engine problems

[gdr30263gdr]

I bought a prairie 360(?) for my son about 3years ago. We went to Coal creek in tenn. about ayear ago and my son got in some deep muddy water and stalled out , we got it out and eventually got it running later that day and was able to finish the weekend trip without any more problems ; on the last day it started smoking bad .We ended up taking it to a mechanic and he replaced the rings,piston and afew other things and it ran fine for several months and started smoking again,but not so bad ,of course the boy who fixed it has since moved, and the other day my 11 year old daughter was riding it and it seem to lose all power ;though it still runs it is like it has no compression.I hate to put much money in it and would rather try and work on it myself. would like some opinions ;its a Kawasaki fulltime 4x4 auto. not sure exactly if it is a 360 or a 300 I submitted the serial # and got no info. on it .

[StarGate]

Sorry can't help ya but you might want to post this in the ATV section.

[hayward6]

When you say "the boy who fixed it" do you mean you had a neighbor fix it? Thats probably the problem right there... If you drowned the engine with muddy water, you are probably looking at replacing every moving part in the top end for starters. The crankcase can usually handle it if you change the oil a couple times, but the top end probably needs a complete rebuild and machining. If he replaced the piston and rings but did nothing to resolve the scoring on the cylinder walls you're probably just wearing out that new set of rings now. The camshaft is likely tore up as well and you won't have good compression anyways.

When I was a kid my brother sank our Kawasaki 4 wheeler and he tore the piston up so bad that you couldn't even remove the rings I had to spend $500 in parts and machine work to bore the cylinder out past all the grooves. I did the work myself and it ran great for many years, but I knew what I was doing.

Best place to start? check the compression, and no matter what DO NOT RIDE IT! until you get it fixed. Every minute that engine is running your doing more and more irreversible damage.