Water-Logged

[Scott Stein]

3 of us were out riding down by the MN River yesterday on a buddies land and there was some flooded woods and he went in there with his Sportsman 500 and got stuck and it died on him in the water. he was standing on the front rack and the water was almost to his knees. We pulled it home and drained EVERYTHING,oil,rear end,chaincase,air box,carb. before i left we dumped some oil in the spark plug hole and let it sit overnight,going back now to work on it again. we're going to put oil in it,run it for awhile,then change it again. any other suggestions?

[Dave S]

Pull the clutch cover off and clean that out very well. All of the silt from the river bottoms will tear the clutch up and any seals in a hurry. The sand in the bottoms is about as bad as silica sand.

It sounds like you guys have the majority of it covered already. I would even drain the hubs if you haven't already. Open up the headlight pod and dry out any water that would be in there. Clean out any electrical connections if you can i.e. lights, battery connections.

[Ryan_V]

keep on the oil. change it once, maybe twice. then drive it like you stole it, run it good and hot for an hour or so. then drain the oil. that will get any moisture out better. I sank my cat a couple years ago and it took 4 or 5 oil changes until I was confident I had no water or moisture left in there!! oil is cheaper than a new engine!

[Dozer]

Put a 1/2 quart of Marvel Mystery oil in with the first oil you start it up with. That stuff really sucks up the water. I would run it for only about 4 or 5 minutes, then change the oil and filter. Depending on how much water was in there you might want to run anouther 1/2 quart of Marvel Mystery in this fill of oil too. I would keep changing it till it has absolutly no milkyness too it at all. You dont have to change the filter every time though. The first time I sank my Grizzly I changed the oil 10 times before it looked good! I would get it up and running ASAP before anything has a chance to rust.

Only other thing I can think of is to get a set of snorkels! They sure are alot of fun!

[stumper]

Sea foam in the oil ASAP. I swamped my brute last yr. It only took 3 oil changes to get all the water out. The guys that swamp them all the time will use 100% seafoam to flush them out. I even had silt in my carbs ,lol ,so make sure you flush EVERYTHING.

[fish with teeth]

a buddy of mine sank his last year and we used a little diesel fuel. it took 3 or 4 changes to get it all out.

[Scott Stein]

well it's up and running,started really good and ran/idled fine too/he's taking it to the dealership for maintence so he's going to have them check it all over too

[BobT]

I would question having left it sit overnight. This would allow corrosion to get started. I would think it better to replace the crankcase oil and filter, dry out the carb, drain your clutch housing and get it restarted at soon as possible so the lubricants can coat the metals again.

[norm]

Make sure to go around it with a grease gun to push all the water out of the pivot points on the a-arms and stuff. Also you should try to get some wd-40 or other lube ino the throttle and choke cables or they might get rusty over time.

[Tyler23]

unless i was mistaken this occured in the evening so there was no way to get a new filter and oil for it. having it sit over night was the only way to go.