Horses for Courses

I’m back to doing ranch work again.  Ranch work involves dealing with constant emergencies and new challenges as they arise.  For instance, we have a 2005 Yamaha Grizzly 660 that was badly mistreated by the original owners.  I didn’t realize how badly or I probably wouldn’t have bought it.  Never again will I bid on online auctions without seeing the vehicle first.  After riding the bike for 4-5 months, during which it never really ran well, I ended up bending a valve.   This led to me overhauling the top end of the ATV, something I’ve never done before.  It was challenging, but not that bad and the end result was an overhauled top end and a bike that ran so good I did the same thing to our 2002 Grizzly last spring.

But, anyway, the ’05 recently started having trouble starting and today I set out to find out why.  The ’02 had a very unusual problem after its rebuild where the valve tappets loosened and I actually lost 2 adjusters inside the engine.  Both were amazingly recovered and the bike seems fine.  The ’05 was due for a valve check, though, so I started there.  Doing valves… actually doing almost any kind of work on an ATV requires removal of body plastic.  This is a real pain because it all fits together like a puzzle and you have to take it apart in a certain order and take off things that you really don't need or want to take off, just to access the things underneath.  

This is some of the junk you have to remove to get to the real problem.

Drain the coolant, drain the oil... it's messy.

It takes an hour to get to this stage.  Now I can start working!

Long story short, I ended up replacing/exchanging the battery, starter relay, starter, and pulling the side cover.  I finally found a worn negative cable and fixed that.  After all that, the bike started right up.  Let’s hope it stays that way.

Frayed and worn negative battery cable.

On the other side of the fence, literally, I have a new horse here on trial.  We are discussing a name for him, which must mean we’re keeping him.  I like him.  He’s small, well mannered, agile, and I dunno… I just like him. I'm looking forward to riding this summer.  A horse, of course, is a big step for an ex-dirt biker like me.  Life is just full of challenges and surprises, though.

The New Horse

No More Dirt Bikes