or the sub zero temps we had. I thought this also because my buddy has a 08' Suzuki DR400 that eats batteries quite regularly, and I assumed it had something to do with the size or construction or whatever.

I have a digital multi meter, would it be possible to get a reading from the stator to see if it is working correctly?

Thanks much.

 

Measuring the charging system on quads is really easy. Assuming a fully charged and good battery, start the quad and run the engine at a fairly fast speed (say 3000 RPM). Measure the DC battery voltage right on the battery terminals. It should read 13.5 volts to 14.5 volts DC. If it reads below 13 volts then you charging system isn't working. If it reads above 14.5 volts then it is overcharging the battery.

If your battery is dead or bad it is possible that it will load down the stator such that it can't bring the voltage up to 14 volts (+/- 0.5 volts). In this case you might read low voltage, but when you back off on the engine speed to idle (or shut the quad off) the battery voltage will drop substantially if the charging system is working.

I don't own an eton, so all the info in the following paragraph is based solely on the published wiring diagram.

According to the wiring diagram there is a two pin connector coming off the stator (and two bullet style single wire connectors). Do you see this on your quad? The two wires in the two wire connector (two taps on the battery charge winding) should both have AC volts to engine ground on them when the quad is cranking. If I had to guess I would say around 9 volts AC cranking, and substantially higher is the quad starts up. One will be a little less than the other. Both of these wires go to the voltage regulator/rectifier, and one of them also powers your choke. Each of these two wires should measure a low resistance to ground with with tne stopped (less than 2 ohms, but not zero ohms).

BTW I noticed a mistake in the wiring diagram I linked to in the last post. If you follow the wire off the battery negative terminal it only goes to the CDI according to the diagram. It actually goes all over the place. All the wires that have the same color (black is what the diagram says) are connected together. There is a missing line on the diagram that links all these grounds together.

Batteries can be destroyed if they are allowed to freeze, but a fully charged battery freezes at -75 degrees F. A flat dead battery freezes at +27 F. That is why it is so important to keep batteries charged in really cold weather. This link has more than you will ever want to know about lead acid batteries:

www.yuasabatteries.com/pdfs/TechMan.pdf

I will find the link on the choke mod and send it to you via private message. I'm not sure how the moderators feel about posting links into competing forums.

 

Thanks so much for the info. I will order another battery and test the charging system...as soon as it warms up a bit (We're at 1 degree above 0 right now...BRRR).

I will take a look at the link as well and see if I should utilize it.

Many thanks again.

 

There have been many bad reports on the electric choke carbs.
I know some buy another carb to fix the problem.

 

I have a eton 90R and I have heard of people swapping out the electrical for a manual choke. Have you looked at your stator gap setting? Just throwing that out there. I know I had a problem with my starting and the problem was the gap was too wide.

 

for the choke get a complete manual choke assembly off a similar year viper. the electric ones were never very good