I just bought a new 04 Ozark. There is some kind of fuel delivery problem that is temporarily resolved by opening fuel cap. The machine starts sputtering and then stalls every 15 minutes or so. This morning the machine stalled after about 10 seconds and would not start again at all. After an hour or so I discovered that the fuel cap removal trick took care of the problem and sure enough, when the machine was warm and about to stall ,cracking open the cap smoothes it out again. Is there any adjustments that can be made to the cap or hose? I understand that there is some kind of a vapor lock built into the cap but mine seems to be affecting engine performance.

 

does your cap have a vent tube. If so make sure it's not kinked or pluged.

 

Yes it does have a tube. I'm not sure where the tube goes. It won't just pull out from wherever the other end is. I'll go piddle with it and see if it looks like there is some kind of an obstruction.

 

Okay. I took the hose off the fuel cap and I could not blow through the hose at all. It goes into a housing the covers the ignition switch and neutral and reverse light indicators. There is a larger rubber hose that comes out from the bottom of the housing. I pulled on the other end of the small hose and it came lose from whatever it was connected to under the housing. The line was clear at this point. I tried to put it back but there not much grabbing it. I could blow through it some and the air would go through the larger hose coming out of the housing but the small hose will not stay connected. Is it okay to just to strap the small hose coming out of the cap to the larger house coming out of the housing and just bypass whatever it was hooked up to ,or are there important voodoo components under the housing that makes it imperative that the small hose hook up to it ?

 

You better take it to the dealer.

 

It's just a vent hose, it was pinched between something under the tank. If the gas tank doesn't vent it will starve the carb and the engine will die. Thats why when you loosen the cap, you release the vacuum and allow gas to flow into the carb.

 

Thanks for the input. The dealer said it was fine just to strap the end of the vent tube to the other tube coming out from the housing. I’ve done this and the engine runs just fine. One other question though. When shifting into second and third it’s really hard to shift unless the quad is almost at a crawl, like 3mph or less. One you get it into 3rd shifting to forth and fifth is a breeze. Is this normal for the Ozark ?

 

That doesn't sound right, our Oz was a bit klunky shifting but you didn't have to slow down to shift. In your hand book it tells you how to adjust your clutch, I would try this first and if it doesn't work then contact the dealer.