Laval

4 minutes ago, Trent Finnessey said:

should

I only have experience with utility quads - none with sport bikes but I have rode a few motorcycles and they needed neutral to start as well. 

I have yet to see a Honda that will start in gear. You have to find neutral. My experience is limited to older quads and trikes however so I stand to be corrected. 

I am no electrical expert but one of the wires will be constant hot, one will be the ignition, and one will go to the starter solenoid probably thru a neutral safety switch. Check the color of the wire on the solenoid. It may give you a place to start. The constant hot should be obvious. 

Don’t think I can help on this one. Mine was a 03 and automatic. However on that one you had to depress the foot brake to shift to reverse. There was a locking pin on the foot brake linkage. I deleted that to bypass the brake/reverse thing.   

After a week in the bush with no access to electricity one might be wishing he still had his gasser. 

Update. Changed fuel and plug and she fired up. Nothing but premium from  now on. Thanks for all the help. Much appreciated. 

Thanks guys. Got the manual downloaded. 

Yeah we are putting in a new plug tommorrow. No carb - fuel injection. No way its water in gas as there has been no rain since it was running fine. I will post again after we try a new plug. I am hoping that is the problem as it does not even try to fire and there is enough fuel going through the injector that it should at least try. Spark seemed decent when tested but who knows. 

5 minutes ago, Frank Angerano said:

Only thing I can think of is the timing jumped? Any backfire problems? 
 

Other then that maybe bad gas? 
 

 

Thanks for the quick reply. My son never mentionned any backfiring just that it started bogging at throttle and the finally just died and refused to restart. As far as the gas is concerned it is mostly fresh gas and he used the machine quite a bit a day ago harrowing his driveway and had no issues. I am kind if wondering if a valve is out of spec. Is there anyway to check the timing without pulling sh** apart. 

My son’s 17 Alterra 500 just quit today. It was running fine the started stalling and bogging at half throttle. It finally stalled and will not start. The bike was won in a raffle last year. It had sat for a year before he won it. Has ridden it very little since.  It has 180 km on it. We checked  the plug spark seems strong  disconnected the fuel line at the pump and the fuel pump is working well.  Disconnected the injector and it is spraying fuel.  Air filter is clean and there are no mouse nests in the air intake.  Al fuses checked and good. Ideas?

If gas is running out of the carb overflow check the needle and seat and especially the o ring at the base of the plug that holds the seat. This is probably the cause of your gas overflow. As to the boiling gas it may be bubbling  but I highly doubt boiling. The tank would have to be very hot. 

Not too sure about your make of quad but the Yamahas have a mikuni carb.  The brass plug which contains the seat has an o-ring around it which breaks down eventually.  This causes fuel to bypass the needle and seat and can flood the carb.  Notice any fuel in your air box?  Also the high compression readings make me wonder if you are partially hydro-locked.  If possible pull the seat out and check for that o-ring.  It happened on my 03 Kodiak.

Sorry I can’t send you a picture but I sold the quad a month ago. It is a Yamaha thing though and a pita. 

If you take a look at the linkage on the foot brake lever you will see how it interacts with the shift to reverse. I disconnected it on my kodiak years ago and it now shifts without any brake action. 

This happened with my Yamaha as well. A five cent o ring is the fix.