I have an 04 scrambler with the same problem. I used dieletric silicone on the spark plug boot and put 3/8 wire loom and the hole spark wire from the coil to the plug boot. It's been about 4 months like this and i have no problems since. The wire loom can be bought at any local auto parts store.

 

If you shift into nuetral when this happens will the engine rev like normal? If so, it is a wet belt. A wet belt is like trying to start in 4th or 5th gear on a shifter tranny. The engine wants to die unless you back off the throttle and let the clutch out. If it still bogs in nuetral then it most likely is electrical.

 

No the engine will not rev up. This problem was defenitly an igntion miss or i could have somehow been the rev limiter.

 

I had the same problem. The dealer tried to tell me i needed a top end rebuild and it would cost me 250 bucks I told them no i dont think so and took it home and messed with it for a week. I did a compression check and it was normal then i disconnected the reverse limiter box and that was my problem because water got in the box and messed it up so it would limit the RPM's going forward.

 

Okay, an update everyone. Looks like this might be a common problem, so I'll let you know what I've found and peeps can keep the ideas coming. I did a "water torture test" with the hose and a hair dryer, isolating specific areas. I successfull tracked it down to the wiring harness/plug for the wires that goe into the reverse limiter switch. I removed individually the black and the brown/white wires. Both successfully disabled the reverse cut out thing, but neither fixed the wet harness problem.

So, I chose to leave the black wire disconnected to disable the reverse cut out. According to the service manual the brown/white wire is the ground, so I figured that was probably best to leave connected.

So, as far as the harness goes, I put dialectic (sp?) grease all over it. However, the weather turned bad and I didn't have time to do another water test on it as I needed to get all the toys back into the garage.

I'll let you know if the grease helped, but if someone has any other ideas how to waterproof that connector or disable the box so it has no effect, I'd love to hear them.

 

When I wash mine the bike cuts out when you press the throttle I would ride at full throttle for 5 seconds the sit and put it in netruel and the rev it for another 5 sec. and keep reving it for 5 sec, at a time it will back fire a couple times but then its fine. Im not sure why it does that I think I got water in the exhaust?

 

Looks like glopping that connector with dialectric grease fixed it. I gave it a light mist with the host and all was well. Didn't want to hit it too hard and wash the grease off. I may try to find some type of shrink wrap for it also. Thanks to everyone that gave me suggestions!

 

Just try some electrical tape on top of the grease, wrap it around until you get to dry stuff so it sticks well. Easier to take off than shrinkwrap as well.