Hey guys, got a 12 Sportsman 500 HO that is being a little pima. This machine doesn’t like to start cold, by cold I am referring to when it sits overnight and want to start it the next morning. I don’t ride in the winter so the weather is usually nice. Anyways I apply full choke and try starting it but it doesn’t want to. If I push the choke in around 3/4’s out it will want to start but I have to give it throttle to finally get it to start and run. Sometimes it will stay running with just the 3/4 out choke but most of the times I have to remain on the throttle until it warms up a bit. This issue wasn’t always there, probably started happening when the atv got to 2,000 miles or so. This is my dad’s machine and he just delt with it but it came to a point when he started to get annoyed and embarrassed so I have tried a few things. First I have removed the carb, fully disassembled it for a good cleaning. Along with this I removed the brass plug for the idle air adjustment screw. I noticed that the screw was set about 1 turn out from the factory when according to my Polaris FSM it should be around 2 turns out. The other thing I tried was adjusting the throttle cable at the bars. Well actually once I cleaned the carb I put it all back together then I used a 90 deg idle air adjusting screw driver and made the idle air screw adjustment like Polaris states in the FSM. All while adjusting the throttle and idle cables. Still no effect on cold starting. I’ve tried setting the IAS from 1 turn out all the way to 3 turns out and almost everywhere in between with no success.
My other issue is this pig won’t hold a idle. Once the engine is warm I can set the idle to 1200rpm and ride for any period of time but when I come to a stop a sit idling for 30 seconds the idle has worked it way down to 950ish rpm. If I bumb the idle back up to 1200rpm it will do the same thing. Once I get to a certain point of adjustment the idle will obviously be high, then it will hold the idle but by then it’s idling usually around 1500rpm+. Which is way to high of an idle.
If any of you guys have ran into simular problems please feel free to post your fixes or if you have an idea of what I should check next.
As of last month while trying to fix these issues I replaced the fuel filter and got a Uni air filter.
Thanks!!
My other issue is this pig won’t hold a idle. Once the engine is warm I can set the idle to 1200rpm and ride for any period of time but when I come to a stop a sit idling for 30 seconds the idle has worked it way down to 950ish rpm. If I bumb the idle back up to 1200rpm it will do the same thing. Once I get to a certain point of adjustment the idle will obviously be high, then it will hold the idle but by then it’s idling usually around 1500rpm+. Which is way to high of an idle.
If any of you guys have ran into simular problems please feel free to post your fixes or if you have an idea of what I should check next.
As of last month while trying to fix these issues I replaced the fuel filter and got a Uni air filter.
Thanks!!
