Hi All,
Newbie to the forum. I inherited a nearly beat to death king quad from my brother.
I have a serial number for it but need to know the year so I can get new brushes for the starter. Any suggestions on getting the year out of the SN?? Any recommendations on a good site to get parts? Carb rebuild kit and brushes?
Thanks!

 

What's the 10th digit?

 

2

 

either 10th or 11th digit gives you the year (can't recall which one it is, but justrandy seems to say 10th digit). So I'd say it's an '02. During the 90's, they used letters for the years, but as of '00 & up, it's a number.

For parts, I look on ebay, sometimes used. OR, for OEM only, babbits online seems to have the best prices I've found.

 

nedflanders is right, its a 2002. The 10th digit seems to always be the one the gives the yr whether on quads, cars, whatever. The last 6 is the serial number. The rest of the numbers gives things like engine size, where its made, what design revision, etc.

 

Actually I wire brushed the SN number and have "W" as the tenth character. My brother said this was either a '97 or '98 so my reported 2 was in error. Sorry. Do you know the codes for the other characters? JSAAK42A5W .......
I'm a stickler for wanting to know as much as I can about what I've got. The engine casing says "3500 MI"

 

go to google, and put "vin decoder" in your search engine. It will give you lots of info. js is japan.

 

Had a feeling you'd say that (don't know how... ). Anyway, W is 1998.

J=Japan
S=Suzuki
A=ATV
A=????
K=250-399cc
4=4-stroke single
2=2nd model version
A=Generally an A is used for the base model with non-restricted (full) power output.
5=Check digit
W=1998
2=Made in Japan
Last 6 is serial number

The 3500 is ML not MI. 3.5 liters of oil goes in it.

 

Thanks! Now can I fire off another question about rough running? If you read my original quiry I noted that my brother beat this thing to near death. He attempted a carb rebuild, new needle valve, orings and the like. Not extensive. It idles beautifully but when you bring up the RPM's it acts starved. Yes there is gas, and fuel is on, etc. Occasionally it will rev up fine for a few seconds then back to no revs. I thought I would start with taking off the float bowl to see what creatures have taken up residence. It seems like one of the fuel passages is blocked (partial) or something? Any thoughts on first places to check? It hasn't been sitting so the gas isn't varnish yet. I can pass this back to general population if this isn't for you. Thanks again for your help.

 

Change the spark plug just to be sure. Mine was acting like that a few days ago and it was a bad plug. Good thing I didn't go tearing into the carb like I almost did. Mine would idle nice, just wouldn't rev. I had to winch myself up a hill I could normally start up in 2nd or 3rd gear! That's how bad it was.

Other than that, make sure the carb is back to stock condition. Airfilter and airbox too. Put EVERYTHING back the way it was from the factory. Pay attention to the needle in the carb. If you see any wear on the needle, replace the needle and needle jet. If your floats are brass, check for leaks. Be sure all the jets are clean in the inside and blow high pressure compressed air thru them. Sometimes you even have to run a small wire in jets to get them clean. Then check the valve lash and adjust as necessary.

If everything is back to stock and it still won't run right, then there must be an altitude change or a fuel change from when it left the factory (assuming you have good compression). In that case you have to adjust the carb to meet the new requirements. Let's cross that bridge when we come to it though. If your compression is too low, you can forget getting it to run right until you fix that problem. Let me know how it progresses.