Polaris ATV Forum banner

'03 sportsman 90 carb issue

7K views 11 replies 4 participants last post by  Gregb7 
#1 ·
Hey, my neighbor got a 2003 sportsman 90 from someone he works with that he wants to give his son for Christmas. It sat for a long time in a shed and has definitely been well ridden.
Anyway he wanted me to try and fix it up before Christmas.

The issue I'm having is fuel dumps out of bottom of carb and I couldn't get it started. So I took off the carb and took apart the float bowl. There was a ton of gunk in there like I've never seen before. I cleaned the jet and bowl and everything thoroughly. Blew it out with compressed air when I was finished. Now it will run if I keep my thumb almost completely blocking the intake throat of carb but it still drips fuel out the bottom. Assuming that means it's running very lean. And I don't know why it's still leaking fuel.

I would love to throw a new carb on it but it wouldn't get here till after Christmas. Also. It smokes alot while running. Hoping that's just oil buildup in the exhaust from sitting so long and it will burn off eventually but that's an issue to deal with after I get it running.
 
#2 ·
It's a 2 stroke - it's going to smoke - it will smoke heavy till run for awhile

The goo in the carb may have just been old fuel residue, but it might have been algae if it had alcohol blended fuel in it - was it a dark green?

The carb will need soaked in commercial carb cleaner for some time (maybe 24 hours or longer)

Good luck
 
#4 · (Edited)
NO! Soaking in Sea Foam is like pouring water on a rock. Sea Foam is a fuel additive meant to clean LIGHT gum and varnish from the fuel system while the vehicle is running. PJ1 Fuel System Fuel Injector Cleaner is a better product than Sea Foam (IMO). A carb that has gummed up from setting needs replaced or a detailed cleaning of all the parts with a STRONG commercial carb cleaner (spray cleaners are a waste of money even if the spray is caught in a container and the parts immersed, it's still not strong enough to adequately clean the parts) and severely gummed up carbs should have the jets replaced rather than trying to clean them.

When I take the bowl off a carb and it looks similar to the one you took a pic of, I just replace the carb - a new carb costs less then the time it takes to clean one. And the $35 Chinese carbs work fine on the Chinese manufactured Polaris 50's and 90's. The goo in the pic of the carb is typical of alcohol that has mixed with water and emulsified with the additives in gasoline as the gas has evaporated. It kinda looks like jello, can be partially washed out with water, but the green coating is algae and has to be cut loose with a caustic cleaner. Toilet bowl cleaner works pretty well, but the zinc in the carb's metal will be oxidized and the carb will turn a dark grey which will rub off and turn your hands grey when you handle it.

I just replaced a crankshaft in a Polaris 90 - the crank was $460 from Polaris - it was only $120 from Dinli (the manufacturer of the engine)

Buy wisely not blindly.

The Suzuki LTZ400, Kawasaki KFX400 and Arctic Cat DVX400 are all manufactured by Suzuki - all the engine parts are cheaper from Kawasaki and highest from Arctic Cat and most Arctic Cats have either Kawasaki or Suzuki engines.
 
#5 ·
Thanks for the info! I tried soaking in seafoam overnight (this was before you replied and it's all I had on hand and time was wasting) and then went over with compressed air after spraying down with carb cleaner. I also adjusted the float level. The fuel still dumps but not as much now. I was feeling good about it this time because I blew air in the fuel inlet by mouth and operated the float and it would block the air when the needle closed. But no luck. I talked to my neighbor and he wants the $30 Chinese carb (Polaris is $450) which is being delivered tomorrow. I will update after install.
 
#6 ·
That's funny - Polaris buys their $450 ($420 in my neck of the woods) carb from the Chinese for about $10 in bulk, but then I guess they have to recoup the shipping charge. Dealer cost on that carb is about $278
 
#7 ·
Carb came today. Got it installed. Still wouldn't start so I sprayed some carb cleaner in it to get it going. I guess I didn't give it enough time to fill the bowl with fuel maybe. Ran on carb cleaner for a few seconds and then finally stayed running. Had my daughter test drive it and it seemed fine. Letting it cool off so I can see if it will start up cold without spray.

Other than that it seems good. Will probably just have to fine tune carb and take up some slack in the throttle cable. But it's running and I can give it to my neighbor now so he can give it to his son for Christmas.
 
#8 ·
Neighbor picked it up 2 days ago. His kid rode it for a few minutes but the 14degree weather was a little too brisk.

Seems to be running good. I adjusted the air fuel mixture so now it starts right up with choke on and choke can be turned off about 2 minutes after it's started.

And no more obnoxious plumes of smoke out the exhaust. I know 2 strokes smoke but this was ridiculous. Seemed to just have been oil that leaked into exhaust from sitting for 10years and now it's burned off.
 
#12 ·
I sent you a message. I ended up buying mine through Amazon. All the Chinese carbs are pretty much the same just have different brand names on them. Usually they just need minor tweaking with air/fuel mixture screw but for peak performance they may need to be re jetted
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top