my son has a 1986 trailboss 250 R es he purchased this from a guy I know, yhe quad sat for many years. We have cleaned carb, and quad ran fine for month or so. Now quad starts and idles fine but at about 25 mph seems to be cutting out, quad had a top speed of around 45-50mph and now as I said tops out at about 25. We have pulled carb and cleaned all, the only thing that I have noticed is at first when this started he could hit override button on left handle bar and would come out of trouble but this does not work any more. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

 

Welcome to the forums.

Sounds kind of like an issue I had with my 2000 Trail Boss. Thought it may be the cdi going out. Nephew rolled it and never got around to checking it out.

OPT will probably have the answer you need and get you back and running full speed again.

 

Either the black wire from the cdi is shorting out or the reverse limiter itself. Best I can remember is you have to remove the fuel tank to get to the reverse limiter,disconnect the black wire and see it that solves the problem. If its a RES should be 1988 later body style model and just the tank cover comes to get to the reverse limiter,the first body style the tank had to be removed,could be wrong about an earlier RES though,wouldn't be the first time!! Got some pics of it? OPT