Mhatayas

I wish there were lids for those small storage boxes on the racks though! I just need one more

Thanks folks for all the wonderful info. Appreciate you two always chiming in. 

Next time I'll know what to do . Check out the parts bike I scored today ! 

I ended up welding it 

On 3/16/2024 at 11:40 PM, Mech said:

A little leak up at the head to exhaust pipe join, or anywhere in the first few inches of pipe, will make them backfire.

Tried these guys.. They have always been good exhausts at a fair price.

https://www.musketmufflers.com/

Thanks guys. So I scored another parts bike , possibly! 

And now that small hole in my exhaust blew apart into a huge 2inch hole right where the 2pipes join into one !!! So loud and backfires like crazy again . I hate riding it now because of the attention it draws...

But anyways, my current parts bike, has good pipes up to and past the join , I want to take it off and weld it on to replace the damaged portion.. 

But get this ! I tried to take the pipe off my good bike to replace it with the parts bike pipe, but The darn nuts on the header bolts are seized on there and basically morphed into the bolt. I already snapped one off trying to get it out ! I didn't want to proceed beyond that. Do you think I'm better off just cutting out a portion and welding it in 2 places instead of trying to replace the whole front part of the pipe ? Another thing I just thought of , was to weld a new bolt onto the old one , but it's a tight spot and I might not be able to actually do it (haven't really evaluated it yet ) 

28 minutes ago, Mech said:

Well the standard procedure is check there is resistance through the cdi charge windings and the cdi trigger windings down on the stator plug, then crank it over and check there is some voltage produced at the charge pins and a momentary voltage at the trigger pins on the plug. You need a good spec digital gauge to detect the momentary trigger voltage, but an analogue gauge the needle flickers and is easy to see. , If there is voltage in both windings then we check they are getting to the cdi unit.

If there are those two voltages, and perhaps a 12v feed if needed, plus earth and a disconnected kill or a connected kill in some cases, then, if everything is ok, the spark should be very reliable. I would be suspecting the switches or the wiring. There are things that can go wrong in the engine though, like flakes of metal, or metal dust build up, that can short out the magnetic field between the magnets in the flywheel and the winding cores. If it's a flake of steel it can move and intermittently kill the trigger coil's output. I'd check for voltages out of those two windings, then look carefully at the wiring again.. short perhaps to frame ?

Oh, and is the dash still flashing ?

Dash still flashing from 9to 0, but now it stops at 0 ! Thanks for this info. Tommorow I'll try to have another look at it and figure it out , again! Possible there is a shorted wire somewhere. Notable that once I got it running good and turned it off , I then proceeded to put everything back in its place and plastics and seat on etc... I put the CDI box back where it belongs. Maybe there is a shorted wire somewhere in around there . I'll check though and get my multimeter out for the rest of it ... 

50 minutes ago, Mech said:

You used the key !  The key switch has dirty contacts or lost movement in it's mechanism.

Just went out and tried , cleaned the contacts , and even tried connecting the two wires together, cranked over but still no spark , darn it 

On 4/21/2024 at 11:15 PM, Mech said:

Good work finding the pushed back pin..

Time after time it's the wires not the electronic bits.. or Switches.. That flickering could be a key switch, or perhaps the kill switch, with dirty contacts. I'm pretty sure the flickering will be because the voltage to the gauge is dropping below the about 5volts the internals of the gauge usually work on.

Thanks .... So he got a new battery for it , and I had it running great except when I pressed the throttle it would big out and die. I ended up cleaning the carb and then it ran perfectly after that , I revved it up half a dozen times and then shut it off with the key to finish putting it back together for a test run . When I went to start it back up ... NOTHING.... I immediately checked to see if there was any spark and no there wasn't... So I'm back to square one again ...

I tried combinations of coils plugs plug caps and wires ... Nothing worked. 

Im going to have to go from the stator up to coil again with the multimeter... Gahhhh 

Oh, there's a few wires with the insulation off them , I wiggled them and moved them around to see if there is any spark .. but none still. 

 I don't know how it just went from sparking fine to nothing just like that . 

On 4/21/2024 at 10:58 PM, Gwbarm said:

Which one had no resistance, primary should have very little maybe.3 and secondary should be between 6 and 10. 

Thanks , and I'm not quite sure now thinking back on it . Also thought I'd have the darn thing going by now! But back to square one again. No spark again 

I had the battery charger set to 20amps , it seemed to crank over fine but the display still spazzed out . So just yesterday I found 2 potential reasons why there were no spark . A blue wire coming from the stator that connects to the CDI , one of the connector pins was pushed back . I fixed it with some needlenose plyers , and the next thing I did was check for resistance between the coil and the plug cap with multimeter. One didn't have any resistance and the other did have resistance, so I put it back together, and wait a go ! Spark . Put a small bit of fuel in the piston just to hear it start up . I now drained the gas as there was water in there ,next I'm gonna clean the carb up before I actually take it for a run ! 

On 3/16/2024 at 11:40 PM, Mech said:

A little leak up at the head to exhaust pipe join, or anywhere in the first few inches of pipe, will make them backfire.

Tried these guys.. They have always been good exhausts at a fair price.

https://www.musketmufflers.com/

I ended up welding a bombardier 400exhahst  onto it ... And then it still backfired , I discovered more holes up near the head, I'm going to use some high heat jb  weld to patch them 

My uncle bought a Baja 250, 2006. Knew there was no spark since the get go. He don't know anything about quads so is getting me to help him try to get it running...

battery is bad so I connected battery charger to it to crank it over , cranks over well , but no spark .... 

Lights and everything work fine , but with each crank over using the e start switch , the display reads 999 888 777 666 ... Right down to 000 and repeats itself . 

He managed to get a parts bike , I changed over the CDI and the coil and the stator from the parts bike and there was another black box by the voltage regulator I changed over ... I used my multimeter to confirm as much as I could works , it's hard without knowing which wires are which , and I cannot find any diagrams online for this bike ? 

Do you think it could be the Killswitch? There's so many wires coming from there I don't know where to start . Also I should mention it appears the fan on the front of the bike has been taken off (the wires have been cut too ) 

If this bike sparked it would run . The previous owner said he parked it one day and it just wouldn't start after.

Thanks Mech , I’ll have an update as soon as I get around to it . Thanks for all the help . The quad sounds a lot better now with the new exhaust . Original was toast and rusted through a lot , I even used some flat fibreglass stripping wound around the exhaust to get rid of the last couple holes . I mean a new one exhaust for this thing is hard to find and costs a lot . One on eBay that had a bit of rust was almost 500 dollars … 

Bombardier 400 exhaust system on it now . Sounds quieter and better now . Still seems to backfire a bit tho , might be some other issue . 
 

The quad has came a long way since I first got it , it certainly was in rough shape . Getting better as time progresses. I have about a dozen or more things I’ve done to it since I’ve got it . Love it to peices 

Well yesterday I was towing a couple loads of ashes from my burn barrel, and my rusty ol’ trailer support system gave out ! Not the 2 arms but the part that comes from under the quad that the ball attaches to. Thought I lost the trailer but it was that that was scraping on the pavement.LOL

welded a new peice on today that will be much stronger . Also fixed the backfiring issue by putting a new exhaust on from a can am 500. 
 

so another question… my battery should be at 14 or so volts while running right ? It doesn’t change its voltage when I start the bike , and after a week or two of starting the quad and sitting outside it dies and I must charge it up again . So either something isn’t hooked up correctly or somethings busted ?

1 minute ago, Mech said:

Oh ok. I usually use wd40 or crc penetrating oil but it doesn't seem to do much until I get them to move. I don't have many chemicals/products in my workshop. I'll bear that in mind..

Now that both teeth are knocked off the plunger on the parts bike … it’s gonna be even harder to get out now . Might have to use some kind of extractor for it to work . 

4 hours ago, Gwbarm said:

Those choke plungers are bad to get stuck in the bore, 

Well on the parts quad the plunger was basically seized in there … I actually broke off the two lips holding the cable in off while trying to get it out with pliers . Luckily the other one wasn’t that bad 

Also , check out my new foot grips! Lol. Better than the bare metal , it’s the hand grips off my parts bike . Fits perfectly 

On 3/4/2024 at 10:54 PM, Mech said:

First thing would be to check the choke is working. You can do that by warming the engine then opening and closing the choke. It should go rich and smelly if the choke is richening the mixture. If not then check the plunger pulls out when you operate the lever. If the plunger is pulling up/out, but not working to richen the mixture, it's likely because the throttle isn't closed enough. The choke plunger opens a bypass of fuel and air around the butterfly. For the choke to operate and richen the mixture there needs to be enough vacuum to lift the fuel into that bypass which is high up on the carb. The throttle butterfly has to be closed off a lot so there's good vacuum through that bypass passage, so if the idle's not adjusted right and depending on the butterfly being opened to keep it idling, the choke won't work. The choke won't work either if you are giving it throttle while trying to cold start it. It's also possible that the choke is letting the air bypass the butterfly, but if the jet is blocked and not letting fuel into that air, it won't work.

You could try adjusting the idle speed and mixture and see if you don't perhaps end up with the butterfly being more closed than it is at the moment. Then check the chokes operation by warming the engine up and opening the choke and it should start to run rich.

If the choke isn't richening the mixture after the idle's been adjusted then it's probably time to take the carb off, strip it entirely to pieces, clean every part and put it back together again. The carbs are a bit hard to get out, and harder to get back in, but if you undo two bolts at the back of the air-box the box will drop down about an inch and move backwards about an inch and it's not so bad. The hardest part is getting the rubber tube (which has always gone hard) from the air-box to the carb back on the carb. I use a long pair of bent long-nosed pliers, closed up and used as a round sort of bent lever to get the tube back on. I get the carb on at the engine, then start it at the bottom of the air-box tube, then use the closed pliers to slip between the carb and tube and gently lever/coax the tube over the carb. Inspect the engine side rubber manifold for tears or splits while the carb's out and be gentle with it so as not to split it getting things back together.

Mech , figured out the problem . There was no cable attached to the choke . The plunger was stuck inside the carb, I had to pull it out with a pair of needle nosed pliers, once I did that I cleaned it , attached a cable from my parts bike and cleaned inside the carb a bit where it was . There was no lever on the cable either so I used the primer knob off my old snowmobile as one . Now it works perfect and no more waiting cranking over repeatadly lol 

Ok so my oil filter came in and I changed the oil as well and turns out the o ring was kinda flattened and there was no o ring on the back just the casing . It’s working great now I sanded the gunk off the casing too .

I also changed the spark plug , bled the front brakes , tightened and lubed the chain . Attached the front rack , I want to do a bit more to the bike too . 
 

so when I got the bike , the guy told me to put my hand over the air box to choke the bike to get it to start , it works but the bike rolls over anywhere from 30 seconds to 5mins depending on temperature especially. It idles good once warmed up and running for a while 

any advice on what could be wrong here? I’d love to have it start easily or be able to cold start it with the pull cord . 

Another thing I like is riding on hard packed snow , hard crust , can go anywhere , but it’s not often it happens 

@Mech , I got the leak taken care of , there was a lot of crud buildup on the casing , so I sanded it off with sandpaper , now I’m having another problem…. 
 

I added oil till it was between the 2 marks on the sight glass , but after a run it is completely black and can’t see the oil level at all. I really don’t wanna drain the oil out again . Think I can shove one of those pipe cleaners down and see if I can clear the glass a bit and determine oil level ? There’s no dipstick it’s just the sight glass . But a flexible pipe cleaner might be able to touch the inside of the glass .

37 minutes ago, Ajmboy said:

They make them but they’re expensive! 

I seen one for Sale locally actually. But I was more of the lines thinking about modifying one to fit on the front of an ATV may be on the plough melt something maybe it would involve some welding and modifications

Would it be a practical idea to mount a snowblower to the front of an ATV

I like towing stuff but if it was just for a ride I like the old railway bed or going into lakes and ponds and on top of mountains 

I feel bad for some of you folks with those laws . Where I live most people own an atv and use them on a daily basis . The laws are much different, most people don’t even have theirs registered or insured (especially a lot of older or second hand bikes ) 

So here where I live in Newfoundland Canada, they let you drive your bike on the road provided it’s registered and insured same goes for crossing highways but on trails you don’t need to be insured. And I don’t even think you need a full license to insure your bike they said it was up to the insurance company. I’m trying to get my old 1985 Suzuki 250 registered they have to do a search for it to make sure it hasn’t been in anyone else’s name first. Hopefully it comes back clean I am pretty excited 

Kinda a norm around here , everyone and their dog has a quad . Can even legally drive them on the streets now , pretty cool . Anyway first one I ever rode was an atc, Honda Yamaha and I now own a Suzuki lt250ef . I like the older bikes . Do some snowmobiling and dirt biking too 

2 minutes ago, Mech said:

There are sometimes two lines going across the sight glass, one just above half way up and the other just below half way up. You're meant to put the oil in, run the bike for a couple of minutes, turn it off and wait for about a minute, and then check it's between the lines.

Sweet thanks for the tip . I’ll know for sure now