Howdy folks,
Below find a message I got from my uncle about his 550 Mule (Jumper). While I'm a technician by trade, I know NOTHING about the Mule and need your help. If anyone can lead me and him in the right direction with the problems noted, please drop me a line.
Bases on my VERY limited knowledge of these things, I suspect a possible cable mis-adjustment and maybe a diaphragm in a carb with the second issue, but I reserve the right to be completely WRONG....
If anyone knows a good tech that can help in the Dallas Ft.Worth area please let me know. He has been to the dealer, but the dealer seems less than helpful and or un-interested at best.
I work for technical/customer service at Harley-Davidson, so I have some insite as to how to get Kawasaki to help if needed. I may need to call Kawasaki customer service for help getting the dealer interested. Can anyone give me the phone number?
Thanks for any help you can provide.
Randell
<<<<<<<<<<Message with concerns below>>>>>>>>>>
Jumper runs fine most of the time. But, sometimes (mostly after it has been driven a while but sometimes not, seems to be worse when it is hot out), when we start Jumper and put it in gear and push on the gas ----- nothing happens ------- we hold the gas pedal down and the engine just continues to idle and it doesn't move ------ after about 15 seconds (with the pedal held down) and especially seems to work if one of us gets out and pushes the vehicle a little bit, the engine speed sloooowly increases and it starts to move ----- then it's fine ---- no telling whether it will do it again the next time------- but it is now doing this maybe a dozen or more times a weekend. I used to think maybe it was overheating, but I'm pretty sure that is not the problem now because it now happens in mild weather even when it hasn't been driven much.
Last time we were out it also did something totally different on one
occasion. When we started off in the morning, after 20 sec. choke time
like usual and with choke off it ran fine for about 1-1/2 minutes, then the
engine seemed to run out of gas and died. We stopped, turned the key off and restarted it --------- and it ran fine for about 1-1/2 minutes, then
died again like it was out of gas. This happened four times in a row, then
it was fine the rest of the day (except for the problem in the above
paragraph, which happens quite often now).
The dealer says he can't do anything to check it unless it happens while he has it. Kawasaki says check the spark plug, carb. setting, belt tension (is belt drive), and valve adjustment. All of which I think doesn't make sense because if those were wrong it would run bad all the time, not the intermittent starting off problem we are having. Plus these are things that
should have been checked at the last scheduled maintenance.
Below find a message I got from my uncle about his 550 Mule (Jumper). While I'm a technician by trade, I know NOTHING about the Mule and need your help. If anyone can lead me and him in the right direction with the problems noted, please drop me a line.
Bases on my VERY limited knowledge of these things, I suspect a possible cable mis-adjustment and maybe a diaphragm in a carb with the second issue, but I reserve the right to be completely WRONG....
If anyone knows a good tech that can help in the Dallas Ft.Worth area please let me know. He has been to the dealer, but the dealer seems less than helpful and or un-interested at best.
I work for technical/customer service at Harley-Davidson, so I have some insite as to how to get Kawasaki to help if needed. I may need to call Kawasaki customer service for help getting the dealer interested. Can anyone give me the phone number?
Thanks for any help you can provide.
Randell
<<<<<<<<<<Message with concerns below>>>>>>>>>>
Jumper runs fine most of the time. But, sometimes (mostly after it has been driven a while but sometimes not, seems to be worse when it is hot out), when we start Jumper and put it in gear and push on the gas ----- nothing happens ------- we hold the gas pedal down and the engine just continues to idle and it doesn't move ------ after about 15 seconds (with the pedal held down) and especially seems to work if one of us gets out and pushes the vehicle a little bit, the engine speed sloooowly increases and it starts to move ----- then it's fine ---- no telling whether it will do it again the next time------- but it is now doing this maybe a dozen or more times a weekend. I used to think maybe it was overheating, but I'm pretty sure that is not the problem now because it now happens in mild weather even when it hasn't been driven much.
Last time we were out it also did something totally different on one
occasion. When we started off in the morning, after 20 sec. choke time
like usual and with choke off it ran fine for about 1-1/2 minutes, then the
engine seemed to run out of gas and died. We stopped, turned the key off and restarted it --------- and it ran fine for about 1-1/2 minutes, then
died again like it was out of gas. This happened four times in a row, then
it was fine the rest of the day (except for the problem in the above
paragraph, which happens quite often now).
The dealer says he can't do anything to check it unless it happens while he has it. Kawasaki says check the spark plug, carb. setting, belt tension (is belt drive), and valve adjustment. All of which I think doesn't make sense because if those were wrong it would run bad all the time, not the intermittent starting off problem we are having. Plus these are things that
should have been checked at the last scheduled maintenance.
