hi,

just bought my first atv on saturday.. when i was first trying it out, i accidentally had the choke all the way open (to the left) and it was not engaging in drive.. it was making this terrible clicking noise... after a while, and speaking with the owner of the shop that sold it to me, i finally figured out that the choke has to be closed (all the way to the right) so the idle is not so high or else drive will not engage..

in the meantime, did i damage the atv when it was making that noise???? i was actually able to get the bike to engage in drive (High) and ride for a little bit even with the idle high - although it ran rough... i hope i didn't damage the transmission on my brand new beautiful machine..

thank you

 

You didnt damage the machine. All you did was jam it in gear with the throttle a bit high. Once the transmission engaged there was no more chance for damage. If you jam it in gear constantly you could eventuall do damage, but not once.

What I usually do if I cant wait for the machine to warm up before moving it somewhere is to start it, then one it runs for about 30 seconds, brifly lower the choke just enough so idles down but doesnt stall to put it in gear, then put the choke back on and feather the throttle to get moving.

 

thanks oval.. i probably engaged it into gear actually like 5-6 times over like 30 minutes of use (high + reverse) before figuring out what was going on...

it is running / shifting great now.. i just wish that the instruction manual more clearly stated which way the choke lever needed to be when starting.. i would have eventually figured it out but without having this terrible incident..

something strange about the choke lever is there is a symbol above the lever on the far right (where it should be after it is warmed up) - and the symbol looks like a lightning bolt... my lawn tractor and snow blower have the same symbol.. on both of those the symbol is the position where you place the choke lever when you are starting up the machines and then from there you switch the lever to the other side..
on the atv, the symbol is located where the choke level should rest once warmed up...

of course all of this is useless info once a new owner figures this out on their own by listening to the idle.. unfortunately it took me a little while..

so that clicking noise i was hearing when it was trying to engage in gear was not the sound of any damage being done???