1980's quadrunner 250 4x4 trying to bring her back to life

[frostydeisel]

Hi everyone, this is my first post so bear with me. I recently purchased a late 80's suzuki quadrunner 250 4x4 (so i am told at least). The guy i bought it from was riding it when i showed up to look at it so i know it runs. He needed to use starting fluid and had to pull start it because the starter would just whirl when you hit the start button. He said he thinks the flywheel is bad. I dont think that is the issue. So i purchased it and took it home and was tinkering with it and i could get it started but only with starting fluid and the pull starter(which by the way is incredibly hard to pull) and when started it would run only while i kept throttling it. So i figure its a fuel problem. So i proceed to clean the petcock and give her new gas and clean the carb and spark plug. When taking off the petcock i noticed the rubber gasket was in bad condition and would need replaced. I decided to go to local autoparts store and get gas resistant gasket maker. when i get back to the quad my neighbor who was helping me(15 year old kid) had decided to take the repairs into his own hands and put it back together and get it started. That kid dogged me. Not on purpose but none the less screwed me pretty good. I didnt lose my temper and i just asked him what all he did. He said nothing just put it back together. Well kids dont always tell the truth. He kinda dropped a screw out of the carb and didnt tell me. He said he stripped the petcock screw and now couldnt remove it. He did drop the stripped screw earlier before i went to store and i found it on the skid plate. well he dropped another screw as well ive come to find out. So i tried to start it and couldnt get it to fire over at all and the starting fluid can seemed to have lost all its propellant magically when i was gone. i decide to take it back apart to where i had it before i left and see that the petcock is missing one of the filters now and that the port on it is blocked with this rusty pebble stuff. Drain out my new gas and take flashlight to the tank and see more of that crud in the bottom. i try to rinse it out but cannot do it. Then i try taking the tank off and cant. its seems i may have to remove the entire motor for that. i also see a spring and o ring on the skid plate when i remove it. very shiny spring and a clean o-ring. Notice the screw next to the idle screw is missing on the carb. checked the parts diagram and see its missing the air fuel adjustment screw. I also see why i couldnt remove the petcock screw as well. the nut that is recessed in the tank where it mounts at is pulled out a little and spins now when i try tightening it up. I could really use a manual guys. can anyone help me or give me advice on how to repair this machine? Any advice on how to operate it as well would be appreciated. I dont have any experience with this type of quad. Dont understand the decompression thingy and dont understand the starter just whirling.

[Ajmboy]

I would pull the tank and make sure its clean. I would then replace the fuel petcock and carburetor. Then go from there.

You can get a carb for $30-60 on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=suzuki+quadrunner+250+carburetor&i=automotive&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

You can get a fuel petcock for $30-40 on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=suzuki+quadrunner+250+fuel+petcock&crid=RUICDM3OK9K&sprefix=suzuki+quadrunner+250+fuel%2Cautomotive%2C167&ref=nb_sb_ss_fb_1_26_ts-doa-p

The main thing is to make sure he didn't drop any screws into the carb, down the intake and into the engine.

I would also replace that starter. which you can get on Amazon for $35-50: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=suzuki+quadrunner+250+starter&ref=nb_sb_noss_2

The entire repair could cost you $100-150 in parts. 

[frostydeisel]

i think i need a manual. tried to remove the tank and could not without removing the entire motor it seemed. 

[frostydeisel]

I also pulled the starter off and tested it. It seemed to spin strong and in the same direction as the motor would spin. Put my finger on the flywheel and tried to spin it and noticed it would free spin in the same direction the starter spun. Pulled the pull starter as  i watched the flywheel and it actually spun the opposite way as the starter did. THe starter only has one way to hook it up really because the ground for it is the casing itselt where it bolts to the motor. I have a little electrical backround and know that switching the leads on the motor would make it spin the opposite way since its a dc motor. But with there being only one lead i had to try to figure something else out. So i pulled the starter motor apart and spun the magnets around. now it spins in the correct direction. Havent been able to hook it up and test it on the quad yet because of time restraints and weather and just flat out being busy. 

 

i have a bad feeling that the spinning nut on the bottom of the tank is gonna be an issue. Im going to buy new screws from homedepot and try to install them to see what happens but the way the screws get stuck now and just spin when they are about halfway in scares me a little. It didnt look like them nuts on the tank were replaceable. I cant get the tank off to inspect it good enough.

 

[frostydeisel]

im thinking of just replacing the lost adjustment screw for about $20 and digging the petcock filter in the bottom of the tank and putting it back onto the original petcock. There really isnt much to it other than a gasket and them two filters on top of it. and i did obtain a new gasket for it already.

 

[frostydeisel]

i did find a non electric fuel pump i think. (looks like it runs off of vacuum maybe.) I took it apart and cleaned the gunk out of it. it did have a diaphram in it but it was in tact and seemed flexible still. it baffles me as to why they didnt just go with a gravity fed fuel system. the gas tank is huge and sits above the carb for the most part. why add some uneeded hardware that as complicated and unreliable as that is beyond me. This quad is on the smaller side but seems like suzuki put all the bells and whistles of that era on it. 

[frostydeisel]

if anyone has removed the tank off one of these please chime in. I got it to drop and fidangled it up down and back and forth til it seemed like i could twist it out but came up short everytime i got it halfway out it seemed. I could not inspect the nut for the petcock, i could not get the petcock filter out, and im pretty sure there is still sediment in the bottom of the tank. removing it would make life so much easier to accomplish all them tasks. I also noticed a ripped cv boot on the front axle now too. man i hope it doesnt cost more and more to get her up and running.