Charlie,

You made two good points:

1)You can not blow back into the line, at least not the line I am talking about

and

2)There is no substitute for taking the carb apart.

I also want to clear up what I originally said since speaking with a second dealership this am. The small clear tube (which is where I noticed the gas dripping out of) that comes out of the bottom of the float bowl is not called the "by-pass" line. This tube has a very tiny filter on it that sets just below the float bowl. That was my mistake and hope I did not mislead anyone. The service guy simply called the line I'm noticing the gas dripping out of as the "drain" line, since there is a "by-pass" line, but that line is much higher up on the carb. Again, I'm speaking about HO's only and not other models.

Now back to dealing with dripping out of the drain line: The service suggested to loosen the allen wrench screw (located along the side near the bottom of the float bowl), allow the gas to flow out of the drain line for a second and then to re-tighten that screw. He said that it's possible that screw was not set properly (perhaps too loose) coming from the factory as I only have 44 hrs./193 miles on the machine. The service highly doubted the carb could be plugged that quickly with dirt, but as Charlie suggested, one never knows unless he takes the carb apart.

I guess I'll do one thing at a time and now that I've loosened the allen screw at the drain line and re-tightened it, I'll keep an eye on it to see if dripping happens again.

As far as removing the float bowl on the HO, I'll need for assitance from those who may already have done it. The float bowl is seated by two phillips screws that are "catty" corner of one another. Sounds simply right. NOT!!! Those screws require an extremely short driver or a flexible driver or something else. All I know is that my shortest driver (4" from tip of handle to tip of blade) is probably 2" too long. Service told me they are a bit?? to get to because of the limited room you have. Anybody got answers here? I'm sure some day I will take the float bowl out. Better to know what tool to use now than to wait and ask later.

VG

 

I have a Mag 325 and it did the same thing, but the dirt was so fine, that when the float moved up and down, it wore the area around the float out, so it never sealed, and kept leaking. I had to have the carb cleaned. The overflow tube is behind the tranny vent. Take the plastic off and you should be able to see it clearly.
The easiest and surefire way to clean it, is to take the carb down and clean it.

 

VG,

I am not familiar with the Sportsman, but I believe it would have the same intake design as the scrambler. I removed the bolts on the cylinder head for the intake, loosened the air box boot, and unbolted the mounting bracket on the frame..An easy pull and the whole carb was in my hand.

I don't know if there is much more room on a sportsman than a scrambler to remove the float bowl without removing the carb.


Rainman