I sold my 1999 Sportsman 500 yesterday. I like to have everything in order for a new owner so I changed the oil and cleaned the carb. The carb looked pretty good inside.

When I put it all back together, I turned the fuel on and happened to go away from it for about 15 mins. When I came back, I used the pull starter and it took maybe three pulls for it to start. The first two pulls it ran for a second but then quit which is par considering the fuel bowl was empty. (mind you the electric start hasn't worked in a long time but always pulls on one pull).

The guy came and looked at it. Everything ran excellent. No issues.

Today (1 day later) the guy calls me and tells me it won't fire. I know it's not my problem but I do have a conscience.

I haven't seen it yet to know what exactly is going on but I am trying to get an idea of what the problem is. When he left here, it took it home and it say on a trailer outside all night long. Weather here in NC has sucked really bad lately and it was down to about 13 degrees last night. It had not been started since he left here (my understanding).

Here's my point and my question. What's the point of the fuel pump on these? It fired yesterday after cleaning the carb pretty easy which means that the fuel must have got to the carb without any help from the fuel pump (since it had not been used but it started after a few minutes of sitting).

Is the fuel pump really just a boost for the natural order of gravity?

 

the quads with larger carbs tend to have fuel pumps so the carb will keep a consistent flow of fuel to carb. plus polaris quads almost always have a strange fuel line routing so a fuel pump keeps it from bogging from lack of fuel

 

did he turn the fuel off when he transported it? maybe it flooded. time to pull the spark plug out to check it. chances are the fuel pump is fine. you don't know if he choked it or what right?

 

I don't know just yet. I am going to have him bring it over here so I can take a look at it. I'll update once I have more info.

 

I agree about the choke. Especially if it's been really cold, he's a newbie, and if you didn't show him or tell him that it need to be choked on cold days.

 

Well he said he got it running. I am thinking the choke is out of adjustment. The reason I say this is when I cleaned the carb, I went ahead and did it on the machine cause I didn't want to mess with getting the choke pulled out of the carb. I had originally started backing it out and then discovered that what I was backing out was really an adjustment of some kind that screwed into the actual choke mount on the carb. I didn't have a wrench that would work on that so I just turned the adjustment back in.

What is the proper way to adjust the choke?

 

basicly it is what they call an enrichern where it has a plunger that when the choke is pulled open it allows more gas into the carb for starting and higher idle. you want to make sur the plunger is all the way seater in when the choke is closed and maybe have a little slack(not much) in the choke cable so when you pull it it is opening all the way and shutting all the way when closed. hope you know what i mean lol.

 

Not sure what was going on with it. He brought it over and it starts right up on first pull as it did. While running, I put the choke on half-on and no change. Put it full on and rpms's raised as they should/would. Seems to be fine. I guess that 13 degree blast was more than it wanted to deal with via a pull start.