Todays mechanical addition
DOH...yes really. Over the Winter I bought an old Suzuki 92 Quad Runner 300.. delivered it to the island over the ice and hope to use it to do stuff I am too old and feeble to do with limited Muscle. Move rocks, haul wood, pull stuff with the winch. So this Spring when the ice melted and before lockdown, I Kayaked over to check the place over (And go for a spin) I had removed the battery and put it on a tender. So when I got there spent the night, got up early and put the battery in. All I got was a spinning sound, no engine turn over. At this point I was cursing myself for buying an old one, and a lot of stuff looks worn out on this 92' Wiring needs attention, etc, but it seemed to at least run well and go through the gears nicely. I really didn't spend too much time assessing it's condition as I had missed out on a lot of local deals I had been following.
So anyway I tried the pull starter and it worked first or second pull. Happy again. Drove it around through the snow, ran it through the gears. Started and stopped it a few times. Well then it would not start. No matter how I pulled. It also was very difficult to pull over. So it was stuck there, under a tarp till yesterday when I got back to the island. I have read up on how much has to come apart to get to the suspected starter clutch (A lot) Tried pull starting it with starting fluid this time....no luck. Then I saw the battery. The start button still turns over the starter motor....but what is this? Battery hooked up ass backwards!! Switched it around, turns over and starts instantly. Wonder if I fried the Stator? This time outdoors has caused the shift linkage to become stiff, so it only goes in gear after pulling up then pushing down a bit....but it is running and at this point I am stoked to make it better, clean off the rust, Lube everything, set up things correctly, and get that trailer and move wood. I'm impressed it survived that level of stupidity and actually ran for a while. I'm making a habit of this.
Didn't realize that the bigger Suzuki ATVs from early 90 looked pretty similar to the smaller ones, I only noticed because I just bought a nice -91 Suzuki LT50 for my son.