I was talking with my mechanic friend the other day about winterizing atv's. He mentioned draining the carb, and I said why not turn the fuel valve off and let the atv run outa fuel, and he said that the carb will tarnish and gum up quicker cause there's still a little fuel left in the bowl, and you'd be better off leaving the line and carb full than partially draining it. He also said to run the atv on reserve for a mile or two every other week or so, because any dirt or water in the fuel settles down to the bottom of the tank, where it can plug the line or carb(or worse!) if ya ever need to run reserve. But then again, this is the same guy who told me not to buy a Polaris. But I think I'll heed his advice on everything else, though(other than driving my TBlazer off a cliff and buying a yammie with the insurance money) Hope this helps someone, somehow...

 

I don't agree with the fuel issue. I've replaced many small engine carbs because fuel was left IN the carb, but I've never seen one get varnished to the point of being junk because it was ran out of fuel.

I do agree that you'd be better off to leave the fuel in it and just run it every once in a while. But if you know you won't be able to do that, I'd say drain it.

Dave

 

Put in fuel stabilizer and you wont have a problem. Use it in my stuff and my snow blower and lawn mower fire up after a couple of pulls after sitting all season. The gas you get today isn't worth crap so I put stabilizer in all year long.

 

I put fuel stabilizer in my Snowmobile 2 years ago. Last year I didn't even run out the fuel in it. This year it ran 'doggy' until I put in fresh gas, but nothing was plugged. It even started on the 3rd pull! I do start it every season, though (spring, summer, fall, winter) just to keep the seals & such from drying out. This year we have SNOW and COLD so I am glad it ran.

 

I am curious why anyone would need to winterize an ATV?? This is about the only recreational vehicle that can be used all year-round.If you must winterize,empty your gas tank and refill it with race gas (VP c-12,Phillips 66,etc.),run it long enough to smell it.I have used race gas that sat in a race car for 8 years and it was like new. Be sure to put a trickle charger on the battery.

 

I read about winterizing quads before in a magazine, it said to turn the fuel off, start the machine, and when it started bogging, due to lack of fuel, slowly give it a little choke at a time until it stalls. This supposedly empties the bowl. Personally, I add STP fuel stabilizer, and run the engine for five minutes.

 

my snowmobile (and its a real peice i'm surprised it even works) started yesterday...took 12 pulls. full choke. last winters gas. sat in there all summer while the mobile was in the back yard. no stabil or anything like that in it either...just though iu'd let u know.

 

My mechanic spanked me good for not running my Johnson outboard dry after every use. 2 cycle though. maybe it is differnt than 4 sroke atv. Fuel conditioner would probably do the trick.....

 

Let's talk about gas for a minuet boy's. When it comes to varnishing up the carb or leaving deposits. The gas you buy in one area may not be at all the same as another, meaning the method of refining the gas plays a big part when it comes to the "shelf life". Gasoline thats refined using "cat crackers" and reformers has a much shorter shelf life than gas refined using vacume distilation and areomatic extraction. Why you ask? (or should I shut up with the details?) Ok, gas that's "cracked" or reformed is being done under super heat and high preasure, the heaver oils used to make this gas have the molicules being forced to change thair "chains and bonds" to become gas. This "state" is somewhat unstable in the fact that they would like to go change themselfs back the their origional state of heavy oils, this is why they have a shorter shelf life and the use of seasonal stableizers are common.
On the other side of the coin is the distilation prossess, here you have a overgrown "whisky still", all that's being done is, heating crude oil up to about 600*f and letting it "distill" up a tower and naterully seperate, ie: the heavier oils stay on the bottom and the lighter products like light liquids (gasoline) and gasses go to the top. As you can imagine there is a lot more to each of these prossess than I can type here, but you get the drift. Where I live, we have gasoline in the same town that comes from two different refineries and use the different prossess above, the "distilled" gas has a shelf life of "years" compared to the "cracked" that may only go 6 months. I hope you are not completely board with this info.
Seacow.

 

Thanks seacow
Its always nice to learn something new.