I've got a 2000 xplorer. After riding it the last time i noticed oil coming out of a tube that is connected to the recoil starter. It is just on the top of it. The quad runs fine but oil comes out after it get heated up. What is the problem with it? Is it maybe a gasket? Is it something to worry about? I don't like the smell of the oil burning. The motor doesn't hold that much oil so i don't want it to run out and blow it up. Thanks for your help

 

[green]MEANGREENMACHINE[/green] Do you mean the crankcase vent line? I believe thats is the line your talking about. If so you proubly got water in the counter balancer oil. Sounds to me like you need to drain and refill it.

 

It is the vent tube on top of the recoil starter housing. I have drained the recoil and nothing comes out. Do I need to put anything in there? I have gotten water in there before and drained it out. I can't find anything in my book that describes what it is. If it is the crankcase vent line, should oil be coming out of it?

 

MEAN, that vent line doesn't go to your recoil housing it goes to your counterbalancer housing. There is a drain bolt and dipstick you will need to find. The drain is just a little more to the center of you machine from from the one you use to drain the recoil housing. The counter-balancer fluid check dipstick is located behind the floorboard just behind the rear brake lever. You will need to remove the 4 bottom bolts holding the floorboard, then depress the rear brake lever and pull the floorboard out the brake lever will hold it there. Just behind the brake lever you see a plug with a very large straight slot for a screwdriver on it, this is your counterbalancer dipstick. There is a diagram of this on page 108 of your owners manual.It is very easy to over fill and not know. There is a bolt going straight out the front of you motor that will drain your oil down to the proper level. Its a dealers trick , thats where they fill it from, works just like the differential on a truck. they don't mention it in there manual.
Sounds to me like you do alot of mudding, you should route all your vent lines up into your headlight pod. That way you will eliminate most of these problems. Make sure you get the one off your carb and front pumkin. I bet you have water in that also!BTW how do you like your carb?

 

Yep, you are exactly right mnexplorer. I can't believe that I overlooked it. I overlooked it when i ran all the other lines to the headlight pod. I figured that the line had been cut or melted off of somewhere else. I know that it has too much oil in it. I checked the dipstick. Looked at the more serious possibilities first i guess. Don't like to have anything dripping or smoking on my bike. I try to take care of it. As far as the carb goes. It gave me more mid to top end power. You can really feel the bike put you back on the seat now. It increased top speed by about 4 mph. It gets there a lot faster. The reed cage is an excellent investment. It probably made one of the biggest differences for the money. She really flies now. Thanks for the tip on the vent tube.