This question applies to an outlaw 90, but since the kids quad section seems to have been taken over by questions about chinese quads, I thought that I would post it here.

My son and I do 95% of our riding in the coal hills of PA. The last time he was riding his ATV he heard some noise coming from the area of the belt drive. When I took the cover off, I found that a bearing had seized up and exploded The pieces of the bearing were rattling around in the bottom of the case, causing the noise. I also found that the everything was coated with a crust of coal dust, which most likely caused the issue with the bearing.

My question is, would it do any damage if I take the CVT drain plug out and use a garden hose to spray water down the intake snorkel to to rinse out everything when we clean the atv after we ride? Obviously I would need to close everything up and run it for a while to make sure everything dries off. The only other alternative that I see is to open up the cover and hose everything down, but that would take more time and require replacing the gasket each time. It would also make it more likely that the case will leak.

Also, would putting a piece of foam in the intake side to try to filter out some of the dust restrict the airflow too much? I would like to keep the dust out of everything if I can, but I also don't want to cause the belt drive to overheat.

 

The foam might do as you stated and restrict the airflow but where your aware of it you'd probably be alright if you cleaned the foam after every ride and I cant say for the rinsing out of the CVT, I definitely wouldn't hesitate to open it up and rinse it if the proper maintenance followed, if you left it closed it just seems to me I'd worry about it retaining moisture and causing problems over a period of time.***Nice to hear about kids learning to ride at a young age.

 

the only problem you might have w/ doing the rinse idear is that i would think that when you add water to coal dust it would leave a film thatyou couldnt just wash over w/out scrubing or something. the foam might help some and keep it cleaned off. if your careful you should be able to reuse the (if its foam)the gasket if you take it off. just my .02

 

Why would it require replacing the gasket each time?

 

It shouldn't if its like the bigger setups, it would be rubber o ring type--reuse till its no longer whole just about I'd say.

 

The belt cover gasket on the youth models is flat. It was glued to the case at the factory so it came apart when I took off the cover.

As far as any any kind of film that is left behind, I am not real concerned about that. I just want to get the grit out of the case so that it stays out of the bearings and clutch.

 

The only concern would be bearings, I'd worry about letting moisture sit on them or are they sealed. I never tinkered on one of those youth models.

 

Maybe you could take the cover off and spray it down with something other than water. I'm trying to think of something that would evaporate faster. There must be some kind of parts cleaner that wouldn't leave a residue or wreck everything.

I think I would just ride somewhere else that doesn't cause a problem.

 

In this part of PA there aren't alot of places to ride that don't involve abandoned mining areas, so going somewhere else isn't really an option. I just have to be more vigilant about maintaining the equipment. We are both new to the ATV thing, so we are learning as we go.

As far as the moisture issue is concerned, I think that if I follow the procedures for drying the belt that the moisture would not be an issue. Or if I just have my son drive the quad around the yard for 5 or 10 minutes after we're done cleaning up I'm sure any moisture inside would evaporate.

 

Sounds like that makes for a nasty mess riding with the coal dust, have you given any though about getting a small air compressor? I spray the **** out of mine with the hose after every ride then use 125psi to blow the moisture out of all the hard to get at places. just a thought