jameshofo
Veteran
Hello all,
Recently I had a problem with my 2003 RX-1 with low power, and not sounding right. The sled would run but would die if I didn't keep on the gas. I went through a lot of troubleshooting to fix it so I figured I'd post the story here in hopes it can help some other unlucky SOB. It started when my wife and I took the sled out for a quick ride around my fathers property, we got about 3 miles and then the sled started to bog with low power, the sled just didn't sound right. Listening to it run it seemed like a miss.
So we took it back and I began diagnosis, I turned up the idle speed to keep it running for testing and thought I diagnosed it to number 3. I found this by unplugging the different coils while the sled was running and when the engine wasn't effected by unplugging number 3 I thought I had found it, I checked by unplugging number 4 as well. First step I took was to clean just number 3, as demonstrated by this forum its almost almost a mandatory religious ritual to chasing down problems in the RX-1.
Number 3 carburetor cleaned, no joy still low power, I then cleaned all the carbs just to be sure I did it right put it back together, still no joy. I then replaced the number 3 coil, and all 4 spark plugs (it needed it anyway) thinking the spark was weak on it which may cause the sled to fail to ignite in the cylinder. This seemed to help a little but I was still getting low power, I then kept tracing it back to an electrical problem because of the many posts about common cable fraying etc...
After no success and blizzard Jonas bearing down on Virginia I took a step back and took the problem back to square one, I took out all the plugs and checked them 1, 2 looked dark brown perfect, number 3 looked black and a little wet. At this point I refused to clean the carburetors again just out of sheer stubbornness. Reading through the service manual they indicate low power could mean fuel pump or fuel filter problems. So I started looking at the fuel filters, to my dismay they are in the tank and I didn't have enough slack to change them out so I, cut them and left them on, and bought some clear plastic inline fuel filters at Wally world. I managed to get those on with the help of some WD-40, cussing, muscle and sheer determination. I fired up the sled and only the lower one filled with gas, which made things obvious one fuel pump just wasn't working.
On to the fuel pumps, one looked fine, fuel came pouring out when I disassembled it, the other was dry and had a spring in the inlet that was supposed to push a small BB into a rounded dent that separated the pump diaphragm chambers. On the bad pump the spring had pushed out of this dent and was curved outward to the inlet diaphragm, with no BB in the pump anywhere to be found I thought I was screwed. I'm guessing this hole allows back pressure on the pump and prevents breaking the pump diaphragms. I tried to find where the BB had been sucked into the carbs with no joy. So I managed to find spare round headed screw that I had lying around from building computers. I compressed the spring on the screw with the head plugging the hole and put both pumps back together. Fired up the sled, and waited a few seconds, to my joy the second filter filled up with fuel and the sled sound normalized. I rode around all day yesterday with this fix, no issues so far!
Recently I had a problem with my 2003 RX-1 with low power, and not sounding right. The sled would run but would die if I didn't keep on the gas. I went through a lot of troubleshooting to fix it so I figured I'd post the story here in hopes it can help some other unlucky SOB. It started when my wife and I took the sled out for a quick ride around my fathers property, we got about 3 miles and then the sled started to bog with low power, the sled just didn't sound right. Listening to it run it seemed like a miss.
So we took it back and I began diagnosis, I turned up the idle speed to keep it running for testing and thought I diagnosed it to number 3. I found this by unplugging the different coils while the sled was running and when the engine wasn't effected by unplugging number 3 I thought I had found it, I checked by unplugging number 4 as well. First step I took was to clean just number 3, as demonstrated by this forum its almost almost a mandatory religious ritual to chasing down problems in the RX-1.
Number 3 carburetor cleaned, no joy still low power, I then cleaned all the carbs just to be sure I did it right put it back together, still no joy. I then replaced the number 3 coil, and all 4 spark plugs (it needed it anyway) thinking the spark was weak on it which may cause the sled to fail to ignite in the cylinder. This seemed to help a little but I was still getting low power, I then kept tracing it back to an electrical problem because of the many posts about common cable fraying etc...
After no success and blizzard Jonas bearing down on Virginia I took a step back and took the problem back to square one, I took out all the plugs and checked them 1, 2 looked dark brown perfect, number 3 looked black and a little wet. At this point I refused to clean the carburetors again just out of sheer stubbornness. Reading through the service manual they indicate low power could mean fuel pump or fuel filter problems. So I started looking at the fuel filters, to my dismay they are in the tank and I didn't have enough slack to change them out so I, cut them and left them on, and bought some clear plastic inline fuel filters at Wally world. I managed to get those on with the help of some WD-40, cussing, muscle and sheer determination. I fired up the sled and only the lower one filled with gas, which made things obvious one fuel pump just wasn't working.
On to the fuel pumps, one looked fine, fuel came pouring out when I disassembled it, the other was dry and had a spring in the inlet that was supposed to push a small BB into a rounded dent that separated the pump diaphragm chambers. On the bad pump the spring had pushed out of this dent and was curved outward to the inlet diaphragm, with no BB in the pump anywhere to be found I thought I was screwed. I'm guessing this hole allows back pressure on the pump and prevents breaking the pump diaphragms. I tried to find where the BB had been sucked into the carbs with no joy. So I managed to find spare round headed screw that I had lying around from building computers. I compressed the spring on the screw with the head plugging the hole and put both pumps back together. Fired up the sled, and waited a few seconds, to my joy the second filter filled up with fuel and the sled sound normalized. I rode around all day yesterday with this fix, no issues so far!
Indy
TY 4 Stroke God
good write up and hack. first time ive heard of that one.
superfan75
TY 4 Stroke Junkie
- Joined
- Sep 12, 2013
- Messages
- 696
- Reaction score
- 189
- Points
- 718
- Location
- West Topsham Vermont
- Country
- USA
- Snowmobile
- RX Warrior
Good job sticking to it and finding the problem.
jameshofo
Veteran
Thanks for the likes and comments. I hope to find some time to get some pictures of this, I actually left this mod in when I went up to old forge this weekend and it didn't let me down! I did however take an extra fuel pump with me just in case it did.
Edit: I should have mentioned, I put 240 Miles on it while up in old forge, on aggressive trail riding!
Edit: I should have mentioned, I put 240 Miles on it while up in old forge, on aggressive trail riding!
