Went on a great ride today through miles and miles of 2 feet powder. Powder snow all over and around the quad. On my way back my Scram stalled. It kept stalling every 100 yards and had to sit for at least 20 minutes between.

Embarassingly enough, my buddy towed me back with his Shee. (was kinda fun though...) It would not start up again.

What can this be???
Overheating?
Vaporlock?
Screwed up engine?
Jetting?

HELP!

 

Xplor I had the same problem and it had nothing to do with anything you discribed and that includes vapor lock.
What it was is believe it or not is the spark plug, the plug you are running is to hot and it overheats and won't spark right so in return your machine dies and you need to wait for the plug to cool.
Go out and buy a cooler plug and you wont have that problem anymore.

2000 SCRAMBLER 400 2X4

SCRAMDADDY400

 

Lets pray you are right!

I will think positive, so thanks in advance! It really sucked having to ride my Xplorer the rest of the day. Man I never noticed how good the ride was on my Scrambler until I hopped back on the old utility bike. To give it credit though...it rocks in deep snow!

Brian

 

First thing I would do is check the 3 main things, Air, Fuel, Spark. Pull the plug and check the color. When your riding in the snow it puts more strain on the engine then normal. When you did get it started, how did it sound? Normal, lack of power/revs, or back firing? Also pull the air filter off and see if there's any snow/water in the bottom of the box. Do the same with the bowl of the carb and see if there's any water droplets in the gas. About 3 mon. ago I had to rebuild a buddy top end after he sunk it into a mud hole above his bars, what a mess.

 

Just went out to the garage. I pulled the plug and it was dark brown with a bit of black at the base. The usual...maybe a bit darker. I switched plugs and used the "manual start mechanism" since my starter seems to be stuck. (Get em cold and wet and all my Polari do that darnit..hate it)

It started but stalled 4 times so I kept the choke on and eventually it came to life. It sounded "pingier" than usual but I was in the closed garage so it just may be the resonance.

No snow in the air intake. That was the first thing I checked out on the trail. I just find it wierd that it was such a bit** to start...but then again it is very cold tonight.

Thanks

I hope it is just the plug...

 

I normaly have to keep flicking my choke when it sound like it's going to die. The easiest thing to do would be to do what scramdaddy said. You said you put a different plug in and started it. So give it a warm up of 5min or so, then take it for a short cruise. If it still acts up, it's not the plug. Your bike doesn't get up normal temps for a while. The books say "High Gear, Avg. 50mph for 9 min."

 

Be sure you checked to make sure you have oil=)

 

Oil, I had filled it to the rim before the ride. I will take her for a spin this week to see how she acts. I must have had about 100lbs of snow and slush all over the quad...which must not have been good.

Brian

 

Good Tip! But if your keeping up on your maintenance, this should already be done! Right! Say Yes! Ok, now for you guys that want a parts manual. Go to
http://www.polarisindustries.com/pro...?contentid=atv

Here you'll find a parts manual & maintenance tips.