I have bought a Polaris Hawkeye. Everything ran great until last November it got sunk into a mud puddle that was much too deep for it and the engine got submerged. Mechanic got it running with no other apparent problems. But recently over the last 2 months the engine does not want to start up that great after it has been runnning for a couple of hours and then left to sit for an hour before it is fired up again. No amount of pulling the choke out will help it. Gas in it is fresh. Oil has been changed after the aformentioned accident. Sparkplug was replaced less than four months ago. I put carb cleaner in it, although I suspect that it has dirt in it from this accident. When I first bought the atv it would crank right up without the choke. Now it will hardly start without it. Is this just a case of a dirty carb that needs to be taken apart to be cleaned. or am I looking at a whole differant problem? ATV has a total of 60 hours on it. 2007 Model Hawkeye 4x4. For only being three years old I feel that it should not take this much effort to start it up. Any help would be appreciated.

 

You sunk it in the mud and didn't remove and take apart the carb? it is probably full of grit and if water sat in there, could be a bit corroded in there. Water will sit in the bottom of the bowl, since it is heavier than fuel, and will block jets and passages, and cause corrosion. Take it apart, remove every jet and the idle mix screw, use carb spray with the straw attachment and make sure every port is blown clean, and all jets (main and pilot) are squeaky clean, and none of the tiny holes are blocked. This should get you back to the "easy starts" you had before. Sounds like the idle circuit is blocked,so very little fuel gets by to start without choking it to richen up the mix.

 

I think all of the water was drained from the carb but this is the type of mud that when rinsed from the quad left behind a lot of sand. I will try this.

 

did you run this bike after you got out of the hole beofre you drained the engine or did you try to get it running w/ the engine full out crap? just wondering if you might have damaged the rings or what not. you could pull your carb, but i'm guessing it's not that if you've been running it all this time after the sinking, as it should have given you issues before this for a dirty carb. imo

 

sounds like pilot jet is plugged, as mentioned clean the carb real well and see if it fixes it

 

Did you change the air filter? Or sometimes it gets put on backwards with the solid end towards the carb. I did it once and spent hours looking for the problem like you've described.