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First off, let me thank each and every one of you who have posted issues, lessons learned, stories of trial and error, and all things technical that have helped to resurrect my recent addition to the stable... Thanks so much!!

But now, the story... So I have a hunting buddy, who bought this 2000 300 KQ new, and put about 1500 miles on it with few issues, and very little maintenance... But about 5 or 6 years ago it quit once while we were riding at Nirvana in Mountain City Tenn, on the same trip where I rolled my 2001 KQ going 1 mph in low down a ridiculous slope and broke my shoulder blade. Met the one and only gay male nurse in that mountain town, and even with the pain killer, I wondered, how does this dude find a date around here?? The owner of Nirvana drove my KQ back down, bent racks and all, and said he blocked that trail with felled trees. My buddies told him they must have slid down the mountain like I did, cuz there were now trees blocking the trail, and I was the lucky guy in the front who had to try the trail first. So while KQ's WILL climb trees, the way forward winch does a great job as a pole vault to launch you over the the front, then roll over ya and crush your back... Helmet saved me that day, and I HIGHLY RECOMMEND HELMETS, cuz 500 pounds on your head doesn't feel too good...

So my buddies quad was not running well that day, but mine has never missed a lick. Bought it used with about 600 miles on it, and got over 1K now, with only one locked up frozen rear brake once... Learned the hard way about that locking brake. But othrwise, she's been flawless!

So a few other times, it gave him fits, cutting off after a few minutes of running, or a days worth, in cold or hot, and sometimes it'd finally start, but be way underpowered, and he'd mess around trying to fix it, but never got a manual, and only took it in toa mechanic once. On the one occasion he took it in cuz it was leaking gas, that Suzuki place in Concord replaced the bad petcock, and declared her good. So it ran ok for a while, maybe a year or two, but then issues began again...

Fast forward to about 3 years ago on a hunting trip out to east carolina, it got to being really hard to start, and wouldn't idle well, so he thought it was probably more issues with the fuel system, and he knew a motorocycle guy who said the carb would be an easy fix, so he brought it to him. He worked on it, said the carb needed cleaning, and said he got it running ok, but that the front end was locked up. Saying he didn't know anything about transfer cases and the cv joints, etc, suggested he might want to disconnect the front drive, cuz he couldn't even move it! At this point, after I hear this story, told my buddy to take the wheel off, jack her up, and see if she'd spin. Bet it was just brakes locked up, and he could fix it I bet! But he didn't mess with it, said he would take it to a dealer again.

Well, for over 2 years, he didn't do anything with it, just left it in the shed, and said the starting issue had come back, couldn't get it to run at all now. Said he was thinking about selling it. Of course, friends with some cash said, hey I'll but it for a couple hundred, then one offered 500 bucks, but I kept telling him, he better take those front wheels off, pull the hubs and see WTF was up with the locking thing, and the running part would likely be another easy fix. Told him, it's worth prolly 1K just in parts on EBAY if he parted it out, but certainly don't give it away...

So a couple months ago he asked, would I be interested in buying it, and I told him one last time, to please pull those wheels... Didn't drive to his house and do it for him, but told him he could find out how to do it online, and I'd help. I had never had my front wheels off, had a dealer do regular lube/oil/filter for me on mine, but that it didn't look hard to me. BUT, HE DIDN'T DO ANY OF THAT, and asked if I'd give him 700 for it, as-is. He had put ITP tires on it years ago, and upgraded to a warn winch, and even had the original tires, if I wanted em for mine...

So after sitting on the decision for a couple months, I sprung for it last weekend. Felt wierd having to pull it on my trailer with a come-along, cuz the battery was toast and couldn't even winch it on... Dragging the front wheels the whole way...

So over the last week, I've gone thru this thing, stem to stern... Found that sure enough, the front left wheel cyclinder was frozen, rusted tight on one side... A real bugger to remove the hub, But I got it, no special tool, just pulling until my hands bled... But guess what, THAT TRANSFER CASE IS PRISTINE! I called him and asked if the motorcycle carb repair guy had looked at it, and he said he did, and he DIDN'T SEE ANY HYPOID OIL IN IT! Well, of course not, cuz it's only got a little bit in there. Stuck my finger in and found some thoug... So I drained it, added some fresh to spec, but what came out looked fine... CV joints and boots are fine, and she spins fine now with that brake thing figured out... Ordered two new wheel cylinders for the front, even tho I haven't checked the other side yet, cuz hey, I might need it, for this one, or mine, at some point. 150 bucks to the door from an EBAY seller, will have em next week.

So now on the motor. Found the foam air filter disintegrated, so cleaned that mess out. Tons of gunk, oily fuel, all over in it... Ordered a new K&N like I put on mine, and began troubleshooting without one for now. Figured she'd been run or left with gas getting into the oil sump, so I checked there. Oil level looked full, dark, but ok. Not gonna chance it, drained the oil, didn't see much gas, but the oil sure stunk like it. No steel grindings tho, so that's good. Cleaned the air box up, blew thru the hoses, found no bad hoses or vacuum lines, and no gas in the vacuum lines either. So petcock was good I thought, since he DID have that replaced about 3 years ago... BUT WAIT! LOOK IN THE TANK STUPID! With a flashlight, I found a broken main plastic stem rolling around in the bottom of the tank, so I figured it prolly sucked in trash, as it had run for who knows how long with a broken petcock stem, prolly broken during install!! With only the reserve stem screen filtering, unless it only had been run on that setting, she'd be sucking in whatever was on the bottom of the tank. And there was some particles in there I could see... So sucking fuel with no screen, and no filter, prolly killed it I thought. Added an in-line fuel filter between petcock and fuel pump, checked fuel delivery, pulse pump working when she sucks, fuel pumps... Drained the tiny bit of fuel in the tank, flushed it with gas and ethanol treatment, and added new gas. Tried to start it, ran the battery down to nothing, no dice...

OK, so maybe it's ignition... Checked plug, found it soaked, oily, and gapped too close @ 16 instead of the factory recommeded 24-28 thousandths. Re-gapped it, checked spark against frame, found it was there, zapped myself, so that seemed good. Tried to fire it up after a battery charge... Nothing, not even a little bit of fire...

So back to the carb, cuz the plug would get wet, and it seemed I had good spark, but maybe too rich, or too lean to fire. It shoots gas out the plug hole, and both throttle and and choke seem to operate correctly. But nothing, and I mean NOTHING, would start this thing!! I'm worried now, maybe it's valves so far out she can't build compression. But damn, it sure feels like it has good compression when I try to pull start her. Oh, and yeah pull start didn't work either...

So now again I took the carb off, found no after factory adjustments, all looked good, and clean too, didn't see anything that told me the carb was bad... Cleaned it up, blew out all openings with air, but didn't mess with any jets, just checked the float, tried to reseal well with vaseline when putting it back together, and put it back in.

It's a new day, with a new charge on the battery, and I tried again to see what else could be causing this. Even with ETHER starting fluid, this thing won't start!!! BUT WAIT, LET'S START USING MY GOOD KQ TO CHECK AGAINST THIS ONE! So now, I'm thinking maybe weak coil, or could the CDI keep it from starting? So back to the fire I go, and pull the plug again, and decide, I'll start to swap stuff from my 01 KQ to this 2000 one, and if it looks like it'll work, try it...

BUT AS SOON AS I PULL THE PLUG, I SEE AN 8 IN THE MODEL NUMBER. ISN'T THIS THING SUPPOSED TO BE A DR7EA? I read here that some use this plug, but it isn't in my manual... Wonder why the dealership put this in here? I know he took it in, and he didn't say he changed it! Decide to not even mess with pulling mine, roll down to NAPA, grab a new DR7EA, and throw it in. DAMN, SHE NEARLY STARTED ON THE FIRST CRANK! She was belching white smoke, and needed wide open throttle to get started, but it was running somewhat!! Lots of smoke coming from everything it seemed, even the air box... Burning off crap I figured...

But why in the hell didn't I check that plug type??? Pulled the new one back out, and fired it against the frame, and a big as* blue flame comes out of this thing. Made me drop it when it bit me! Much better spark than the one it had in it... So, coil isn't bad, pickup and stator must be ok. But really, really hard to start, and seems like it's starving for fuel now maybe. She needs pumping of the throttle now to start, but once it's running, it sounds good, about like mine. Just a little smoky still... But hard as hell to start.

So I also read that subtle adjustments to the pin in the diaphragm on the top of the carb might change things, figured I'd try that now... So I took the diaphragm back off, inspected it again for leaks, didn't find it full of fuel or anything, so I pulled the little plastic tab holding the pin, and noted the keeper lock ring was on the second cut/slot in the shaft of the thing, so thought I'd try moving it to the third. Put it back in, and tried to fire it up. VROOOOOOOM, She runs! A little better now, lots of good throttle response, not much smoke at all, and even idles ok. Only thing is at WIDE OPEN throttle, she chugs a little when not under load...

So I hopped on,and threw her in gear, and give it to her hard while keeping the back brakes locked, and she runs [retty damn good, even at WOT. Played with the throttle, and adjusted the play in the throttle cable a bit to snug it up, and got off to let her idle and burn the gunk out of her innerds... THE THING IDLED FOR OVER AN HOUR!!! NOT A BURP, no smoke, I mean, not even a little. Jumped on, and gave her hell one last time in gear, and it runs as good or better, as mine which has been maintained well its whole life.

So tomorrow, we'll see if she still starts again once she's cold, and if anything is pulling down the battery, stuff like that. I sure hope she does, and I'll dig in more if she don't. But it's been rewarding, and enlightening, to go thru all this, cuz if I'm gonna have TWO of these KQ's, I might as well get good at fixing em. Hope that I don't need it, but now, if I gotta, I can sure tell a lot of the things that AREN'T wrong...

Jury is still out on the valve adjustments, cuz I didn't check em yet, and I don't know what the compression is either, but didn't get that far. We'll say it's good, if she sat and idled unattended for an hour! Cut it off, hit the starter, and she fired right back up, no throttle needed! Sooooooooo, maybe she needed to just run a while...

Besides the front brake cylinder, I still have one small fix, the boot on the left rear inner univeral is shot, got a rip in it. That shouldn't be a big deal, and the things are sealed anyway. Will find one of those and swap it out soon.

So it proves, you can take a broken down, non-running KQ and revive it, without too much headache. I knew I could rob it for parts, but also knew its history, and since it was just like mine, figured I'd try to get it going, and have two of em to work with if one ever went down. The wife never wanted to ride much, except when it snows, but now, if she doesn't mind shifting gears, she can ride it herself! That's cool! And every time she goes for a ride, I'm gonna rub it in her face that she said there was no way I'd get it running... AND EXCEPT FOR IT SITTING FOR 30 MONTHS, THE ONLY THING THAT TURNED OUT TO FOR SURE BE BAD WAS THAT FRONT BRAKE CYLINDER KEEPING IT LOCKED UP, AND A 3 DOLLAR SPARK PLUG KEEPING IT FROM RUNNING!! FOR REAL!!!

Now I feel a bit quilty, but dang it, he didn't have faith it would ever run right, and it could still give me fits, but right now I feel like it needed either a large repair bill he didn't want to pay, or seat equity which he didn't want to commit. And since he had gotten bad advice from a real repair shop (motorcycle guy who said the front transfer box was locked), he was convinced it was toast, and wasn't gonna put any more effort into it...

So never, ever let someone tell you what's wrong, go figure it out yourself! There are tons of stories like mine on here, but I had to add my own, and tell everyone the pitfalls to watch for. Never assume... I assumed the plug was good, since it DID fire... But it sure wasn't right, and a new plug seems to have made all the difference.

Here's to hoping my 7 hundred dollar KQ will live long and prosper! And the same to all you guys here! Thanks for your information, your posts, and insight! Special thanks to OXIDIZED_BLACK for the technical assistance, as that manual was a life-saver!!

Take care!

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