1999 Arctic Cat 300 4X4 - Sputter And Smoke

[dbaron]

Hello,

I have aquired this 4 wheeler from my Dad who is moving to a town home. I will be mostly using if for plowing snow but there will be an occational trip though the woods with the kids. When plowing a pass and stoping the 4 wheeler will kill. It will start up and keep going if I keep my thumb on the throttle a little.

My next issue is the other day I took my daughter for a ride on level ground. When I turned around the 4 wheeler sputtered so I gave it more gas, when I looked behind me there was a big cloud of white thick smoke. Not sure where this came from. I would like to try and fix this myself since the repair cost at a shop I'm guessing would be expensive. This is a manual transmission with a foot pedal shift. Would it matter if I started in 2nd gear? Any help anyone can give is appreciated. I'm not affraid to take it apart and put it back together I just need to know where I should start.

Thanks,

DB

[oxidized_black]

might be a dirty carb, swampcat07 would be the best guy to talk to about this ....

[oxidized_black]

try and run some fuel cleaner in the tank, or spray some carb clean while it's running and revving high. if you can get your hands on a compression tester, do a test. could be valves out of time too ...

[catcandu]

If you have to keep your thumb on the throttle to restart it, it's running rich (flooding).

The 2 leading causes for what you describe are: 1. The "choke" cable is pulled out of it's plastic socket on the carb. Remove the seat and look on the right side about half way back. There are 2 control cables going into the carb. The "choke" cable goes in to a plastic nut on the side of the carb. Make sure it is lined up squarely and fully seated into the carb. 2. The needle valve or float is bad. You'll have to remove and disassemble the carb to fix it. Before attempting removal I'd strongly suggest you download the service manual for your ATV. I also found the 96-98 Polaris manual very helpful with these carbs. They use the same ones.

oxidized_black is a great help finding downloads.

onlinecycleparts.com has the best prices and flat rate shipping ($7).