[ramanonos]

Have a mint condition, 2004 Kodiak 450. I was plowing snow a few days ago, and it just simply died. I figure I was overworking it and maybe it just overheated (never happened before). Went out a couple hours later to finish plowing. Started and ran fine, but then it died after 15 minutes. Now it simply dies after three minutes every time.

Starts up fine when cold, terrific response, and acceleration, even going all the way up to three-quarter for throttle. It just simply dies after a few minutes of riding (post warm up).

When it dies, it just shuts off even if I’m at half throttle. It cranks just fine, but it won’t restart. I need to let it sit for at least an hour to restart. Gas is fresh as I ride it very often, it has a brand new battery and air filter. The previous owner, who I bought it from two years ago had the carburetor professionally cleaned.

Not sure what it could be. I’ve read everything from buying in ignition coil to ripping apart the carburetor to getting a fuel pump. Any ideas?

 

[TRW]

My initial thought would not be the carburetor, I might look at wiring or CDI issues. Play with the kill switch a bit, but that should not give you a consistent failure, you appear to get a recovery with cool down, so that seems like electronics.

 

[ramanonos]

Electronics sounds bad. Is there easy stuff to replace to find out? Start with ignition coil? I may take for a spin and see if I get spark when dies. Any other easy electronic gremlins I should look at/replace? CDI?

 

[JimP]

I agree, it sounds like it is one of the electronic parts that is having problems once it is heated up. Then when it cools down it is fine for a while.

I had this happen in a company truck once. It went on for around 6 months before it finally went out completely where the trouble could be pinpointed.

 

[ramanonos]

How do I diagnose this being an electrical issue? I figure easier to see if there’s a fuel issue, since it starts fine, and runs great with acceleration—but only for 90secs feels to me to be a fuel staravtion issue?
I see there is weeping at petcock value, but unplugged hose and flows out fine with shutoff correct (I still ordered new one given the slight weeping).

What about the fuel pump? I can’t see where it’s located for the 2003 Kodiak 450 model? How would I even test that it’s working correctly? I can’t even find the part on Partzilla. Doesn’t even have a proper fuel pump?

 

[JimP]

As for a fuel pump there isn't one. The fuel system is gravity fed to the carburetor, they didn't put a fuel pump on until they went to fuel injection.

What you are going to need to do is to trouble shoot it after it has died. See if you are getting any spark to the spark plug.

Do a search on the WWW for testing a CDI unit on a ATV. You will need to test it after it had died before it cools off.

I'm betting that you have something that is going bad due to the heat that is generated. There are test for the CDI but it needs to be bad for it to fail the test, and there is no real bench test for it that I know of. If you have a friend who has one on a machine that you can swap over you can try that.

 

[JimP]

I'm not sure if these pages will help you or not, they are out of a 2000 400 manual but yours should be quite similar.

 

[RedRocket]

Absolute first thing one should always do when potentially troubleshooting an electrical issue is:

1. Charge the battery with an aftermarket battery charger, preferably one that goes into float mode to not cause damage.
2. Take the battery to an auto-parts store or walmart and have them load test it. Battery voltage checks do not take the place of a load test.
3. Remove and clean the following connections:
   1. Battery +/- terminals
   2. Chassis ground(s)
   3. Solenoid terminals
   4. Starter terminal
4. Change the spark plug. Make sure it is a proper OEM plug, assuming your engine is OEM.

Anything less than that you are going to "spin your wheels" and potentially get invalid results. Once you've completed the above, then move on to getting deeper into electrical troubleshooting. I've personally made the mistake of not FULLY completing the above steps and wasted A LOT of time trying to track down an electrical issue on my previous 07 Grizzly 700.

Had I done the above, I could have fixed my issue in no time. It's not to say the above will absolutely fix your issue but until the above is done, you don't have a good baseline system to test against. I can't begin to tell you how many times I've read where Yamaha electrical issues are fixed by those simple and easy steps. A simple W.A.G. and I'd say 70 - 80% of the time. Don't quote me on that though but it is surprising the amount of times those steps do fix Yamaha issues.

Issue for me was wiring moved around from vibration, the insolation had rubbed off with stator wires grounding out and cross linking. That resulted in frying cells in my battery. So even though I got 12.3/4 volts test on my battery, it completely failed a load test. Spliced the wires, wrapped them in wire loom with tape and replaced my battery. ATV started right up and never had an issue with it again.

 

[RedRocket]

A simple test for fuel starvation. You said your machine does start, before it dies, quick shot of Starter Fluid into the carb intake. Does it continue to run for a little while? If so, fuel starved. If not, you are most likely not fuel starved.

 

[Alsworld]

Maybe a plugged fuel tank vent. Run it until it dies and won't start. Open your gas cap and listen for whooshing air (like the fuel tank sucking in air). Put the fuel tank cap back on and try to restart. If it starts and runs for another three minutes and does the same then this may be your issue. I'm not sure about your quad but many tanks vent through the fuel cap. Worth a shot, easy to troubleshoot if this is the culprit. Sounds like it may.

 

[TRW]

I would be extremely careful using starting fluid, which can explode an engine and is not worth the experiment. Some get away with it, but some don't.